UK cedes Chagos Islands' sovereignty to Mauritius, keeps base; India hails deal

Britain agreed to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, an archipelago of over 60 islands in the Indian Ocean, to Mauritius, in a deal to secure the future of the strategically important UK-US military base on Diego Garcia, the largest in the chain of islands.

For the first time in over 50 years, the status of the base will be undisputed and legally secure, following a political agreement between the UK and Mauritius, a British government statement said. 

Govt sets aside ₹10,000 cr to boost edible oil production

The Centre approved the National Mission on Edible Oils-Oilseeds (NMEO-Oilseeds), with a financial outlay of 10,103 crore.

India is dependent on imports to meet 58 per cent of its edible oil requirements.

The NMEO-Oilseeds proposal was approved by the Union Cabinet, which met under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The newly approved NMEO-Oilseeds will focus on enhancing the production of key primary oilseed crops such as rapeseed-mustard, groundnut, soybean, sunflower, and sesamum, as well as increasing collection and extraction efficiency from secondary sources such as cottonseed, rice bran, and tree borne oils," said the statement. 

'Classical' tag for Pali, Prakrit, Marathi, Bengali & Assamese

The Union Cabinet approved a decade-old proposal to accord classical language status to Marathi. The government also named Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali as classical languages.

"The Union Cabinet has approved the status of classical language for Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali languages. The classical languages serve as a custodian of India's heritage, embodying the essence of a community's historical and cultural milestone."

Officials say even though the primary states involved are Maharashtra (Marathi), Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh (Pali and Prakrit), West Bengal (Bengali), and Assam (Assamese), the broader cultural and academic impact will extend nationally and internationally. -

Jaishankar is to meet the new Lanka President

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will pay an official visit to Sri Lanka and meet with the country's new leadership led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. This will be the first visit by a Foreign Minister since the Presidential polls.

Jaishankar's visit is expected to review ties between the two countries and look at the prospects under the new leadership in Colombo. 

This will be an opportunity for India to hear about Dissanayake's plans for Indian investments, views on regional security and his approach towards Tamil minority rights in the country among other issues.-

End caste bias in prisons, says SC, orders revision of rules in 3 months

The Supreme Court directed the Union government and states to ensure an end to caste-based discrimination in prisons, stating that the "the right to live with dignity extends even to the incarcerated".

It told states to remove rules in prison manuals that perpetuate caste discrimination and directed the Union government to introduce a provision prohibiting such bias in the Model Prisons Act of 2023, giving them a timeline of three months.

The ruling came on a plea that contended that caste-based discrimination continues to persist in prisons in a range of areas from division of manual labour and segregation of barracks to provisions that discriminate against "habitual offenders" and prisoners from denotified tribes. 

The plea was filed by journalist Sukanya Shanta, based on an article she had written. 

THE LONG ARM

The income tax department's crackdown on five NGOs, including one of the country's most respected public policy think tanks, the Centre for Policy Research, reeks of disquieting overreach. 

It is a heavy-handed bid to shrink spaces for free expression and civil society action in a democracy. 

As a report in this paper has shown, the "intimation letters" issued to the NGOs are loose and voluminous, straying far beyond the I-T department's remit. On the one hand, they seek to weaponise the rule book's fine print against the targeted NGOs. And, on the other, they indulge in free-style spectre-painting and broad-brush conspiracy-mongering. 

Bangladesh, Nepal, and India sign pact to facilitate cross-border power trade

Nepal, India and Bangladesh signed a long-awaited tripartite agreement to facilitate cross-border electricity trade, officials here said.

As per the agreement, Nepal will export its surplus electricity to Bangladesh via India annually during the rainy season, from June 15 to November 15.

Nepal will use India's transmission line to distribute electricity through its territory to Bangladesh. In the first phase, Nepal will export 40 MW of hydroelectricity to Bangladesh via Indian territory. 

India and the W Asian crisis

For the second time since April, Iran and Israel are on the brink of all-out war. Recently, Iran fired almost 200 missiles at Israel, which has vowed to respond.

India has high stakes in the West Asian region, and the Ministry of External Affairs has said "It is important that the conflict doesn't take a wider regional dimension and we urge that all issues be addressed through dialogue and diplomacy."-

Why the Chagos Islands matter, why the UK keeps Diego Garcia after the Mauritius deal

The UK said it would cede sovereignty of the strategically important Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

British Foreign Minister David Lammy said the deal settled the contested sovereignty of Britain's last overseas territory in Africa, while securing the long-term future of the Diego Garcia military base, jointly operated by the UK and the US.