Table of Contents
India’s AstroSat telescope discovers one of the earliest galaxies to have
formed:
National Clean Air Programme (NCAP):
Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority
(APEDA):
ICICI to use satellites for farm credit:
Perils of
prematurely imparted literacy
Making
agricultural market reforms successful
The
uncharted territory of outer space
Table of Contents:
GS Paper 1:
GS Paper 2:
GS Paper 3:
2. India’s
AstroSat telescope discovers one of the earliest galaxies to have formed.
3. National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).
Facts for Prelims:
1. Agricultural and Processed Food Products
Export Development Authority (APEDA).
2. Honey Mission.
3. ICICI to use satellites for farm credit.
4. INS Viraat.
GS Paper : 1
Topics Covered: Indian
culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, Literature and
Architecture from ancient to modern times.
Warli Painting:
Context:
With a view to promote Indian folk
art, National Fertilizers
Limited (NFL) a PSU under the Department of Fertilizers
has displayed Maharashtra’s famous Warli
painting on the outer walls of its Corporate Office in Noida.
Who are Warlis?
The Warlis or Varlis are an indigenous tribe
or Adivasis, living in Mountainous as well as coastal areas of
Maharashtra-Gujarat border and surrounding areas.
1.
They speak an unwritten Varli language which
belong to the southern zone of the
Indo-Aryan languages.
Warli Paintings:
1.
Maharashtra is
known for its Warli
folk paintings.
- Its roots may
be traced to as early as the 10th century
A.D.
- They bear a
resemblance to those created in the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka.
- Scenes
portraying hunting, fishing and farming, festivals and dances, trees and
animals are used to surround the
central theme of the painting.
- Women are
mainly engaged in the creation of these paintings.
Unique features:
A very basic graphic vocabulary like a
circle, a triangle and a square are used in these rudimentary wall paintings
which are monosyllabic in nature.
InstaLinks:
Prelims Link:
- Themes of Warli Paintings.
- About Warli tribe.
- About Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka.
- About Pattachitra.
- Madhubani paintings- key features.
Sources: pib.
GS Paper : 2
Topics Covered: Effect of
policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s
interests, Indian diaspora.
BRICS innovation
base:
Context:
China is “actively
considering the establishment of a
BRICS innovation base in China, in order to
strengthen practical cooperation with the BRICS”.
1.
Aim: To
take forward 5G and
Artificial Intelligence (AI) cooperation among the five
countries.
Rationale behind the proposal:
China’s interest in promoting 5G within the
BRICS bloc could be part of its interest in pushing tech giant Huawei
internationally – Huawei’s name has come up as a contender
to build the network in Brazil and South Africa even as it is embroiled in
controversies in other countries.
How BRICS countries have responded?
1.
Russia said
it would work with China on 5G.
- In South Africa, Chinese telecommunications
firm Huawei is providing services to three of
its telecom operators in the roll-out of their 5G networks.
- Brazil has
allowed participation in trials but is yet to take a final call.
However, India is the only country in the
grouping that is leaning towards excluding Chinese participation in
the roll-out of its national 5G network.
Way ahead for India:
India is unlikely to allow Chinese participation
in 5G, particularly in the wake of recent moves to tighten investment from China and to
ban 59 Chinese apps, citing national security concerns.
1.
The ban, which followed the June clash in
Galwan Valley, cited a “threat to the sovereignty and integrity of India” posed
by the apps.
Indian intelligence assessments have also
expressed concerns on the
possible direct or indirect links of several Chinese companies, including
Huawei, with the Chinese military.
India has made clear a return to normalcy cannot be
possible while tensions along the Line of Actual Control remain unresolved.
Similar efforts by UK- 5G club:
In May, British government approached the US
with the prospect of creating a
5G club of 10 democracies.
1.
It includes G7 countries –UK, US,
Italy, Germany, France, Japan and Canada – plus Australia, South Korea and India.
- It will aim to create alternative
suppliers of 5G equipment and other technologies to avoid relying on
China.
What underlying technologies make up 5G?
5G is based on OFDM (Orthogonal frequency-division
multiplexing), a method of modulating a digital signal
across several different channels to reduce interference.
1.
5G uses 5G NR air interface alongside OFDM
principles.
- 5G also uses
wider bandwidth technologies such as sub-6 GHz and mmWave.
The previous generations of mobile networks
are 1G, 2G, 3G, and 4G.
- First generation – 1G
1980s: 1G delivered analog voice. - Second generation – 2G
Early 1990s: 2G introduced digital voice (e.g. CDMA- Code Division Multiple Access). - Third generation – 3G
Early 2000s: 3G brought mobile data (e.g. CDMA2000). - Fourth generation – 4G LTE
2010s: 4G LTE ushered in the era of mobile broadband.
1G, 2G, 3G, and 4G all led to 5G, which is
designed to provide more connectivity than was ever available before.
InstaLinks:
Prelims Link:
- Members of 5G club proposed by UK.
- About BRICS, when was it launched?
- BRICS innovation base was recently
proposed by?
- When South Africa joined this grouping?
- About New Development Bank.
Mains Link:
Discuss the significance of the proposed BRICS
innovation base.
Sources: the Hindu.
GS Paper : 3
Topics Covered: Indian
Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth,
development and employment.
Sin goods and sin
tax:
Context:
Finance Minister recently said that two-wheelers are neither a luxury nor
sin goods and so, merit a GST rate revision.
1.
Two-wheelers currently attract 28% GST.
Sin goods:
Sin goods are goods which consider harmful
to society.
Example of sin goods: Alcohol
and Tobacco, Candies, Drugs, Soft drinks, Fast foods, Coffee, Sugar, Gambling
and Pornography.
What is sin tax?
It is placed on goods that adversely affect
health, most notably tobacco and alcohol.
Three principal arguments are used to
justify this type of taxation:
- It can reduce consumption through increased prices.
- Compensate society for things like increased health
system costs.
- Increase resources for the health sector.
Regulation in India:
According to the current GST rate structure,
some of the sin goods that attract a cess include cigarettes, pan masala and
aerated drinks. Apart from sin goods, luxury products like cars also attract a
cess.
Global examples:
Countries such as the UK, Sweden and Canada impose
Sin Taxes on a series of products and services, from tobacco and alcohol to
lotteries, gambling and fuel, which chip in with sizeable revenues.
Mexico imposed a Soda Tax in
2013.
Why is it important?
1.
That excessive consumption of
tobacco, alcohol or empty calories heightens health risks such as cancer, heart
conditions and obesity, is quite well-documented by now.
- Evidence from
other countries that have imposed Sin Taxes shows the consumption of
cigarettes and soft drinks has fallen significantly, after the new tax.
- The huge
revenues many State governments in India rake in from liquor
sales (and taxes) show that Sin Taxes can mean a bonanza for the State.
InstaLinks:
Prelims Link:
- What is sin tax?
- Which country imposes soda tax?
- What is Pigovian tax?
- What are merit goods?
Mains Link:
What is a sin tax? What are sin goods? Discuss.
Sources: the Hindu.
Topics Covered: Awareness
in space.
India’s AstroSat
telescope discovers one of the earliest galaxies to have formed:
Context:
India’s multi-wavelength orbiting
telescope, AstroSat,
has detected light from a galaxy, called AUDFs01, in the
extreme-ultraviolet (UV) light.
1.
The galaxy is 9.3 billion light years away
from Earth.
Key points:
1.
The discovery was an international
collaboration by astronomers from India, Switzerland, France, USA, Japan
and the Netherlands.
- This is the first time that star-forming
galaxies have been observed in this extreme UV environment.
Methodology used for this discovery:
The team observed the galaxy within the
patch of sky called the
Hubble eXtreme Deep field (XDF), which itself sits at the
centre of the
Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF).
1.
The HUDF is a small area in the
constellation of Fornax,
created using Hubble
Space Telescope data from 2003 and 2004. It contains thousands
of galaxies, and became the deepest image of the universe ever taken at the
time.
XDF contains about
5,500 galaxies.
1.
AstroSat looked at a part of XDF for 28
hours in October of 2016, a feat only
space telescopes could perform because the atmosphere absorbs ultraviolet
radiation.
About AstroSat:
It is India’s first multi-wavelength space telescope, which has five telescopes seeing through
different wavelengths simultaneously — visible, near UV,
far UV, soft X-ray and hard X-ray.
1.
Onboard the AstroSat is a 38-cm
wide UltraViolet
Imaging Telescope (UVIT), which is capable of imaging in
far and near-ultraviolet bands over a wide field of view.
- AstroSat was
launched on 28 September 2015 by ISRO into a near-Earth equatorial orbit.
- It is a multi-institute collaborative
project, involving IUCAA, ISRO, Tata Institute of
Fundamental Research (Mumbai), Indian Institute of Astrophysics
(Bengaluru), and Physical Research Laboratory (Ahmedabad), among others.
InstaLinks:
Prelims Link:
- Which all countries have launched space
based telescopes?
- AstroSat was launched by?
- About UltraViolet Imaging Telescope
(UVIT).
- About Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF).
- About the Hubble eXtreme Deep field (XDF).
- About the constellation of Fornax.
Sources: Indian Express.
Topics Covered: Conservation
related issues.
National Clean Air
Programme (NCAP):
Context:
The National Green Tribunal has
slammed the
Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) over its report
on the National
Clean Air Programme (NCAP) which proposes 20-30% reduction
of air pollution by 2024.
What’s the issue?
MoEF had recently informed the NGT that a
committee has concluded that 20-30%
pollutant reduction under the NCAP seems realistic.
1.
The Ministry had further said that pollution
could not be controlled except to the extent of certain per cent.
However, the NGT has disapproved this
submission saying that the
MoEF’s view was against the constitutional mandate under Article 21 and also
against statutory mandate.
Observations made by the NGT:
Right to Clean Air stood
recognised as part of Right
to Life and failure to address air pollution was denial of
Right to Life.
The enforcement of ‘Sustainable Development’ principle
and ‘Public Trust Doctrine’ required stern measures to be
adopted to give effect to the mandate of international obligations for
which the
Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and other laws had been
enacted.
What does the NCAP say on this? What are the
issues?
Under the NCAP, the target is to achieve norms in 10 years and
reduce load to the extent of 35% in first three years with
further reduction of pollution later.
1.
This meant for 10 years pollution would remain
unaddressed which is too long period of tolerating
violations when clean
air was Right to Life.
- Further, it
is also not
clear what type of pollutants or all pollutants would be reduced.
- Besides, in
2019, the number of Non-Attainment
Cities (NACs) has gone up from 102 to 122.
Need of the hour:
- Violation of laid down air pollution levels resulting
in large number of deaths and diseases needed to be addressed
expeditiously.
- Targeted time of reduction of pollution loads needed
to be reduced and planned steps needed to be sternly implemented on
the ground.
About the National Clean Air Programme:
Launched by the Union Ministry of Environment,
Forests and Climate Change in 2019.
It was not notified under the Environment Protection Act or any
other Act.
It is envisaged as a scheme to provide the States and the
Centre with a framework to combat air pollution.
1.
It has a major goal of reducing the concentration of coarse
(particulate matter of diameter 10 micrometer or less, or PM10) and fine
particles (particulate matter of diameter 2.5 micrometer or less, or PM2.5) in
the atmosphere by at least 20% by the year 2024, with 2017 as the base year for
comparison.
Who all will participate?
Apart from experts from the industry and
academia, the programme will be a
collaboration between the Ministry of Road Transport and
Highways, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Ministry of New and Renewable
Energy, Ministry of Heavy Industry, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs,
Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, NITI Aayog, and Central Pollution
Control Board.
Which cities will fall under this?
Initially, 102 cities from 23 States and UTs
were chosen as non-attainment
cities. With the exception of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and
Bengaluru, most of those chosen are tier two cities.
1.
The cities were selected on the basis
of the ambient air
quality data from the National Air Quality Monitoring Programme
(NAMP) of 2011 – 2015.
- Maharashtra
had the maximum number of cities chosen for the programme.
InstaLinks:
Prelims Link:
- When was NCAP launched?
- Participants in NCAP.
- What are non- attainment cities?
- Goals set under NCAP.
- What is public trust doctrine?
Mains Link:
Discuss the significance of NCAP.
Sources: the Hindu.
Facts for Prelims
Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export
Development Authority (APEDA):
1.
Established under the Agricultural and Processed
Food Products Export Development Authority Act 1985.
- The Authority
replaced the
Processed Food Export Promotion Council (PFEPC).
- APEDA, under the Ministry of
Commerce and Industries,promotes export of agricultural
and processed food products from India.
- It has
been mandated
with the responsibility of export promotion and development of the
scheduled products Fruits, Vegetables and their
Products, Meat and Meat Products etc.
- In addition
to this, APEDA
has been entrusted with the responsibility to monitor import of sugar.
Honey Mission:
Launched by Khadi and Village Industries
Commission (KVIC) in 2017.
1.
It is aimed at creating employment for the
Adivasis, farmers, unemployed youth, and women by roping them in beekeeping
while also increasing India’s honey production.
ICICI to use satellites for farm credit:
ICICI Bank has announced the introduction of
usage of satellite
data-imagery from earth observation satellites—to assess credit worthiness of its
customers belonging to the farm sector.
1.
ICICI will be the first bank in India to do
so.
- It will use
the data to measure an array of parameters related to the land, irrigation
and crop patterns and in combination with demographic and financial
parameters to make faster lending decisions for farmers
INS Viraat:
1.
Originally commissioned by the British Navy as
HMS Hermes on November 18, 1959, the aircraft carrier had taken part in the Falkland Islands war in 1982.
- India bought
the British carrier in 1986 and rechristened it as INS Viraat.
- INS Viraat
is the
Guinness record holder for being the longest-serving warship of the world.
Why in News?
One of the biggest ship recyclers at Alang —
Shree Ram Group — has purchased the aircraft carrier.
1.
This is the second aircraft carrier to be
broken in India in the past six years. In 2014, INS Vikrant, which
played a role in the historic 1971 war with Pakistan was broken down in Mumbai.
Articles covered previously:
- Arunachal Pradesh to seek 6th Schedule
status from Centre.
- Activists against raising age of marriage
for women.
The Hindu
Perils of prematurely imparted literacy
By
making foundational literacy and numeracy a target of early schooling, we will
stress further an embattled childhood
Overhaul has a nice connotation. The smooth
first run of one’s childhood bicycle after it got overhauled is a lasting
memory. When people say that a system has become so bad that it needs an
overhaul, they actually believe that such a thing is possible, that someone can
do it. In popular imagination, an overhaul also carries an association with
radical improvement. Machines improve quite radically after an overhaul, but
social systems like education behave more like living beings as they carry
legacies and tendencies rooted in the wider social ethos. These tendencies need
to be studied and recognised before radical remedies are administered for
improvement.
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020
offers to revise and revamp the system of education. Such a promise carries
great public appeal because a lot of people feel quite fed up with the system.
Any doubt about the need for an overhaul in education today is likely to be
stigmatised as a sign of conservatism. Disruptors and out-of-the-box solutions
have been in the air for some time.
The National Knowledge Commission (NKC-2008)
had set the stage for this kind of popular radicalism. We now have a fuller
script. At times, it falls back on older, tired ideas, such as the
three-language formula. It evinces approval for the recent trajectory of ideas
like quantifiable basis for seeking credit ratings and rankings, outcome-based
assessment, technology-driven governance, and so on. They are treated as
pointers to a bolder agenda. Little room is available for doubting, let alone
debating, the impact such measures have had so far.
New break-up
One significant shift NEP proposes is in the
re-organisation of elementary education. As of now, it comprises eight years of
schooling starting with Grade 1 at age six as Article 45 of the Constitution
envisaged. The Right to Education (RTE) act promulgated a decade ago treats
these eight years as a composite stage, consisting of five years of primary and
three years of upper-primary education. NEP offers a surgical procedure which
will graft the first two primary grades on to three years of preschool
education. On the face of it, this idea looks great as it starts a child’s
educational journey from age three instead of six.
The plan also implies a historic break from
the system as envisaged in the Kothari report (1964-1966) which recommended the
present 10+2 system. NEP proposes a new structure. Instead of 10+2, we will now
have a 5+3+4 system, in which the first five years include three years of
preschool education (starting at age three), followed by Grades 1 and 2 of the
primary school. Although a wide spectrum of goals is mentioned for the
preschool years, the overarching focus is on making children ‘school-ready’ in
the context of reading, writing and arithmetic. The term used in NEP is ‘foundational
literacy and numeracy’. A separate section is devoted to it, underlining its
importance as a ‘prerequisite to learning’. It sounds great, but let us stop to
study its implications.
Visit a nursery in any part of the country and
you will inevitably find three- to four-year olds reciting the English alphabet
and numbers. The idea that learning begins with the alphabet and numbers is
very popular indeed. Many people believe that there is nothing wrong in
introducing a child of three to reading and writing. If you express some doubt
about such an idea, some people might agree to delay this plan by a year or so,
but that is the limit. The reasoning behind this belief is that if reading and
writing are the two fundamental skills a child will need to do well at school,
what is the harm in cultivating these skills from the earliest possible age?
Indeed, the faith in early acquisition of
literacy and numeracy extends to the feeling that any delay on this front will
harm the child’s development. Nothing could be more contrary to truth although
we must acknowledge that the matter is still regarded by many as a subject of
debate. The key issue in the debate is our concept of reading itself. There is
a sharp division among perspectives on what constitutes reading; more
specifically: how is reading learnt?
The older perspective is that reading starts
with familiarity with the alphabet. According to this view, the child must
learn to recognise individual letters and their sounds first, and then move
towards recognising simple words by recognising the letters that comprise it.
This view has prevailed in human history for so long that scientific research
on how our eyes and mind process a written text has made no decisive difference
in countries like ours. This body of research has demonstrated that a child’s
search for meaning is a far sounder basis for learning to read than mechanical
practices like letter recognition and associating letters with their names and
sound values. Prematurely acquired literacy can be harmful in that it creates a
habit, difficult to remedy later, of ignoring the message.
In daily life, we see plenty of evidence of
such a habit. Reading without relating to the text or to its author is far more
common than using one’s ability to read in order to make sense of a text.
Despite education, many literates develop no interest in reading. An
introduction to the alphabet and being drilled for letter recognition at a very
young age is a major source of reading without deriving any meaning or showing
any interest.
Similar harm is done to writing when it is
acquired before one needs it. Writing is basically a means of conveying one’s
ideas to someone else. It becomes a meaningful activity when an intended
audience begins to matter for the small child. If no need is felt for an
audience, acquisition of writing becomes merely the attainment of a mechanical
skill.
What applies to reading and writing is equally
true of prematurely acquired numeracy. Mathematics offers to the child a means
to make sense of the world, but the desire to relate to different objects
arises with the widening of experience and engagement. Prolonged drills to
habituate the child to chant numbers aloud, and then to learn how to manipulate
them damages the bridge that connects numbers with real things or matters of
interest and curiosity. By starting too early, the need for such a bridge is
precluded. This has long-term consequences for learning mathematics and for
perceiving it as an attractive subject.
Culture of speed
A culture of speed pervades all spheres of
school life. Middle-class parents set the norm for this culture by pushing
their infants to consume the various products sold in the pedagogy market.
Digital equipment is the latest addition to the educational toys that have long
been favoured over cottage toys which quietly represent the wider world and
serve as a symbolic bridge to what all lies outside the home.
The school’s long shadow now extends to the
home, and parents sigh with relief when they secure their children’s admission
to a nursery in the third year of their life, if not earlier. Changing family
norms and social conditions make the transfer of the young child from home to a
nursery inevitable. Although nurseries routinely use the rhetoric of play-way,
their programmes are mostly a downward extension of the school. This social
reality makes early childhood education in its present form a mixed blessing.
By promoting foundational literacy and numeracy as a key educational target of
early schooling, we are likely to stress further an already embattled
childhood.
Krishna Kumar is a former Director of the National Council of
Educational Research and Training and the author of The Child’s Language and
the Teacher
Making agricultural market reforms successful
Consistency
in Central policy, complementary reforms and a collaborative Centre-State
approach are necessary
The recent reforms in agricultural marketing
have brought a sea change in policy. The removal of restrictions under the
Essential Commodities Act (ECA) should help attract private investment in
agriculture and help farmers of cereals, pulses, oilseeds, onion and potato,
who have been adversely affected by the policy regime hitherto that discouraged
private investment. The two new ordinances are expected to enable inter-State
trade and promote contract farming, thereby providing a large number of options
to farmers.
However, there are several difficulties that
need to be addressed before the full benefits of these policies are realised.
The first one is what the behavioural economists call the ‘time-inconsistency’
problem, or in simple terms, the policy credibility problem. This situation
arises when a decision maker’s preferences change over time in such a way that
the preferences are inconsistent at different points in time. Why is this
problem relevant in the present context? Because the policy signals are not
very clear in the last few years as relates to agricultural marketing, as we
will see below.
In 2016, the electronic national agricultural
market (e-NAM) was launched with a lot of fanfare. The e-NAM was intended to be
a market-based mechanism for efficient price discovery by the farmers. In the
first phase, 585 markets across 16 States and 2 Union Territories were covered.
States needed to amend their respective Agricultural Produce Market Committee
(APMC) Acts to put in place three prerequisites for the success of this
programme — a single licence across the State; a single-point levy of the
market fee; and electronic auctioning in all the markets. Several States could
not or did not carry out these amendments and the e-NAM proved to be far less
effective than desired.
Policy reversals
As a result, the government reverted back to
public price support by launching an ambitious programme, PM-AASHA, in
September 2018. The main objective of this programme was to provide an assured
price to farmers that ensured a return of at least 50% more than the cost of
cultivation. The programme was confined to pulses and oilseeds to limit the
fiscal costs, although many other crops, which did not receive the benefits of
the MSP-procurement system, also needed this coverage. Public procurement,
deficiency payments and private procurement were the main planks of this
programme. However, only public procurement was carried out in a meaningful
way. Deficiency payments were only implemented on a pilot basis in Madhya
Pradesh and private procurement was not initiated, even on a pilot basis, in
any State. However, the initial budgetary outlay did not match the level of ambition
of the programme. An outlay of only ₹4721 crore was made in 2018-19. A study by
the Institute of Economic Growth at the time showed that the programme needed a
much larger outlay to provide comprehensive coverage. The initial outlay
further dwindled to ₹321 crore in 2019-2020 and only ₹500 crore have been
earmarked in 2020-2021. In addition to the PM-AASHA programme, two Model Acts
were formulated by the Central government in 2017 and 2018 to promote
agricultural marketing and contract farming in States. States were required to
legislate these Model Acts. However, progress has been tardy and many States
have not adopted the Model Acts. This uninspiring performance of PM-AASHA
necessitated a more radical and direct approach. Thus evolved the PM-KISAN, a direct
cash transfer programme, in the interim Budget of 2019-2020 (February 2019).
This programme involved a fixed payment of ₹6,000 per annum to each farm
household with a budgetary outlay of ₹75,000 crore. This programme has worked
reasonably well so far with many States topping up the amount at their end.
With the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, improving the market functioning
received renewed attention. E-NAM has been scaled up to cover 415 more markets,
farmers have been allowed to sell and transport directly from registered
warehouses and Farmer Produce Organisations (FPOs) and app-based transport
services have been devised. Taking this thrust further, the government
announced a slew of reforms on May 15, including the major marketing reforms
mentioned above.
However, some of the issues that impeded the
success of the earlier initiatives still remain. The frequent flip-flops in
farm policy — from a market-based e-NAM to a public funded PM-AASHA and now
back to market-based measures — may not inspire much confidence in the minds of
private investors about the continuance of the present policies. This may
result in the investors adopting a wait-and-watch approach.
Better coordination
The second issue is the Centre-State and
State-State relations. Although the Ordinances were passed by the Central
Government using the constitutional provisions, the implementation of the same
vests with the States. Also, inter-State trade involves movement of goods
across the State boundaries. Thus, coordination between the Central and the
State governments, and also among various States becomes crucial. Also, the
States must have faced several problems in legislating and implementing the
earlier Model Acts. Thus, the Centre must engage with the States about these
constraints in order to iron out the potential problems in implementation of
the ordinances. Such a consultative and conciliatory approach will also
minimise friction between the Centre and the States when the ordinances come up
before Parliament.
The third important issue is the multiple
market failures and the resultant inter-linkage of rural markets. Absence or
failure of credit and insurance markets may lead a farmer to depend upon the
local input dealer or the middleman to meet his/her farming needs. This, in turn,
may tie him to these intermediaries and constrain his choice of output markets.
Similarly, the widespread restrictions on land leasing in many States lead to
inefficient scale of production. Thus, reforms in the output market alone are
not sufficient and must be supplemented and complemented with liberalisation of
the lease market and better access to credit and insurance markets.
In conclusion, consistency in policy,
collaborative approach and complementary reforms are necessary for the success
of the recent agricultural market reforms.
C.S.C. Sekhar is a Professor of Economics at Institute of
Economic Growth, Delhi
The uncharted territory of outer space
India’s
space vision also needs to address global governance, regulatory and arms
control issues
Outer space has been the arena of some of the
most memorable technology demonstrations. Russia’s Sputnik and the U.S.’s
Apollo 11 were metaphors of geopolitical competition. For India, Chandrayaan
and Mangalyaan were symbols of national pride. Today, outer space no longer
captures our mind space in the way cyberspace does.
Several space events planned well in advance
have proceeded amidst the COVID-19 pandemic without much attention. The launch
of missions to Mars by China and the U.S. along with the UAE’s Mars orbiter;
the first astronaut trip to orbit on a commercial enterprise built by Space X;
the completion of the Chinese ‘BeiDou’ satellite navigation system; and the
U.S. Space Command statement that Russia conducted a “non-destructive test of a
space-based anti-satellite weapon” all portray a trend that outer space is
witnessing a welter of new activity.
Growth of the space industry
Technological changes augur well for the
peaceful use of outer space. The price tag for reaching low Earth orbit has declined
by a factor of 20 in a decade. NASA’s space shuttle cost about $54,500 per kg;
now, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 advertises a cost of $2,720 per kg. In a decade, the
cost could be less than $100 per kg. It not only enhances human space travel
possibilities by leveraging new commercial capabilities but will usher in
applications dismissed earlier as science fiction.
According to a Bank of America Report, the
$350 billion space market today will touch $2.7 trillion by 2050. Space
industries are likely to follow a path akin to the software industry. When
Apple allowed developers to design apps for the iPhone, it unleashed
innovations that put more technology in the hands of common people and
transformed lives. Starlink, the constellation being constructed by SpaceX to
provide global Internet access, plans more than 10,000 mass-produced small
satellites in low Earth orbit. It hopes to transcend the digital divide and
provide everyone, everywhere access to services such as distance education and
telemedicine. Amazon’s Project Kuiper received U.S. Federal Communications
Commission approvals for more than 3,000 micro-satellites. In a decade, 80,000
such satellites could be in space compared to less than 3,000 at present.
Companies such as Planet, Spire Global and Iceye are using orbital vantage
points to collect and analyse data to deliver fresh insights in weather
forecasting, global logistics, crop harvesting and disaster response. Space
could prove attractive for high-tech manufacturing too. In short, an exciting
new platform is opening up for entrepreneurs. However, what is technologically
feasible is not easily achievable. The challenges to fulfilling the potential
of space are many.
Challenges in fulfilling potential
First, as outer space becomes democratised,
commercialised and crowded, the multilateral framework for its governance is
becoming obsolescent. Space law is a product of a golden age of two decades —
the 1960s and 1970s. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 enshrines the idea that
space should be “the province of all mankind” and “not subject to national
appropriation by claims of sovereignty”. The Rescue Agreement, Space Liability
Convention, and the Space Registration Convention expanded provisions of the
Outer Space Treaty. The Moon Treaty of 1979 was not ratified by major
space-faring nations. Space law does not have a dispute settlement mechanism,
is silent on collisions and debris, and offers insufficient guidance on
interference with others’ space assets. These gaps heighten the potential for
conflict in an era of congested orbits and breakneck technological change.
Second, the legal framework is state-centric,
placing responsibility on states alone. However, non-state entities are now in
the fray for commercial space exploration and utilisation. Some states are
providing frameworks for resource recovery through private enterprises based on
the notion that this is not expressly forbidden for non-state actors. U.S.
President Donald Trump’s Executive Order on Encouraging International Support
for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources of April 2020 falls in this
category. According to NASA, the asteroid named 16 Psyche is so rich in heavy
metals that it is worth $10,000 quadrillion. The incentive to proceed is
evident. On the other hand, some scholars and governments view this as skirting
the principle of national non-appropriation, violating the spirit if not the
letter of the existing space law. The lack of alignment of domestic and
international normative frameworks risks a damaging free-for-all competition for
celestial resources involving actors outside the space framework.
Third, strategists extol the virtues of
holding the high ground. Space is the highest ground. States are investing in
military space systems for communications, navigation, and reconnaissance
purposes, so as to ensure operability of a range of capabilities. Reliance of
militaries on satellite systems means that space assets become potential
targets. So investment in technologies that can disrupt or destroy space-based
capabilities is under way. The space arms race is difficult to curb, especially
since almost all space technologies have military applications. For example,
satellite constellations are commercial but governments could acquire their
data to monitor military movements.
Despite concerns about military activity in
outer space for long, not much progress has been made in addressing them. The
UN General Assembly passes a resolution on Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer
Space since 1982. Chinese- and Russian-backed Treaty proposals were initiated
in 2008 and updated in 2014. For various legal, technical, and political
reasons these have not advanced at the Conference on Disarmament. Groups of
Governmental Experts have not helped in making progress. The EU’s International
Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities has not gained traction. The current
geopolitical situation does not hold hope for addressing concerns of a space
arms race.
Need for a space legislation
India has invested enormous resources in its
space programme through the Indian Space Research Organisation. More
importantly, our space assets are crucial for India’s development. India’s
future plans are ambitious. These include a landing on the Moon; the first
Indian solar observatory; the first crewed orbital spaceflight mission; and
installation of a modular space station in 2030. This calendar is designed to
establish India as a major space-faring nation by the end of the decade.
The proposed involvement of private players
and the creation of an autonomous body IN-SPACe (Indian National Space
Promotion and Authorisation Centre) under the Department of Space for
permitting and regulating activities of the private sector are welcome efforts.
However, the space environment that India faces requires us to go beyond
meeting technical milestones. We need a space legislation enabling coherence
across technical, legal, commercial, diplomatic and defence goals. Our space
vision also needs to address global governance, regulatory and arms control
issues. As space opens up our space vision needs broadening too.
Syed Akbaruddin has served as India's Permanent Representative
at the UN
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