GUJARAT BRACES FOR CYCLONE BIPARJOY

Authorities in Gujarat Monday began evacuating thousands of people from vulnerable areas and closed schools and ports in coastal districts even as the worsening weather ahead of the landfall of Cyclone Biparjoy led to the death of one person in Rajkot.

According to a state govt statement, 6,827 people were evacuated from eight coastal districts.

Meanwhile in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a meeting, which was also attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, to review the preparedness of central and Gujarat govt agencies.

The cyclone is expected to cross Saurashtra and Kutch between Gujarat’s Mandvi and Pakistan’s Karachi, near Jakhau Port in Kutch, by Thursday noon in the form of a “very severe cyclonic storm with maximum sustained wind speed of 125-135 kmph gusting to 145 kmph”, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said at the meeting.

According to the IMD, heavy rain is expected in the coastal districts of Gujarat — extremely heavy rainfall in Kutch, Devbhumi Dwarka and Jamnagar and heavy to very heavy rainfall at a few places in Porbandar, Rajkot, Morbi and Junagarh — on Wednesday and Thursday.

Multiple ports were also shut down, including Kandla, the country’s largest public sector port. An official there said 15 ships that were in the port area have now sailed off, along with those that had been waiting to berth. The ports at Okha, Porbandar, Salaya, Bedi, Navlakhi, Mandvi and Jakhau have also been shut.

INDIA HAS BROUGHT G20’S FOCUS BACK ON REAL ISSUES, SAYS EAM

India on Monday virtually ruled out any grandstanding by western countries on Ukraine by pointing out that its G20 presidency had brought the spotlight on “real issues of the world” as the matter was dealt in light of an understanding agreed upon at the previous G20 summit in Bali.

A couple of days after having made it clear that India would not invite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the G20 summit in New Delhi in September, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar said a narrative had begun to take root that the Ukraine conflict and its repercussions “should not obfuscate, should not completely sideline the real concerns and pain points of the Global South”.

“There are countries that can’t afford food. They are running out of fuel. A lot of it (such counties) is in this region. Look at our neighbours. They are among those who suffered a lot last year. I made a few trips to Africa, you can see the impact of that,” said Jaishankar after the end of Monday’s deliberations by the G20 Development Ministers at Varanasi.

“We are in no way diminishing the seriousness of the conflict and consequences. Right now, our focus is to address the pressing needs of developing countries, who are really teetering on the edge of an abyss. Today, we got the G20 to look at sustainable development growth, think about financing for the Global South, think about climate financing, women’s issues and education,” said Jaishankar.

‘INDIA TO SHARE ITS DIGITAL SUCCESS STORIES UNDER ONE FUTURE ALLIANCE’

India on Monday launched the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) partnership to enable countries, especially low and middle-income brackets, to learn from its experiences in harnessing technology to improve governance, and for social, economic, digital and sustainable development.

It also introduced the idea to form an alliance of countries, called One Future Alliance, which would allow like-minded nations to use technology to improve people’s lives.

Speaking at the event, which is linked to a G20 working group meeting on digital economy, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Rajeev Chandrasekhar said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear that India’s technology capabilities, or the India stack, can be made available to any country that is interested in joining this accelerated digitalisation trend that is evident in the recent years.

“Before this, any conversation on digitisation was, globally, one about haves and have-nots — technology and digitisation were the prerogative of advanced nations. Any conversation of digitisation was accompanied by a narrative of exclusion.” He said that the poor were excluded while the rich benefited from. With the Digital India push, technology began to be used to improve governance and democracy, expand the digital economy, encourage entrepreneurship opportunities and transform India from being a consumer of technology to a producer of technology, he added.

CENTRE ORDERS PROBE INTO COWIN DATA ‘BREACH’ AS OPPN UPS ANTE

The Centre on Monday said India’s online Covid-19 vaccine delivery platform CoWIN was “completely safe” with inbuilt mechanisms to guard data privacy amid reports that sensitive personal information of Covid shot recipients, including top politicians, was freely available on social media platform Telegram.

The Ministry of Health, while asking the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert-In) to probe the issue and submit its findings, trashed reports of leaks saying only OTP authentication-based access of data was provided on CoWIN. “Certain posts on Twitter have claimed that using a Telegram (online messenger application) bot, the personal data of individuals who have been vaccinated is being accessed. These reports say that the bot has been able to pull individual data by simply passing the mobile number or Aadhaar number of a beneficiary. All such reports are baseless and mischievous. The CoWIN portal of the Health Ministry is completely safe with adequate safeguards for data privacy,” a ministry statement said.

The TMC and the Congress tweeted screenshots claiming breach of data of citizens, including Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh, opposition leaders Derek O’Brien, P Chidambaram, Jairam Ramesh, KC Venugopal and Abhishek Singhvi.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

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NATO CONDUCTS ‘BIGGEST’ AIR DRILLS SINCE COLD WAR

More than 250 aircraft and 10,000 personnel began a two-week military exercise on Monday involving Nato nations and Japan, in what host nation Germany bills as the largest deployment of aircraft in the alliance’s history.

Planning for the training began in 2018. But it comes as fighting escalates on Nato’s doorstep in Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces, backed by arms from Western allies, are mounting an offensive to reclaim territory captured by Russia.

Officials involved in the Nato exercise said it sends a message about the alliance’s solidarity. “I would be pretty surprised if any world leader was not taking note of what this shows, in terms of the spirit of this alliance, which means the strength of this alliance,” Amy Gutmann, the US ambassador to Germany, told reporters last week. “That includes Mr. Putin. ”

The exercise, known as Air Defender, is led by the German govt and brings together the largest number of aircraft from outside Germany for a training mission since Nato was founded in 1949 and since the end of the Cold War. Twenty-four Nato nations, including Finland, the newest member, are participating in the drills, and Japan has joined as an observer. The US flew about 100 National Guard and Navy aircraft to Germany for the drills.

TRUMP ESCALATES EFFORTS TO UNDERMINE CRIMINAL CASE

Donald Trump and his allies are escalating efforts to undermine the criminal case against him and drum up protests as the US former president braces for a history-making federal court appearance this week on dozens of felony charges accusing him of illegally hoarding classified information.

Trump’s Tuesday afternoon appearance in Miami will mark his second time in as many months facing a judge on criminal charges. But unlike a New York case some legal analysts derided as relatively trivial, the US justice department’s first prosecution of a former president concerns conduct that prosecutors say jeopardised national security and that involves Espionage Act charges carrying the threat of a significant prison sentence in the event of conviction.

Ahead of his arraignment, Trump ratcheted up the rhetoric against the justice department special counsel who filed the case, calling Jack Smith “deranged” and his team of prosecutors “thugs” as he repeated his claims that he was the target of apolitical persecution.

He called on his supporters to join a planned protest at the Miami courthouse on Tuesday, where he will be arraigned on the charges. “We need strength in our country now,” Trump said, speaking to his longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone in an interview on WABC Radio. “And they have to go out and they have to protest peacefully. They have to go out. Look, our country has to protest. We’ve lost everything,” he went on.

THE REST

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INDIA'S GDP REACHES $3.75 TRILLION-MARK IN 2023, SAYS FINANCE MINISTRY

India GDP reached the $3.75 trillion-mark in 2023, from around $2 trillion in 2014, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s office said in a tweet on Monday.

India has moved from tenth to the fifth-largest economy in the world, the tweet added. Highlighting the nine years of reforms under the Narendra Modi-led govt, Sitharaman’s office also said: “India is now being called a bright spot in the global economy.”

Four countries ahead of India in terms of GDP at current prices include China, United States, Germany, and Japan. India has surpassed the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Russia, and Australia in GDP numbers.

The provisional estimates released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) recently showed the overall economic growth in FY23 at 7.2 per cent, powered by a higher than expected growth in the fourth quarter.

INFLATION AT 25-MONTH LOW

Retail inflation declined to a 25-month low of 4.25% in May mainly on account of softening prices of food and fuel items. The gradual decline of the Consumer Price Index-based inflation from 4.7% in April and 5.7% in March has helped reverse the trend in rural areas.

This is the fourth straight month when retail inflation has declined and the third month in a row that CPI-based inflation remained within the RBI’s comfort zone of below 6%. At 4.25%, retail inflation is the lowest since April 2021 when it was 4.23%. Inflation in rural and urban areas was at 4.17% and 4.27%, respectively, giving a combined aggregate of 4.25%.

Analysts also attributed the decline to RBI’s monetary policy tightening since May last year that saw an increase of 250 basis points in the repo rate. The gradual decline in the inflation rate had encouraged the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee last week to keep the base lending rate unchanged at 6.5%.

Another set of statistics released on Monday showed that the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) rose to 4.2% in April from 1.7% in March, mainly due to an upswing in manufacturing and mining sectors. However, on a year-on-year basis, it was lower than the 6.7% in April last year.

WHEAT PRICE UP 8% IN A MONTH, GOVT IMPOSES STOCK LIMIT

After a gap of 15 years, the Union Govt on Monday imposed a limit on wheat stocks apparently following an 8 per cent hike in the grain price over the past one month.

The new limit of wheat stock, which came into effect on Monday evening, will remain in force till March next year.

For traders and wholesalers, the stock limit has been fixed at 3,000 metric tonnes, for retailers 10 MT for each retail outlet, and for big chain retailers 10 MT for each outlet and 3,000 MT at depots.

The stock limit on wheat for processors has been fixed at 75 per cent of annual installed capacity or quantity equivalent to monthly installed capacity multiplied by remaining months of 2023-24, whichever is less.

Sanjeev Chopra, Secretary, Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD), said the step was taken as unscrupulous elements were creating artificial scarcity of wheat in the country.

MANIPUR: BOTH MEITEI AND KUKI GROUPS SAY WILL STAY AWAY FROM PEACE PANEL

At least one more person was killed in fresh violence in Manipur on Monday, even as groups representing both the Meitei and Kuki-Zomi communities said they would not participate in the peace committee constituted by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

Amid the continuing violence, Chief Minister N Biren Singh appealed for peace. “We understand that people across the state are reeling under untold hardship due to the present crisis. But it is about time to take a step back and give peace a chance. Let us not be driven by emotion. Let the govt handle the situation,” he said.

However, groups representing both Kuki-Zomi and Meitei communities expressed a lack of faith in the leadership and said they would not participate in the deliberations of the peace committee.

TAMIL NADU BJP CHIEF'S DIG AT JAYALALITHAA RILES ALLY AIADMK

The BJP could be heading for a break with its only ally in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK. The southern ally, already miffed by the controversial comments of state BJP chief K Annamalai, has given an ultimatum to the party: "Rein him in, or else...".

Mr Annamalai, who divides his time equally between needling the DMK and AIADMK, has made a comment the ally finds it hard to overlook.

AIADMK icon former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, he tacitly indicated in an interview with an English daily, was convicted in a disproportionate assets case. 

Although Jayalalithaa's aide VK Sasikala and a few others were ultimately convicted by the Supreme Court in a disproportionate assets case in which the former Chief Minister was the prime accused, Jayalalithaa died before the final verdict. So while the top court's verdict nullified the favourable verdict by the Karnataka High Court, it did not convict her technically. 

The remarks have incensed the AIADMK, which has said unless action is taken against Mr Annamalai, they will "rethink the alliance".

CONG MAKES KARNATAKA STYLE WELFARE PROMISES IN MP

To replicate the Karnataka success story in Madhya Pradesh, the Congress on Monday rolled out five guarantees in the BJP-ruled state where the Assembly elections are slated to take place later this year.

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi kicked off the party’s election campaign at a rally in Jabalpur, announcing that if the party came to power in the state, every woman would get a monthly allowance of Rs 1,500. She also promised 100 units of free electricity to every household, besides an additional 200 units of power at half the rate. LPG cylinders would be given for Rs 500 if the Congress came to power.

Priyanka also guaranteed that the party would waive farmers’ loans and re-introduce the old pension scheme for govt employees.

She said the BJP stoked up emotions on divisive lines to grab power. She called upon people to be alert, understand BJP’s designs and elect a govt that had a sense of accountability and worked for their welfare.

NIA POSTS VIDEO OF VIOLENCE AT INDIA MISSION IN LONDON, ASKS PUBLIC TO IDENTIFY PROTESTORS

Broadening its probe into attempts to vandalise the Indian mission premises in London, the National Investigation Agency on Monday released five videos and sought the help of the general public in identifying individuals involved in the violent protests there in March this year.

Pro-Khalistani protestors tried to vandalise the Indian High Commission in London and pulled down the national flag while holding protests outside the high commission complex on March 19. It happened a day after Punjab Police launched a crackdown against radical preacher Amritpal Singh in Punjab.

NO BIKE-TAXIS IN DELHI FOR NOW: SC

Bike-taxi aggregators Rapido and Uber can’t offer their services in the Capital for now as the Supreme Court on Monday stayed the Delhi High Court’s order that allowed them to operate till a new policy was formulated, terming it “unwarranted”.

A Vacation Bench led by Justice Aniruddha Bose passed the order on the Delhi Govt’s petition challenging the May 26 high court order that stayed a notice to Rapido and allowed it to operate till the final policy was notified. The high court had asked the Delhi Govt not to take any coercive action against Bike-taxi aggregators in the meantime.

The Bench said a complete stay on the notification that prohibited the operation of bike-taxi aggregators was unwarranted as the Delhi govt was in the process of formulating a policy in this regard.

The Delhi Govt counsel told the Bench the final policy would be notified before July-end.

WFI POLL LIKELY ON JULY 4

The ball has been set rolling for the much-delayed Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) elections with the Indian Olympic Association on Monday appointing former Jammu and Kashmir High Court Chief Justice Mahesh Mittal Kumar as the returning officer.

WFI electoral college has 50 votes, one vote each of two nominees from 25 state units

Bhushan’s son Karan heads UP unit, son-in-law Vishal Bihar unit; both eligible to contest

While Justice Kumar has given his consent to become the RO, he is yet to approve July 4 as the election date, as suggested by the IOA, it is learnt. Interestingly, the election date is past the June 30 deadline set by Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur following his meeting with protesting wrestlers Bajrang Punia and Sakshi Malik on June 7.

A source in the IOA said there would hardly be any change in the electoral list as only those who are currently WFI affiliates will get to vote. This would be a big setback to the protesting wrestlers, including Bajrang, Sakshi and Vinesh Phogat, who have been demanding that none from WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s family should be part of the new executive body. His son Karan Bhushan heads the Uttar Pradesh body while his son-in-law Vishal Singh heads the Bihar unit.

Minister Anurag Thakur had assured wrestlers that Bhushan’s kin and aides won’t contest.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

I love when people that have been through hell walk out of the flames carrying buckets of water for those still consumed by the fire. - Stephanie Sparkles

OFF TRACK

As the manager of the hospital's cricket team, a doctor was responsible for returning equipment to the proper owners at the end of the season. When he walked into the surgery department carrying a bat that belonged to one of the surgeons, he passed several patients and their families in a waiting area.

"Look, honey," one man said to his wife. "Here comes your anaesthesiologist."