Increase in Sea Level in Coastal Areas of Goa

The average sea level rise trends along the Indian west coast has been about 3.0 mm/year during the last two decades. Sea level rise is a very slow phenomenon and can be because of physical factors like normal subsidence, coastal erosion and siltation of river channels along the coastline apart from global warming. An isolated incident of flooding on the Morjim beach during 2-6 January, 2014 occurred around mid-night for 3-4 consecutive days largely coinciding with the highest high tide (spring tide) of the year as per the gravitational tidal prediction tables of 2014. The study conducted by the Pune based Central Water and Power Research Station (Union Ministry of Water Resources’ Research) found out that over the years the problems of coastal erosion has accelerated and presently about 25kms is affected. Appropriate protection measures are addressed jointly by respective state governments and the Coastal Protection and Development Advisory Committee (CPDAC) of the Central Water Commission. Earth System Science Organization (ESSO) – Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) and Survey of India continuously monitor the sea level measurements all along the Indian coastline.

Manufacturing of Chemicals and Fertilizers by CIL

Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed amongst Rashtriya Chemical & Fertilizers Ltd (RCFL), Fertilizer Corporation of India Ltd (FCIL), GAIL (India) Ltd. and Coal India Ltd. (CIL) for revival of the Talcher unit of FCIL to agree in principle to set up a plant for manufacturing Urea & Ammonium Nitrate at the site of Talcher Unit of FCIL. The process of identification of suitable available technology and thereafter preparation of a Detailed Feasibility Report has not been completed. This was stated by Sh. Piyush Goyal, Minister of state for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy (Independent Charge) in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today. The Minister further stated that Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) has signed MoU with M/s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC) for taking up Underground Coal Gasification (UCG), Surface Coal Gasification (SCG) and Coal Bed Methane (CBM) on 15.04.2006. The same was further renewed for 5 more years on 18.07.2011. Through this MoU, SCCL and ONGC intend to cooperate in the Service, Operation, Process development and Research related to UCG, SCG and CBM in the Coal bearing states of lndia. Under this MOU, it has been proposed to setup IGCC (Integrated Gas Combined Cycle) Power Plant at Srirampur area and to produce different chemicals, fertilizer by using coal of Chennur mines of SCCL. The “Techno-economic feasibility Study” for this project is prepared by PDIL, New Delhi, the Minister added.

Income Through Launching of Satellite

The Government is generating income through various satellite launch missions by providing services, on commercial basis, through Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix), the commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). These services include (i) Marketing and direct reception of data from Indian Remote Sensing Satellites to national and international clientele, and (ii) Leasing of satellite transponders on-board INSAT/ GSAT satellites. The income generated by Antrix, since 1992, for providing the above services is Rs. 4,408.07 Crores. In addition, the satellites of the foreign countries are launched by ISRO, on commercial basis, under contract between respective foreign customer and Antrix. As on date, ISRO has launched 40 satellites from 19 foreign countries; and the income generated through launch of these satellites is € 50.47 million and US $ 17.17 million. The future course of action plan includes, (i) expanding the data and direct reception services of Indian Remote Sensing Satellites to international clientele, (ii) enhancing leasing of satellite transponders to Indian customers, (iii) increasing launch services for foreign satellites on-board Indian launch vehicles, and (iv) enhancing marketing of satellites and sub-systems.

Innovation Scholars Call on The President

Five Innovation Scholars who are part of the first Innovation Scholars-in residence scheme of Rashtrapati Bhavan called on President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee today (July 17, 2014) at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Speaking on the occasion, the President expressed happiness over the success of the scheme and complimented the innovators for having created products which have a larger social purpose. He said there is need to pay special attention to grass-root innovations in society. For a country with over 1.2 billion population, there are large number of problems that call for ingenious solutions. The Rashtrapati Bhavan has provided a platform to Innovators for refining their ideas and products. It will continue to facilitate their future endeavours. Innovators should use the experience and ideas gathered to not only refine existing products but also come out with new solutions to the problems society is facing. The five innovators told the President the experience has been a dream comes true. None of them could believe that they would have an opportunity to live in Rashtrapati Bhavan as guests of the President. The opportunity given to them reflected the President’s respect and support for grassroots innovators of the country. This has sent out a positive message both in India and the world. Innovators who stayed at the Rashtrapati Bhavan were Shri Gurmail Singh Dhonsi, a farmer from Rajasthan, who has invented a Rapid Compost Aerator; Shri Dharamveer Kamboj from Haryana, who was a rickshaw puller 27 years ago in Delhi and has invented a multi-purpose food processing machine; Ms. Manisha Mohan, a final year student of Automobile Engineering at SRM University, who has developed an under-garment which aims to protect women from assault by sending a 3,800kW shock to the attacker; Shri M.B. Avinash, a Ph. D. student at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) in Bangalore, who has invented a Self-cleaning functional molecular material and 16-year-old Tenith Adithyaa who has invented a technology for preserving banana leaves for over two years without using any chemicals.

DRDO Technology to Improve Access in Mountain Regions with Low Cost Foot Bridges

A mountain foot bridge for civil applications developed by R&DE (E), a premier DRDO laboratory was handed over for public use by Dr. R Chidambaram the Principal Scientific Advisor to Government of India today, near HESCO (Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization), Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Speaking on the occasion Dr Chidambram highlighted the contribution of S&T agencies in improving lives of people in rural and remote areas. Dr AvinashChander, Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister and Secretary Deptt of Defence R&D in his message sent on the occasion said, “DRDO is an innovation based organization and ensures that its technologies developed for armed forces are useful for public welfare as well. The technology of making Foot Bridges for armed forces developed by DRDO can be utilized to bring relief to the flood affected people. Handing over of two such bridges is an example of taking technologies to the people for larger benefit of masses. The low cost mountain foot bridges costing just Rs 6.5 lakh each, being easy to transport and deploy are expected to be of great help by making disaster hit regions accessible and thus facilitating relief and rescue work”. The bridge Is an adaption of 35 m man-portable ‘Mountain Foot Bridge’ (MFB) developed for the armed forces for bridging dry/wet gaps up to 35 m long, with a pathway of 0.8m width especially for inaccessible high altitude regions. After Uttarakhand disaster in 2013, during a visit of PSA and SA to RM at R&DE(E), Pune, it was proposed to develop suitable foot bridges similar to mountain footbridge but in steel to keep the cost of the bridge low. The 13.5 m steel bridge for civil applications has a 1.5 m wide pathway, is launched using the launching system of 35 m Mountain Foot Bridge (MFB) and is deployable within 2 to 3 hrs. Its launch does not require accesses to far-bank or elaborate site preparations and is therefore ideal in disaster situation. The original bridge, successfully developed and realized by DRDO for the armed forces to suite rapid deployment in mountainous regions is capable of bridging gaps up to 35 m. The components of military bridge made of high-strength aluminium alloy are man-portable and weigh less than 18 kg each. The bridge is design to withstanding conditions prevailing in glacial regions. Its man-portable launching system allows bridge to be constructed from near-bank without any access to far-bank. The joints of the bridge facilitate easy assembly in cold conditions and a 35m bridge can be launched in about one hour. Though it is designed to prevent any appreciable accumulation of fresh snow, it has been designed for accumulation of up to 250 mm of fresh snow having density up to 200 kg/m3. The military bridging system has successfully completed user assisted technical trials in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. Speaking on the occasion, Shri Anil Datar, DS and Director General (Armaments and Combat Systems) stressed on corporate social responsibility of DRDO and called upon scientific community to explore civilian spin offs of defence technologies. He also gave a brief account of immense contribution of DRDO in developing such spin off technologies. Dr Guruprasad, Director R&DE (E) DRDO narrated the development of this bridge. Dr. Anil Joshi founder of HESCO promised to work on delivering this technology to remote areas of Himalayas.

Cast a wider Net

The summoning of the US charge d’affaires to South Block on July 2 on the issue of snooping by the US’s National Security Agency (NSA) was a welcome step. The revelation that the BJP was targeted for snooping as long ago as 2010 is not at all surprising. It can now be mentioned that immediately after India was elected to the United Nations Security Council in 2010, a request was made by the permanent mission of India in New York to South Block, asking for safeguards against precisely such an eventuality.

By no stretch of definition can the then main opposition party in India or, for that matter, the Indian delegation to the UN, be regarded as requiring surveillance by the NSA if the concern is anchored in the desire to counter terrorism.  Equally, to try to defend the sweeping collection of phone and internet records on the grounds that it was only gathering “metadata” is profoundly misleading.

The radio silence from the UPA government on revelations by Edward Snowden almost two years ago that the NSA engaged in massive snooping operations at a global level, including telephone conversations of leaders of other countries, was in marked contrast to reactions from other countries. Brazil’s cancellation of a state visit to Washington DC at the invitation of President Barack Obama and the public expression of outrage, including the recent expulsion of the senior-most intelligence operative by Germany, a close ally of the US and Nato partner, stand out in contrast. The Indian protest under the UPA was low-level, belated, feeble and pro forma.

It would have been embarrassing for the government of India to condemn such a practice by the US if, for example, Vodafone and/ or AT&T were to come out with a public assertion in response that they were extending similar services to India at the request of the then government. Recent revelations by Vodafone that India was among the governments which asked it to snoop/ wire-tap calls, e-mails and text messages going into and out of the country have surprisingly not received the attention they should have.

The revelation explains yet another phenomenon that earlier appeared inscrutable, that of employees of multinational internet and telecom majors masquerading as spokespersons of the Indian telecom and internet industry. When questions relating to global internet governance acquired salience, this particular group cornered the space for discussion and, through motivated writings, sought to propagate the thesis that the “multi-stakeholder” model advocated globally by the multinational internet and telecom majors resonated in India as well, with little or scant regard for the long-term interests of India and Indian internet and telecom majors.

The NETmundial conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in April this year produced an outcome that fell far short of the expectations of most observers and sought topreserve the status quo. The US administration’s generous offer to make adjustments to its authority over ICANN has come with conditionalities and time-frames which have made them meaningless, if not impossible to achieve.

India’s principal concerns and long-term interests with regard to global internet governance require the renewal of our commitment to protect and promote the internet as an unprecedented tool of innovation and empowerment. India should reaffirm our adherence to all obligations under the various treaties on human rights to which we are a party, in particular to those relating to freedom of expression. We should also commit ourselves to all measures to bridge the “digital divide”, both nationally and internationally. India and Indian IT enterprises will no doubt need to preserve and enhance the interests of Indian users of the internet, whose numbers have been growing greatly in recent years.

Indian IT companies need to preserve the global competitive edge secured over the years. They also need to assess the possible evolution of the IT industry over the next 20 years or so and orient themselves to the changing demands of the global industry. They can thus seek to build on the comparative advantages that they have enjoyed till now. This will require encouraging creativity and innovation as well as setting up enterprises tailored to the next generation. India has to move up the value chain in the global IT industry in the long term. This would imply a much-needed transition from providing IT skills and back-room services to making its own branded services and products and leading global innovation in IT.

Several international public policy issues pertaining to the internet, including, among others, the infrastructure and management of critical internet resources, already stand identified by the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). These include issues of considerable interest and relevance to developing countries, such as the bridging of the digital divide, interconnection costs and participation in global policy development. Several new public policy issues have emerged since the WSIS, such as cloud computing, mass surveillance and the collection of metadata, the use of cyber weapons and jurisdiction.

Plurilateral agreements among developed countries on substantive policy issues and treaties negotiated among them have remained the dominant global governance model in the internet arena. The inclusion of developing countries in global norm-setting and design of digital architecture will continue to pose an important challenge in the coming years. Without such inclusion, the inherently global nature of the internet will be threatened —  there is the danger of fragmentation of the internet through disparate national policies.

The principal challenge before Indian policymakers is to move away from the short term and the cacophony organised by the status quoists, forcefully articulate the long-term interests of the Indian internet and telecom majors, and design and put in place the necessary eco-system and policy framework for the purpose. We should aim at building the next-generation editions of TCS, Infosys and Wipro, and move up the value chain. The Vodafone revelation has come not a day too soonand will hopefully serve as yet another wake-up call.

This will require not only rejigging domestic policy, but also making necessary changes in articulating India’s position in international forums on issues relating to global internet governance. Over the last four years, the UPA government had allowed itself to be led by the spokespersons of global industry; it is high time that this was challenged. The government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has an excellent opportunity to reverse this trend, make the necessary and imperative course corrections, and move in the right direction.

Time to crush it

They say, history never repeats itself. Maybe the jehadi group ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Levant ‘(ISIS) has either not read it or they are so excited after their recent spectacular success in North West Iraq and North East Syria, where they have captured large swathes of territory that they feel they can achieve this impossible feat. On June 30 they have renamed themselves as ‘The Islamic State’ and named their head Abu Bakar al Baghdadi as ‘Caliph of The Muslim World.’

This move is bound to bring lot of churning and infighting in the Muslim world globally. ISIS which came into being in 2003 in Iraq as an opposition to the American and British offensive against Saddam Hussain, is basically an off shoot of Iraqi Al Qaeda. Now of course Al Qaeda has disassociated itself from ISIS as it sees ISIS a threat to its leadership of Muslim world. ISIS is composed of Sunni jehadis of Iraq and the former soldiers of the Sunni army of Saddam Hussain. They are more than 30,000 strong. They are well trained and well armed. Despite their ruthlessness they are well disciplined and are media savvy. Their leader Al Bagdadi is an operational man who leads from the front and avoids media glare.

Starting January 2013, ISIS captured Aleppo and Roqca, the two major towns of NE Syria on the river Euphrates. It then continued its march eastwards and as of now has captured Mosul the second largest town of Iraq as also the towns of Tirkit, Fallujah and Ramdi. ISIS is now closing on to Bagdad. American trained and equipped Iraqi army has totally failed against this onslaught and has run away leaving behind large cache of arms and ammunition. With more than two billion dollars looted from the lockers of Mosul Central Bank and other places today ISIS is the richest jehadi organisation in the world.

ISIS has been joined by the former army soldiers of Pakistani army, jehadis of Pakistan sponsored terror organisation Lashkar-e-Toiba and other Sunni jehadis of all kinds from various parts of the world. The first Caliphate came into being after Prophet Muhammad’s death in 632. Caliph is regarded by their followers as successor to the Prophet Muhammad and leader of all Muslims. This is what Osama Bin Laden was wanting for himself. He was influenced by the writings of Egyptian Islamic writer Sayyid Qutub who propagated that to bring about a caliphate at least one state must revive Islamic Rule. That is why he chose to align with the Taliban then ruling Afghanistan. The concept of Caliphate in Muslim world was abolished in 1924 by the Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk after the collapse of Ottoman Empire.

IT impact

Having declared its leader Abu Bakar al Bagdadi as Caliph the ISIS has demanded that all Muslims worldwide must pledge allegiance to their chief. This is where the catch lies. In the 21st century, everyone, including the Muslim world has marched on. Thanks to the information technology the world has now become a global village. Muslims world over are now getting highly educated and are aspiring for better ways of life than what their religion permits when it came into being 1000 years ago. This is very reason why jehadis want to re introduce Caliphate because they feel there is decline in religious observance and the coherence among the Muslims and Caliphate system will be able to stem this tide.

Sooner than later the two oil rich states of Saudi Arabia and Qatar who have till now been supporting the ISIS are bound to realise that they have created a Frankenstein in ISIS and that the supremacy of Sunni Muslim world till now held by Saudi Arabia is under threat. Progressive and comparatively liberal Gulf Muslim states and even Pakistan will be forced to rejig their views on this new type of jehad. As it is, Syria and Palestine are the next declared targets of this new caliphate. Israel will be a highly worried country and America will now be forced to take sides and maybe use its air force to dislodge this new caliphate with ground troops coming from progressive minded Muslim countries.

The biggest confrontation will come from the Shia dominant countries of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon under the leadership of Iran. Already two battalions of Iran’s revolutionary guards have reached Iraq. Iran’s secret service is now effective in Iraq and senior Iranian military officers are directing counter terror campaign of Iraq army. What is really surprising is the silence of the UN and the western powers on this developing confrontation between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda will also challenge this new regime of ISIS.

It is time now that Sunni countries under the leadership of Saudi Arabia stop this new caliphate to take roots. The UN must immediately pass a strong resolution against this and if necessary put troops on the ground against it.