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Bhutan and China held their 25th round of boundary talks, which has been held up since the previous round in 2016, even as Bhutan’s Foreign Minister Tandi Dorji met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, with both sides saying they want a deal on demarcating the boundaries “soon”.
Significantly, this was the first official visit to China by the Bhutanese Foreign Minister, and holding the long-pending talks indicated that substantive progress had been made by the expert groups of officials from both countries.
Editorial
An India-Canada bonding that is in danger of snapping (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The current state of Canada-India diplomatic relations has evoked a mountain of uncertainty. The questions are: what uncertainty and for whom? India is a prime origin country of immigrants to Canada, who have settled there as naturalised citizens (most holding the Overseas Citizenship of India, a life-time Indian visa or semi-dual-citizenship) as well as permanent residents (PRs) who range from investors, industrialists and business people, the highly skilled “knowledge professionals” to low- and medium-skilled “service workers”. Apart from the settled Indian diaspora, there are “temporary visitors” who are international students, trainees, exchange scholars, tourists, and their families. Thus, a majority of them comprise a substantial share of India’s human capital abroad, some of them even costing the country much in terms of large-scale brain drain.
Opinion
Mitigating tragedies in the Himalayan region (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The recent glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) in Sikkim wreaked havoc along the Teesta river, bringing into focus the magnifying risk of climate change-induced GLOF across the Indian Himalayan Region.
A study published in Nature this year indicates that 90 million people across 30 countries live in 1,089 basins containing glacial lakes.
Of these, one-sixth live within 50 km of a glacial lake and 1 km of potential GLOF runout channels.
In mountains, hazards often occur in a cascading fashion — heavy rainfall triggers a landslide, which may in turn cause a glacial lake outburst and more landslides downstream, and create conditions for flash floods.
Predicting this chain of events is difficult. Institutional awareness of these risks is increasing, but the challenge is to evolve a system to mitigate risks from such hazards, and provide early warnings.
Losses from extreme events over 31 years were $3.8 trillion (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Disaster events are not only becoming more frequent and severe but their impact is also expected to worsen. The year 2023 brought an end to the warmest decade on record, marked by unprecedented extreme weather events and large-scale disasters. These catastrophes were worsened by ongoing conflicts and the COVID-19 pandemic.
A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization titled 'The Impact of Disaster on Agriculture and Food Security' found that the frequency of extreme disaster events has risen significantly over the past 50 years.
The 1970s saw approximately 100 disaster events per year. In the last 20 years, that number went up to about 400, globally.
Agricultural activities and livelihoods rely heavily on environmental conditions, natural resources, and ecosystems. Globally, the agriculture sector faces growing threats from hazards such as flooding, water scarcity, drought, and environmental degradation.
For instance, in Pakistan, exceptional monsoon rainfalls in 2022 led to nearly $4 billion in damages to the agricultural sector. In the U.S., the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated over $21.4 billion in crop and rangeland losses in 2022.
Explainer
How Olympic cities are selected (Page no. 8)
(Miscellaneous)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly declared India’s intention to host the Olympic Games, preferably in 2036, during the opening ceremony of the 141st International Olympic Committee (IOC) session in Mumbai on October 14.
He also mentioned India’s ambition to host the Youth Olympics in 2029 although the quadrennial event is currently scheduled for 2030.
Only three Asian countries have ever hosted the Olympics — China, South Korea and Japan, with Japan hosting the games twice in 1964 and 2020.
With India throwing its hat into the ring, there are at least five confirmed countries interested in hosting the 2036 Games and nine others reportedly in various stages of preparations and discussions internally and with the IOC.
If India does manage to outbid the competition, it will be the first big-ticket multi-discipline sporting event in the country since the controversy-marred Commonwealth Games (CWG) in 2010.
Text & Context
Understanding the components of a SIM card, its functions and working (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
“Building blocks” will be a series of articles that will explain how objects and utilities that we commonly use and are familiar with, are devised and how they function.
In 2021, there were more than 14 billion cellular devices in the world even though there were only seven billion people.
The ubiquity of these devices — but especially smartphones — has come to define the contemporary era together with climate change, antimicrobial resistance, and war.
But for smartphones’ outsize mark on history, one essential component of theirs has flown somewhat under the radar: the SIM card.
‘SIM’ stands for ‘subscriber identification module’. Specifically, it is an integrated circuit, or a microchip, that identifies the subscriber on a given network.
News
Centre to roll out DNA, face matching systems at police stations across country (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
More than a year after the Criminal Procedure Identification Act was passed by Parliament, the Centre is all set to roll out “DNA and face-matching” systems at 1,300 police stations across the country.
The provisions of the Act are yet to be implemented entirely on the ground. There are logistic and connectivity issues too.
The law enables the police and the Central investigating agencies to collect, store, and analyse physical and biological samples, including retina and iris scans of arrested persons.
The law was passed by Parliament in April 2022 and the rules were notified in September last year. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a Central organisation tasked with rolling out the Act, was assigned the task of finalising the standard operating procedures (SOP) to be followed by police officials.
SC uses rare power to help man fighting for postal job for 28 years (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Supreme Court has used its extraordinary constitutional power to do complete justice for a 50-year-old man who fought for nearly three decades against the postal department’s refusal to give him a job despite his name figuring high on the merit list.
Ankur Gupta had everything going right in his endeavour to become a postal assistant in 1995 until the department grounded his hopes.
He had even completed a 15-day induction training when the department dropped his name on the ground that he had completed his Class 12 in the vocational stream. The department said the rules had been amended to consider only candidates from the regular stream.
A Bench of Justices Bela Trivedi and Dipankar Datta, in a recent judgment exercising its rarely resorted powers under Article 142 of the Constitution, ordered the postal department to appoint Mr. Gupta as a postal assistant on a probationary basis. He would have 10 years of service.
World
France’s Macron moots coalition against Hamas (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
French President Emmanuel Macron proposed that an international coalition fighting against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria be widened to include the fight against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.
Mr. Macron gave no detail on how the U.S.-led coalition of dozens of countries, of which Israel is not a member, could be involved.
Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Mr. Macron stressed that France and Israel shared terrorism as their “common enemy”.
“France is ready for the international coalition against Daesh in which we are taking part for operations in Iraq and Syria to also fight against Hamas,” he told reporters, referring to Islamic State.
Sri Lanka announces free visas for Indians to boost tourism (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Sri Lanka waived visa fee for Indians and tourists from six other countries, as part of its efforts to boost tourist arrivals and help rebuild the island nation’s battered economy following last year’s financial crash.
India has remained Sri Lanka’s top source market for many years. This year, over 2 lakh Indian tourists — constituting 20 % of the total tourist arrivals — have visited the island nation until September.
As part of its decisions this week, the Cabinet announced implementation of a pilot project to issue free tourist visas to tourists from China, India, Russia, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan until March 31, 2024.
According to a statement on the weekly Cabinet decisions, published by the Department of Government Information, the move is part of “several new programmes” planned for the promotion of the Sri Lankan tourism industry, one of the chief foreign exchange earning sectors for the country, apart from exports and worker remittances.
Business
‘AI to help construction industry face challenges’ (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The emergence of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), 3D printing, and robotics, would transform the construction industry, one of the oldest and largest industries in the world and help it address multiple challenges effectively, according to a white paper by an advisory firm.
The construction industry which contributes to 13% of global GDP, is expected to grow significantly in the coming years — at an estimated CAGR of 11% — from $8.2 trillion to $17 trillion by 2029.
This growth is driven by certain factors such as government initiatives, lower interest rates in a few developed economies, demand for renewable energy, public private partnerships, new age technology and higher disposable income.
Pradeep Mukherji, Managing Partner, Tauran Advisors, the Thailand-based firm which has prepared the white paper said, “AI is poised to play a pivotal role in reshaping the sector by addressing a range of challenges and delivering significant advantages.
To meet industry needs, AI has the potential to accelerate growth and add value at all project stages, from design and financing to construction, operations, and business model changes.”
“AI is estimated to boost industry productivity by increasing it by 1% to 1.5% annually,” he emphasised.
Science
What separates classical and quantum chaos? (Page no. 20)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Consider weather forecasting. The earth’s atmosphere is a laboratory of randomness, whose conditions change frequently in terms of its pressure, density, the flow-rates of various gases, and temperature.
As a result, the paths of gas molecules become increasingly unpredictable. This is why a weather phenomenon that has been predicted to last for a longer period of time is unlikely to be as accurate – or even true, for that matter – for a more intermittent duration.
This is why a simple model that tracks the way heat is moved through the atmosphere can possess a lot of unpredictability.
Such notions are captured by the term ‘butterfly effect’ – named for the idea that the mere flapping of abutterfly’swings in one place can produce a storm somewhere else. This may sound ridiculous but as a metaphor, it has a well-understood scientific basis.