The great Game Folio: Ocean Diplomacy

answer to the new maritime challenges that confront India. Multilateral diplomacy is an important but minor part of a new Indian Ocean strategy that New Delhi needs to develop. The core of such a strategy is about building India’s own naval strength and expanding its maritime partnerships with other countries through bilateral, trilateral and multilateral means.

In the past, when India saw itself as a weak, non-aligned state, Delhi believed the nation’s security dilemmas could be addressed through moralpolitik. This approach created severe problems for the nation’s security decision-makers. When China tested its first nuclear weapon in 1964, for example, India ran to the United Nations seeking a treaty that would abolish nuclear weapons.

Delhi contested the very idea of a power vacuum in the Indian Ocean and bet that the region could build a system of collective security. India asked the great powers not to acquire military bases in the region. It also told Washington and Moscow, “by the way, don’t even think of bringing your nuclear weapons into the Indian Ocean”.Instead, India got the non-proliferation treaty, which only prevented the spread of these weapons. Rather than build a nuclear arsenal, India spent the next three-and-a-half decades denouncing the NPT and proclaiming a commitment to nuclear disarmament. Similarly, India believed that the UN would provide answers to a historic shift in its maritime environment — the withdrawal of Great Britain from east of the Suez after nearly two centuries of dominance over the Indian Ocean. As America replaced Britain as the dominant naval power in the Indian Ocean and its rival Soviet Union sought to compete, Delhi backed Colombo’s proposal for a zone of peace in the Indian Ocean.

If Delhi’s strategic innocence in the 1960s was breathtaking, some of its neighbours, like Pakistan, thought India was being simply devious; they believed Delhi wanted great powers out of the Indian Ocean so that it could establish its own dominance. So much for the consequences of Indian idealism. Irrespective of their lip service for the zone of peace, most Indian Ocean states actively sought military support from one or the other external power to counter presumed threats from their neighbours. That world has 

Maritime China

Doval’s invocation of the zone of peace proposal is widely seen as an Indian counter to China’s growing naval presence in the Indian Ocean. Delhi has noted with concern the recent dockingof Chinese naval submarines in Colombo and watched warily as the Chinese navy matched India’s fresh water diplomacy in the Maldives. India’s rhetoric about keeping extra-regional powers out of the Indian Ocean was directed at America in the 1970s and 1980s. As India has expanded its interaction with the US military since the early 1990s, some of that rhetoric had taken a backseat. As China eyes the Indian Ocean, Delhi is playing the old song again. But that little ditty is not going to limit China’s rising naval profile in the Indian Ocean. After it first showed up in the Indian Ocean three decades ago, the Chinese navy is here to stay. Like all great powers before, Beijing is bound to establish a permanent military presence in the Indian Ocean. The question is not “if” but “when”. Indian Response To cope with the rise of China and the changing power balance in the Indian Ocean, Delhi needs to look beyond the outdated zone of peace proposal. India’s ocean diplomacy needs a strong domestic foundation, built on more rapid naval modernisation, the expansion of civilian maritime infrastructure, development of island territories, capacity to undertake projects in other countries across the littoral and more vigorous naval assistance to other countries. On the political front, India needs much better political relations with its maritime neighbours like Sri Lanka and the Maldives, which are playing the China card as an insurance against hostile Indian policies. Delhi also needs stronger partnerships with other island states, like Seychelles and Mauritius, which are being wooed by China with great vigour today. India needs to deepen its military security cooperation in the Indian Ocean with the US and France and initiate a maritime security dialogue with China. On the foundation of these unilateral and bilateral initiatives, India can expand its maritime multilateralism through such initiatives as the Indian Ocean Rim Association and the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium. For all this, Delhi needs the civilian leadership — both political and bureaucratic — in the defence ministry to wake up to the new imperatives of maritime strategy and naval diplomacy. - 

Basel III norms cannot end social banking

Nationalized banks in India are being sought to be privatized on the basis of an argument, originally advanced by P. Chidambaram and more recently by Arun Jaitley, that without it India cannot meet the Basel III "norms". The argument goes as follows.

The Basel III agreement has set " norms" with regard inter alia to the size of the equity base that banks in all the signatory countries must meet, for ensuring their sound financial health; fulfilling these " norms" requires an increase in the size of the equity base of the nationalized banks in India, for which the government does not have the budgetary resources; hence it must tap private capital by reducing the share of government equity and increasing that of private equity.

Neither of the two finance ministers, to be sure, has yet argued for reducing the government to a minority share- holder in nationalized banks, so that calling such equity dilution " privatization" may be objected to by some; but one cannot pretend that with the private equity share at 49 per cent, the nationalized banks can ignore private attempts to influence their behaviour.

Even if the ownership of this 49 per cent is widely dispersed, it still makes nationalized banks vulnerable to private pressures. Such dilution in short does amount to de facto privatization. The ministers' argument, however, is a completely spurious one.

Whether India should be following Basel III "norms" at all is itself a debatable point. Bank nationalization in India was meant to serve a social purpose: to reach bank credit to peasants, petty producers and small capitalists who had been excluded from it earlier, and it is precisely because of this widening of the reach of bank credit that the country could break out of the stagnation that foodgrain production had entered into by the mid- 1960s (even if the abysmal output levels of 1965- 66 and 1966- 67 which produced the Bihar famine are ignored).

This purpose is at loggerheads with the Basel III "norms", which, if strictly adhered to, would exclude many of these borrowers, even though lending to them is safer than to the big capitalists who use it for speculative purposes, that is, for participating in stock market or property market "bubbles". This fact, resoundingly demonstrated by the 2008 financial crisis, when, ironically, the nationalized banks in India were lauded for not having got into "toxic" assets as private banks all over the world had done, is hardly likely to be appreciated by a meeting of conventional bankers in Basel who prescribe such "norms". It follows that a government committed to social banking cannot be bound by Basel III "norms". The fact that the government wants even the nationalized banks to follow these " norms" is because it has opened the economy to the vortex of globalized financial flows; and when that happens, you cannot ignore the demands of the Basel financial elite, even if they go against your social purpose . But let us leave aside this point, and assume that Basel III "norms" with regard to the equity of the nationalized banks have simply got to be met. Even so, the argument of the finance ministers is a spurious one, because it assumes that the government needs to pay for the additional equity of the nationalized banks from budgetary sources; there is absolutely no reason why it should do so.

Whatever the additional amount that needs to be provided by the government for meeting the enhanced equity base required by the Basel III "norms" can simply be borrowed from the Reserve Bank of India.

Suppose for simplicity that Rs 100 has to be provided and that the government borrows this amount from the RBI and gives it to the banks as equity capital. If the banks in turn simply hold this amount with the RBI itself, then all that would have happened is a mere book transaction on the part of the RBI, with absolutely zero effects on the real economy . Technically, such borrowing from the RBI constitutes " deficit financing", but in this case, since no funds would get into the economy at all, there is no question of there being any effects whatsoever, let alone any harmful effects, of such " deficit financing" on the economy.

Of course, if the banks' equity base goes up by Rs 100 and they hold all of it in the form of cash with the RBI, then the banks' cash reserve ratio, which is the ratio of their cash- holding to total assets, would have increased (since both the total assets and the cash component of it would have increased by the same amount). But there is absolutely nothing that forbids banks from holding cash reserves in excess of what is statutorily required. There is no problem relating to interest payments either, since the entire arrangement is between the government, the nationalized banks, and the RBI (whose profits accrue to the government anyway).

In short, the provision of additional equity for nationalized banks is a complete non- issue. And the reason for its being a non- issue is simply that with nationalized banks, the government is committed to protecting them anyway, precisely by virtue of being their owner. No Basel III "norm" in terms of equity base is actually necessary for them, for they already enjoy the protection of the sovereign government that owns them. Fulfilling this equity "norm" which is unnecessary can therefore take the form of a mere book transaction, which is no more than just a ritual.

The government's borrowing from the RBI to increase the equity base of the nationalized banks will, on paper no doubt, raise the fiscal deficit, and hence contravene the Fiscal Responsibility and Budgetary Management Act that puts a ceiling on the fiscal deficit. But, as already suggested, it would have absolutely no effects on the economy.

To drag in the FRBM Act to thwart this obvious way of enhancing the equity base of the nationalized banks, through a mere book transaction, would therefore be sheer folly. It may be argued that even though we know that such a book transaction will not have any real economic effects, the foreign investors may get frightened if the fiscal deficit, because of this titular component, exceeds the provision of the FRBM Act. To this, however, one can only say, first, that the foreign investors are not so stupid as not to see the titular nature of this fiscal deficit; and, second, that if they still get put off by it, then one should not allow their stupidity or invidiousness, whichever way one interprets their intransigence, to alter a basic parameter of policy in the country, which is to promote social banking through the nationalized banks.

There is indeed an instructive precedent here. When the financial crisis hit the United States of America upon the collapse of the housing bubble, the Barack Obama administration had made a provision of $ 13 trillion for supporting the American financial system. The US does not have any equivalent of an FRBM Act; but, even so, nobody was concerned about this amount being set aside, because the administration was not being actually called upon to spend this amount. It was in the form of guarantees, or pledges of support, on the part of the administration, should the need arise, which is exactly what the Union government's enhanced equity support to banks would amount to, according to the conception I have put forward.

It follows that the entire argument about the need to privatize nationalized banks because of the paucity of fiscal resources to enhance their equity base is a totally spurious one, since no such fiscal resources are needed. But this is so obvious a point that one cannot imagine it’s not having struck the finance ministry mandarins. The fact that they still advance this argument, therefore, needs an explanation.

And the real explanation is that there has been immense pressure from international financial organizations and the US administration upon India for privatizing its public sector banks. Indeed several US treasury officials from Lawrence Summers to Timothy Geithner have met our finance ministry mandarins in New Delhi to persuade them to privatize at least the State Bank of India, if not the whole set of public sector banks.

And our mandarins, notwithstanding their own predilection in favour of such privatization, which arises from their own penchant for neo- liberal " reforms", have been held back by the immense political opposition it would generate within the country, including from within the ruling political formations.

Given this stalemate, passing off privatization, and that too of a " soft" kind that does not actually entail making the government a minority share- holder, as being absolutely necessary for " technical" reasons having to do with Basel III is a subterfuge resorted to by our mandarins. It is an utterly disingenuous exercise, which, for that very reason at least, must not be allowed to succeed.

First global CO2 concentration maps

The first global CO2 concentration maps sent by Nasa’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite, a carbon monitoring mission, have generated considerable excitement in the community of climate-change watchers, including scientists across the world. The OCO-2, a successor mission to 2009’s failed OCO mission, maps CO2 concentrations as the greenhouse gas circles the globe.
The OCO-2 is geared to measure atmospheric CO2 concentrations with enough precision to ascertain how and where exactly human activity and natural systems are affecting emission and absorption of the gas. It is believed to map the emission at a much higher resolution than similar probes, thereby detecting even minute changes in concentration. The first images generated by the mission have shown the highest concentrations of CO2 over large parts of Brazil and southern Africa, as well as the eastern coast of China and the Far East, with high concentrations detected over North America and Europe.
While the concentration of CO2 in Africa could stem from the burning of the forests and the savannah grasslands, climate scientists believe, the concentrations over the developed world is mostly because of human activity. Incidentally, India, which developed countries often club with China as a major emitter of CO2, shows a much lesser concentration, even over its industrialised southern and western states. Much of the promise of the OCO-2 mission lies in facilitating scientists’ understanding of the natural systems, including oceans and vegetation, which absorb as much as 50% of the C02 in the atmosphere. Given human activity has been dumping nearly 40 billion tonnes of CO2 every year and the present concentration of the gas is the highest in millions of years, scientists fear that the natural systems may be losing their capacity to absorb the pollution.

First time, Pakistan and Russia sign energy deal

For the first time, Pakistan and Russia have signed an energy deal worth $1.7 billion to lay a gas pipeline from Karachi to Lahore, a move that may lead to further improvement in their ties.
The supply of a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is expected to start before March next year, The Express Tribune reported.
The report cited unidentified officials saying the pipeline would be used to transport imported LNG from Karachi to Punjab province.
The energy agreement was signed during the day-long visit of Sergei Shoigu last month, the first visit by a Russian Defence Minister to Pakistan in 45 years. The last visit to Pakistan was made by Soviet Union’s Defence Minister Andrey Grechko.
During Mr. Shoigu’s visit, Islamabad and Moscow also inked a defence and military cooperation deal.
It is the first time Pakistan and Russia have signed an energy pact decades after the recent deal to increase military cooperation.
Pakistan, over the past few years, has carefully courted Russia to boost bilateral relations. Its former Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited Russia in 2009 and 2012.
Earlier this year, Russia lifted arms sales embargo to Pakistan, and a “final go ahead” was given for the purchase of Russian MI-35 helicopter gunships.
Pakistan is currently working on two LNG pipelines as an alternative to the apparently doomed Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline project, which included LNG Gwadar pipeline and south pipeline from Karachi to Lahore.
The government has signed a deal with China to award $3 billion Gwadar LNG pipeline and terminal project.
Russia has helped Pakistan set up the Karachi Steel Mills and also supported the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited, which is still using old Russian machinery in exploring oil and gas.
The paper also reported that Pakistan has offered China and Russia to lay IP gas pipeline but both the countries had backed out due to sanctions imposed against Iran.

National Ayush Mission (NAM)

The Government of India has approved and notified National AYUSH Mission (NAM) as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme on 29.09.2014. 1.                  Introduction:
Department of AYUSH, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India has launched National AYUSH Mission (NAM) during 12th Plan for im­plementing through States/UTs. The basic objective of NAM is to promote AYUSH medical systems through cost effective AYUSH services, strengthening of educational systems, facilitate the enforcement of quality control of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani & Homoeopathy (ASU &H) drugs and sustainable availability of ASU & H raw-materials. It envisages flexibility of implementation of the programmes which will lead to substantial participation of the State Governments/UT. The NAM contemplates establishment of a National Mission as well as corresponding Missions in the State level. NAM is likely to improve significantly the Department’s outreach in terms of planning, supervision and monitoring of the schemes.
2.                  Vision:
a.                   To provide cost effective and equitable AYUSH health care throughout the country by improving access to the services.
b.                  To revitalize and strengthen the AYUSH systems making them as prominent medical streams in addressing the health care of the society.
c.                   To improve educational institutions capable of imparting quality AYUSH AYUSH education
d.                  To promote the adoption of Quality standards of AYUSH drugs and making available the sustained supply of AYUSH raw-materials.

3.                  Objectives:
a.                   To provide cost effective AYUSH Services, with a universal access through upgrading AYUSH Hospitals and Dispensaries, co-location of AYUSH facilities at Primary Health Centres (PHCs), Community Health Centres (CHCs) and District Hospitals (DHs).
b.                  To strengthen institutional capacity at the state level through upgrading AYUSH educational institutions, State Govt. ASU&H Pharmacies, Drug Testing Laboratories and ASU & H enforcement mechanism.
c.                   Support cultivation of medicinal plants by adopting Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) so as to provide sustained supply of quality raw-materials and support certification mechanism for quality standards, Good Agricultural/Collection/Storage Practices.
d.                  Support setting up of clusters through convergence of cultivation, warehousing, value addition and marketing and development of infrastructure for entrepreneurs.

4.                  Components of the Mission:

4.1       Mandatory Components

a.       AYUSH Services
b.      AYUSH Educational Institutions
c.       Quality Control of ASU &H Drugs
d.      Medicinal Plants

4.2      Flexible Components:-
4.2.1 Out of the total State envelop available, 20% funds will be earmarked for flexible funds which can be spent on any of the items given below with the stipulation that not more than 5% of the envelop is spent on any of the components:

a.          AYUSH Wellness Centres including Yoga & Naturopathy
b.         Tele-medicine
c.          Sports Medicine through AYUSH
d.         Innovations in AYUSH including Public Private Partnership
e.          Interest subsidy component for Private AYUSH educational Institutions
f.           Reimbursement of Testing charges
g.          IEC activities
h.          Research & Development in areas related to Medicinal Plants
i.            Voluntary certification scheme: Project based.
j.            Market Promotion, Market intelligence & buy back interventions
k.          Crop Insurance for Medicinal Plants

4.2.2 The financial assistance from Government of India shall be supplementary in the form of contractual engagements, infrastructure development, Capacity Building and supply of medicines to be provided from Department of AYUSH. This will ensure better implementation of the programme through effective co-ordination and monitoring. States shall ensure to make available all the regular manpower posts filled in the existing facilities. The procurement of medicines will be made by the States/UTs as per the existing guidelines of the scheme.
5.      Institutional Mechanism:
5.1  National Level:

5.1.1        Mission Directorate:
The Mission at National level will be governed by a National AYUSH Mission Directorate.
5.1.2 Any other expert may be co-opted as deemed necessary with the approval of Chairperson. This committee shall be responsible for approving State Annual Action Plan (SAAP) based on recommendation of the appraisal committee.

5.1.3Appraisal Committee:
The Mission at National level will be facilitated by a National AYUSH Mission Appraisal Committee.
5.1.4 Any other expert may be co-opted as deemed necessary with the approval of Chairperson. This committee shall be responsible for appraising the State Annual Action Plan (SAAP) and submit to the governing body for approval.

5.2  State Level:

The Mission at State level will be governed and executed by a State AYUSH Mission Society.
5.2.2 Any other expert may be co-opted as deemed necessary with the approval of Chairperson.
5.2.3Ordinary Business: Providing AYUSH System overview, review of AYUSH policy and programme implementations, inter-sectoral co-ordination, advocacy measures required to promote AYUSH visibility and approval of State Annual Action Plan (SAAP).
5.2.6Ordinary Business:
      Review of detailed expenditure and implementation of Mission, Preparation of State Annual Action Plan and submit for approval for Governing body, Execution of the approved State Annual Action Plan including release of funds as per annual action plan, follow up action on decision of the Governing body, Monitoring and evaluation and Maintain accounts of the society, and administration of the society.
6.      Supporting Facilities under Mission:-

6.1 In order to strengthen the AYUSH infrastructure both attached Central and State levels, financial assistance for setting up of the Programme Management Units (PMU’s) will be provided. The PMU will consist of management and technical professionals both at Central and State level and will be essentially on contract or through service provider.

6.2 The PMU staff will be engaged from the open market on contractual basis or outsourcing and the expenditure on their salary will be met out of admissible administrative and managerial cost for the mission period. This PMU will provide the technical support to the implementation of National AYUSH Mission in the State through its pool of skilled professionals like MBA, CA, Accounts and technical Specialist etc. All appointments would be contractual and Central Government’s liability will be limited only to the extent of Central share admissible for administrative and management costs on salary head for the mission period.

6.3 In addition to the Manpower cost for PMU, the States/UTs can avail the financial assistance for such administrative costs like office expenditure, travelling expenditure, contingency, Annual Maintenance Cost (AMC) of infrastructure including equipments, computer, software for HMIS, Training and Capacity Building for concerned personnel under each component, audit, monitoring & evaluation, project preparation consultancy and additional manpower for AYUSH Hospitals and Dispensaries. A total 4% of the net funds available for the State is earmarked for State/UTs administrative costs under the Mission.

7.      Resource Allocation Framework:

7.1              For AYUSH Services, Educational Institutions and Quality Control of ASU&H Drugs:-
For special Category states (NE States and three hilly States of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir) Grant-in-aid component will be 90% from Govt. of India and remaining 10% is proposed to be the State contribution towards all components under the scheme. For other States/UTs the sharing pattern will be 75%:25%.
7.2              For Medicinal Plants: This component will be financed 100% by Central Government in North Eastern State and hilly State of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir where as in other states it will be shared in the ratio of 90:10 between Centre and States.
7.3       The Resource Pool to the States from the Government of India under the Mission shall be determined on the basis of following:
i.         Population with 70% weightage and 2 as multiplying factor for EAG States, Island UTs and Hilly States.
ii.       Backwardness determined on the basis of proxy indicator of per capita income will have 15% weightage and
iii.      Performance to be determined on inverse proportion of percentage of UCs due and pending as on 31st March of previous financial year will have 15% weightage.
7.4  Components of National AYUSH Mission will have certain core activities that are essential and other activities that are optional. For core/essential items 80% of the Resource pool allocated to the States can be used. For optional items, the remaining 20% of Resource pool allocated to the States can be used in a flexible manner, with the restriction that this 20% of Resource Pool can be spent on any of the items allowed with constraints that not more than 5% of the envelop is spent on any of the components:

7.5  The amount of release against the Central share will be as follows:-

Entitled Central Share – (Unspent balance of the Grant-in Aid released in previous years + interest accrued).

8.   Utilization Certificates:-

In respect of non-recurring grants, a certificate of actual utilization of the grants received for the purpose for which it was sanctioned in Form GFR 19-A should be submitted in order to sanction of further grant-in aid. In respect of recurring grants, release of grant-in aid in subsequent years will be done only after Utilization Certificate on provisional basis in respect of grants of the preceding financial year is submitted. Release of Grants-in Aid in excess of 75% of the total amount sanctioned of the subsequent financial year shall be done only after the Utilization Certificate and the annual audited statement relating to the Grants-in aid released in the preceding year is submitted.


9.   Flow of funds:-
Grant-in Aid will be transferred through treasury route with effect from F.Y. 2014-15 onwards to State Governments which in turn will transfer the funds to the State AYUSH Society along with State Share. However, during current F.Y. 2013-14, Grant-in Aid shall be transferred as per existing pattern.
10. Action Plan:
1.      Indication of tentative State allocation by Department of AYUSH, Government of India  -  31st, December
2.      Budget Provision by the State Government alongwith matching State Share  -  31st March
3.      Preparation of State Annual Action Plan by Executive Committee of the State AYUSH Society – 30th April
4.      The receipt of State Annual Action Plan in the Department of AYUSH, Government of India – 1st week of May

11.  Monitoring and Evaluation:

11.1 Dedicated MIS monitoring and evaluation cell would be established at Centre/ State level. It is therefore proposed to have a Health Management Information System (HMIS) Cell at National level with three HMIS Managers and one HMIS Manager at State level.

11.2 The concurrent evaluation of the AYUSH Mission shall be carried out to know the implementation progress and bottlenecks and scope for improvement. Third party evaluation will also carried out after two years of Mission implementation.
12.  Expected Outcome:
a. Improvement in AYUSH education through enhanced number of AYUSH Educational Institutions upgraded.
b.         Better access to AYUSH services through increased number of AYUSH Hospital and Dispensaries coverage, availability of drugs and manpower.
c. Sustained availability of quality raw-materials for AYUSH Systems of Medicine.
d.         Improved availability of quality ASU &H drugs through increase in the number of quality Pharmacies and Drug Laboratories and enforcement mechanism of ASU&H drugs.

Marine debris damaging coral reefs: NIO scientist

The increasing amount of marine debris like plastic, glass, rubber and others break or damage reef, a senior scientist said.

“Marine debris like plastic, glass, metal, rubber abandoned fishing nets and other gear often get entangle and kill reef organisms and break or damage them,” said Dr. Mahua Saha, senior Scientist from National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) addressing representatives of SAARC nations during a workshop held at Port Blair, Andaman.

She said the reefs in North-western Hawaiian Islands are particularly prone to accumulation of marine debris because of their central location in the North Pacific Gyre.

“From 2000 to 2006, NOAA and partners removed over 500 tons of marine debris there,” Dr. Saha added.

The workshop was organised by NIO for SAARC Coastal Zone Management Centre.

The policy makers from four SAARC countries — India, Bangladesh, the Maldives and Sri Lanka — participated in the event.

Dr. Saha said that the increasing level of marine pollution is playing an important role in coral destruction.

“Reefs in close proximity to human populations are subject to poor water quality from land and marine-based sources. In 2006, studies suggested that approximately 80 per cent of ocean pollution originates from activities on land,” she said.

“Major part of pollution comes from land-based run off, oil spills, nutrients and pesticides from agriculture, wastewater, industrial effluent, untreated sewage and others.”

Among the four major types of marine pollution — chemical pollution, nutrient pollution, marine debris pollution and air pollution, chemical and nutrient pollution play major role to obstruct the role of corals.

Pesticides containing persistent organic pollutant (POPs), hydrocarbons from oil tankers and heavy metals from industrial (mining, dredging) effluent cause major threat to corals, the scientist said.

Some coral species are sensitive to these although the extent is not yet known, Dr. Saha said.

Toxic chemicals like POPs and PAHs can destroy or damage reef communities by affecting coral’s reproduction and growth and can be bio-magnified to a critical level for the higher level animals of the food chain making them vulnerable to this process, the workshop was told.

Heavy metals such as copper and zinc have been linked to reduced fertilisation, fecundity and growth in adult corals.

Dr. Saha said nutrients discharged in form of fertilisers, waste feed and other materials from aquaculture and agriculture into coastal waters which lead to the bloom of nuisance algae (eutrophication) and subsequent oxygen depletion, plays a major hindrance in coral growth.

She pointed out that according to World Resource Institute, Washington, the Southeast Asian coral reef including Indian Ocean, are in high risk in terms of human activities.

The percentage of inland pollution and marine pollution is also very high in these regions.

“However, inspite of corals and other marine ecosystem are at higher risk with the effect of marine pollution, not much work on effect of pollution have been done so far. Hence, more studies have to be done on quantity and quality of chronic pollutant discharge such as on corals. And also long term studies are needed to document the recovery times of reef from sewage impact,” she added

NASA plans airships, floating city for manned Venus mission

NASA plans to send solar-powered airships to explore Venus’ atmosphere and to eventually establish a permanent human colony in a floating cloud city above the Earth’s nearest planetary neighbour.

Dale Arney and Chris Jones, from the Space Mission Analysis Branch of NASA’s Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate at Langley Research Centre, in Virginia, have proposed that it may make sense to go to Venus before we ever send humans to Mars.

NASA’s High Altitude Venus Operational Concept (HAVOC) mission aims to explore the atmosphere of Venus instead of exploring the surface.

The researchers believe the upper atmosphere of Venus is “probably the most Earth-like environment that’s out there”.

At 50 kilometres above its surface, Venus offers one atmosphere of pressure and only slightly lower gravity than Earth.

Astronauts would also be protected from radiation in Venus’s atmosphere, researchers said. The planet’s proximity to the Sun provides it 40 per cent more solar power than the Earth gets, and 240 per cent more than that seen on Mars.

Since the orbits of Venus and Earth align over time, a crewed mission to Venus would take a total of 440 days using existing or very near-term propulsion technology, ‘IEEE’ reported.

But getting to Mars and back using the same propulsive technology would involve more than 500 days in space at a minimum.

HAVOC involves a series of missions, including a robotic mission first and then a crewed mission to Venus orbit with a stay of 30 days, and then a mission that includes a 30-day atmospheric stay.

Later missions would have a crew of two spend a year in the atmosphere, and eventually there would be a permanent human presence there in a floating cloud city.

A helium-filled, solar-powered airship would explore the planet’s atmosphere. The robotic version would be 31 metres long while the crewed version would be nearly 130 metres long.

The crewed version would come with a small habitat and the ascent vehicle, a winged two-stage rocket slung below the airship, that the astronauts would use to return to Venus’s orbit and home.