India, US sign MoU to build resilient supply chain in semiconductor sector (GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Why in news?
- Recently, India and the US inked an initial pact on increasing private sector cooperation in the area of semiconductors under which the two countries would facilitate business opportunities and develop an ecosystem with a view to reduce their dependency on China and Taiwan.
- The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on establishing semiconductor supply chain and innovation partnership under the framework of India-US Commercial Dialogue was signed.
Semiconductor sub-committee:
- Both sides have agreed to set up a semiconductor sub-committee, led by the Department of Commerce for the US side and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Ministry of Commerce and Industry for the Indian side.
- The committee will convene its first engagement in mid-year to review recommendations from the joint industry-led task force launched in connection with the iCET (Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies).
Collaboration:
- The MoU seeks to establish a collaborative mechanism between the two governments on semiconductor supply chain resiliency and diversification in view of US's CHIPS and Science Act and India's Semiconductor Mission.
- The CHIPS and Science Act was signed by President Joe Biden in 2022 to boost funding for the American semiconductor industry.
Significance:
- The MoU aims to leverage complementary strengths of both countries and facilitate commercial opportunities and development of semiconductor innovation ecosystems through discussions on various aspects of semiconductor value chain.
- It also envisages mutually beneficial R&D, talent and skill development.
Background:
- After the pandemic, several sectors, including automobile and telecom, were severely impacted on account of shortage of semiconductor chips as India mainly imports them from China and Taiwan.
- Semiconductors are silicon chips that are used in various products, including automobiles, computers and cellphones.
- China has sanctioned USD 140 billion to boost domestic chip manufacturing to overcome the US export restrictions.
- Indian government has also approved a Rs 76,000 crore-scheme to boost semiconductor and display manufacturing in the country in a bid to position India as a global hub for hi-tech production and attract large chip makers.
- Incentives have been lined up for companies engaged in silicon semiconductor fabs, display fabs, compound semiconductors, silicon photonics, sensor fabs, semiconductor packaging and semiconductor design.
Other highlights of India-US Commercial Dialogue:
- Another key outcome of the commercial dialogue was the launch of a new working group on talent, innovation and inclusive growth.
- Both countries have recognised that small businesses and entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the US and Indian economies. There is a need to facilitate collaboration between the SMEs and to foster innovation ecosystems that facilitate their post-pandemic economic recovery and growth.
- They also launched standards and conformance cooperation program (Phase III) to be carried out in partnership between ANSI (American National Standard Institute) and BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards).
- Besides, they re-launched the travel and tourism working group to continue the progress from before the pandemic and to also address the many new challenges and opportunities to create a stronger travel and tourism sector.
Clean energy:
- The US side would send a senior government official-led clean energy and environmental technology business development mission to India in 2024.
- The trade mission would be an opportunity to further foster US-Indian business partnerships in grid modernisation and smart grid solutions, renewable energy, energy storage, hydrogen, liquified natural gas, and environmental technology solutions.
- Further, both sides pledged to work together in the Global Biofuels Alliance and in the development and deployment of hydrogen technologies.
- Both sides expressed interest in working together in developing next generation standards in telecommunications, including 6G.
National Youth Conclave 2023
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Why in news?
- India’s biggest youth summit- ‘National Youth Conclave’ is being organized by the Smart Cities Mission, MoHUA, Department of Youth Affairs and National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA).
Stakeholders:
- The event is organized under the aegis of India’s G20 presidency in 2023, and aligning with the Urban20 and Youth20 engagement groups.
- Both, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports are coming together in this 2-day Conclave, being held on 13-14 March 2023 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.
AboutUrban20:
- Urban 20 (U20), an Engagement Group under the G20, brings together mayors from major G20 cities to inform the discussions of national leaders at the G20, and establishes a platform for cities to collectively inform G20 negotiations.
- U20 dialogue 2023 will emphasize on the need for changing the urban sector to achieve long-term beneficial results for the globe and set the way for coordinated city-level activities.
- The deliberations under U20 will be focused on six priority areas that are critical for grounding complex global urban agendas into actionable city-level initiatives. Inclusion will be a cross cutting focus across all deliberations.
Priority Areas of U20 are:
- Encouraging Environmentally Responsible Behaviours
- Ensuring Water Security
- Accelerating Climate Finance
- Championing ‘Local’ Identity
- Reinventing Frameworks for Urban Governance and Planning
- Catalyzing Digital Urban Futures
About Youth20:
- Youth20 (Y20) engagement group, with its first Y20 conference held in 2010, provides a platform that allows youth to express their vision and ideas on the G20 priorities and comes up with a series of recommendations which are submitted to the G20 Leaders.
- The Y20 India summit in 2023 would exemplify India’s youth-centric efforts and provide an opportunity to showcase its values and policy measures so that India’s leadership of this summit can stand out among the youth cohort.
- The priority areas selected for the summit will showcase Indian leadership on these issues to both global and domestic audiences and help fulfil India’s vision of making the G20 summit truly participative.
Priority areas of Y20 are:
- Future of Work: Industry 4.0, Innovation, & 21st Century Skills
- Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction: Making Sustainability a Way of Life
- Peace building and Reconciliation: Ushering in an Era of No War
- Shared Future: Youth in Democracy and Governance
- Health, Wellbeing & Sports: Agenda for Youth
Landslide Atlas of India
(GS Paper 1, Geography)
Why in news?
What causes landslides?
- Landslides are natural disasters occurring mainly in mountainous terrains where there are conducive conditions of soil, rock, geology and slope. A sudden movement of rock, boulders, earth or debris down a slope is termed as a landslide.
- Natural causes that trigger it include heavy rainfall, earthquakes, snowmelting and undercutting of slopes due to flooding. Landslides can also be caused by anthropogenic activities such as excavation, cutting of hills and trees, excessive infrastructure development, and overgrazing by cattle.
- Some of the main factors that influence landslides are lithology, geological structures like faults, hill slopes, drainage, geomorphology, land use and land cover, soil texture and depth, and weathering of rocks. All these are factored in when a landslide susceptibility zone is earmarked for planning and making predictions.
How are landslides classified and mapped?
- Landslides are broadly classified based on the type of materials involved (rock, debris, soil, loose mud), type of movement of the material (fall, topple, slide, rotational slide or translational slide), and type of flow of the material.
- Another category is of landslides that spread laterally. Landslides mapped in the ISRO atlas are mainly event-based and season-based.
- ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Hyderabad, has created a database of landslide-prone regions of India based on events during 1998 – 2022, primarily along the Himalayas and the Western Ghats.
- In addition to aerial images, high resolution satellite images captured using cameras Indian Remote Sensing (IRS-1D) PAN + LISS-III, satellites ResourceSat-1 and 2, etc., were used to study the landslides over the past 25 years.
How prone is India to landslides?
- India is considered among the top five landslide-prone countries globally, where at least one death per 100 sq km is reported in a year due to a landslide event. Rainfall variability pattern is the single biggest cause for landslides in the country, with the Himalayas and the Western Ghats remaining highly vulnerable.
- Excluding snow covered areas, approximately 12.6 per cent of the country’s geographical land area (0.42 million sq km) is prone to landslides. As many as 66.5 per cent of the landslides are reported from the North-western Himalayas, about 18.8 per cent from the North-eastern Himalayas, and about 14.7 per cent from the Western Ghats.
- Nearly half of the country’s landslide-prone area (0.18 sq km) is located in the states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura and Nagaland. Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir cover 0.14 million sq km of the total landslide-prone areas, whereas Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu account for 0.09 million sq km.
- A relatively small area (0.01 million sq km) of the Araku region in Andhra Pradesh along the Eastern Ghats, too, reports landslide events.
- In the Western Ghats, despite fewer events, landslides were found to be making inhabitants significantly vulnerable to fatalities, especially in Kerala.
What does the landslide atlas suggest?
- Uttarakhand, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh reported the highest number of landslides during 1998 – 2022.
- Mizoram topped the list, recording 12,385 landslide events in the past 25 years, of which 8,926 were recorded in 2017 alone. Likewise, 2,071 events of the total 2,132 landslides reported in Nagaland during this period occurred during the 2017 monsoon season.
- Manipur, too, showed a similar trend, wherein 4,559 out of 5,494 landslide events were experienced during the rainy season of 2017. Of the total 690, Tamil Nadu suffered 603 landslide events in 2018 alone.
- Among all these states, an alarming situation is emerging from Uttarakhand and Kerala.
Maximum landslide:
- While Uttarakhand’s fragility was recently exposed during the land subsidence events reported from Joshimath since January, this Himalayan state has experienced the second highest number (11,219) of landslides since 1998, all events since occurring post 2000.
- The number of districts with the maximum landslide exposure are in Arunachal Pradesh (16), Kerala (14), Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir (13 each), Himachal Pradesh, Assam and Maharashtra (11 each), Mizoram (8) and Nagaland (7).
- Kerala has been consistently reporting massive landslides since it suffered the century’s worst floods in 2018.
- From the events and images obtained, the NRSC ranked Rudraprayag in Uttarakhand at the top of 147 vulnerable districts. It has the highest landslide density in the country, along with having the highest exposure to total population and number of houses.
