CURRENT AFFAIRS
05 JULY 2020
NATIONAL NEWS:
A) Vaccine deadline meant to cut unnecessary tape :ICMR
In a statement 4 July, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that a letter sent earlier the Director General Balram Bhargava on a vaccine for COVID-19, was meant to cut unnecessary red tape and to speed up recruitment of participants. Dr. Bhargava’s letter sent on Thursday to clinicians at 12 hospital sites selected to test a potential vaccine sparked controversy after it was seen as exhorting scientists to speed up the processes and enable the vaccine to be made available for “public health use by August 15”. This not only presumes that Covaxin, the candidate vaccine developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech Ltd and set to enter clinical trials, will be successful but also that trials, which ordinarily take several months, can be compressed to a little over a month. Government scientists and independent experts have said this is an impossibly short time-frame to test it on people.
B) India set for more talks on LAC.
One day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise visit to LAC in Ladakh, the government is preparing for the next round of meeting of the special Representatives of India and China on the Boundary Line as it looks for military and diplomatic measures to ease the tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh. India’s Special Representative who is also the National Security Adviser of India, Ajit Doval, met the Chinese counterpart lastly in New Delhi on December 21, 2019. It was agreed agreed in that meeting that an early settlement of the boundary question serves the fundamental interests of both countries. PM Modi spent a day in Ladakh on 3 July, firstly after the Galwan incident on 15 June which killed 20 soldiers, had a one-on-one with Lt. Gen. Harinder Singh, GOC XIV ‘Fire and Fury’ Corps. Lt. Gen. Singh 9f India is leading the Corps Commander level talks with the Chinese troops. He had three meetings with his Chinese counterpart since the build-up and the violent face-offs began in April-May on the LOC.
C) CIL-NLC JV to spend nearly ₹12,000 crore on solar power assests.
Coal India Ltd. (CIL) and NLC India will jointly develop solar power assets of 3,000 MW with a likely investment of about ₹12,000 crore. A solar JV is already in process of formation with an initial capital of ₹10 lakh. Once the company is formed, the respective company boards will decide the final contours of the project. At present, solar capex for each MW is around ₹4 crore. The government plans to impose 20% basic customs duty duty on imported solar panels to boost the domestic industry.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) Amid Ladakh standoff, China, Pakistan hold talks. The “deteriorating” situation on the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir came up for discussion between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Friday, according to statements from Islamabad and Beijing. The phone call between them creates an image that China and Pakistan are presenting a common front in the stand-off between the Indian Army and PLA troops at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the eastern part of Ladakh. This may require India to prepare for a two-front war with both the countries if the action increases at the LoC as well.
B) Super Dan hangs up his racquet.
On July 4, the two-time Olympic champion of China the greatest badminton player of all time, Lin Dan announced his retirement. Presently his age is 36 years. The end of Lin’s glorious career comes just over a year after the retirement of his great rival and friend, Malaysian star Lee Chong Wei. The duo reigned over badminton for more than a decade and relinquished that hold only in recent years as their powers waned. Lin, who had something of a “bad boy” reputation during his younger days and sports several tattoos — unusual for Chinese athletes — ends with 666 singles wins and a glut of medals. “My family, coaches, teammates and fans have accompanied me through many peaks and difficult troughs,” he said in a post on China’s social media platform Weibo. “Every forceful jump was a desire for victory.
