Amar Jawan Jyoti now merged with War Memorial flame: govt.
Two States plan to revive Saraswati river
UNESCO tag sought for root bridges
GS-2
The ground rules of ‘the one land of many’
GS-3
People can soon invest in infra projects: Gadkari
All set for tiger count at Bandipur, Nagarahole
Stop import of Iranian apples: dealers to Ministry
Amar Jawan Jyoti now merged with War Memorial flame: govt.
The government has put out the eternal flame of the Amar Jawan Jyoti underneath India Gate and merged it with the one instituted at the National War Memorial in 2019 a few hundred meters away.
What was the Amar Jawan Jyoti and why was it constructed?
The eternal flame at the Amar Jawan Jyoti underneath India Gate in central Delhi was an iconic symbol of the nation’s tributes to the soldiers who have died for the country in various wars and conflicts since Independence.
Established in 1972, it was to mark India’s victory over Pakistan in the 1971 War, which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had inaugurated it on Republic Day 1972, after India defeated Pakistan in December 1971._nbsp;
The key elements of the Amar Jawan Jyoti included a black marble plinth, a cenotaph, which acted as a tomb of the unknown soldier. The plinth had an inverted L1A1 self-loading rifle with a bayonet, on top of which was a soldier’s war helmet. The installation had four urns on it, with four burners. On normal days one of the four burners were kept alive, but on important days like the Republic Day, all four burners were lit. These burners were what is called the eternal flame, and it was never allowed to be extinguished.
How was the eternal flame kept burning?
For 50 years the eternal flame had been burning underneath India Gate, without being extinguished. But on Friday, the flame was finally put off, as it was merged with another eternal flame at the National War Memorial.
Since 1972, when it was inaugurated, it used to be kept alive with the help of cylinders of liquified petroleum gas, or LPG. One cylinder could keep one burner alive for a day and a half.
In 2006 that was changed. Though a project that cost around Rs 6 lakh the fuel for the flames was changed from LPG to piped natural gas, or PNG. It is through this piped gas that the flame marking the tribute to Indian soldiers had been kept alive eternally.
Why was it placed at India Gate?
The India Gate, All India War Memorial, as it was known earlier, was built by the British in 1931. It was erected as a memorial to around 90,000 Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army, who had died in several wars and campaigns till then. The inscription on the monument reads:
“TO THE DEAD OF THE INDIAN ARMIES WHO FELL AND ARE HONOURED IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS MESOPOTAMIA AND PERSIA EAST AFRICA GALLIPOLI AND ELSEWHERE IN THE NEAR AND THE FAR-EAST AND IN SACRED MEMORY ALSO OF THOSE WHOSE NAMES ARE HERE RECORDED AND WHO FELL IN INDIA OR THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER AND DURING THE THIRD AFGHAN WAR.”
Names of more than 13,000 dead soldiers are mentioned on the memorial commemorating them.
As it was a memorial for the Indian soldiers killed in wars, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was established underneath it by the government in 1972.
Why has it been Extinguished?
There are several reasons that have been mentioned by officials. Since the political controversy broke out government sources have claimed, giving a “correct perspective” that the flame will not be extinguished, but just moved to be merged with the one at the National War Memorial. Sources said that the eternal flame paid homage to the soldiers killed in the 1971 War, but does not mention their name, and the India Gate is a “symbol of our colonial past”.
“The names of all Indian martyrs from all the wars, including 1971 and wars before and after it are housed at the National War Memorial. Hence it is a true tribute to have the flame paying tribute to martyrs there.”
Defence establishment officials said that once the National War Memorial came up in 2019, Indian political and military leaders and foreign dignitaries pay their tributes to the fallen soldiers at the National War Memorial, which used to happen at the Amar Jawan Jyoti earlier. With this change it was felt that two flames were not needed, even though when the National War Memorial was built officials had categorically stated that both the flames will be kept alive.
But another reason is that the Amar Jawan Jyoti was etched so strongly in the emotional psyche of the country that the new war memorial did not get the attention as the government had expected, and the government wants to promote the new memorial it built in 2019. Further, it can also be seen as part of the government’s redevelopment of the entire Central Vista, of which India Gate, the Amar Jawan Jyoti and the National War Memorial are parts of.
Along with moving the flame, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Friday morning that the canopy next to the India Gate will get a statue of the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. The new statue will be 28 feet high. Till the statue is completed, Modi said that a hologram statue of Bose will be placed under the canopy, which he will unveil on January 23. The canopy used to have a statue of Kind George V, which was removed in 1968.
What is the National War Memorial and when was it made?
The National War Memorial, which is around 400 meters from India Gate was inaugurated by Modi in February 2019, in an area of around 40 acres. It was built to commemorate all the soldiers who have laid down their lives in the various battles, wars, operations and conflicts of Independent India. There are many independent memorials for such soldiers, but no memorial existed commemorating them all at the national level.
Discussions to build such a memorial had been ongoing since 1961, but it did not come up. In 2015, the Modi-led government approved its construction, and the location east of the India Gate at C Hexagon was finalised. The final design of the memorial was selected through a competition.
The architecture of the memorial is based on four concentric circles.
Largest is the Raksha Chakra or the Circle of Protection which is marked by a row of trees, each of which represent soldiers, who protect the country.
The Tyag Chakra, the Circle of Sacrifice, has circular concentric walls of honour based on the Chakravyuh. The walls have independent granite tablets for each of the soldiers who have died for the country since Independence.
As of today, there are 26,466 names of such soldiers on these granite tablets etched in golden letters. A tablet is added every time a soldier is killed in the line of duty.
This Veerta Chakra, the Circle of Bravery, has a covered gallery with six bronze crafted murals depicting the battles and actions of our Armed Forces.
The final is the Amar Chakra, the Circle of Immortality, which has an obelisk, and the Eternal Flame. The flame from the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate will be merged with this flame, which has been kept burning since 2019 when the memorial was unveiled. The flame is a symbol of the immortality of the spirit of the fallen soldiers, and a mark that the country will not forget their sacrifice.
Busts of the 21 soldiers who have been conferred with the highest gallantry award of the country, Param Vir Chakra, are also installed at the memorial.
Two States plan to revive Saraswati river
In an attempt to revive the Saraswati river, the Haryana and Himachal Pradesh governments on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the construction of a dam in Himachal Pradesh in 77 acres, near the Adi Badri area of Haryana’s Yamuna Nagar district.
The MoU was signed in the presence of Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur and his Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal for the rejuvenation of the Saraswati river at an estimated cost of ?215.35 crore.
Mr. Thakur said the dam would not only revive the Saraswati river but also help in water conservation in the region. The project would also be of use for Himachal Pradesh as 3.92 hectare metres water per annum would be earmarked for the State for its drinking water requirements, and 57.96 hectare metres for irrigation water demand in project-affected habitations, he added.
He said that both the governments would be free to develop tourism projects as well as any other infrastructure facilities that may be required for the welfare and development of local people from their own resources, without compromising the primary objectives of the project.
Significance of this Project
Haryana CM Manohar Lal said that with the construction of the dam, the Saraswati river would flow throughout the year with 20 cusecs water all the time. “The course of the Ghaggar river is believed to be the course of the Saraswati river. This project would go a long way in the promotion of tourism activities in the area with the joint efforts of the Governments of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh,” he said, adding that with the completion of the project, ground water would also get recharged.
Mr. Lal said that the Adi Badri Dam Construction Monitoring Committee had been constituted for planning, supervising, and monitoring the dam works.
UNESCO tag sought for root bridges
The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) has underlined some green rules for the living root bridges of Meghalaya to get the UNESCO World Heritage Site tag.
Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma pitched for UNESCO recognition as the hill State marked its 50th year of creation. Meghalaya has been celebrating its Statehood Day on January 21 since 1972.
What is a Living Root Bridge System
A living root bridge is like a suspension bridge formed by guiding the pliable roots of the rubber fig tree (Ficus elastica) across a stream or river and allowing the roots to grow and strengthen over time. There are no records to suggest when the Khasi community started the living root bridge tradition, but ecologists say it highlights the symbiotic relationship between people and nature. Such a bridge is locally called jingkieng jri.
ZSI Director Dhriti Banerjee said faunal diversity and the preparation of health cards would be the prerequisites for Meghalaya’s living root bridges to earn the UNESCO tag.
The State government had a few days ago organised a national convention and a preparatory field visit of ZSI scientists to assess the community and science-based conservation, research and development of the living root bridges.
The ground rules of ‘the one land of many’
(Editorial: Just focus on Bolden and Highlights, read rest for context)
This month we celebrate another Republic Day, the 72nd anniversary of the entry into force of our Constitution. In so doing we reaffirm the essence of Indian nationalism, reified in a constitution adopted after almost three years of debate, and in the process implicitly salute the ‘idea of India’ that emerged from both the nationalist movement and its institutionalization in the Republic.
A gift and a vision
The idea of India as a modern nation based on a certain conception of human rights and citizenship, vigorously backed by due process of law, and equality before law, is a gift of the Constitution.
Earlier conceptions of India drew their inspiration from mythology and theology. The modern idea of India, despite the mystical influence of Tagore, and the spiritual and moral influences of Gandhiji, is a robustly secular and legal construct based upon the vision and intellect of our founding fathers, notably (in alphabetical order) Ambedkar, Nehru, and Patel.
The Preamble of the Constitution itself is the most eloquent enumeration of this vision. In its description of the defining traits of the Indian republic, and its conception of justice, of liberty, of equality and fraternity, it firmly proclaims that the law will be the bedrock of the national project.
To my mind, the role of liberal constitutionalism in shaping and undergirding the civic nationalism of India is the dominant strand in the broader story of the evolution and modernization of Indian society over the last century.
Constitution: To Constitute
The principal task of any Constitution is to constitute: that is, to define the rules, the shared norms, values and systems under which the state will function and the nation will evolve. The way in which the ideals embedded in that document were implemented and evolved, in a spirit of civic nationalism, through the first seven and a half decades of India’s independence, have determined the kind of country we are.
To shape a new citizen
Every society has an interdependent relationship with the legal systems that govern it, which is both complex and, especially in our turbulent times, continuously and vociferously contested.
It is through this interplay that communities become societies, societies become civilisations, and civilisations acquire a sense of national and historical character. The Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constituent Assembly, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, not only understood this but explicitly hoped the Constitution would help shape a new kind of citizen.
‘I do not want that our loyalty as Indians should be in the slightest way affected by any competitive loyalty,’ said the great constitutionalist, ‘whether that loyalty arises out of our religion, out of our culture or out of our language. I want all people to be Indians first, Indian last and nothing else but Indians.’
This was a greater challenge than it might have been in another country than India. It was not just the elements he mentioned — religion, culture and language — that divided Indians and seemed to fly in the face of an idea of shared citizenship.
There was, as Ambedkar knew all too well, the dark shadow of caste and social hierarchy. ‘In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions?’ Ambedkar famously asked.
Note: These Quotes can appear in Essay Paper of Mains, so read, remember and form opinions in notes.
Incorporating the underclass
Ambedkar’s eloquent assault on discrimination and untouchability for the first time cogently expanded the reach of the Indian idea to incorporate the nation’s vast, neglected underclass. Ambedkar — a product of Columbia University and the London School of Economics, and principal of the prestigious Government Law College in Bombay — was deeply troubled by the iniquities of the caste system and the fear of many Dalits that national independence would merely lead to the social and political dominance of the upper castes. As an opponent of caste tyranny, and a nationalist, he believed that Dalits must support India’s freedom from British rule but that they must pursue their struggle for equal rights within the framework of the new constitution that he had a major hand in drafting.
Despite his own pessimism, Ambedkar’s solution has worked. As I had pointed out in this space, the most important contribution of the Constitution to Indian civic nationalism was that of representation centred on individuals. The establishment of a constitutional democracy in post-colonial India involved an attempt to free Indians from prevailing types of categorisation, and to place each citizen in a realm of individual agency that went beyond the immutable identity conferred by birth. In the process the Constitution transcended all those identities that both defined and divided Indians.
The Constitution provided a legal structure to an implicit idea of India as of one land embracing many. It reflected the idea that a nation may incorporate differences of caste, creed, colour, culture, cuisine, conviction, consonant, costume, and custom, and still rally around a democratic consensus. That consensus is around the simple principle that in a democracy under the rule of law, you do not really need to agree all the time — except on the ground rules of how you will disagree. The reason India has survived all the stresses and strains that have beset it for three quarters of a century (and that led so many in the 1950s and 1960s to predict its imminent disintegration), is that it maintained consensus on how to manage without consensus. Today, some in positions of power in India seem to be questioning those ground rules, and that, sadly, is why it is all the more essential to reaffirm them now.
The rule of law
Indian nationalism is thus the nationalism of an idea, the idea of what I have dubbed an ever-ever land — emerging from an ancient civilization, united by a shared history, sustained by pluralist democracy under the rule of law. What knits this entire concept of Indian nationhood together is, of course, the rule of law, enshrined in our Constitution.
The struggle for Indian independence was, after all, not simply a struggle for freedom from alien rule. It was a shift away from an administration of law and order centred on imperial despotism. It is from this that the idea of ‘constitutional morality’ was born, meaning a national commitment to pursuing desirable ends through constitutional means, to upholding and respecting the Constitution’s processes and structures, and to doing so in a spirit of transparency and accountability, free speech, public scrutiny of government actions and legal limitations on the exercise of power. This was how freedom was intended to flourish in India.
The Constitution’s spirit
Of course, Ambedkar realized it is perfectly possible to pervert the Constitution, without changing its form, by merely changing the form of the administration to make it inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution. Ambedkar argued that constitutional morality ‘is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realize that our people have yet to learn it. Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic’. He insisted that the Directive Principles — an unusual feature of the Indian Constitution not found elsewhere — were necessary because although the rules of democracy mandated that the people must elect those who will hold power, the principles confirmed that ‘whoever captures power will not be free to do what he likes with it’.
To recall these basic principles today is to recognise how far we are currently straying from them, and the dangers inherent in the present government’s practice of paying lip-service to the Constitution while trampling on its spirit. This Republic Day, as we gear up to commemorate the 75th anniversary of our Independence a little over six months later, we must remind ourselves of, and rededicate ourselves to, the ideals that lie behind the Constitution whose entry into force we all celebrate on January 26.
People can soon invest in infra projects: Gadkari
The Union government is awaiting approval of the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for enabling common citizens to invest at least ?1 lakh in infrastructure projects under a new model for asset monetisation, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Friday.
“Most of the pension funds and foreign investors are investing in the projects. But we should take the cooperation of Indian people, particularly those who can invest minimum ?1 lakh in road projects, for which we have already developed a new model. We are awaiting approval from SEBI so that the common man can invest in NHAI (National Highways Authority of India). We are trying to give him an assured income of 7.5% to 8%,”
“My interest is to give benefit to the poor people of this country, who can invest in their economy, because in India we have problems in pension, insurance and share economy. For that reason, if small people can invest in infrastructure and get 7.5% to 8% interest, it can be a great thing for them to contribute to infrastructure development and at the same time benefit from that,” the Minister said.
Speaking about the upcoming Union Budget, Mr. Gadkari said he was hopeful that the proposals will expedite the growth of the Indian economy to make it the largest economy in the world.
Advice to industry
Mr. Gadkari said that Indian industry and entrepreneurs should seize the opportunity arising from the “problems” facing China and “go for more exports” riding on the back of talent, availability of raw materials, power, and good infrastructure, to make the economy strong.
Stressing that agriculture was the “most important priority” of the government, he outlined several initiatives taken, which will create more jobs in rural, tribal and 120 aspiring districts.
Ethanol production
India’s ethanol production is currently 400 crore litres. This year, it’s likely to go up to 550 crore litres as against a basic requirement of 4,000 crore litres.
The government, Mr. Gadkari said, was working on biofuel and alternate fuel to save on India’s huge oil import bill, besides acting as a bulwark for the greening of the automobile industry.
Flex engines
“We have taken a decision to use flex engines in two, three and four wheelers,” Mr. Gadkari said. Flex engines can use petrol or bio ethanol, which will reduce the demand for petrol, he said, adding that automobile manufacturers are in a position to launch flex engine vehicles in the market.
Vehicle Scrappage
On vehicle scrappage, the Minister said that the country needs at least one scrapping centre in each district and two-three centres in some of districts.
The most important part of the scrapping policy is that it will reduce the import of aluminium and copper. “By scrapping, we can get steel, aluminium and copper at very low rates by which we can reduce the cost of components by 25-30%. That is a great advantage to Indian automobile industry,” Mr. Gadkari said.
All set for tiger count at Bandipur, Nagarahole
(Not very important just revise NP and TR in Karnataka)
All set for tiger count at Bandipur, Nagarahole
(Not very important just revise NP and TR in Karnataka)
Bandipur and Nagarahole lead in tiger numbers in the State followed by BRT Tiger Sanctuary, Bhadra and Kali tiger reserves, as per the ‘Status of Tigers, Co-predators, and Prey in India’ released on Tuesday.
In terms of density, Nagarahole has 11.82 tigers per 100 sq.km, while Bandipur has 7.7 tigers per 100 sq.km. BRT has 4.96 tigers per 100 sq.km and Bhadra has a relatively low tiger density pegged at 2.86 in the same area.
Other forests and sanctuaries where tiger presence has been found in significant numbers include M.M. Hills Wildlife Sanctuary, Madikeri Wildlife Division, Madikeri Territorial Division, Virajpet Territorial Division, Koppa Wildlife Division, and Haliyal Forest Division which is part of Joida taluk of Uttara Karnataka district, among others.
Stop import of Iranian apples: dealers to Ministry
A joint forum of apple dealers from Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand chapters has written a letter to the Ministry of Agriculture to stop “the illegal sale of Iranian apples which is posing quarantine pest threat” to local apple producing regions of the country.
“We demand an immediate ban should be imposed on the import of apples from Iran and the duty for other imported apples be raised to 100% with a minimum billing of $1/kg for calculation of duty to avoid dumping of produce in our country,” reads the joint letter submitted to Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar.
According to apple dealers of these three regions, fresh fruit traders have started to import Iran’s fresh apples unlike last year and have started to dump them in the Indian market “at unexpected prices by adopting a different strategy by heavily under-invoicing the bills, thereby reducing the impact of import duty”.
This, according to dealers, in spite of Iranian apples posing “a greater threat to our country’s apples after quarantine pest Aspidiotus Nerii and non-quarantine pest Aonidiella Aurantii were detected from kiwi consignments from Iran in December last year.”
According to the letter, the experts at the Sher-i-Kashmir Agriculture University and Science Technology (SKUAST), Srinagar, have made it clear that if such pests enter the territory of any apple producing State it would be a catastrophe for the local farmers.
