INDIA, EU AGREE TO BROADEN TIES, LAUNCH TRADE, TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL

Despite not being on the same page regarding Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, India and the European Union (EU) on Monday decided to step up their ties by agreeing to launch a joint trade and technology council. It will be the second such council involving the 27-nation EU after its first one with the US.

The EU-India body will be a strategic coordination mechanism to tackle challenges at the nexus of trade, trusted technology and security, said External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar at the opening session of the Raisina Dialogue, following a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The EU has already announced that it would begin negotiations for comprehensive trade and investment agreements.

The two leaders deliberated on several key issues, including the situation in Ukraine.

PM Modi said he was delighted to hold talks with Ursula von der Leyen and that both sides reviewed the “full range of India-EU ties, including economic and cultural linkages”. Speaking at the Raisina Dialogue and earlier at the headquarters of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), von der Leyen brought Russia into the conversation, saying Europe will ensure that Russia’s “unprovoked and unjustified” aggression against Ukraine “will be a strategic failure”.

The EU Commission President also referred to the “no-limits” friendship between Russia and China. “Russia and China have forged a seemingly unrestrained pact. They have declared that the friendship between them has no limits,” she said.

On India, she described the relationship as more important than ever. “For the EU, the partnership with India is one of our most important relationships for the coming decade and strengthening this partnership is a priority,” she said.

NO DECISION ON PRASHANT KISHOR, CONGRESS TO FORM ACTION GROUP FOR 2024 POLLS

The Congress on Monday failed to arrive at a decision with respect to election strategist Prashant Kishor’s entry into the party, but decided to form an empowered action group to address challenges in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The party formally announced the convening of “chintan shivir” in Udaipur from May 13 to 15 and named several G-23 leaders in groups that will lead discussions on specific segments during the introspection meeting.

The inclusion of G-23 leaders in the consultative process came a day after several group members flagged “deep distrust” over exclusion from deliberations related to Kishor and his proposals.

Briefing reporters after Congress president Sonia Gandhi met the eight-member panel formed earlier to debate Kishor’s recommendations, AICC general secretary Randeep Surjewala steered clear of queries about the poll strategist’s formal entry into the party. “You will know when he joins,” Surjewala quipped, saying the only decision taken today was that Sonia Gandhi would constitute a group to address all challenges related to the General Election.

With G-23 members opposed to Kishor and excluded from discussions, Sonia yesterday made amends by naming some in the six panels for the “chintan shivir”. Haryana ex-CM Bhupinder Hooda will convene the group on farmers and agriculture while Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring will lead the discussion on youth and empowerment.

Meanwhile, it has been learnt that the eight-member committee on Kishor was divided on whether or not to formally induct him. The meeting came a day after Kishor met Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao and his I-PAC formalised a plan to help Rao in the 2024 Assembly elections. The move did bother the Congress, which is the principal Opposition in Telangana.

INDIA, AGAIN, ‘COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN’ ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM GROUNDS, SAYS U.S. COMMISSION

Saying religious freedom conditions in India had “significantly worsened“ in 2021, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a bipartisan independent body, recommended, for the third year in a row, that India be designated a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ (CPC) , i.e., the category of governments performing most poorly on religious freedom criteria.

The State Department, which has its own Office of International Religious Freedom, is not bound by the Commission’s recommendations and has not accepted the CPC recommendation for India for the two years.

“During the year, the Indian government escalated its promotion and enforcement of policies — including those promoting a Hindu-nationalist agenda — that negatively affect Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, and other religious minorities,” the report said.

“The government continued to systemize its ideological vision of a Hindu state at both the national and state levels through the use of both existing and new laws and structural changes hostile to the country’s religious minorities.”

Other countries recommended for the CPC designation were: Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria and Vietnam. USCIRF recommended that the State Department redesignate Myanmar, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan as CPCs.

The government has, previously, pushed back against the USCIRF’s grading, questioning its locus standi. In 2020, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar called the Commission an “Organisation of Particular Concern.”

The recommendations of the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) are not binding on the US government.

ELON MUSK ACQUIRES TWITTER FOR $44 BILLION

In one of the world’s biggest deals in the tech world, billionaire Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter. The deal will see Musk acquire the social network for approximately $44 billion with shares valued at $54.20. Musk had announced his takeover bid on April 14, calling it his ‘best and final offer’.

But his bid initially saw Twitter put in place a ‘poison pill defence’ against the hostile takeover. However, once Musk announced that he had secured funding, the board went into negotiations with the Tesla co-founder. According to Wall Street Journal, on Friday, Musk met “privately with several shareholders of the company to extol the virtues of his proposal”.

Earlier yetserday, Musk had posted on his Twitter account, “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.” It should also be noted that on Saturday, Musk had posted a rather distasteful tweet about Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, apparently in response to Gates shorting Tesla. The tweet has more than a million likes. He had then joked that the ‘shadow ban council’ was likely reviewing his tweet.

He has been a steadfast proponent of ‘free speech’ on the platform. In the filing to the US SEC, Musk wrote, “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.” He also wrote in the filing, “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.”

COVID DASHBOARD – INDIA

As of 0800 IST / April 26

from mohfw.gov.in ,

New Cases on Monday 2,483

Active Cases 15,636 (+886)

Total Deaths (Deaths Yesterday) 5,23,622 (5)

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

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WANT RUSSIA MILITARY WEAKENED, SAYS US AS TOP OFFICIALS VISIT KYIV

Russia renewed its attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure on Monday, striking five railroad stations with missiles hours after the top US defence official and top diplomat made a risky and secretive visit by train to the Ukrainian capital. Speaking after the trip to Kyiv, Lloyd J Austin III, the US secretary of defence, said that Russia had already suffered significant military losses, including “a lot of its troops. ” The Pentagon was working to ensure Moscow cannot “very quickly reproduce that capability,” he added, and the US and its allies would hold more detailed discussions on what Ukraine needed to prevail at a meeting on Tuesday in Germany. “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree it cannot do the kind things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin said.

The assertion by the top US defence officials that America wants to degrade the Russian war machine reflected an increasingly emboldened approach from the Biden administration. Austin, who made his comments during a brief news conference on the Polish-Ukrainian border, was joined by secretary of state Antony Blinken, who said that Russia had failed in its goal of destroying the Ukrainian state. US diplomats would soon be returning to Ukraine, he said, and he expected the embassy in Kyiv to reopen in a few weeks. “Russia is failing,” he said. “Ukraine is succeeding. ” President Biden has also nominated Bridget Brink, the current US ambassador to Slovakia, as the next ambassador to Ukraine on Monday. The position will be critical as US embassy reopens in Kyiv.

Blinken and Austin met with President Volodymyr Zelensky for three hours late on Sunday evening. The pair said they travelled to and from the capital by train but the details of the journey were a tightly guarded secret.

US officials said the two pledged $713 million in new assistance for Ukraine and other countries in the region. The US also plans to supply Ukraine with $165 million in artillery shells, rockets and grenades that are compatible with Soviet-designed weapons and their derivatives, the state department said.

Russia has warned the US against sending more arms to Ukraine, Moscow’s ambassador to Washington told Russian state television. “We stressed the unacceptability of this situation when the US pours weapons into Ukraine, and we demanded an end to this practice,” Anatoly Antonov said in an interview with the Rossiya 24 TV channel.

CHINA'S MILITARY SPEND EXCEEDS INDIA, AUSTRALIA, JAPAN, KOREA'S JOINTLY

In what outlines a growing militarisation in Asia and China’s rapidly expanding prowess, Beijing is spending more on its military than what India, Japan, South Korea and Australia collectively spend on their forces.

China’s defence expenditure reached $293 billion in 2021, much greater than the collective expenditure of $212.7 billion by India ($76.6 billion), Japan ($54.1 billion), South Korea ($50.2 billion) and Australia ($31.8 billion). A report released on Monday by Swedish think-tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said, “China’s spend of $293 billion in 2021 is an increase of 4.7% from 2020 and 72% from 2012. Its spending has grown for 27 consecutive years, the longest uninterrupted sequence of increase by any country.” China is the second largest defence spender in the world after the US. India, Japan, Korea and Australia are the third, ninth, tenth and twelfth largest spenders.

India and China are among the top three military spenders in the world. The US leads the pack with $801 billion. Pakistan is at the 22nd spot with $11.3 billion spending.

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UDDHAV GOVT PUTS BALL IN CENTRE’S COURT ON MOSQUE-LOUDSPEAKER ISSUE

The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra Monday put the onus of resolving the mosque-loudspeaker issue on the Modi government, following an all-party meeting meant to find a solution to the controversy. Opposition BJP boycotted the meeting, called by the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA.

Ever since the Shiv Sena’s alliance with the BJP ended in 2019, the former has pointed to the Centre every time the issue of loudspeakers at religious places has come up. At Monday’s meeting, the Shiv Sena’s MVA allies — the Congress and the NCP — toed the same line.

Addressing the media, Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse-Patil said the Centre should come up with a policy on loudspeakers, which the state would then follow.  “It is the government’s responsibility to maintain law & order. Police will take action if somebody violates it. If the Centre makes a national-level rule over loudspeakers, issues won’t come up in states. It was decided that an all-party delegation will meet the Centre and discuss this,” Walse-Patil said.

The meeting came amid a raging controversy in the state over the loudspeaker issue, which started with Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray’s Gudi Padwa address earlier this month.

‘YOU HAVE ADMITTED YOUR FAILURES’: DELHI HIGH COURT TO POLICE

Weeks after nearly 200 protestors belonging to the BJP’s youth wing BJYM broke through police barricades outside Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence and slammed the main gate, the Delhi High Court on Monday questioned the security arrangements made by the police to prevent the incident and said that it is clear that there was a failure.

“This kind of an incident happening at the residence of any constitutional functionary whether it is the chief minister … it could be a judge, any other Union minister… This is a very disturbing state of affairs that this kind of a thing could in the first place occur or such miscreants should succeed in their endeavour,” said the division bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla.

Asking the police to explain how the barricades were breached by the protestors, the court told the police: “If people could breach three barricades, then you need to seriously look at your efficiency, your functioning”.

The court earlier perused a sealed-cover status report filed by the police. On March 31, it had asked the Delhi Police to file a status report within two weeks on the investigation carried out by it. “Once there is a security failure, it is something that has to come with consequences,” said the court after reading the report.

The court added: “We definitely are not satisfied with your report with regard to the bandobast. You have only admitted your failures that there was a breach at point A, point B and then point C. How can the police be heard to say this”.

PM TWEET ROW: MEVANI REARRESTED IN ANOTHER CASE HRS AFTER GETTING BAIL

Gujarat Independent MLA Jignesh Mevani was rearrested by Assam Police on Monday for allegedly assaulting officials after a court in Kokrajhar granted him bail in a case related to a tweet by him against Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.

Mevani, an MLA supported by the Congress, was booked under Indian Penal Code Sections related to voluntarily causing hurt, assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty and others, police said.

Earlier in the day, a Kokrajhar court granted him bail in connection with a case related to his tweet against Modi.

The Gujarat legislator was arrested on April 19 from Palanpur town in Gujarat after a first information report (FIR) was registered against him in Kokrajhar Police Station over his tweet, in which he had said Prime Minister Narendra Modi 'considered Godse as God'.

16 MORE YOUTUBE CHANNELS BLOCKED FOR SPREADING DISINFORMATION RELATED TO INDIA'S NATIONAL SECURITY

The Centre yesterday blocked 16 YouTube channels, including six operating from Pakistan, and a Facebook account for spreading disinformation related to India’s national security, foreign relations and public order, according to an official statement.

The blocked YouTube channels and the Facebook account had a cumulative viewership of over 68 crore and were spreading “false, unverified information to create panic, incite communal disharmony and disturb public order in India,” the statement issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said.

“None of the digital news publishers had furnished information to the ministry as required under Rule 18 of the IT Rules, 2021,” it added.

The ministry said the content published by some of the blocked India-based YouTube channels referred to the members of a particular community as terrorists and incited hatred among various religious communities. “Such content was found having the potential to create disharmony and disturb public order,” it said.

SUPREME COURT STOPS RAZING OF DELHI 'JHUGGIS', ASKS CENTRE TO ACT 'HUMANELY'

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the demolition of around 200 “jhuggis” at Sarojini Nagar in New Delhi and asked the Centre to act “humanely” while starting coercive processes against the poor and marginalised sections of society.

“No coercive steps be taken till the next date of hearing,” said the Bench, posting the matter for further hearing on May 2.

The interim stay on demolition ordered by the Delhi High Court was ending on Monday.

The Union Ministry of Urban Development had, on April 4, issued “eviction/ demolition” notices to all “jhuggi” residents asking them to vacate the place within a week.

Observing that mushrooming of illegal colonies across the country was a menace to urban development, another Bench of the Supreme Court said there was need for a comprehensive action plan by state governments to prevent illegal colonies from coming up.

IPL MATCH 38: DHAWAN STARS AS PUNJAB KINGS DOWN CSK

Flamboyant opener Shikhar Dhawan struck a magnificent 88 (off 59) not out to trump Ambati Rayudu in the battle of batting heroics as Punjab Kings beat Chennai Super Kings by 11 runs in an IPL thriller in Mumbai on Monday.

Dhawan powered Punjab to 187/4 after being asked to bat.

Punjab then restricted CSK to 176/6 despite a stunning 39-ball 78 from Rayudu. Dhawan also became only the second batter after Virat Kohli to complete 6,000 runs in IPL history.

Punjab bowler Arshdeep Singh conceded just six runs in the 17th over and eight in the 19th to tilt the scale towards Punjab.

Punjab have 4 wins from 8 now, while Chennai have 2 from 8.

INDICATORS

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GBP 0.78 /US$, Euro 0.93 /US$, Jap.Yen 128.14 /US$, Aus$ 1.39 /US$, Sing 1.37 /US$, Bang Taka 84.64 /US$, Can$ 1.27 /US$, Mal Ring 4.34 /US$,

Pak Re 185.61 /US$, Phil Peso 52.38 /US$, Russian Rouble 75.36 /US$, NZ$ 1.51 /US$, Thai Baht 34.02 /US$, Ukraine Hryvnia 29.66 /US$

Bitcoin - USD 40,462

Dollar Index 101.58 Brent Crude 102.95 BDI 2,356.00

Gold world Spot Price USD/aoz 1,903 India (Rs. per gm 24k/22k) 5,344 / 4,899, Silver (Rs. Per KG) 70,800

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of distress and anxiety. If I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without any pain. - Jalal ad-Din Rumi

OFF TRACK

A blonde gets a job as a physical education teacher for 8-10 year olds.

She notices a boy at the end of the field standing alone, while all the other kids are running around having fun, kicking a football.

She takes pity on him and decides to speak to him.

"Are you ok?" she asks.

"Yes," he replies.

"You can go and play with the other kids, you know," she says.

"It's best I stay here," he says.

"Why's that, sweetie?" asks the blonde...

The boy looks at her incredulously and says, "Because I'm the goal keeper !!!"