23 APRIL 2016

Ø  Dolkun Isa, a German national of Uighur ethnicity who is in the middle of the latest diplomatic stand-off between India and China, has requested Indian and German authorities to ensure his safety during his next week’s visit to Dharamshala. Mr. Isa, a leader of the so-called World Uighur Congress, who has been declared a “terrorist” in China, said he was granted an electronic visa by India to attend a conference in Dharamshala. “My struggle is non-violent and I wish to engage Indian politicians and activists during the visit,” Mr. Isa told The Hindu from Germany on the phone. Beijing was quick to protest. “Dolkun Isa is a terrorist on red notice of Interpol and the Chinese police. Bringing him to justice is a due obligation of relevant countries,” Hua Chunying, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said without naming India. However, Vikas Swarup, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, was cautious. He said the MEA was yet to “ascertain” the details of the conference. “As you know, the conference is not being organised by the MEA. So we are yet to have full details of the event,” he said. The WUC is a member of the Unrepresented Nations and People’s Organisation (UNPO), founded in 1991 in The Hague, according to the UNPO website. The Dharamshala conference is being organised by the Citizen Power of China, an organisation based in the U.S.

Ø  India’s own Regional Navigation Satellite System, the IRNSS, is all set to be completed in space next week when the seventh and last of its spacecraft gets placed in orbit. The 1,425-kg spacecraft, IRNSS-1G, will be launched at 12.50 p.m. on April 28, Indian Space Research Organisation said. IRNSS will be to the subcontinent what the U.S. Global Positioning System, GPS, is to its users worldwide, but with far greater precision and in Indian control, according to ISRO. It will drive both everyday uses as a 24/7 standard service for air, sea, ship transport and will also be used for missile-related applications as an encrypted and restricted service. IRNSS-1G is slated to be launched from the PSLV-C33 from Sriharikota and will be the 35th PSLV flight in the last two decades. An ISRO official said over the next three to six months, all the IRNSS satellites in the fleet would be stabilised as a constellation, their signals and performance verified and later put to use. The fleet has two spare satellites ready in case of an emergency, a full-fledged ground control centre in Bengaluru and tracking stations across the country. The constellation has been in the making since July 2013 when the IRNSS-1A was launched.

Ø  It is not just Kohinoor — nine other famous diamonds left the shores of India and these are now displayed in museums in Washington, Moscow, Paris and Istanbul besides forming a part of the Iranian crown jewels. The precious nine, all categorised as legendary diamonds and mined by the Qutub Shahis of the Deccan, are the Hope Diamond, Hortensia, Darya-i-Noor, Noor-ul-Ain, Orlov (also called Orlof), Regent, Sancy, Shah Diamond and Spoonmaker's, says V. Madhavan, who worked as a Professor of Geology in Kakatiya University. While the 45.5 carat Hope diamond is currently on display at the Smithsonian in Washington DC, the 190 carat Orlov diamond, a bluish-green gem, is now part of Moscow’s Diamond Treasury. On the other hand, the 140.6 carat Regent, 55.2 carat Sancy and 20 carat Hortensia are now at the Louvre museum in Paris. Two pink diamonds, the 182 carat Darya-i-Noor and 60 carat Noor-ul-Ain are part of the Iranian crown jewels while the 88.7 carat Shah Diamond and 86 carat Spoonmaker's are housed in the Diamond Fund of the Kremlin and Topkapi Palace in Istanbul respectively.

Ø  When U.S. President Barack Obama arrived in Riyadh on Wednesday to attend a regional summit of Gulf leaders, he was welcomed by the local governor, not by King Salman Bin Abd al-Aziz himself. Given that the monarch personally welcomed other leaders who arrived for the summit, this is a strong indicator of the deep rift in the U.S.-Saudi alliance. The visit was positioned as a major diplomatic outreach to the kingdom by Mr. Obama, perhaps his last as the President, to allay concerns about Washington’s approach towards Iran and other contentious issues such as the civil war in Syria. But it turned out to be a low-key affair with both sides holding on to their respective positions. This is not the first awkward moment in the over 70-year-old U.S.-Saudi alliance. On the face of it, relations are riddled with contradictions. One is a democracy that has even embedded human rights issues into foreign policy actions. The other is a closed society ruled by a conservative, authoritarian family. But economic and strategic interests — the U.S.’s dependence on the Gulf for oil, the fight against Soviet communism and the war on terror — had helped both countries set aside these contradictions and build a strong partnership based on trust. Of late, with the region witnessing massive changes, this partnership has come under enormous strain.

Ø  A group of wildlife photographers and biologists in India have reported sighting of a new species of primate, the White-Cheeked Macaque, in Arunachal Pradesh.

Ø  Anil Ambani-led Reliance Defence and Engineering Limited (RDEL), formerly known as Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering Company Limited, intends to augment long-term resources by making a rights issue of equity shares aggregating up to Rs. 1,200 crore.