PM visits Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.

• Prime Minister asks Department of Atomic Energy to draw up a programme of year-long diamond jubilee celebrations. • Focus to be on the human and developmental dimensions of atomic science, with special outreach to the youth: PM

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, paid his first visit to Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) in Mumbai today. He was briefed by Dr. R.K. Sinha, Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy and other top officials and scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre on India's atomic energy programme; DAE's extensive research and development and education programmes; and DAE's contributions in other areas such as healthcare, especially cancer treatment, food security, solid waste management and water purification. Referring to the Diamond Jubilee of DAE, which falls on August 3, the Prime Minister asked Department of Atomic Energy to draw up a programme of year-long celebrations, with special focus on the various human and developmental dimensions of atomic science, with special outreach to the youth in schools and colleges throughout the country. The Prime Minister exhorted DAE to present the human face of India’s capabilities in nuclear science throughout the world. Prime Minister was apprised of the safety and security measures adopted by the DAE and India's excellent record in this regard. During the visit, which lasted four hours, Prime Minister was also shown some of DAE's most advanced facilities at BARC, including the Dhruva Research Reactor. Prime Minister expressed his strong appreciation for the extraordinary achievements of Indian scientific community in one of the most complex and challenging fields of science and technology. He said their success was especially creditable because it took place in the face of decades of international technology denial regime; India's self-reliance in the nuclear fuel cycle and the commercial success of the indigenous reactors demonstrated that with vision, resolve and hard work, India could be a front ranking country in the most challenging fields. Prime Minister reiterated his belief that energy security, which was increasingly based on clean and reliable sources of energy, was the critical driver of India's rapid and sustained long term development. He saw an essential role for nuclear energy in India's energy strategy, given the scale of demand in India. Prime Minister assured the DAE of his full support in the implementation of DAE's ambitious expansion programme and expressed hope that DAE would meet the target of increasing the capacity by three times from the present level of 5780 MW by 2023-24 within the projected cost. He underlined the importance of ensuring that nuclear energy remained commercially viable and competitive with other sources of clean energy in the long run. He also asked DAE to continually upgrade technology, both with regard to our long term plans and international trends. DAE, he said, must also plan for ensuring adequate availability of skilled human resources in the country. Prime Minister told DAE that nuclear safety and security were of the highest priority for him and asked DAE to ensure that India's standards and practices were the most advanced in the world. He also asked DAE to pay special attention to the local communities in planning and implementing nuclear power projects. He hoped that role of industry in providing equipment and systems for the nuclear programme would continue to grow and recognized that adequate incentive structure should be exist to facilitate that. He noted that we would need to tap additional sources of investments for our ambitious expansion programme. He welcomed India's growing international partnership in the nuclear energy and hoped for timely implementation of the ongoing projects in a manner that they met the requirements of techno-economic viability and safety standards. Technology transfer to India, he observed, was a vital element of his vision for international partnership in India. Prime Minister lauded the contribution of DAE scientists in the critical area of cancer research and treatment through the Tata Memorial Hospital. He hoped that DAE would soon implement the planned projects in Chandigarh and Vishakapatnam and would take one of the most advanced standards of cancer treatment in Asia to other parts of India. He also directed DAE to make special efforts to expand its research and extension on a national scale applications of atomic science in areas like healthcare, waste management, water treatment, agriculture and food preservation. Prime Minister congratulated DAE on the important milestone of Diamond Jubilee and wished the DAE community continued success in the future. The National Security Advisor, Shri Ajit Doval, the Director, BARC and the Secretary AERC, Joint Secretary in the PMO, Shri Javed Ashraf, and Private Secretaries to the PM, Shri Vikram Misri and Shri Sanjiv Singla were also present.

MARKS OF SELECTED CANDIDATE IN IAS-2013

http://upsc.gov.in/exams/marks/2013/csm2013/CS_M_2013_RECOMMENDED.pdf

Cleaning of River Ganga and Yamuna

Water and Sanitation are the State subjects, and the major sources of pollution in rivers fall under the responsibilities of local and state authorities. The Central Government is at best supplementing the efforts of the State Governments/local bodies by providing Central assistance for pollution abatement. Ministry of Environment and Forests have informed that for river Ganga, National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) has been setup in 2009 under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister. The implementing agency for NGRBA is National Mission on Clean Ganga (NMCG). National River Conservation Directorate (NRCD) is entrusted with pollution control and conservation/ development of river Yamuna, and other non-Ganga rivers. Further, the concerned State Pollution Control Boards are responsible to control and monitor industrial pollution in order to ensure that untreated industrial effluents are not discharged into the rivers, thereby polluting them. Since inception of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) programme, 76 schemes (70 infrastructure investment, 5 institutional development and 1 implementation support) in 48 towns in Ganga States have been sanctioned at a total cost of Rs. 5004.19 crore. Against this, Rs. 1229.87 crore has been released by the Centre including the matching share of the States so far and a total expenditure of Rs. 838.76 crore has been incurred till March, 2014 for implementation of the projects. A Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) for 10 years has been signed in 2010 by MoEF& the consortium of 7 IITs for preparation of a comprehensive River Basin Management Plan for Ganga (GRBMP). Besides the IITs, National Institute of Hydrology (NIH), Roorkee under MoWR, BHU, various universities and research institutes are also involved in GRBMP. Interim report has been submitted, which is circulated to different ministries, departments and other stakeholders for comments. It is expected plan may be drawn by December 2014 with consultation of stake holders. Further, Government is giving special impetus on rejuvenation of River Ganga. Consultation with different stakeholders viz., Ministries such as Ministry of Environment & Forests; Water Resources, Ganga Rejuvenation and River Development; Urban Development; Tourism; Shipping; Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation; Rural Development, etc., as well as academics, technical experts and NGOs associated with cleaning of Ganga, is in progress. Crystallisation of action plan, including framing of its salient features, including time line would be known only after the finalisation of the action plan for cleaning of River Ganga. Central Pollution Control Board is monitoring the levels of Arsenic and Fluoride in ground water. However, no specific information is available in this Ministry regarding high level of arsenic and fluoride in water of rivers Ganga and Yamuna.

NASA celebrates 45 years of moon landing

On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon.

Forty-five years later, NASA will celebrate on Monday the giant leap by honouring Armstrong, who died in 2012, with a renaming ceremony of the historic “operations and checkout building” at Cape Canaveral in Florida, the launch site.

Both Aldrin and Michael Collins, the Apollo 11 command module pilot who orbited the moon, will be there.

“It was 45 years ago that Neil Armstrong took the small step onto the surface of the moon that changed the course of history. The years that followed saw a space age of scientific, technological and human research on which we have built the modern era,” NASA said in a statement.To send humans to deep space, NASA engineers are developing a new space transportation capability destined to travel far beyond Earth.

The Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket will be the most advanced space vehicles ever built.

“Around 2019, we will launch a robotic mission to rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid. The spacecraft will either capture an asteroid or retrieve a boulder off of a much larger asteroid and then redirect the asteroid mass to a stable orbit around the moon,” the U.S. space agency said.

In the mid 2020s, astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft, launched by SLS, will explore that asteroid and return to Earth with samples.

In December 2014, NASA is set to conduct the first test flight of Orion.

In 2015, the “New Horizons” mission will fly by Pluto and see the icy world up close for the first time.

“In 2020, we will send a new rover to Mars, to follow in the footsteps of Curiosity, search for evidence of life and pave the way for future human explorers,” NASA announced.

Move over, big brother

The western media has been dismissive of the BRICS move to set up a bank, but such cynicism misses the larger picture — the end of western hegemony and the rise of the multiplex world 

For the first time since its creation in the aftermath of World War II, the structure of global economic governance established and dominated by the United States has some serious competition. At their summit in Brazil on July 15, 2014, the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) agreed to set up the New Development Bank with a capitalisation of U.S. $100 billion) and a contingency fund to deal with financial crises.

It is too early to say whether these mechanisms will challenge the role of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) or the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which have been the bedrock of the Bretton Woods system under U.S. hegemony. But they at least serve as a reminder that the era of Western and American dominance of the world is ending, giving way to a more complex and diversified world order: the multiplex world. The move by BRICS, though outwardly economic in nature, has serious geopolitical undertones.

It comes after a speech last May to the U.S. Military Academy in West Point by U.S. President Barack Obama in which he declared: “America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will.” Such remarks would seem arrogant and dismissive of the ambitions of the emerging powers. The BRICS nations do not accept the view that the world is for America’s alone to lead or manage. The BRICS summit in Brazil also showed that the emerging powers do not buy the Obama administration’s move to punish Russia for its actions in Ukraine by isolating it internationally.

Domination from the West

To compound matters, recent developments, including the deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations over Ukraine and U.S.-China relations over East Asian maritime disputes casts a shadow over cooperation among the major powers in advancing global governance. One potential victim could be the G-20. Created in 1999 in response to the Asian financial crisis, G-20 was upgraded to a summit-level conclave of established and emerging nations in 2008, to manage the unfolding global financial crisis. Representing 80 per cent of the world’s population, 90 per cent of the world’s GDP, 90 per cent of the world’s finance, and 80 per cent of the world’s trade, this institution describes itself (at its Pittsburg Summit in September 2009) as the “world’s premier forum for international economic cooperation.” There is little doubt that it is vital to the future of global governance. Javier Solana, the former NATO and EU foreign policy chief, has called the G20, “the only forum in which world powers and emerging countries sit as equals at the same table.”

 The move by BRICS, though outwardly economic in nature, has serious geopolitical undertones 

G-20 is already viewed by the emerging powers as being dominated by the West, with too many European members and not enough representation from the developing world. And its efforts to reform the global institutions have lost momentum. This gives an added significance to the BRICS bank and fund set up in Brazil.

Hardened attitude

In the meantime, the U.S. attitude towards the emerging powers seems to have hardened. In 2010, the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, expressed the determination of the U.S. “to deepen engagement with these emerging centres of influence.” As she put it, “American leadership does not mean we do everything ourselves. We contribute our share, often the largest share, but we also have high expectations of the governments and peoples we work with.”

But in a speech delivered on June 11, 2014, closely following Mr. Obama’s “America must always lead” doctrine at West Point, U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice declared: “With emerging powers we must be able to collaborate where our interests converge but define our differences and defend our interests where they diverge.”

With relations with two of the BRICS countries — Russia and China — under serious strain over Ukraine and maritime disputes in East and Southeast Asia respectively, Washington’s commitment and ability to develop a shared leadership structure that Ms. Clinton had envisaged looks increasingly doubtful, if not altogether impossible. In this context, the mainstream western media has been too dismissive of the latest move by BRICS to set up a bank and contingency fund. But such cynicism misses the larger picture, which is the end of western hegemony and the rise of the multiplex world. A better response from the U.S. and the West would be to speed up the reform of the IMF and the World Bank so that they accommodate the rising clout of the emerging powers.

A new index to measure social progress

Even as India commits itself to move on the fast track of economic growth, it must be mindful of the need to invest in improving its social indicators as well

Is Gross Domestic Product (GDP) an adequate measure of a country’s development across many dimensions? This has been debated vigorously in recent years. The discontent with GDP stems from the fact that it focusses exclusively on economic growth. Even there, it does not capture the level of inequity which can exist in a society despite overall economic growth. The inequity can in fact even be exacerbated by it. More importantly, it pays no attention to the social and environmental measures of development which are as important as economic development. Indeed, the United Nations has identified three pillars on which the post- 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) must rest: economic, social and environmental.

Alternate measures

Several alternative measures have been proposed to capture the social dimension of development, combined with or independent of economic indices. Bhutan has embraced and espoused the concept of Gross National Happiness. A World Happiness Report is now periodically published from the Columbia University which compares self-reported levels of happiness of people from different countries. A composite Wellness Index was proposed by noted economists Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi in response to a request from the then President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, for a measure of development that looks beyond GDP. A Global Multidimensional Poverty Index was developed at Oxford to gauge inequity within and across societies.

 We may continue to measure GDP, but we must also measure social progress lest we end up as a soulless society characterised by gaping equality 

However, none of these has really caught on because economists, industrialists and politicians alike are conditioned to place a high premium on economic development as the measure of progress and do not like to see the clarity of a single measure like GDP cluttered by a host of other indicators they view as imprecise or even irrelevant. So, an index of social progress is needed which does not try to displace GDP (not yet anyway) but has additive value. Such an index can be used to remind political leaders that their bifocal vision must accommodate both economic and social progress as being important for a country, recognising, of course, that these two tracks are closely interlinked and sometimes inseparable.

Such an index of social progress has recently been created by a group of academics and institutions constituting the Social Progress Imperative (www.socialprogressimperative.org). This index has three major domains: Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Wellbeing and Opportunity. Each of these has several clusters of specific indicators (as shown in the table).

The environmental dimension is partly incorporated into the Social Progress Index (SPI) as a cluster of indicators related to ecosystem sustainability. While there can be debates on which other indicators could have been included in any of the clusters, the SPI does provide a list of key areas which need to be tracked and acted upon to ensure a higher level of social progress. The index is still evolving, with validation studies being conducted on data from different countries. The authors have extended an open invitation to groups from anywhere in the world to use their data sets for validation and suggest refinements.

The designers of this index draw our attention to three overarching findings of their study so far: social progress is distinct from economic development, though correlated with it; some aspects of social progress are more closely related to the level of economic development than others; countries have relative strengths and weaknesses in social progress, both across the major dimensions and across components within the dimensions.

Of the three domains, Basic Human Needs is best correlated with per capita GDP, Foundations of Wellbeing being intermediate and Opportunity the least so. However, in each domain there is variability in the degree of correlation between the individual components and per capita GDP. As the developers of SPI affirm, the index offers a new tool to explore the complex two-way relationship between economic and social progress. At the same time, it provides a metric for comparison of countries, and States within a country.

Inter-country comparisons

In inter-country comparisons, the top three countries were New Zealand, Switzerland and Iceland. Not surprisingly, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark feature in the top 10. India scored lower than the other four from the BRICS group because of lags in areas such as water, sanitation and access to higher education. In specific indicators, there is variability across these countries. For example, China lags in personal rights and Brazil in personal safety. Costa Rica has an SPI close to that of far richer countries like Spain and Italy. Costa Rica’s outstanding health status and access to education may be related to investment priorities (it has no defence budget) and social harmony. For the present, India need not concern itself with comparisons with other countries or even debate on how accurately the individual components of the index measure social progress. It would help if the SPI indicators serve as a checklist to monitor our progress over time in each of these important areas of human welfare.

Even as the country commits itself to move on the fast track of economic growth, it must be mindful of the need to invest in improving the social indicators as well. We may continue to measure GDP if that is still considered the talisman of economic progress by the worlds of politics and finance, but we must also simultaneously measure social progress lest we end up as a soulless society characterised by gaping inequality and glaring social backwardness despite gaining wealth. Let GDP and SPI be the inseparable Gemini twins that herald our ascent to higher levels of balanced development

Trials and regulations

The promise and performance of genetically modified crops in agriculture is once again under the spotlight, with the sanction given by the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee for confined field trials of several food crops. In its last days, the UPA government decided to end the moratorium on trial cultivation of these engineered varieties, and to allow experiments aimed at generating biosafety data. The GEAC has now taken further steps to allow field trials of rice, brinjal, mustard, chickpea and cotton, and import of GM soyabean oil. Clearly, there can be no credible argument against scientific experiments in agriculture that advance the goal of developing plant varieties that can withstand drought, resist pests and raise yields to feed the growing world population. But this should be done through a transparent regulatory process that is free of ethical conflicts. Proponents of GM crops funding research in agricultural universities represents one such conflict. To aid transparency, research findings should be made available in the public domain for independent study. But India has taken only halting steps towards establishing a strong regulatory system; the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India Bill, 2013, which provided for multi-level scientific assessments and an appellate tribunal, has lapsed.

While the Central government has not permitted the commercial cultivation of Bt brinjal in India, the recent case of neighbouring Bangladesh shows that regulatory mechanisms must be put in place before such crops are grown, whether for research or for the market — and they must be functional. Although the licence to produce the crop in Bangladesh required that the GM variety be isolated from indigenous ones to prevent genetic contamination, the condition was not followed. Field trials in India, in which the State governments have a say, must ensure that there are sufficient safeguards against such violations. If GM food is allowed to be sold to consumers, they must have the right to know what they are buying, and labelling should be made mandatory. Here again, the Bangladesh experience shows that such a condition may be difficult to enforce. There is no consensus on the performance of GM crops and the results have been mixed. They have had some beneficial impact on tillage practices and in terms of curbing the use of insecticides, but as the Union of Concerned Scientists in the U.S. points out, they have created monocultures and may be affecting birds and bees. All this underscores the need for a cautious approach — one that fosters scientific inquiry, allows for scrutiny and is underpinned by regulation. Enacting a comprehensive law that covers all aspects of GM crops should be a priority.