PSLV-C23 puts SPOT-7, other satellites in precise orbits

India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C23) successfully put on Monday five satellites from abroad into their perfect orbits. This was the 27th PSLV launch and of these 27 lift-offs, 26 have been successful in a row, demonstrating what a reliable and robust launch vehicle the PSLV is.

It was a dedicated commercial launch in which the PSLV put into orbit SPOT satellite from France, AISAT from Germany, NLS7.1 and NLS7.2, both from Canada, and VELOX-1 from Singapore. Antrix, the commercial wing of the Department of Space, will be charging a fee for putting each of these satellites into orbit.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who watched the launch from the Mission Control Centre (MCC) at the spaceport at Sriharikota, said the successful mission filled every Indian with pride. “I can see it reflected in the joy and satisfaction on your faces,” he said.

Mr. Modi, who addressed the ISRO scientists, engineers and technicians from the MCC, said space was “one domain where India was at the international cutting edge, a domain in which we have pushed beyond mediocrity to achieve excellence”.

The PSLV had so far put 67 satellites into orbit, of which 40 were from 19 countries, “Truly, this is a global endorsement of India’s space capabilities,” Mr. Modi said.

He wanted the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to develop a satellite for the exclusive use of SAARC countries, a satellite which could provide a full range of applications and services to SAARC members and India’s neighbourhood.

Space technology could play a critical role in realizing a Digital India — the power of 125 crore connected Indians, he said. Space technology was an invaluable tool in communication, disaster management, giving advanced warning of cyclones, telemedicine, tele-education and so on. “We must harness this technology for social change, economic development and resources conservation,” the Prime Minister said.

Earlier, Mr. Modi arrived at the MCC at 9.25 a.m., accompanied by ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan, B.N. Suresh, former Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, was seated next to the Prime Minister. Dr. Suresh kept answering various questions from the Prime Minister.

It was a perfect mission on Monday, with the PSLV-C23 rising majestically from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota at 9.52 a.m. After the PSLV’s four stages ignited on time and separated with clock-work precision, the five satellites from abroad were put into orbit with precision. The entire mission lasted about 20 minutes

Obninsk plant: World’s 1st nuke power plant turns sixty

Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant- world’s first nuclear power plant which epitomized the peaceful use of nuclear technology, particularly during the Cold War era, turned 60 on June 26. The plant is located in a village called Pyatkino in Obninsk city, some 150 kms from Moscow, Russia.
It was unveiled on June 26, 1954. India’s then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, who strongly voiced for India’s peaceful use of nuke energy, had visited the Obninsk plant.
Igor Kurchatov who is known as “the father of the Soviet Atomic Weapons Programme” played a key role in the establishment of this plant.

Google to globalize “Project Loon” to provide internet to even the rural and remote areas of the world

In year 2013, Google launched Project Loon, a program that intends to provide Internet access to the rural and remote areas that constitute around 66% of the world’s population.
The project uses balloons floating at high altitudes that move up and down as per the signals from building antennas. Each balloon in the network moves in the stratosphere high above commercial air space for several months at a time.

RIMPAC 2014: World’s largest international maritime drill kicks off

World’s largest international maritime exercise named RIMPAC 2014 began on June 26. The mega drill will see participation of navies from 23 countries. The United States has sent the biggest fleet, followed by China. 
This is China’s first active participation at RIMPAC. China is also likely to join drills against non-traditional security threats.
RIMPAC 2014 is the 24^th naval exercise in the series and will commence from June 26 to August 1. RIMPAC
RIMPAC, the Rim of the Pacific Exercise, is the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise. RIMPAC is held biennially during June and July of even-numbered years from Honolulu, Hawaii. It is hosted and administered by the United States Navy’s Pacific Fleet, headquartered at Pearl Harbor, in conjunction with the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, and Hawaii National Guard forces under the control of the Governor of Hawaii. The US invites military forces from the Pacific Rim and beyond to participate. The theme for RIMPAC 2014 exercise is “Capable, Adaptive Partners.”

Over 2/3rd Indian population still rely on dung-based fuel: UN

More than two-third of India's one billion strong population continue to rely on carbon-emitting biomass and dung-based fuel to meet energy needs for cooking, according to a UN report.

"More than half of the global population lacking clean cooking facilities lives in India, China and Bangladesh. Here, India sits at the top of the list as the country with the largest population lacking access to clean fuel for cooking," says the United Nation Industrial Development Organisation report titled "Sustainable Energy For All".

It says that India faces a significant challenge in providing access to adequate, affordable and clean sources of energy.

"Roughly 85 per cent of the rural households are dependent on traditional biomass fuels for their cooking energy requirements and about 45 per cent do not have access to electricity," says the report.

The 2011 population census of India estimates the number of rural households at 167.8 million.

In many poor rural communities, where biomass remains the most practical fuel, improved cook-stove can cut back indoor smoke levels considerably, says the UN.

"Burning solid fuels produces extremely high levels of indoor air pollution. Typically, 24 hour levels of PM 10 in a biomass-using home range from 300 to 3000 micrograms per cubic meter," says the report.

As cooking takes place every day of the year, most people using solid fuels are exposed to small smoke particles at a level many times higher than the accepted annual limits for outdoor air pollution.

"Thus, the health impact of burning biomass fuel is considerable, apart from being an obstacle to achieving a minimum standard of living," it says.

The report suggests that improved cook-stoves can cut back indoor smoke levels.

"These stoves reduce a family's exposure to harmful pollutants by optimising combustion, venting smoke through a flue and chimney and in some cases, reducing cooking time," it says.

The UN also says that often, across the country a large number of families who breathe polluted air inside their homes do not have access to clean drinking water and poor sanitation facilities.

NAPS units to go under IAEA safeguards by end of 2014

Putting its 14 civilian nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards is part of a commitment made under India-U.S. nuclear deal.

India will complete the process of putting its 14 civilian nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards by the end of 2014 as part of a commitment made under the India-U.S. nuclear deal.

The Narora Atomic Power Station (NAPS) Unit I and II are thus set to go under IAEA safeguards.

The 220MW Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) are in Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh. NAPS I was commissioned in January 1991, while NAPS II became operational in July 1992.

“NAPS I and II will be brought under IAEA safeguards by the end of the year. This is India’s commitment to becoming a responsible nuclear-weapon state.

“More importantly, by complying with all the norms under the India-U.S. nuclear deal, we will also push our case for becoming a member of the coveted 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group,” said a government source.

In its July 2008 communication to IAEA entitled, “Implementation of the India-United States Joint Statement of July 18, 2005: India’s Separation Plan”, it had listed the 14 reactors which would be brought under IAEA safeguards from 2006 to 2014. The separation plan clearly demarcated facilities for civilian and military purpose.

The Additional Protocol, signed between India and IAEA on March 15, 2009, involves a high degree of scrutiny of nuclear facilities, including its reactors and fuel cycle sites, by the inspectors of the atomic energy body.

India has already listed its sites as agreed between the two countries. These includes six facilities — two Uranium Oxide Plants, Ceramic Fuel Fabrication Plant, Enriched Uranium Oxide Plant, enriched fuel fabrication plant and Gadolinia facility — in the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad, which were put under safeguards in October, 2009.

Units I and II and two more facilities — the Away-From-Reactor fuel storage (December, 2012) and Nuclear Material Store (March, 2014) — in Tarapur in Maharashtra, units I-VI of the Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS), units I and II of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu and Kakrapar Atomic Power Station in Gujarat are also under IAEA safeguards. All these reactors were placed under safeguards in October 2009.

Interestingly, India conveyed to the international atomic watchdog last week that it had ratified the Additional Protocol, mandatory under the India-U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation deal. With this, India has become more open to international checks.

The move will help facilitate multiple entries for IAEA inspectors for conducting the necessary inspections.

Information about nuclear exports would also be given to IAEA so that cross verification becomes easier.

No easy way out

The escalating sectarian civil war in Iraq is dangerously poised. Apart from consequences for Iraq — a possible soft partitioning — there will be repercussions for other countries in the region and elsewhere. This constitutes a threat to international peace and security.
Decades ago, Western cartographers created an artificial country as part of a “division of spoils’. The exploding sectarian faultlines in Iraq are umbilically linked to the crisis in Syria, in which over 1,30,000 people have been killed since 2011. The genesis of these developments can also be traced to the policy-induced crisis in Libya, which resulted in UN Security Council Resolution 1973 and Nato military action.
The unbridled enthusiasm for the Arab Spring in the West blinded governments to the dangers of arming militias against established, even if tyrannical, regimes. The expectation that the Arab Spring would unfold on the lines of a Western liberal democratic template was mistaken, and acknowledged as such before long. A lesson learnt over decades — that there are no good or bad militants — was forgotten.
Colonel Gaddafi, much despised for good reason, proved an easy first rallying point. The desire of the United States, the United Kingdom and France to see him gone was understandable. Even the Chinese and the Russians did not feel strongly enough to cast a negative vote in the UN Security Council in March 2011. The Russian permanent representative, Vitaly Churkin, said Russia abstained because of its principled stand against the use of military force. The passion of interventionists prevailed. The new members, all aspiring for permanent status, Brazil, India and Germany, did not have the political clout to alter the outcome. They tried to negotiate a “balanced” resolution providing for a ceasefire and the possibility of mediation by the African Union. But the ink was barely dry when the P3 chose to invoke “all means necessary”, a euphemism for military action. Nato action followed instantly. The other provisions of the resolution were completely ignored.
Mainstream thinking in the West has a propensity to rationalise policy-induced mistakes made by governments. Evidence in the public domain, documented by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, shows that rebels were being armed by countries in the region acting on their own and as proxies. The arming of militias is invariably accompanied by unintended consequences. Some turn rogue.
Worse still, others turn on their creators. The attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi in September 2012 is a case in point.
Advocates of the use of force and the right of intervention will find it difficult to argue that military action in Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011 produced the desired outcomes. Regime change results in destabilisation, which is even more difficult to handle.
Syria continues to present an even more complex problem. Bashar al-Assad held power with the support of a 12 per cent Alawite Shia minority aided by another 6 per cent, or so, of other minority communities. He succeeded in building a compact that enabled him to preside over a more than 75 percent Sunni population. The underlying sectarian tensions were evident. Militias armed by countries in the region, predominantly Sunni, came from diverse backgrounds — jihadists of different hues, al-Qaeda elements and mercenaries from the West and elsewhere ready to join battle for a consideration, monetary or otherwise. The fact that the Assad regime itself unleashed brutal repression only exacerbated the conflict. Jihadis and their supporters, having succeeded in bringing about a regime change in Libya, were now in for disappointment. The Security Council, particularly two of its permanent members, Russia and China, were no longer willing to oblige. Efforts to seek Security Council endorsement for even a watered-down resolution, short of action under Chapter VII, resulted in three double vetoes during 2011-12, one during India’s presidency of the council in August 2011. Syria no longer represented a mismanaged domestic situation. The desire of the Saudis, the Gulf states and the West to oust Assad was countered by support from Iran and Russia.

The attempt to resolve the crisis — through a ceasefire and a politically inclusive process involving all Syrians — failed to take off. Assad’s detractors insisted on him stepping down first. After the experience in Iraq and Libya, there was no appetite for unilateral military action. Reluctance to supply arms to rebels, which could have made a decisive difference, soon turned into outright refusal because of apprehensions that those arms could be used against Israel or other US allies.

Meanwhile, the Nouri al-Maliki government in Baghdad, installed by the United States, was busy with its own policy-induced blunders. Running a post-conflict state is difficult enough. More so given the toxic and combustible sectarian divide. The failure to co-opt non-Shia sections in governance proved catastrophic. Sensing the changing mood in Washington towards Iran, Saudi Arabia refused to accept membership of the Security Council in October 2013 after being elected. It said it would find it difficult to serve on the council given the visible inaction against Syria. Attempts to reach an agreement between Iran and the United States on the vexed nuclear issue, for which a deadline of July 21 has been set, have contributed to producing the present strategic landscape. Energy- and shale gas-related issues may have played a part in the altered calculations, but this will continue to remain a subject of speculation. The evolving situation is further complicated by a major and influential player, Israel. It is unlikely that it will sit by and do nothing if, in its assessment, the nuclear deal with Iran does not succeed in capping its nuclear capability. A quick fix and/ or a fudging of issues will also invite criticism from the Republicans.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant poses a threat not only to Baghdad but also to fellow militant groups. A force reportedly consisting of no more than several thousand combatants capturing large territories reaffirms the sectarian divide and the lack of appetite to fight by adversaries. Given the military involvement of Iran, Jordan and possibly the United States, which
may be left with no option but to go in for limited military action, Baghdad may not fall. The destabilisation and chaos will, however, intensify.

As the situation worsens, the immediate task of retrieving nationals will be subsumed in larger issues raised by this dangerous sectarian civil war, with all its consequences for the rest of the world. Each stage has been marked by a failure to think the consequences through and a series of policy-induced blunders.