Agreement Signed with NASA

The agreements signed between Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which are currently valid, are given below. 1. Implementing Arrangement for cooperation on the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission for scientific studies on Earth (signed in September 2014). 2. Reimbursable Agreement for Spacecraft Communication and Navigation support for India`s Mars Orbiter Mission (signed in June 2013). 3. Implementing Arrangement for Megha-Tropiques - Global Precipitation Measurement Cooperation (signed in March 2012). 4. Implementing Arrangement for collaboration on OCEANSAT-2 data utilisation activities (signed in March 2012). 5. Framework Agreement for cooperation in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes (signed in February 2008) 6. Memorandum of Understanding for flying Mini Synthetic Aperture Radar instrument in Chandrayaan-1 (signed in May 2006). 7. Memorandum of Understanding for flying Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument in Chandrayaan-1 (signed in May 2006). The benefits likely to accrue/accrued from cooperation between ISRO and NASA include exposure to certain high technological areas related to space, complex data processing techniques, sharing of data/infrastructure and joint science studies in understanding Earth and planetary system

Manned Space Mission

Presently, the Government has approved development of a few critical technologies relevant for manned space mission, which also includes development of a Crew Module. ISRO has developed a Crew Module which is similar to the Crew Module of manned flight in terms of its Aerodynamic shape, Mass, Thermal protection system, Parachute system and certain aspects of the structure. The crew module will be tested for its re-entry performance during the experimental flight of GSLV-MkIII.             The details of the commercially successful space missions, in the last three years, year-wise are given below: 2012: ·      Launch of an earth observation satellite SPOT-6 (France) and a micro-satellite PROITERES (Japan) onboard PSLV-C21 on September 09, 2012. This was a dedicated commercial mission and the amount spent on this mission was `80 Crores. 2013: ·      Launch of 6 micro-satellites namely, STRAND-1 (UK), NLS-8.1 (Austria), NLS-8.2 (Austria), NLS-8.3 (Denmark), SAPPHIRE (Canada) and NEOSSAT (Canada) on board PSLV-C20 utilizing the spare capacity of PSLV-C20 on February 25, 2013. No additional amount was spent on this mission as these satellites have been launched as co-passengers. 2014: ·      Launch of an earth observation satellite SPOT-7 (France) along with 4 micro-satellites namely, AISAT (Germany), NLS-7.1 (Canada), NLS-7.2 (Canada) and VELOX-1 (Singapore) on board PSLV-C23 on June 30, 2014. This was a dedicated commercial mission and the amount spent on this mission was ` 80 Crore.             The protection of planet earth from approaching asteroids/celestial bodies is a global issue. ISRO has taken up studies in this area and is participating in various international forums like Inter Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee, Planetary Defense Conference etc., to address the issues and work out the mitigation plan. Various technical options considered and evaluated by international community to keep away asteroids from the Earth are Kinetic impact, Gravity Tractor, Solar concentrator and Laser deflection.

Light Water Reactors

There have been some reports in the media raising certain issues regarding the quality of equipment and components in the Light Water Reactor (LWRs) at Kudankulam, Tamil Nadu which has been set up in technical collaboration with M/s Atomstroyexport (ASE) of the Russian Federation. Presently, Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) Units 1 & 2 (2X1000 MW), set up in technical cooperation with M/s ASE of the Russian Federation are under implementation. Unit-1 has been commissioned and connected to the grid in October 2013 and Unit-2 is under commissioning. In addition, Government has also accorded administrative and financial approval for construction of KKNPP-3&4 (2x1000 MW) to be located at the same site. Before the commencement of manufacturing of components and equipment for KKNPP, a detailed Quality Assurance Plan (QAP) was prepared by the manufacturers which was reviewed by the Russian designers and other Russian organisations and approved by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL). All the equipments and components have cleared all the stages of this Quality Assurance Plan. Thus it has been ascertained by means of establishing systems for controlling the manufacturing process, that there is no compromise in the quality of the components supplied to KKNPP from M/s ASE of the Russian Federation. We have indigenously developed a Light Water Reactor of small size, operational for the last eight years. This technology is being upgraded for making a 900 MWe Light Water Reactor indigenously. Presently, we are in the process of preparation of detailed designs for approval by the Regulatory Authority, i.e. the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). The present installed capacity of nuclear power capacity in the country, of 4780 MW comprises 4160 MW based on the indigenous technology and 620 MW [Tarapur Atomic Power Station Units 1&2 (TAPS 1&2) – 2X160 MW and Rajasthan Atomic Power Station Units 1&2 (RAPS 1&2) – 100 + 200 MW] based on foreign technical cooperation. In addition, seven reactors with an aggregate capacity of 5300 MW are at various stages of construction / commissioning. On progressive completion of these reactors the installed capacity of nuclear power in the country is expected to reach 10080 MW, of which, 2620 MW (TAPS 1&2 – 2X160 MW, RAPS 1&2 – 100+200 MW and Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project Units 1&2 (KKNPP 1&2) – 2 X 1000), or about 26% would be based on foreign cooperation. The present installed capacity is planned to be tripled in the next ten years, based on both indigenous technologies and with foreign technical cooperation. The capacity based on foreign technical cooperation is expected to be about 31% after ten years.

Nuclear Power Programme

The Government is committed to implement the third stage of Indian Nuclear Power Programme, after an adequate nuclear installed capacity has been reached based on Fast Breeder Reactors to be set up in the second stage.  On account of non-existence of any fissile isotope in naturally occurring Thorium (unlike that existing in Uranium), commercial utilisation of Thorium, on a significant scale, can begin only when abundant supply of either Uranium or Plutonium resources are available.  Upon the launch, followed by a significant growth of a thorium based nuclear programme in this manner, it could be possible to maintain the achieved level (without much further growth) of nuclear power programme with thorium alone, without additional demands on uranium or plutonium resources. Therefore, considering the meager domestic uranium resources in the country, it is feasible to start a significant commercial level Thorium based reactor programme in our country only after an adequate inventory of Plutonium becomes available from our Fast Breeder Reactors, comprising the second stage of Indian nuclear programme.  Accordingly, the utilisation of Thorium as a practically inexhaustible energy source has been contemplated during the third stage of the Indian nuclear programme, which can be reached after a few decades.                         Substantial work has been carried out in the areas of research on technologies for utilisation of Thorium in nuclear fuel cycle, and on the development of an Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR), to serve as a technology demonstrator for use of thorium based fuel on a large scale.         The details are given below: Projects initiated in the last five years: Project Location Capacity (MW) Completion Cost (`crore) Kakrapar Atomic Power Project Units 3&4 (KAPP 3&4) Kakrapar, Gujarat 2 X 700 11459 Rajasthan Atomic Power Project Units 7&8 (RAPP 7&8) Rawatbhata, Rajasthan 2 X 700 12320   The details of Nuclear Power Projects planned for start of work in the XII Five Year      Plan are given below : Project Location Capacity (MW) Indigenous Reactors Gorakhpur Haryana Anu Vidyut Pariyojana (GHAVP 1&2) Gorakhpur, Haryana 2 x 700 Chutka Madhya Pradesh Atomic Power Project (CMPAPP 1&2) Chutka, Madhya Pradesh 2 x 700 Mahi Banswara, 1 & 2 Mahi Banswara, Rajasthan 2 x 700 Kaiga 5 & 6 Kaiga, Karnataka 2 x 700 Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR 1&2) Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu 2 x 500 Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) Location to be decided       300 Reactors with Foreign Cooperation Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP 3&4) Kudankulam, Tamil Nadu 2 x 1000 Jaitapur Nuclear Power Project (JNPP 1&2) Jaitapur, Maharashtra 2 x 1650 Kovvada, 1 & 2 Kovvada, Andhra Pradesh 2 x 1500 Chhaya Mithi Virdi, 1&2 Chhaya Mithi Virdi, Gujarat 2 x 1100

Increase in Emigration of Unskilled Workers

The Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs and External Affairs Smt.Sushma Swaraj said in a statement regarding ‘Increase in Emigration of Unskilled Workers’laid on the table of the Lok Sabha today thatthere is no sharp increase in the emigration clearance granted to semi-skilled/unskilled workers during the last three years i.e. 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 which was 55949, 60501 and 57085 in those three years, respectively. Complaints have been received from Indian workers on the alleged cheating by recruitment agencies/agents offering placements abroad from time to time. Complaints received are generally in the nature of non-providing the promised employment/change of employment or condition of employment to the disadvantage of emigrants unilaterally by the Foreign Employer, non-payment/ delayed payment or underpayment of salaries, long working hours, inadequate living conditions, physical harassment, non-renewal of visa and labour card on time, refusal to pay for the medical treatment, denial of leave and air-ticket to the hometown on completion of contract period, forcible custody of Passport and Visa, refusal of leave or ‘exit/re-entry permits’/‘final exit visa’ etc. Details of complaints received on the alleged cheating by recruitment agencies/agents offering placements abroad during the last one year, State-wise is at Annexure. Ministry of overseas Indian affairs has introduced a plan scheme on skill development for overseas employment, namely, SwarnapravasYojana in the current 12th Five year Plan. The scheme has been formulated to imbibe skill and expertise to potential migrants to prevent exploitation of these workers in the destination countries. The scheme will adhere to thebroad objectives of skill development in India, as envisioned by the National Skill Development Policy, 2009. For the 12th Five year Plan thetotal project cost envisaged is Rs137 crores and budgetary allocation for 2014-15 is Rs. 20 crore. MOIA has been mandated to train 5 Million people by 2022 under this scheme. The key objectives of the scheme are as under: Position India as a preferred source country for skilled and trained workers in select sectors that face skill shortages in the international labour market, and in which India enjoys competitive advantage Diversify destination-country base with focus on geographies/countries that will experience significant labour supply gaps & skill shortages and are of strategic interest to India Enhance employability of Indian Youth abroad and move them up the wage-chain by providing training and certification which will be internationally recognized Indian Missions have an exclusive wing to look into matters relating to Indian workers. Whenever a complaint is received from any Indian worker abroad or his family in India or any other source, the Indian Mission immediately initiates action to resolve the issue by getting in touch with the foreign employer/local authorities and emigrant worker concerned, if required visit labour camps and actively pursue the matter to its logical conclusion. Whenever necessary, the complainant is also provided counseling and accordingly referred to concerned labour office/court, Immigration and Police authorities etc. The Missions also provide interpreting services to the Indian complainants. For redressal of grievances of emigrants, Indian Workers Resource Centre (IWRC) at Dubai, UAE, has been established which is a 24X7 toll free multilingual helpline and also provides free legal, psychological and financial counseling to distressed Indians. Other Missions also have helpline/help desks to attend to grievances of Indian nationals. Indian Missions also actively interact with local Indian Communities in their socio cultural programmes so as to seek their help in times of emergencies and to redress the grievances of Indian workers. Indian Community Welfare Fund (ICWF) has been established in the Indian Missions for on-site welfare of emigrants, which include offering food and accommodation like shelter for short term to Indian workers in distress, air-ticket at Government cost for repatriation to India, transportation of the mortal remains, initial legal assistance and emergency medical help and organizing awareness camps at prominent worker accommodation sites. Ministry has launched a soft-ware module in the Ministry’s website in which dependents of deceased emigrant can make entries relating to deceased emigrants and the concerned Indian Mission immediately acts on such requests in order to facilitate transportation of mortal remains. The Ministry has also been keeping a close watch over this issue through this module.

Exhaustion in Lima The confused outcome of climate-change talks reflects the complex fault lines that divide countries on this issue

The latest round of the global negotiations on climate change ended last Sunday in the usual fashion, with the host country, Peru, brokering a decision by exhaustion nearly two days after the scheduled end of the conference. All those who came with a defensive agenda expressed their satisfaction with the outcome, those with a positive agenda tempered their disappointment with the hope that the outcome left room for improvement in the next round and non-governmental organisation activists registered their dissatisfaction in a variety of ways, including, this time, the desecration of a heritage site.

This confused outcome reflects the complex fault lines that divide countries on this issue. Apart from the usual North-South divide, there are fault lines within each of these groupings. In the developed world, the United States, Europe, Australia and Japan have very different agendas on what they expect of each other by way of climate action, though they may be united on what they want from the developing world. Within the developing world, too, there is unity on what they want from the developed world, but wide differences on their expectations of what their developing country allies must bring to the table.

The climate negotiations were not a North-South battle when the process began in 1990. At that time, the main fault line was between those who were sceptical and those who were convinced about the reality of human-induced climate change. The other fault line was between the United States and Europe, which was about burden sharing, but couched in terms of differences in the urgency for immediate action because the United States policy was heavily influenced by the presence of a climate sceptic, John Sununu, in the White House as chief of staff to Bush the Elder. The patient scientific consensus building of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has put this behind us and climate scepticism is restricted to some eccentric conservatives.

There was hardly any demand for action by developing countries at that time in 1992. Nobody at that time anticipated the phenomenal growth in Chinese gross domestic product (GDP), resources use and carbon emissions. The Indian economy was on a sick list and did not look like emerging as a major carbon emitter. Most developing countries were only lightly engaged in the climate negotiations. India and Brazil were exceptions, and they played a central role in writing in some crucial principles like common but differentiated responsibility, the role of historical responsibility and the primacy of development requirements - principles that today the developed countries find irksome and whose defence seems to be the principle plank of India's climate diplomacy.

 

 

 

The convention signed in 1992 remained a framework of aspirations and did not involve any hard obligation to contain carbon emissions. The Europeans then pushed for a protocol to the convention with hard obligations on the developed countries to reduce their emissions. The mandate for negotiating such a protocol came from the 1995 Berlin meeting of the parties to the convention, a meeting which was chaired by the then German environment minister, Angela Merkel, and reached fruition at Kyoto in 1997.

The Kyoto Protocol required hard targets for emission reduction by the developed countries. The 2012 goals on emission reductions for the countries who were to be a party to the protocol came out of a negotiating process that can only be described as a bazaar bargain. They were not rooted in any principle-based calculation of who should do how much. The assigned goals only embody what had to be accepted to secure that country's commitment. Thus, Russia, for instance, ended up with a carbon quota they would not use even in 2050 because they refused to sign unless they got that and their adherence to the protocol was necessary if it had to come into force even if the United States did not ratify.

The developing countries were not required to contribute to the mitigation effort. However, indirectly they, especially India and China, did participate in the protocol through the clean development mechanisms that allowed mitigation obligations to be met by buying carbon credits from developing country entities who undertook actions that would reduce carbon emissions below a business-as-usual base.

The situation changed when the time came to negotiate targets for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which was to run from 2012 to 2020. The growth in emissions from China and other developing countries became the largest element in the current accumulation of greenhouse gases. The developed countries walked into a major economic crisis in 2008 and were increasingly concerned about the growing economic power of China. The United States, under Congressional pressure, made participation by China and India a precondition for its participation in any globally negotiated mitigation effort.

Hence, at Bali in 2007 and at Durban in 2012, the parties to the convention broadened the mandate to rope in the developing countries into the mitigation effort but also agreed to a bottom-up and more or less voluntary indication of national action as the basis for the global agreement.

The moot question is how principles like common but differentiated responsibility can be enforced in such a bottom-up, voluntary scheme with a very light global review process. We also need differentiation not just between developed and developing countries but also within the very diverse group of developing countries . We cannot accept the Chinese metric of specifying a peaking year as most calculations suggest that even with a major effort directed at energy efficiency and non-carbon energy sources, our emissions will continue to increase even beyond 2030. But we can make credible commitments on the carbon intensity of growth.

India has to protect its core national interests, which include the need for rapid growth, expanding energy access and energy security. But they also include protection from climate change risks as India's development and the well-being of its population would be seriously affected if the climate negotiations fail to reduce the risk of global warming going much beyond the accepted two degrees Celsius limit. We have a good story to tell on energy efficiency and renewables. The question we need to ask is whether our stance will force major polluters to also come up with a convincing programme for their contribution to the global mitigation effort, or will our negotiators remain satisfied with their defence of principles and the deferral of effective action.

Power Grid Corp nominated for largest transmission line

The government has awarded a critical power transmission corridor project, connecting power-starved southern states to thermal power rich, western India, to Power Grid Corporation. This has been done by "nomination", shunning private sector investment through an auction.

Officials in the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Power Finance Corporation and Power Grid confirmed the development.

They added the decision was based on requests by the southern states that the central government award to Power Grid, the high voltage direct current transmission lineconnecting Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu.

The ministry of power had put up eight transmission contracts with a total investment of Rs 53,000 crore for rate-based global competitive bidding in September.

Later, it decided to allot the largest project of Rs 26,820 crore to the state-owned transmission company and central transmission utility.

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) had in 2011 ordered the power transmission projects to be awarded through rate-based competitive bids, as was the case with generation projects.

"In the annual power ministers' conference in New Delhi on September 9, the southern states requested the central government to allot the project to Power Grid. Especially Tamil Nadu, which wants this project to come up as soon as possible. It has been insisting on giving the project to Power Grid," said a senior government official.

R Viswanathan, Tamil Nadu's minister for electricity, prohibition and excise, in his speech at the conference, said, "To evacuate the power available with the pithead power stations in Chhattisgarh, work on the line from Chhattisgarh to Tamil Nadu needs to be entrusted to Power Grid, in view of its expertise and implementation capacity."

Government officials said Power Grid was the only company with expertise in such lines.

They cited the recently commissioned Raichur-Solapur transmission line. This 760 kV-460 km line, the first one connecting the southern region with western India, was commissioned this year in February.

Executives at private power companies, however, said there were several companies in India like Alstom, Siemens and Larsen & Toubro which offered high voltage direct current transmission lines. The Adani group, too, has installed a 500 kV (2,000 MW capacity) line from Mundra to Mohindargarh in Gujarat.

Companies in the race for the project are irked at this 'unlawful' move. Reliance Power, Tata Power, Sterlite Energy, Lanco and Larsen & Toubro were planning to bid for this project.

Power sector experts said the decision could have been taken due to the size of the project.

The Raigarh-Pugalur line will have a capacity of 6,000 MW and cover 2,000 km.

"Nomination of power transmission projects is against the National Tariff Policy and the Electricity Act, apart from the CERC regulations. Tariff-based bidding was introduced to make the sector cost-efficient and ensure timely delivery. This is a setback to power plants in Odisha and Chhattisgarh and consumers in Tamil Nadu who could have availed cheap power at the earliest," said an executive with a private transmission company.

A senior CEA official said the other seven projects would be allotted through bidding. The cumulative cost of these projects is less than the one awarded to Power Grid.

Power transmission was opened to the private sector in 2010, with the award of the western regional system strengthening project to Reliance Infrastructure and the east-north interconnection line to Sterlite Energy.