Arab League foreign ministers voted to readmit Syria into the organisation, after a suspension that lasted over a decade. 

About the Arab League -

Ø  The Arab League is an intergovernmental organisation (IGO), a voluntary association of independent African and Middle East countries whose peoples are mainly Arabic speaking.

Ø  It was formed in 1945 to promote cooperation and coordination among Arab countries.

Ø  It is headquartered at Cairo, Egypt. 

Member States —

Ø  The Arab League currently has 22 member states including Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, and the Palestinian Authority.

Ø  The League also has several observer countries, including Brazil, Eritrea, India, and Venezuela.

Goals —

Ø  To promote economic, cultural, and political cooperation among its member states;

Ø  To safeguard their independence and sovereignty, and to coordinate their efforts in matters of common interest, such as the resolution of regional conflicts and the promotion of peace and stability in the Middle East.

Criticism —

Ø  The League makes decisions on a majority basis, but there is no mechanism to compel members to comply with resolutions.

Ø  It has been criticised for its internal conflicts and collective inaction on important international issues.

Ø  It has long been criticised for disunity and poor governance.

Ø  Critics also say it has traditionally been more representative of its various autocratic regimes than of Arab citizens.

 Why Syria’s membership was suspended by the Arab League?

Ø  Syria's membership in the Arab League was suspended in 2011 after protests against President Bashar Assad turned violent.

Ø  Anti-government protests had erupted across the country as part of the Arab Spring uprisings.

Ø  These protests had killed nearly a half million people since March 2011 and displaced half of the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.

Ø  The league had imposed economic and political sanctions on Syria over its failure to stop the violence.

Syria readmitted to Arab League -

Ø  Recently, Arab government representatives voted to return Syria to the Arab League. The decision was taken at a closed meeting of Arab foreign ministers at the Arab League's  headquarters in Cairo.

Ø  All 13 of the 22 member states that attended the session endorsed the decision. The Arab League generally tries to reach agreements by consensus but sometimes opts for simple majorities.

What is the significance of this decision?

Move does not mean normalisation —

The reinstatement of Syria does not mean normalisation of relations between Arab countries and Syria.

This is a sovereign decision for each country to make.

Lack of consensus on the issue —

There is still no Arab consensus on normalisation with Damascus.

Some Arab states, including Qatar, have been opposed to normalising relations with Assad without a political solution to the conflict.

But others, like the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, have quietly re-established contact in recent years.

Commitments to a gradual resolution to the conflict — The decision for Syria to return also includes a commitment to ongoing dialogue with Arab governments to gradually reach a political solution to the conflict.

Both agricultural exports from and imports into India have scaled new highs in the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2023.

India’s latest farm exports -

Ø  Government data show the value of farm exports in April-December (9 months) 2022, at USD 39 billion. This is 7.9% higher than the USD 36.2 billion for the corresponding period of the previous year.

Ø  At this rate, the record USD 50.2 billion exports achieved in 2021-22 look set to be surpassed.

Ø  Key factors behind the increase in exports —

Ø  The two big contributors to India’s agri-export growth have been rice and sugar.

Ø  India in 2021-22 shipped out an all-time-high 21.21 million tonnes (mt) of rice valued at USD 9.66 billion.

Ø  Sugar exports hit a record value of USD 4.60 billion in 2021-22, as against USD 2.79 billion, USD 1.97 billion, USD 1.36 billion, and USD 810.90 million in the preceding four fiscals.

Ø  This fiscal has seen a further surge of 43.6%, from USD 2.78 billion in April-December 2021 to USD 3.99 billion in April-December 2022.

Ø  The exports of rice and sugar are well on course to touch, if not top, $11 billion and $6 billion respectively in 2022-23.

About Farm Imports -

Ø  Similar to exports, the imports are also growing.

Ø  The imports of agri produce stood at USD 27.8 billion in Apr-Dec 2022. This is a growth of 15.4% over the USD 24.1 bn for April-December 2021.

Ø  As a result, there has been a further shrinking of the surplus on the farm trade account.

Ø  The growth in imports has come mainly from three commodities –

Ø  The first is vegetable oils, whose imports shot up from USD 11.09 bn in 2020-21 to USD 18.99 bn in 2021-22. Imports meet roughly 60% of India’s vegetable oil requirements.

Ø  The other three commodities are cotton, cashew and spices.

Key factors behind the increase in Imports –

Ø  India’s cotton production has declined from 398 lakh bales in 2013-14 to a 12-year low of 307.05 lakh bales in 2021-22.

Ø  The effects of not allowing new genetic modification (GM) technologies after the firstgeneration Bt cotton are showing, and impacting exports as well.

Ø  A proactive approach is required in edible oils as well, where planting of GM hybrid mustard has been permitted with great reluctance.

What are the likely risk factors to India’s farm exports?

Ø  Agri-exports in the current fiscal could face headwinds from two sources –

Ø  International Prices – With two of the world’s largest exporters (Russia and Ukraine) of wheat and other crucial crops entering a second year of war, the food prices are likely to remain elevated.

Domestic Prices –

Ø  The second source is domestic, more specifically food inflation fears ahead of the 2024 national elections.

Ø  The Union government banned wheat exports last May.

Ø  This was followed by a ban on broken rice exports and the slapping of a 20% duty on all non-parboiled non-basmati shipments in September.

Ø  Exports of sugar have also stopped since this month’s start.

Government Initiatives to promote agricultural exports -

Ø  Promotion of exports of agricultural products is a continuous process.

Ø  To promote agricultural exports, the Government has taken several steps at State/District levels.

Agriculture Export Policy 2018 –

Ø  In order to boost farm exports, the Government introduced a comprehensive Agriculture Export Policy in 2018, with the following objectives –

Ø  To diversify our export basket, destinations and boost high-value and value-added agricultural exports including focus on perishables.

Ø  To promote novel, indigenous, organic, ethnic, traditional and non-traditional agri products exports.

Ø  To provide an institutional mechanism for pursuing market access, tackling barriers and deal with sanitary and phytosanitary issues.

Ø  To strive to double India's share in world agri exports by integrating with global value chain at the earliest.

Ø  To enable farmers to get benefit of export opportunities in overseas market.

Ø  District as Export Hub Initiative – Under the DEH initiative, products including agricultural products with export potential have been identified in all 733 districts across the country.

Transport and Marketing Assistance for Specified Agriculture Products –

Ø  It is a Central Sector Scheme.

Ø  It aims at providing assistance for the international component of freight to mitigate the freight disadvantage for the export of agriculture products.

Ø  Besides, Product specific Export Promotion Forums (EPF) for eight high potential agri products i.e., Grapes, Mango, Banana, Onion, Rice, Nutri-Cereals, Pomegranate, Floriculture & Plant material have been created.

After Jammu and Kashmir, lithium reserves have been traced in Rajasthan.

New Lithium Deposits:

Ø  As per the report by the State Government officials of Rajasthan, new lithium deposits were discovered in Rajasthan.

Ø  Officials have even alleged that the lithium reserves are higher than the ones recently found in Jammu and Kashmir and the quantity of lithium in Rajasthan can meet around 80% of India’s demand.

Ø  For the first time, lithium reserves were found in Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi in February this year. 

Lithium Metal

Ø  With three protons and the element symbol Li, lithium is the third element in the periodic table. The atomic mass of it is 6.941.

Ø  Two stable isotopes of lithium, lithium-6 and lithium-7, combine to form natural lithium.

Ø  Lithium is the lightest metal, making up more than 92% of the element’s natural abundance. Of all the metals, lithium has the lowest density.

Ø  The metal is stored under oil or enclosed in an inert atmosphere because it reacts with both air and water. It is challenging to put out a lithium fire because of the reaction with oxygen.

Ø  Lithium burns brightly red when it is ignited.

Ø  It was one of the three elements, along with hydrogen and helium, that were created during the big bang.

Ø  The element occurs naturally in the Earth’s crust in an abundance of about 0.0007%. 

Significance of Lithium

Ø  Lithium is a soft, shiny grey metal that can be found in the earth’s crust. Lithium is significant to India. Its capacity for energy has made it useful in a variety of industries, earning the nickname “white gold.”

Ø  The majority of the world’s lithium production in the future will go towards making the batteries that power electric vehicles and other modern appliances.

Ø  India is currently dependent on imports of lithium because it lacks its own lithium resources.

Ø  In fiscal 2022, India imported Lithium and Lithium ion worth almost ₹14,000 crore.

Ø  These reserves are uncommon.

Ø  India could become truly “Atmanirbhar” by utilising the potential of the lithium reserves in J&K, which would also help it achieve its goals for renewable energy while reducing its reliance on foreign nations.

Ø  Lithium is a key component of India’s plan to increase EV penetration by 30% by 2030. 

China’s Lithium Dominance

Although China is the world’s largest market for electric vehicles, it controls both the supply and demand side of the lithium industry. It also controls nearly 75% of the world’s production of cell components and battery cells. As a result, the spread of EVs may lead to India’s dependence on China, similar to how it is dependent on the Middle East for crude oil.

India, for the first time witnessed the rare aurora lights from Ladakh.

 India captures Northern lights:

Recently, the Indian Astronomical Observatory above Mount Saraswati captured a rare phenomenon: A geomagnetic storm which struck Earth’s magnetic field, causing the charged particles from the sun to collide with atoms and molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere.

These collisions result in “Aurora” or the northern or southern lights.

The regions where the aurora can be seen are Earth’s magnetic poles and regions near them.

The rare sightings from these sites are likely due to the fact that the Auroras extended to these lower latitudes, allowing people in these areas to witness the natural phenomenon.

Significance:

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