Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Challenges in securing RCEP
Asian centrality
- China’s response is a ‘dual circulation’ strategy for self-reliance and military-technological prowess to surpass the U.S.
- The global governance role of the U.S. is already reduced.
- The U.S. now exercises power with others, not over them.
- Despite its military ‘pivot’ to Asia, the U.S. needs India in the Quad, to counterbalance the spread of China’s influence through land-based trade links.
- India, like others in the Quad, has not targeted China and also has deeper security ties with Russia.
- With the ASEAN ‘code of conduct’ in the South China Sea, both the security and prosperity pillars of the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific construct will be adversely impacted.
- Leveraging proven digital prowess to complement the infrastructure of China’s Belt and Road Initiative will win friends as countries value multi-polarity.
Atmanirbhar Bharat and Challenges
- ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ will leverage endogenous technological strength, data and population.
- With the Rafale aircraft purchase, India has recognised that there will be no technology transfer for capital equipment.
- Military Theatre Commands should be tasked with border defence giving the offensive role to cyber, missile and special forces based on endogenous capacity, effectively linking economic and military strength.
- The overriding priority should be infrastructure including electricity and fibre optic connectivity; self-reliance in semiconductors, electric batteries and solar panels; and skill development.
Conclusion
There are compelling geopolitical and economic reasons for shaping the building blocks of the Asia-led order, which is not yet China-led, to secure an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, and place in the emerging triumvirate.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Gulf countries
Mains level: Paper 2- New possibilities in cooperation with the Gulf countries
The Gulf region offers new possibilities of cooperation to India. The article explains these possibilities.
Context
- External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s visit to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recently is a good moment to reflect on the structural changes taking place in the Gulf and the region’s growing influence in the Indian Ocean.
Issues in approach towards the region
- For decades, India’s mercantilism saw the Gulf as a source of oil and a destination for labour exports.
- India’s bureaucratic approach to the Gulf was incapable of a political engagement with the region’s interests.
- The Indian elite has long viewed the Gulf as a collection of extractive petro-states run by conservative feudatories.
- Although the Gulf kingdoms were eager to build strong and independent political ties with India without a reference to Islamabad, India viewed them through the prism of Pakistan.
Influence in the Indian Ocean
- Delhi’s traditional focus in the Indian Ocean was riveted on Mauritius and the large Indian diaspora there.
- P.M.s visit to Mauritius and Seychelles in March 2015 saw the articulation of a long-overdue Indian Ocean policy and an acknowledgement of the strategic significance of the island states.
- Since then, India has brought Madagascar and Comoros along with Mauritius and Seychelles into the Indian Ocean Division.
- India also unveiled a maritime strategic partnership with France, a resident and influential power in the Western Indian Ocean.
- Earlier this year, Delhi became an observer at the Indian Ocean Commission — the regional grouping that brings France’s island territory of Reunion together with Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, and Seychelles.
- India has also become an observer to the Djibouti Code of Conduct — a regional framework for cooperation against piracy between the states of the Gulf, the Horn of Africa and East Africa.
5 Areas of new possibilities with the Gulf
1) Protecting India’s interests
- First is the immediate need to shield India’s interests in the post-pandemic turbulence that is enveloping the region.
- As the Gulf considers cutting back on foreign labour, Delhi would want to make sure its workers in the region are insulated.
- Delhi is also eager to improve the working conditions of its large labour force — close to eight million — in the Gulf.
2) New and long-term economic cooperation
- As the Gulf looks at a future beyond oil, they have embarked on massive economic diversification and are investing in a variety of new projects including renewable energy, higher education.
- India must get its businesses to focus on the range of new opportunities in the Gulf.
- India also needs to tap into the full possibilities of Gulf capital for its own economic development.
3) Financial power translating into political influence
- The Gulf’s financial power is increasingly translating into political influence shaping political narrative in the Middle East.
- The influence has been manifest in their successful transformation of the debate on Arab relations with Israel.
4) Influence on regional conflicts
- The Gulf’s ability to influence regional conflicts from Afghanistan to Lebanon and from Libya to Somalia has increased.
- The Gulf today delivers economic and security assistance to friendly states.
- The UAE currently chairs the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and has been eager to work with India in developing joint infrastructure projects.
- India needs to bring scale and depth to its regional initiatives on connectivity and security in the Indian Ocean.
5) Reforms taking place in the region
- The Gulf seek to reduce the heavy hand of religion on social life, expand the rights of women, widen religious freedoms, promote tolerance, and develop a national identity that is not tied exclusively to religion.
- The UAE has been the leader in this regard.
Consider the question “India’s engagement with the Gulf countries has been limited in several aspects. However, the region offers new possibilities of strategic and cooperation to India. Evaluate these possibilities.”
Conclusion
As India seeks to recalibrate it’s ties with the Gulf, the real challenge for South Block is to get the rest of the Indian establishment to discard outdated perceptions of the Gulf and seize the new strategic possibilities with the region.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Chang E probe
Mains level: Various lunar missions and their success
China is preparing to launch an unmanned spacecraft to bring back lunar rocks, the first attempt by any nation to retrieve samples from the moon in four decades.
Try this PYQ:
Q.What do you understand by the term Aitken basin:
(a) It is a desert in the southern Chile which is known to be the only location on earth where no rainfall takes place
(b) It is an impact crater on the far side of the Moon
(c) It is a Pacific coast basin, which is known to house large amounts of oil and gas
(d) It is a deep hyper saline anoxic basin where no aquatic animals are found
Chang’e-5 Probe
- The Chang’e-5 probe, named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess, aims to shovel up lunar rocks and soil to help scientists learn about the moon’s origins, formation and volcanic activity on its surface.
- The goal of the mission is to land in the Mons Rumker region of the moon, where it will operate for one lunar day, which is two weeks long.
- It will collect 2 kg of surface material from a previously unexplored area known as Oceanus Procellarum — or “Ocean of Storms” — which consist of vast lava plain.
- The original mission, planned for 2017, was delayed due to an engine failure in China’s Long March 5 launch rocket.
- If successful, China will be only the third country to have retrieved samples from the moon, following the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s.
Significance of the mission
- As per the Lunar and Planetary Institute, rocks found on the Moon are older than any that have been found on Earth and therefore they are valuable in providing information about the Earth and the Moon’s shared history.
- Lunar samples can help to unravel some important questions in lunar science and astronomy, including the Moon’s age, its formation, the similarities and differences between the Earth and the Moon’s geologic features.
- For instance, the shape, size, arrangement and composition of individual grains and crystals in a rock can tell scientists about its history, while the radioactive clock can tell them the rock’s age.
- Further, tiny cracks in rocks can tell them about the radiation history of the Sun in the last 100,000 years.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Tropical cyclones
Mains level: Frequent landfalls of tropical cyclones in India
A developing cyclonic disturbance in the Bay of Bengal is expected to become a ‘severe cyclonic storm’ and make landfall in Tamil Nadu.
Cyclone Nivar
- The IMD has forecasted the development of a cyclone in the Southwest region of the Bay of Bengal, off Tamil Nadu coast.
- It has said that it will strengthen into a cyclone. Once intensified, it would acquire its name ‘Nivar’, proposed by Iran.
- After cyclone Gaja in 2018, this will be the second cyclone to cross Tamil Nadu in the last two years.
Try this PYQ:
In the South Atlantic and South-Eastern Pacific regions in tropical latitudes, cyclone does not originate. What is the reason?
(a) Sea surface temperatures are low
(b) Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone seldom occurs
(c) Coriolis force is too weak
(d) Absence of land in those regions
Tropical Cyclone
- A Tropical cyclone is an intense circular storm that originates over warm tropical oceans and is characterized by low atmospheric pressure, high winds, and heavy rain.
- Cyclones are formed over slightly warm ocean waters. The temperature of the top layer of the sea, up to a depth of about 60 meters, need to be at least 28°C to support the formation of a cyclone.
- This explains why the April-May and October-December periods are conducive for cyclones.
- Then, the low level of air above the waters needs to have an ‘anticlockwise’ rotation (in the northern hemisphere; clockwise in the southern hemisphere).
- During these periods, there is an ITCZ in the Bay of Bengal whose southern boundary experiences winds from west to east, while the northern boundary has winds flowing east to west.
- Once formed, cyclones in this area usually move northwest. As it travels over the sea, the cyclone gathers more moist air from the warm sea which adds to its heft.
Must read:
[Burning Issue] Tropical Cyclones and India
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Mt. Vesuvious, volacanic landforms
Mains level: Not Much
The Italian Culture Ministry announced the discovery of well-preserved remains of two men, who perished during the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Consider the following statements:
- The Barren Island volcano is an active volcano located in the Indian Territory.
- Barren Island lies about 140 km east of Great Nicobar.
- The last time the Barren Island volcano erupted was in 1991 and it has remained inactive since then.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 3 only
(d) 1 and 3 only
Mount Vesuvius
- Located in southern Italy near the coastal city of Naples, the 4,203-ft (1,281 metres) tall Vesuvius is the only active volcano in mainland Europe.
- Vesuvius has been classified as a complex volcano (also called a compound volcano), one that consists of a complex of two or more vents.
- It typically has explosive eruptions and pyroclastic flows –– defined as a high-density mix of hot lava blocks, pumice, ash and volcanic gas.
- It has erupted more than 50 times and is considered among the most dangerous volcanoes in the world due to its proximity to Naples and surrounding towns.
- Its last serious eruption, lasting two weeks, was in 1944 during World War II, which left 26 Italian civilians dead and around 12,000 displaced.
The eruption of 79 AD
- In 79 AD, the Roman Empire-era sister cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were destroyed and buried during a catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius.
- It was a catastrophic event that destroyed the ancient Roman city of Pompeii and killed around 16,000 people.
- Pompeii, 8 km away from Vesuvius, served as a resort town on the Bay of Naples for Rome’s elite citizens, consisting of villas, cafes, marketplaces and a 20,000-seat arena.
- In 63 AD, a major earthquake rattled the city, serving as a warning for the eruption to come. However, few residents bothered to abandon the region, known for its volatility.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Guru Teg Bahadur
Mains level: NA
The President of India’s has delivered a special message on the eve of ‘Martyrdom Day’ of Guru Teg Bahadur.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Consider the following Bhakti Saints:
- Dadu Dayal
- Guru Nanak
- Tyagaraja
Who among the above was/were preaching when the Lodi dynasty fell and Babur took over?
(a) 1 and 3
(b) 2 only
(c) 2 and 3
(d) 1 and 2
Guru Teg Bahadur (1621-1675)
- Guru Teg Bahadur was the ninth of ten Gurus of the Sikh religion.
- One hundred and fifteen of his hymns are in Guru Granth Sahib.
- He stood up for the rights of Kashmiri Pandits who approached him against the imposition jizya tax.
- He was publicly killed in 1675 on the orders of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in Delhi for refusing to convert.
- In the words of Noel King of the University of California, “Guru Teg Bahadur’s martyrdom was the first-ever martyrdom for human rights in the world.
- He is fondly remembered as ‘Hind di Chaadar’.
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