Editorial Simplified : 25th day of May 2016
This Series of posts covers the essential Editorial from prominent newspapers. The Editorial from the newspapers are compiled by the Subject Teachers form the Academy and provided in notes format so that the aspirants does not waste their precious time in sifting through the newspapers.
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Click on the tab below to read the Editorial Simplified for each newspaper
Indian Express
Editorial : Chabahar takeoff
Context:
India has signed Chabahar port deal with Iran. The $500 million deal promises to lead to the development of a deep-water port, a 500-km rail line linking it to Iran’s rail network, and new aluminum and urea plants
Positives
The Chabahar agreement marks a new level in India’s overseas ambitions and potentially giving Indian business access to Iran’s economy freed of
There’s little doubt about the region’s long-term potential (hydrocarbons).
The deal will also allow India to expand its strategic presence in Afghanistan, allowing businesses in both countries to bypass a Pakistan
The deal signals that India, like China, has big-league ambitions.
Un-realized potential and difficulties
India’s ambitions haven’t quite been matched by its ability to realize international projects like Kaladan multimodal transport project (to link the Northeastern states to Myanmar’s Sittwe port), which was supposed to have been operational by 2013 and India-US nuclear deal.
Relations between Tehran and the West, though vastly improved, remain fraught as well doubts over Iran’s role in Syria and Afghanistan.
Indian governments will also have to incentivize private corporations for using the Iranian route to transit goods to Central Asia, rather than the fast, cheap networks they now use through Singapore and China.
Finally, the project can only be successful if Indian manufacturing is globally
Business Standard
Editorial : Guarding each drop
Context:
Water conservation has become a necessity
What is the news?
PM Modi’s well-meaning plea in his monthly Mann Ki Baat programme to preserve every drop of water may .
What are the issues to be addressed?
India’s 91 major reservoirs has plunged close to minimum levels, and most other surface water bodies, have dried up.
Water level in subsurface aquifers, has dipped to “critical” levels.
Central Groundwater Board report indicates that nearly half of India’s groundwater is heavily polluted with toxins like fluoride, nitrates and even arsenic, which cause dreaded .
Seepage of agro-chemicals and discharge of untreated industrial effluents and urban wastes into water bodies are adding to the pollution of surface and groundwater sources.
Most water woes are the result of mismanagement.
Official policies governing the water sector arefar from conducive to achieving this vital goal.
Treating water as an economic good and putting a proper price on it has been ignored for long.
States are supplying free water for irrigation and domestic use and are even providing free or subsidised power to encourage its wasteful use.
Since the bulk of water goes in crop irrigation, cropping patterns need to be tailored according to its availability.
Where replacement of water-guzzling crops like paddy and sugarcane with low water-requiring ones is unfeasible, micro-irrigation systems like drip and sprinkler irrigation should be promoted.
Promotion of proper use of pesticides and Fertilisers .
Initiatives in certain states
Punjab’s well-advised move to ban paddy planting in the hot and dry month of May, when water losses due to evaporation are the highest, seems to have paid off.
The water table has begun to recover in that state.
Conclusion
First logical step towards eliciting people’s support for a policy to price water and ensure its efficient conservation, judicious upkeep and use.
National Water Policy 2002 disapproved of indiscriminate use of the available water. It suggested that water should be priced in such a manner as to reflect its scarcity value.
Editorial : The emergence of Iran
Context:
India must deepen its economic, strategic ties with Iran
What is the news?
The visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Iran .
Details:
It comes at a time when the Islamic Republic, freshly empowered by an agreement on its nuclear programme that allows it to emerge from a years-long debilitating regime of international sanctions, is poised to connect with the world again.
In that period of isolationIndia maintained a comparative independence from the West-led sanctions regime.
Connectivity and economic relations topped the agenda.
Regional security and counter-terrorism were also on the agenda.
Highlight of the visit was a trilateral agreement signed on transit through Iran’s Chabahar port – in the presence of not just Mr Modi and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, but also the president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani. One major purpose of Chabahar has always been to cut Pakistan out of the route between India and Afghanistan”.
Several MOU were signed, for railway services and aluminium manufacturing. .
Potential investments in the area of petrochemicals and natural gas-based industries in the Chabahar area .
Linking up with the International North-South Transport Corridor, which goes from Iran through Azerbaijan and then further north into Russia.
India has been rightly wary of the Chinese international infrastructure investment programme “One Belt, One Road”; but the extent that it plans to link Iran to eastern China through Central Asia should not be ignored in the development planning for Chabahar.
The joint statement released by the Iranian and Indian prime ministers specifically condemned “states that aid, abet and indirectly or directly support terrorism” and referred to “sanctuaries” for terrorist groups.
Conclusion
On both security and economic grounds, therefore, the re-emergence of Iran has given India a big new card to play in its neighbourhood. It must use the additional strategic space wisely, and follow up on commitments swiftly.
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