QUAD TO PURSUE COOPERATION IN TRADE, CLEAN ENERGY: FOREIGN SECY

The second Quad in-person summit held in Tokyo on Tuesday was marked by action-oriented cooperation among Quad partners as also between its partners for a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific, aimed at peace, stability and prosperity in the region, said Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra while summing up PM Narendra Modi’s two-day Japan visit.

The Foreign Secretary identified several areas where forward movement will take place during the second year of Quad’s existence, as stated by US President Joe Biden. The Quad will focus on common efforts to respond to the Covid pandemic, in particular post-pandemic recovery, and strengthening health security.

Shedding more light on the Quad’s flagship venture — the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework — he said the concept is structured around four pillars: trade, supply chains, infrastructure, clean energy and decarbonisation and tax and anti-corruption. Collective discussions would be initiated and final contours of this would emerge based on discussions among the Quad countries. “The intention is to promote infrastructure delivery and bridge infrastructural gaps in the Indo-Pacific region and do it in a manner that does not burden countries with unsustainable debt, and infrastructure projects,” he added.

INDIA TO EXPORT WHEAT TO NATIONS IN NEED: PIYUSH GOYAL

India will continue to allow wheat export to countries which are in serious need, are friendly and have the letter of credit, Union Food and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said while speaking at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.

While a seven to eight per cent rise in wheat production is expected this year, severe heatwaves led to early harvest and loss of production.

“Given this situation, what we are producing is about enough for domestic consumption,” Goyal added. India was never a traditional player in the international wheat market and export of wheat only began about two years ago. It was seven lakh tonnes last year and the majority was done within the last two months when the war between Russia-Ukraine developed. “India wheat exports are less than one per cent of world trade and our export regulation should not affect global markets. We continue to allow exports to vulnerable countries and neighbours,” he said. India’s wheat production this year has been estimated at 106.41 million tonnes, down 3 per cent compared to previous year.

KAPIL SIBAL QUITS CONGRESS, GETS SAMAJWADI PARTY BACKING FOR RAJYA SABHA BERTH

Days after advising the Gandhis to step aside and let another leader have a chance at Congress presidency, veteran leader Kapil Sibal on Wednesday officially quit the party and filed Rajya Sabha nomination as an Independent candidate with the backing of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh.

“I want to be an independent voice in the Rajya Sabha and work to bring anti-BJP forces together ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections,” declared Sibal, a prominent minister in the erstwhile Congress-led UPA government and more recently a member of the G-23 group that rooted for reforms in the party to make it battle-ready.

Sibal (74) said he had resigned from the Congress on May 16, the day the party’s Udaipur conclave concluded. “All Congress leaders are like my family. I had a duty to speak so long as I was in the party, but now I have moved on. I am not far away from the Congress ideology. I joined because of Rajiv ji but the fact I am leaving after 30 years says something,” said Sibal.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, who accompanied Sibal for nomination filing in Lucknow, said the former minister’s “articulation against the BJP’s excesses would be of value”. Interestingly, Sibal’s bonhomie with the SP comes days after senior party leader Azam Khan, jailed for 27 months, secured bail in the case of alleged land grab in UP. Sibal was Khan’s counsel in the Supreme Court.

SEPARATIST YASIN MALIK GETS LIFE IN JAIL

Stating that his crimes “intended to strike at the heart of the idea of India” and were “committed with the assistance of foreign powers and designated terrorists”, an NIA court in Delhi on Wednesday handed life term to Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik in a case related to terrorism and secessionist activities in 2016-17.

Additional Sessions Judge Parveen Singh awarded two life sentences and varying jail terms, which will all run concurrently, and a fine of Rs 10,65,000 for offences under the stringent anti-terror law — Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) — and the IPC.

Rejecting the National Investigation Agency’s plea for death penalty, the court said the case did not fall in the rarest of rare category. The NIA has accused Malik, leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), of orchestrating violent protests in 2016, when 89 cases of stone-pelting were reported.

On Malik’s plea that he had given up violence and would “follow the peaceful path of Mahatma Gandhi”, the court said he could not claim to be a follower of Gandhi as he did not condemn the violence in the Valley.

On May 10, Malik had pleaded guilty to all charges, including those under the UAPA.

The judge said the crimes for which Malik was convicted were serious in nature and “intended to strike at the heart of the idea of India and to forcefully secede J&K from Union of India….The seriousness of the crime is further increased by the fact that it was committed behind the smokescreen of an alleged peaceful political movement.”

During the hearing, Malik told the court that he had given up violence in 1994 and declared that he “would follow the peaceful path of Mahatma Gandhi and engage in non-violent political struggle”.

The court observed that in its opinion there was no reformation in him. It said Malik may have given up the gun in 1994, but he “never expressed any regret for the violence committed prior to the year 1994”.

COVID DASHBOARD – INDIA

As of 0800 IST / May 26

from mohfw.gov.in ,

New Cases on Wednesday 2,628

Active Cases 15.414 (+443)

Total Deaths (Deaths Yesterday) 5,24,525 (5)

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

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IMRAN KHAN LEADS RALLY FOR EARLY POLLS, SUPPORTERS DETAINED

A defiant former PM, Imran Khan, yesterday marched towards Islamabad with hundreds of his supporters who were removing the barricades placed by the government to stop them, even as Pakistan’s Supreme Court directed the authorities to allow the protest rally in the national capital and restrained them from arresting Khan.

Issuing directions on a petition filed on Tuesday by Islamabad High Court Bar Association President Mohammad Shoaib Shaheen, the court also ordered a bipartisan committee of the government and PTI to settle the terms and conditions for holding the rally in a peaceful manner.

Meanwhile, Khan in the evening said his long march had entered Punjab and was heading towards Islamabad. He started his march from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with a large caravan to demand the removal of the government and an immediate national election. “No amount of state oppression and fascism by this imported government can stop or deter our march,” tweeted the 69-year-old former premier, who has been leading the march mounting on a truck.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took to social media to oppose the protest. “It has been my conviction that Pakistan will progress only through sheer hard work. Politics of dharna is detrimental to progress & stability,” he said.

AFTER EVERY SHOOTING IS US, CALL FOR GUN CONTROL

A permissive gun culture that the Conservative Republicans have enabled in the name of protecting the constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms is alleged to be the trigger that is perpetuating massacres across the US.

Calling them murderers and baby-killers, angry Americans lit into many Republican lawmakers who have openly boasted of opposing Democrat sponsored gun control measures and supporting gun rights legislation in the name of protecting freedom. “F*** YOU. This is on your hands. Don’t put out messages like this,” Fred Gutenberg, a father who lost his daughter to a carnage in the Parkland school shooting told Republican Senator Ted Cruz after the latter tweeted the familiar “thoughts and prayers” to victims’ families that politicians discharge after each massacre, telling him to work with Democratic lawmakers to pass gun control legislation.

President Joe Biden also essayed the usual funereal and helpless speech from the White House lectern, asking, “When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name will we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done?” “I had hoped when I became president I would not have to do this — again,” the US president said, with first lady Jill Biden, a school teacher, at his side. “How many scores of little children who witnessed what happened — see their friends die, as if they’re in a battlefield, for God’s sake. They’ll live with it the rest of their lives. ”

Urging Republican lawmakers to support gun restriction measures, Biden said the country may not be able to prevent every tragedy, but gun control measures work. “The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong,” he said.

Although polls show a majority of Americans support gun control measures, and the demographically reflective House of Representatives has passed legislation, 50 Republican senators of an unrepresentative Senate, which has two members from each state regardless of its population, continue to block it. Representing mostly poor, middle-American states, these senators profess to be constitutional originalists who swear by the second amendment which confers on Americans the “right to bear arms”. Critics of such originalists point out that the second amendment was conceived in an age of muskets and it should not extend to an age where automatic weapons can discharge a dozen bullets in a second.

‘I’M HUMBLED AND I HAVE LEARNED A LESSON, BUT I WON’T QUIT’

A “humbled” Boris Johnson said he took full responsibility but would not quit after a damning official report on Wednesday detailed a series of illegal lockdown parties at the Downing Street office.

Johnson has faced repeated calls to resign from opposition politicians and some in his own party over the alcohol-fuelled gatherings, after it was revealed that he and officials had broken Covid rules that all but banned people from socialising outside their households. “I . . . am humbled and I have learned a lesson,” Johnson told parliament, saying he would not quit.

The report by senior official Sue Gray did not specifically blame Johnson, but gave graphic details and included photos. Her full report included emails and messages that showed many gatherings were planned in advance, with discussions on who would bring alcohol. There were warnings from another official that people should not be “waving bottles of wine” before a gathering that coincided with a news conference when ministers told the public to follow the Covid rules. At one June 2020 event, Gray said “excessive alcohol consumption” led to one person being sick and a fight between two others.

THE REST

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CURBS ON SUGAR EXPORTS TO ENSURE SUPPLY DURING FESTIVAL SEASON: GOVT

Asserting that the Centre’s priority is to ensure sufficient availability of sugar for consumption at reasonable rate, Food Secretary Sudhanshu Pandey yesterday justified the decision to cap sugar exports at 10 million tonnes this year, calling it a “timely and precautionary” measure to ensure adequate availability during the festival season in October-November.

“The government is committed to stabilise prices of sugar in the domestic market and in the past 12 months, prices of sugar are under control,” Pandey said.

Though the prices of sugar are “more stable” when compared to other commodities, the decision to curb sugar exports was taken to prevent any undue spike in retail prices amid global shortage of the commodity, he added. The Food Secretary said sugar exports had risen sharply from about 50,000 tonnes in 2016-17 to 10 million tonnes this year.

“It is not a curb. Sugar exports this year are highest ever. Already 9 MT have been contracted of which 7.5 MT have been exported,” he said.

SOCIAL MEDIA STAR SHOT DEAD BY TERRORISTS IN KASHMIR'S BUDGAM

A 35-year-old social media influencer was shot dead by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir's Budgam district Wednesday. A 10-year-old, the woman's nephew, was also injured in the attack. The attack was carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists, police said.

The victim, Amreen Bhat, was a TikTok artist and a TV star. The nephew of the woman, Farhan Zubair, also got injured in the incident.

This was the second targeted attack in the last 24 hours. On Tuesday, a policeman was shot dead by terrorists outside his home in Srinagar. His seven-year-old daughter, who reportedly rushed to save him, was injured in the attack.

Political parties termed the attack an act of "senseless violence" and called for steps to end the cycle of violence in Jammu and Kashmir.

CAPTAIN ABHILASHA BARAK IS ARMY’S FIRST WOMAN COMBAT AVIATOR

Capt Abhilasha Barak created history by becoming the first woman officer to join Army Aviation Corps as combat aviator.

She has completed six months of combat Army Aviation Course and was awarded the coveted “wings” along with 36 Army pilots yesterday by Lt Gen AK Suri, Director General, Army Aviation, at a valedictory ceremony held at Combat Army Aviation Training School, Nashik.

RANSOMWARE ATTACK DELAYS SPICEJET FLIGHTS

Low-cost Indian carrier SpiceJet came under ransomware attack on Tuesday night, resulting in several of its flights getting delayed and cancelled. The airline said it was in touch with experts and cyber crime officials on the issue.

SpiceJet yersterday said, “Certain of our systems faced an attempted ransomware attack last night that impacted our flight operations.” While the airline’s IT team has to a large extent contained and rectified the situation, this has had a cascading effect on its flights, leading to delays, it adds.

Many passengers said they were left waiting at the airport or stranded inside the plane with no updates from the airline. Incidentally, this comes just few days after SpiceJet said it hoped to start broadband Internet service on its planes soon.

DON'T OFFER UNSERVICEABLE SEATS, DGCA TELLS AIRLINES

The civil aviation regulator DGCA has asked airlines not to offer unserviceable seats for sale to passengers on their domestic and international flights.

The warning in this regard has been issued to the airlines following an audit of seats and other cabin fittings in aircraft of airlines, which was conducted by the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) early this year, officials said.

In a communique, the DGCA said some of the carriers are offering unserviceable seats to passengers on their scheduled international and domestic operations. “This practice is not only causing inconvenience to the travellers, but also inviting a serious safety concern as well,” the DGCA noted. As per Rule 53 of the Aircraft Rule, 1937, all materials, including the aircraft seat, shall conform to the approved design specifications, it said, adding that the installation of any part failing to meet the intended design requirement degrades the requirements of airworthiness. “It is advised that the airlines shall not book passengers beyond the serviceable seats meeting the approved design specification available in the aircraft,” the DGCA said.

IPL ELIMINATOR: PATIDAR SHINES AS RCB ADVANCE TO QUALIFIER 2

Little-known domestic bulwark Rajat Patidar found his hour of fame as his magnificent 49-ball hundred propelled Royal Challengers Bangalore within a sniffing distance of title clash after out-batting Lucknow Super Giants by 14 runs in the IPL Eliminator on Wednesday.

RCB will meet Rajasthan Royals in the second Qualifier on Friday, which will decide Gujarat Titans' opposition for Sunday's final

Courtesy Patidar's 54-ball-112 not out which had 12 fours and seven huge sixes, RCB literally knocked the stuffing out of the LSG attack with Mohsin Khan's superb 1 for 25 proving to be only saving grace.

In reply, KL Rahul's 78 off 59 balls didn't make much of an impact save beefing his individual run-tally as LSG finished on 193 for 6 after 20 overs.

FRENCH OPEN: DJOKOVIC KEEPS TITLE DEFENCE ON TRACK, ZVEREV SURVIVES SCARE

World number one Novak Djokovic completed a solid 6-2, 6-3, 7-6(4) victory over Slovakia's Alex Molcan in the second round of the French Open on Wednesday to keep his title defence and quest for a record-equalling 21st Grand Slam on track.

With Djokovic unable to defend his Australian Open title due to his refusal to be vaccinated against COVID-19, Spaniard Rafa Nadal broke a three-way tie for the most Grand Slam titles with the Serb and Roger Federer by winning the Melbourne Park major at the start of the year.

Yet a successful rerun of his 2021 Roland Garros campaign, when he beat 13-time French Open winner Nadal in the semi-finals, will lift Djokovic alongside his great rival.

Alexander Zverev overcame a woeful start to reach the third round of the French Open, saving a match point in a 2-6, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 7-5 victory over up-and-coming Argentine Sebastian Baez. It was the fifth year in a row that Zverev, who achieved his best result at Roland Garros when he reached the semi-finals last year, had to go through a five-setter in one of the opening two rounds.

INDICATORS

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GBP 0.79 /US$, Euro 0.93 /US$, Jap.Yen 127.13 /US$, Aus$ 1.41 /US$, Sing 1.37 /US$, Bang Taka 86.23 /US$, Can$ 1.28 /US$, Mal Ring 4.39 /US$,

Pak Re 201.05 /US$, Phil Peso 52.34 /US$, Russian Rouble 58.31 /US$, NZ$ 1.54 /US$, Thai Baht 34.21 /US$, Ukraine Hryvnia 29.22 /US$

Bitcoin - USD 29,837

Dollar Index 102.04 Brent Crude 114.47 BDI 3,127

Gold world Spot Price USD/aoz 1,852 India (Rs. per gm 24k/22k) 5,225 / 4,790, Silver (Rs. Per KG) 66,500

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Growing old is no more than a bad habit that a busy person has not time to for. - Andre Maurois

OFF TRACK

A young couple got married and left on their honeymoon. When they got back, the bride immediately called her mother.

Her mother asked, "How was the honeymoon?"

"Oh, mama," she replied, "the honeymoon was wonderful! So romantic..." Suddenly, she burst out crying. "But mama, as soon as we returned, Sam started using the most horrible language...things I had never heard before! I mean, all these awful 4-letter words! You've got to come get me and take me home... Please, mama!"

"Sarah," her mother said, "calm down! Tell me, what could be so awful? What 4-letter words?"

Still sobbing, the bride said, "Oh, mama...words like DUST, WASH, IRON, COOK...!"