Launching of GSAT-11

Launching of GSAT-11

India has plan to realise GSAT-11 spacecraft for launch during the end of 2016 or first quarter of 2017. GSAT-11 is a first generation high throughput communication satellite with a lift-off mass of about 5600 kg, operating in Ka/Ku bands. It is a multi-beam satellite with 32 user beams and 8 hub beams over India.

It is planned to launch GSAT-11 spacecraft using procured launch services. At present, the indigenous capability to launch this weight class of satellite is not available.

The in-orbit testing of GSAT-11 satellite is planned to be conducted from the Master Control Facility (MCF) in Hassan, Karnataka and other suitable locations of ISRO Centres.

The spacecraft capability includes providing broadband connectivity to rural areas with higher bandwidth as compared to traditional communication satellites.

Thirty Metre Telescope

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project is the joint responsibility of the Department of Science & Technology (DST) and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) from India. As per the information provided by Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) under DST, the TMT is an international project being funded by scientific organisations of Canada, China, India, Japan and USA. The Evaluation process for an appropriate site includes scientific suitability (water vapour in the atmosphere, atmospheric turbulence and number of cloud-free nights in a year), infrastructure and logistics for setting-up of such a large international scientific project. While Mauna Kea, Hawaii is the preferred choice for the TMT project, given the large investments that have already been made and committed, the project is also looking at alternate sites both in the northern and southern hemispheres. Hanle, Ladakh is one of the sites being evaluated for hosting the telescope. Hanle being the protected area in the state of J&K, the project requires clearances from State and Central agencies such as environmental, defence, external affairs and home affairs.

The total cost of TMT project is about 1.5 billion US dollars. The Union Cabinet has given its approval for India’s participation in the Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT) project at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, USA at a total cost of Rs. 1299.8 crores from 2014-2023. From the Indian side, this will be a joint project of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) with a DST share of Rs. 675.25 crores and DAE share of Rs. 624.55 crores.

TMT will enable scientists to study fainter objects far away from us in the Universe, which gives information about early stages of evolution of the Universe. Also, it will give us finer details of not-so-far-away objects like undiscovered planets and other objects in the Solar System and planets around other stars. TMT being the largest optical and infrared telescope in the northern hemisphere will enable several discoveries which will surely inspire future generations. Project will also provide state-of-the-art high end technologies to the country, which would benefit a number of industries and R&D centers in the country.

APPLY EARLIEST,UPSC PRE EXAM 2016 NOTIFICATION IS OUT

APPLY EARLIEST,UPSC PRE EXAM 2016 NOTIFICATION IS OUT



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Sun Pharma, ICMR join hands for malaria eradication

Malaria eradication project will be first launched at Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, covering 1,200 villages over three to five years

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and pharmaceutical major Sun Pharma on Monday entered into a public-private partnership (PPP) to eradicate malaria.

The partners will jointly set up management and technical committees to provide oversight for malaria surveillance and elimination. In its first phase, the project will be launched at Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, covering 1,200 villages over three to five years.

As part of this corporate social responsibility initiative, Sun Pharma will launch an independent not-for-profit foundation.

“The idea of this partnership is to use our understanding and knowledge for the success of this project. We will be working with global agencies to make the project a success,” said Dilip Shanghvi, managing director of Sun Pharma.

Shanghvi added that through the Malaria Free India initiative both the partners aim to achieve zero malaria incidence in Mandla district by FY21. According to data from the health ministry, there are 91 districts spread across 17 states which are highly prone to malaria. These will be taken up in future phases of the project.

“The first of its kind PPP agreement reiterates India’s commitment to eliminate malaria. ICMR and Sun Pharma will aim to reduce the morbidity and mortality caused by malaria in this demonstration project as well as prevention of re-introduction of malaria,” said J.P. Nadda, Union minister of health and family welfare.

Sixty percent of malaria cases in India are take place in the Northeastern region and five states— Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra—said Dr Soumya Swaminathan, director general of ICMR.

India is the biggest virtual exporter of water

Except for Brahmaputra and Mahanadi, all river basins with a population of more than 20 million face water shortage for the major part of the year

How much water does it take to cook a cup of rice? Recipe books would say two cups. Now consider this: It takes 2,173 litres of water to produce a kilogram of husked rice. That is a global average. Out of this, 1,488 litres is typically rainwater, 443 litres is surface or groundwater and 242 litres of water is required to carry off pollutants produced during the process.

For India, the figure is 2,688 litres. The number is worse for several states, including some of the largest rice producers, as the first story in this series pointed out. In the case of goat meat, the requirement can go up to 8,763 litres per kilogram. Looking at it in terms of nutrition, more than 10 litres of water are required to produce a kilocalorie of nutrition from red meat, while only half a litre is required to produce the same amount from cereals.

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These numbers become all the more important when you consider exports. In 2014-15, India exported 37.2 lakh tonnes of basmati . To export this rice the country used around 10 trillion litres of water. Put it another way, the nation virtually exported 10 trillion litres of water. At least one-fifth of this would have been surface/groundwater. In these times of global climate change, water is the one commodity where you don’t want a trade surplus (i.e exports are higher than imports).

According to the Water Footprint Network (WFN) database, India had the lowest virtual imports of water in the world. How does it compare with China, which is the only other nation with a comparable population size?

China is the eleventh largest country in the world in terms of virtual water imports and it runs a virtual water trade surplus in crop and animal products, that is, it has higher virtual water imports. But China ends up exporting more water than importing because of its overseas sales of industrial products.

In contrast, India is a large virtual net export of water because of agricultural products. One policy implication: While the country strives to increase manufacturing exports, care should be taken to maximise water use efficiency lest it ends up virtually exporting more water.

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Rudimentary trade theory suggests that a country should be exporting things which it has in abundance and import those which are scarce. By that logic, India should be a virtual importer of water, especially so, when its report card of water scarcity looks very grim.

The WFN database gives data on water scarcity for more than 400 river basins in the world. Water scarcity is defined as the ratio of total surface/groundwater footprint to surface/groundwater availability in a given river basin. If the ratio is 1, it means that available surface/groundwater is being fully utilised. But ideally speaking, averting water scarcity requires that not more than 20% of the water that flows on the ground is used by human beings. So, even a ratio of 1 denotes moderate scarcity.

The WFN database recognizes four kinds of water scarcity situations: low (ratio <1), moderate (ratio between 1 to 1.5), significant (ratio between 1.5 to 2) and severe (ratio>2). Water scarcity is measured for each month. This is because water flow situation can be extremely skewed over a year. There could be excess flow on account of rains in a couple of months, whereas the rest of the period can witness abysmally low levels. Due to this reason the WFN database classifies river basins by scarcity levels for different months in a year.

Data for India shows that except for Brahmaputra and Mahanadi, all river basins with a population of more than 20 million experience water scarcity for a major part of the year. The two most populated basins—Ganga and Indus—suffer from significant to severe level of water scarcity for 7 and 11 months in a year, respectively. A caveat: a large part of the Indus river basin population would be located in the Punjab and Sindh regions of Pakistan.

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The upshot is India is exporting large amounts of virtual water despite being an extremely water scarce country. Should it be doing this is the question?

Indo- Mongolia Joint Military Exercise, Nomadic Elephant- 2016 Commences at Mongolia

Indo- Mongolia Joint Military Exercise, Nomadic Elephant- 2016 Commences at Mongolia

The Eleventh Indo-Mongolia joint training Exercise, ‘Nomadic Elephant - 2016’ to promote military associations between India and Mongolia has commenced today at Mongolia. The exercise will culminate on 08 May 2016. The aim of this exercise is to develop synergy and inter operability between the two armies to fight in Counter Insurgency and Counter Terrorism environment under the United Nation mandate.

A platoon of the Kumaon Regiment of the Indian Army alongwith a team of two observers will be taking part in the event. From the Mongolian Armed Forces, a total of 60 personnel will take part in the exercise. The event will culminate in a 48 hours joint outdoor exercise covering specialised operations in Counter Insurgency and Counter Terrorism environment.

The Indian contingent will share their practical experiences of Counter Insurgency and Counter Terrorism operations through a series of classroom lectures and outdoor demonstrations which include aspects like House Clearing and Room intervention techniques in hostage situation, road opening, establishing mobile check posts, intelligence gathering and drills for countering Improvised Explosive Devices. Besides, military training both the contingents will also share their techniques of unarmed combat, specialised rappelling and participate in various sports events during the two weeks exchange. 

The long road to a $10 trillion economy

The long road to a $10 trillion economy

A believable target but questions about the strategic path

The Niti Aayog has presented Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a rather airy strategy to make India a $10 trillion economy by 2032. The strategy document offers us some insights into the minds of the men around the prime minister.

Sceptics have been quick to point out that the goal is unrealistic. It is not. The International Monetary Fund publishes historical data on the size of its member countries. India had a gross domestic product of $494 billion in 2001. That is expected to grow to $2.2 trillion by the end of this year. In other words, the size of the Indian economy will have gone up 4.6 times in the past 16 years. The same rate of growth over the next 16 years will lead to an economy that produces more than $10 trillion by 2032. Bingo!

What the sceptics have missed — and the Niti Aayog head has also curiously glossed over — is that the change in the dollar value of national output depends on the nominal growth rate in rupees as well as the exchange rate of the rupee. The Niti Aayog presentation is instead focussed on the real growth rate in terms of the domestic currency, and assumes that it will be in the double digits over the next decade and a half, an unrealistic assumption given the state of the global economy. This is Economics 101.

So the $10 trillion target itself is not as unrealistic as it seems at first. The link drawn between faster growth and the removal of poverty as we understand it today is also welcome, especially given the erroneous belief of the previous government that entitlements could deal with the problem of mass poverty.

The more questionable part of the presentation to the prime minister is the strategic path that has been charted out. There is an interesting comparison to be drawn between the tightly argued Economic Survey written by the economists of the finance ministry in February on the one hand and the laundry list of various government programmes (Creating a movement for change) that the Niti Aayog seems to be banking on.

The policy focus in the latter document is clearly on new thinking, executive action and good implementation. This is perhaps not surprising given that Amitabh Kant, chief executive officer of Niti Aayog, has earned his spurs as an extraordinary project manager, as in the case of the proposed industrial corridor between Delhi and Mumbai. It also fits in with the administrative strengths of the prime minister. But it skirts the deeper challenges such as maintaining macroeconomic stability, raising the investment rate of the economy, tackling the problem of exit, improving the supply of public goods, putting an end to institutional decline and bolstering state capacity in areas that matter.

Economists have differed about what is the key variable that explains national economic performance over the long run. Is it the rate of capital accumulation? Or productivity growth? Or the quality of institutions? There are no easy answers to these grand questions, but there is no doubt that there is more to sustained economic growth than large projects that can be pushed by executive action. The Niti Aayog strategy misses the mark here, even though the experience of the private sector shows that a seemingly stretch target does focus management energy.

In September 2001, a group of McKinsey & Co. consultants had made a presentation to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his senior cabinet colleagues on how India can grow at double digits. The suits had argued that India was not constrained by resources but by barriers to their efficient use. They had also argued that the government should push ahead with reforms that require executive action rather than legislative approval, given the gridlock in parliament at the time (well, some things never change). A similar approach is evident in the Niti Aayog strategy document.

There is an apocryphal story that Vajpayee patiently sat through the McKinsey presentation, and then asked in a puzzled tone: “Magar yeh hoga kaise?”.

The same question needs to be asked about the technocratic Niti Aayog plan.

Building on the Paris Agreement

Building on the Paris Agreement

The 174 countries and the European Union that signed up to the Paris Climate Change Agreement in New York on April 22 have committed themselves to the decision that a range of actions must be undertaken to keep the rise in global average temperature well below 2° Celsius over pre-industrial levels. The debate on climate change shifted after the climate summit in Paris in December from whether scientific evidence is strong enough to warrant making aggressive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, to how this should be achieved without hurting economic growth in developing countries such as India. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change accepts differentiated responsibility for developing nations, which are not responsible for the accumulated stock of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as opposed to rich countries that historically had the benefit of the unfettered use of fossil fuels. What makes carbon emissions particularly problematic, however, is that polluting local flows have a global effect over relatively short periods, and far-flung countries, such as small island nations, suffer the impact. India’s estimate of its share of global greenhouse gas emissions submitted to the UN for the Paris treaty is 4.10 per cent, but it faces a double jeopardy: of having to emit large volumes of carbon dioxide to achieve growth, while preparing to adapt to the destructive effects of intense weather events, such as droughts and floods, linked to climate change.

After Paris, the challenge before India is to implement its pledge — to sharply cut emissions intensity of GDP by 2020. A small reduction was achieved between 2005 and 2010, and the effort now should be to maintain the trend. Energy, transport and infrastructure are key areas where sound national policies are needed. The doubling of the cess on coal in the Budget, and the general policy to keep fuel prices high using taxation are welcome, but they must translate into funding for green alternatives. It should be possible, for instance, to unlock middle class investments in renewable energy with an effective grid-connected rooftop solar subsidy programme. In the absence of strong backing from State governments to ensure net metering and transfer subsidies, progress in this area has been slow. New buildings should also be required to conform to energy efficiency codes in all States. The National Electric Mobility Mission Plan aims to put about seven million electric or hybrid vehicles on the road by 2020, but for this to happen, the creation of charging infrastructure and introduction of consumer incentives are vital; greening public transport bus fleets will give the Mission a face. Once the Paris Agreement is ratified, funding for such initiatives should come from the wealthy countries, which are required to raise at least $100 billion a year. The pact requires them to provide even higher levels of assistance. The success of the climate compact will ultimately depend on whether rich countries, including the U.S. — where a conservative President and Congress could reject it — fund innovation and open-source their green technologies to developing nations

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