9th round of India-US Strategic Security Dialogue

 

News Flash

The two nations made the announcement through a joint statement that they are committed to strengthen bilateral security and civil nuclear cooperation, including the establishment of six American Nuclear Power Plant in India.

• India and the US signed a historic agreement to cooperate in civil nuclear energy sector in October 2008.
• India plans to triple its nuclear power generation capacity by 2024.

 

Commitments

• Work together to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
• Global security and nonproliferation challenges.
• Deny access to such weapons by terrorists and non-state actors.
• Strengthen bilateral security and civil nuclear cooperation.

 

Advantages of Nuclear Energy

• The generation of electricity through nuclear energy reduces the amount of energy generated from fossil fuels (carbon and petroleum). Less use of fossil fuels means lowering greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 and others).
• Another advantage of nuclear energy is the required amount of fuel: less fuel offers more energy.
• The production of electric energy is continuous. A nuclear power plant is generating electricity for almost 90% of annual time. It reduces the price volatility of other fuels such as petrol.
• Nuclear energy does not depend on natural aspects. It’s a solution for the main disadvantage of renewable energy, like solar energy, because the hours of sun or wind does not always coincide with the hours with more energy demand.
• It’s an alternative to fossil fuels, so the consumption of fuels such as coal or oil is reduced. This reduction of coal and oil consumption benefits the situation of global warming and global climate change. By reducing the consumption of fossil fuels we also improve the quality of the air affecting the disease and quality of life.

 

Nuclear Supplier Group

NSG was formed with the objective of averting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and preventing acts of nuclear terrorism. It is not a formal organization and its guidelines are not binding.

• In total NSG consists of 48 members’ nation including five nuclear weapon states (US, UK, France, China, Russia).
• India has not been able to secure membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group because of China’s veto.

In November 2010, U.S. President Barack Obama announced U.S. support for India’s participation in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Australia Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime.

• The United States reaffirmed its strong support of India’s early membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

 

Wassenaar Arrangement

The Wassenaar Arrangement, formally established in July 1996, is a voluntary export control regime whose 42 members exchange information on transfers of conventional weapons and dual-use goods and technologies. Through such exchanges, Wassenaar aims to promote “greater responsibility” among its members in exports of weapons and dual-use goods and to prevent “destabilizing accumulations. India joined as the 42nd participating state on 07 December 2017.

 

Missile Technology Control Regime

MTCR is a multilateral export control regime. It is an informal political understanding among 35 member states that seek to limit the proliferation of missiles and missile technology. The regime was formed in 1987 by the G-7 industrialized countries. MTCR aims at restricting the proliferation of missiles, complete rocket systems, unmanned air vehicles and related technology for those systems capable of carrying a 500 kilogram payload for at least 300 kilometers, as well as systems intended for the delivery of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). India joined on 27th of June 2016 adhering to the MTCR Guidelines unilaterally. MTCR membership will enable India to buy high-end missile technology and also enhance its joint ventures with Russia.

 

Australia Group

India in January 2018 joined the Australia Group saying that the membership will be mutually beneficial. The Australia Group is a multilateral export control regime (MECR) and an informal group of countries (now joined by the European Commission) established in 1985 (after the use of chemical weapons by Iraq in 1984) to help member countries to identify those exports which need to be controlled so as not to contribute to the spread of chemical and biological weapons.

 

Source: The Hindu businessline

 

 

Wetland of International Importance

 

News Flash

On January 30, the Indian Sundarban was accorded the status of ‘Wetland of International Importance’ under the Ramsar Convention. Sundarbans comprises hundreds of islands and a network of rivers, tributaries and creeks in the delta of the Ganga and the Brahmaputra at the mouth of the Bay of Bengal in India and Bangladesh.

 

Significance of Sundarbans

• Constitutes over 60% of the country’s total mangrove forest area.
• 27th Ramsar Site in India with an area of 4,23,000 hectares is now the largest protected wetland in the country.
• Sundarban is also home to a large number of rare and globally threatened species, such as the critically endangered northern river terrapin (Batagur baska), the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris), and the vulnerable fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus).
• Two of the world’s four horseshoe crab species, and eight of India’s 12 species of kingfisher are also found here.
• Recent studies claim that the Indian Sundarban is home to 2,626 faunal species and 90% of the country’s mangrove varieties.

 

Threats to the wetland

• Fishing and harvesting of aquatic resources as a “high impact” actual threat to the wetland.
• Dredging, oil and gas drilling.
• Logging and wood harvesting.
• Hunting and collecting terrestrial animals.
• Salinity has been categorised as a medium and tourism as a low impact actual threat in the region.

Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance It is an international agreement promoting the conservation and wise use of wetlands. The convention was adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971 and came into force in 1975. Importance of Wetlands  Provide freshwater and food. Serve as nature’s shock absorber. Wetlands, critical for biodiversity, are disappearing rapidly, with recent estimates showing that 64% or more of the world’s wetlands have vanished since 1900. Reasons for degradation: Land use for agriculture and grazing. Water diversion for dams and canals. Infrastructure development.

Source: Indian Express

 

 

Index of Industrial Production

 

News Flash

The latest Index of Industrial Production data demonstrate that output across the broad sector expanded 1.3% in January, an unmistakable loss of momentum from the 3% pace in December and a drastic slowdown from the 8.7% growth found in January 2018.

• Overall, industrial output growth slumped to 1.7% from 2.6% in December, 2018 and 7.5% a year earlier.
• Textiles, leather and related products, pharmaceuticals, rubber and plastic products, and motor vehicles, reported contractions hardly bodes well for the real economy.
• Capital goods contracted 3.2%, in a contrast with the 12.4% expansion posted 12 months earlier.
• Growth in consumer durables output was an anaemic 1.8% (7.6% in January 2018). The IIP poses cause for concern, retail inflation data hardly provide much reassurance.
• While price gains measured accelerated to a four-month high of 2.57% in February.
• Vegetables, fruits and pulses and products all posted negative rates of inflation from a year earlier, of –7.69%, – 4.62% and – 3.82% respectively. Because of this rural demand for manufactured goods will remain depressed unless there is a meaningful turnaround in the farm sector’s economic fortunes.

Immediate Challenges

• Saudi Arabia’s commitment to production cuts in order to keep crude oil prices well-supported India’s fuel and energy costs will not stay soft for much longer.
• Political parties spending in coming election days will quicken inflationary impulses.
• For now, though, with growth slowing and inflation still comfortably within the Reserve Bank’s 2%-6% target range, monetary policy makers would feel justified in pressing ahead with one more interest rate cut at their meeting next month.

 

IIP

The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is an index for India which details out the growth of various sectors in an economy such as mineral mining, electricity and manufacturing.

• The First IIP was published in 1950 by Office of Economic Advisor, Ministry of Commerce with base year 1937.
• Currently IIP data is released every month by CSO (Central Statistical Office) which was set up in 1951.
• IIP is calculated as the weighted average of production relatives of all the industrial activities.

 

Use of IIP

It helps us understand the growth of various sectors in the Indian economy such as mining, electricity and manufacturing.

Source: The Hindu

 

 

ITU’s innovation centre in India

 

News Flash

The United Nations’ telecom body International Telecommunication Union (ITU) plans to set-up its first ever innovation centre in India to incorporate technologies from South Asian countries and emerging economies in standards for technologies.

 

Aim

• Opportunity to Indian technology firms to make their case for being part of global standards.
• Adoption of technologies by small and medium businesses to enhance their productivity.
• Collaboration with firms in the region for joint research in the field of standardisation for 5G, artificial intelligence and upcoming new technologies

 

ITU

ITU is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies. Founded in 1865 to facilitate international connectivity in communications networks, we allocate global radio spectrum and satellite orbits, develop the technical standards that ensure networks and technologies seamlessly interconnect, and strive to improve access to ICTs to underserved communities worldwide. 

 

World Summit on the Information Society

The ITU was one of the UN agencies responsible for convening the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), along with UNESCO, UNCTAD and UNDP.[20] The Summit was held as two conferences in 2003 and 2005 in Geneva and Tunis, respectively, with the aim of bridging the digital divide.

 

World Conference on International Telecommunications

In December 2012, the ITU facilitated The World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 (WCIT-12) in Dubai. WCIT-12 was a treaty-level conference to address International Telecommunications Regulations, the international rules for telecommunications, including international tariffs. The previous conference to update the Regulations (ITRs) was held in Melbourne in 1988.

Source: Times of India

 

 

Importance of poverty estimations

 

News Flash

The lack of reliable data on deprivation may hurt policymaking and an informed debate on it. there is an absence of a debate on what happened to poverty after 2011-12. Information on poverty is complementary to the two current issues of job losses and agrarian crisis.

The survey on consumer expenditure, which was conducted along with the periodic labour force survey as part of the 75th round of NSSO surveys, is unlikely to be released soon. This government is going to polls without any information on what happened to poverty during its tenure.

 

Significance of Poverty Estimates

• For academic purposes.
• Crucial to gauge the impact of various government policies such as demonetization.
• Useful to understand the extent of the crisis in the rural economy.
• Consumer expenditure surveys are not only the crucial database on which poverty is estimated but also form the only database for estimating inequality.
• Unlike the employment-unemployment surveys there are no alternatives for consumption expenditure surveys.

The last committee on estimation of poverty, chaired by C. Rangarajan, was set-up after a furore on the poverty estimates of the Suresh Tendulkar committee under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. The Rangarajan committee submitted its report in July 2014. But there has been no information on whether the government has accepted or rejected the report. As a result, the Tendulkar poverty estimates for 2011-12 still remain the last estimate of poverty.

All rural development programmes and other fiscal transfers based on poverty estimates continue to rely on outdated estimates.

Rangrajan committee’s estimations : Poverty line is estimated as Monthly Per Capita Expenditure of Rs. 1407 in urban areas and Rs. 972 in rural areas. The Expert Group (Rangarajan) therefore estimates that the 30.9% of the rural population and 26.4% of the urban population was below the poverty line in 2011-12. The all-India ratio was 29.5%. In rural India, 260.5 million individuals were below poverty and in urban India 102.5 million were under poverty. Totally, 363 million were below poverty in 2011-12. The poverty ratio has declined from 39.6% in 2009-10 to 30.9% in 2011-12 in rural India and from 35.1% to 26.4% in urban India. The all-India poverty ratio fell from 38.2% to 29.5%. Totally, 91.6 million individuals were lifted out of poverty during this period.

 

	No. of Rural Poor	No. of Urban Poor	Total	Percent of Poor
Rangarajan Committee	260.5 million	102.5 million	363 million	29.5
Tendulkar Committee	216.5 million	52.8 million	269 million	21.9%
Difference	44 million	49.7 million	93.7 million

Source: The Hindu

 

 

 

ATTENTION

Geostrategic consequences of India’s air-strike in Pakistan’s territories

• India showed that it has a right to pre-emptive self-defence
• Delhi has made the other side conscious that its actions could produce unpredictable consequences. Ambiguity about future Indian responses to state-sponsored terror will persuade Pakistan to tread more carefully.
• Delhi has brought Pakistan’s patrons (the world powers and countries in neighbourhood) to consider more responsible and active roles in persuading it to restrain its destabilizing behaviour.

 

 

National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage

Niti Aayog CEO will head the National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage, which is being set up to promote clean and sustainable mobility initiatives in the country. Its objective is to propose and recommend policy guidelines and government interventions and possible strategies for holistic, sustainable and transformative mobility and energy storage in India.

 

 

Mercer’s Index

Global consulting firm Mercer has released its 21st edition of annual quality of living survey in which 231 cities across the globe were ranked based on various factors.

The Austrian capital Vienna has topped Mercer’s index of most liveable cities for the 10th year in a row. In second place was Zurich, followed in joint third place by Munich, Vancouver and Auckland. Baghdad was ranked last, followed by Bangui and Sanaa.

In India, Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu is ranked at 105 in Mercer’s Quality of Living Index and is the number one city from India. Bengaluru was the second best with the ranking of 149.