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@Evening: 🚰 Impressive! Access To Water Is Improving Rapidly Across India
1. What's New: 📰 Catch-up
India’s crude oil import from Russia topped one million barrels per day in December 2022, for the first time ever.
Delhi Police arrested two terror suspects who had been tasked with identifying and assassinating right-wing leaders.
The Law Minister has suggested the inclusion of government representatives in the SC collegium, in a letter to CJI.
The NIA questioned senior Congress leader over Rs 10 lakh deposit made in a bank account linked to the family of a terror-accused.
India's oldest pending case has been finally settled, after 72 years.
2. Twitter Think: 💦 Great signs with access to water across India
ORF vice president (economic policy) Professor Shamika Ravi has illustrated how access to water is "improving rapidly across India."
In a tweet, Prof Ravi looked at what access to water looks like for the poorest households (20 per cent) in each state.
Turns out, Uttar Pradesh ran Delhi close, while Punjab, Kerala, Bihar, and Assam came up trumps.
It's notable, also, to see which states have longer arrows, denoting a more significant rise in access to water from 2014-15 to 2019-21.
Mizoram looks impressive with its leap among the small states, while Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka seem to have made good ground among the large states.
Much of this is thanks to the Jal Jeevan Mission.
Jal Jeevan Mission. The aim of this mission is to provide safe and sufficient drinking water to all households in rural India by 2024.
Clean tap water connection to over 10 crore rural households was a key achievement for the Jal Shakti Ministry last year.
In 2022, as many as 21,238,629 households got clean water tap connections, taking the total number of such rural households to 107,851,019.
A fully functional tap water connection is one where at least 55 litres of per capita per day of potable water is supplied all through the year.
3. Word Watch: 🔖 Anveshana, a coffee-table book from Indica
Anveshana is a book focused on vanavasi, sancharavasi, and gramavasi communities of India.
Born out of the Indica Culture Photography Grant 2021, it features the work of eight upcoming photographers from all over the country.
Eight indigenous communities are covered in the book.
The work was accomplished despite challenges imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
>> Anveshana is a "door to the vast subject of indigenous people in India and the opportunity that exists for others to become yaatris to discover the profundity that is embedded in India," said Indica director Dr Nagaraj Paturi at the book launch in Hyderabad on the evening of 12 January 2023.
The Indica Culture Photography Grant 2021 is an initiative of Indica Pictures.
Indica Pictures is a vertical, along with Chitraayana, within Indica, a non-profit organisation that's focused on reviving Indic civilisational values.
"Going beyond the ordinary, Anveshana will prompt curiosity and fuel a quest for meaning," says the publisher Notion Press.
🎧 Swarajya audiobook: The Battle of Rezang La
Let's return briefly to the winter of 1962.
A war up in the hills that India lost to China, but a battle that India did not lose.
This is the Battle of Rezang La, where 120 Indian soldiers of the Charlie Company, led by Param Vir Chakra Major Shaitan Singh, warded off nearly 5,000 Chinese troops, effectively fighting off possible Chinese occupation of the Ladakh region.
According to reports, a total of 1,300 Chinese soldiers were killed trying to capture Rezang La. And 110 soldiers were martyred on our side.
Many tales from the battle are told in a book by retired naval officer and author Kulpreet Yadav.
Yadav spent two decades as an officer and successfully commanded three ships over the span of his career. He retired as Commandant from the Indian Coast Guard in 2014.
Swarajya spoke to the author, Kulpreet Yadav, in connection with the legendary yet sadly little-known battle. If you want to give the audiobook a listen, do catch it sometime on our new-look app.
4. Photo Speaks: 🎂 28 years of INS Vidyut
INS Vidyut has been in service of India for 28 years, as of today.
"Commissioned in 1995, the ship is a Missile Vessel indigenously built at Goa Shipyard Limited," HQ Maharashtra Naval Area tweeted, along with two pictures of INS Vidyut.
The ship is part of the twenty-second missile vessel squadron based in Mumbai.
This squadron, also known as the killers squadron of the Indian Navy, was awarded the President’s Standard in December 2021.
The squad comprises missile vessels Prabal, Pralaya, Nashak, Nishank, Vipul, Vibhuti, Vinash, and Vidyut.
The year 2021 marked the fiftieth year of the killers squadron.
It remains at the forefront of India’s seaward defence on the western seaboard.
5. Culture Cutlet: 🙏 May Thiruvalluvar guide all
Pongal celebrations in mid-January accompany the observance of Thiruvalluvar Day every year.
PM Narendra Modi today tweeted his "homage to the wise Thiruvalluvar" and urged "the youth to read the Kural."
Kural is short for Thirukkural ("Sacred Couplets"), a classic Tamil text which offers wisdom on ethics, politics, economics, and love, written by the legendary Tamil poet and philosopher.
As a tribute, a majestic Thiruvalluvar statue stands tall at 133 feet in Kanyakumari, to mark the 133 sections of the Thirukkural.
The Thirukkural, considered an ancient Sangam literary work and among the greatest ever in Tamil literature, consists of 1,330 couplets.
The 1,330 couplets are further divided into 133 sections of 10 couplets each.
The first 38 sections talk about ethics, the next 70 about economics and politics, and the rest 25 are about love.
Introducing ElectionsHQ + 50 Ground Reports Project
The 2024 elections might seem easy to guess, but there are some important questions that shouldn't be missed.
Do freebies still sway voters? Do people prioritise infrastructure when voting? How will Punjab vote?
The answers to these questions provide great insights into where we, as a country, are headed in the years to come.
Swarajya is starting a project with an aim to do 50 solid ground stories and a smart commentary service on WhatsApp, a one-of-a-kind. We'd love your support during this election season.
Click below to contribute.
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