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Ladakh’s two top socio-political bodies, the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA), rejected the Union Home Ministry’s high-powered committee for protection of land and jobs for the people of the Union Territory.
The bodies hardened their stand on four key points, which include granting Statehood and special status under the Sixth Schedule of Constitution.
The decision was taken during an emergency meeting of the LAB and KDA in Jammu after studying the recent announcement by the MHA on the formation of a committee led by Union Minister of State Nityanand Rai, “to resolve the outstanding issues of Ladakh”.
The LAB and the KDA decided not to accept the formation of the high-powered committee and attend any meeting conducted under the aegis of the committee as the said committee has not been mandated to discuss issues raised by the LAB and the KDA,” the twin organisations, comprising religious and political parties from the U.T., said in a joint statement.
Members of high-powered committee on Ladakh say Union Home Ministry order is vague, avoids mention of Sixth Schedule
These bodies also put forth conditions before the Centre for their participation in any meeting organised by the high-powered committee.
Both the bodies will agree to participate in any meeting headed by a committee which is empowered to discuss the four issues in question, i.e., Statehood, constitutional safeguard under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India in order to protect the interest of the tribal people of Ladakh, formation of Public Service Commission and reservation of jobs for youth of Ladakh, and creation of two separate parliamentary constituencies for Leh and Kargil.
Ladakh was carved out as a U.T. from erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in 2019. Since then, the region has witnessed unrelenting protests demanding special status and Statehood.
The Centre on January 3 this year announced a 17-member committee “to discuss measures to protect the region’s unique culture and language taking into consideration its geographical location and its strategic importance”.
Meanwhile, these bodies accused the Centre of arbitrarily excluding and including members (in the committee) without consultation with the LAB and KDA.
Centre seeks six more months to frame Citizenship Amendment Act rules (Page no 1)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Union Home Ministry has sought another extension of six months to frame the rules of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA), without which it cannot be implemented. This is the seventh such extension sought by the Ministry.
The Act, which was passed in 2019, fast tracks the citizenship of people from the Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Christian, Buddhist and Jain communities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who entered India before December 31, 2014, without any documents.
CAA is a law of the land and those who are dreaming that CAA won’t be implemented are mistaken, it will be implemented.
Most parts of the northeastern States are exempted from the Act. The tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram or Tripura as included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution and the States of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur are exempted from provisions of the Act.
The undocumented migrants who will be deemed Indian citizens through the Act will not be able to settle down in the exempted areas.
The legislation is contentious issue in West Bengal too. The Act is aimed at giving citizenship to the Matua community in West Bengal who trace their origins to present day Bangladesh. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has opposed the legislation saying it was a bid to divide the State as Matuas vote in all elections and are very much citizens of India.
While the Rajya Sabha committee has accepted the Ministry’s request to grant the extension till June 30, a reply from the Lok Sabha committee is awaited.
Earlier, the Ministry informed the Rajya Sabha committee that it needs time till December 31, 2022 to frame the rules, while it sought time till January 9, 2023 from the Lok Sabha committee.
The Manual on Parliamentary Work says that if a Ministry is not able to frame the rules governing a legislation within the prescribed period of six months after the law is passed, “they should seek extension of time from the Committee on Subordinate Legislation stating reasons for such extension”.
The CAA was passed by Parliament on December 11, 2019, and it received assent from the President on December 12 the same year.
The Ministry notified that the Act would come into force from January 10, 2020. However, the rules have not been notified, making the legislation ineffective on the ground.
News
Bird species count up in Deepor Beel, Assam’s lone Ramsar site (Page no 9)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Assam’s only Ramsar site troubled by developmental projects and urban waste has 30 more waterfowl species than the total counted in 2022.
Altogether 26,747 birds belonging to 96 species were recorded during a bird count at the Deepor Beel wetland on the southwestern edge of Guwahati.
The exercise on January 4 was conducted by the Guwahati Wildlife Division of the Assam Forest Department. The bird count in the State’s sole Ramsar site revealed greater species diversity and an increase in the total number of species.
This was the second such exercise after February 2022 and the signs are encouraging. We had counted 10,289 individuals across 66 species last year.
The Forest Department manages the 4.1 sq. km Deepor Beel Wildlife Sanctuary in the central part of the greater wetland named Deepor Beel. The area of the wetland beyond, under the urban development authority, is being measured.
The bird count was conducted by a 37-member team comprising forest officials and members of wildlife NGOs such as Aaranyak, Help Earth, Rongmon and Midway Journey.
The data on bird species and numbers obtained through such monitoring can greatly help in conservation planning in the long run.
Deepor Beel adjoins the Rani Reserve Forest from where herds of elephants come periodically to forage in the wetland. A road and a railway line cut through seven elephant corridors connecting the reserve forest and the wetland.
While the Assam government has approved the construction of road underpasses for the elephants in the jumbo corridors, the Northeast Frontier Railway has decided to build as many viaducts measure a total of 3.5 kms on the existing railway track being electrified.
Deepor Beel has also suffered contamination because of a garbage dump on its edge at Paschim Boragaon. Guwahati generates an average of 500 metric tonnes of garbage daily.
Science
A clear picture of how mercury becomes a superconductor (Page no 11)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
In 1911, Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovered superconductivity in mercury. He found that at a very low temperature, called the threshold temperature, solid mercury offers no resistance to the flow of electric current.
Scientists later classified mercury as a conventional superconductor because its superconductivity could be explained by the concepts of Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory.
While scientists have used the BCS theory to explain superconductivity in various materials, they have never fully understood how it operates in mercury — the oldest superconductor.
A group of researchers from Italy recently set out to “fill this gap”, as they wrote in their November 3 paper in the journal, Physical Review B.
The researchers used “state-of-the-art theoretical and computational approaches” and found that “all physical properties relevant for conventional superconductivity... are anomalous in some respect” in mercury.
In a testament to their strategy, they were able to work out a theoretical description for superconductivity in mercury that predicted its threshold temperature to within 2.5% of the observed value.
In BCS superconductors, vibrational energy released by the grid of atoms encourages electrons to pair up, forming so-called Cooper pairs.
These Copper pairs can move like water in a stream, facing no resistance to their flow, below a threshold temperature.
By including certain factors that physicists had previously sidelined, the group’s calculations led to a clearer picture of how superconductivity emerges in mercury.
For example, when the researchers accounted for the relationship between an electron’s spin and momentum, they could explain why mercury has such a low threshold temperature (around –270°C).
Is Omicron variant XBB.1.5’s superior binding causing higher transmissibility? (Page no 11)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
The XBB.1.5 Omicron recombinant variant that was first detected in the U.S. (New York and Connecticut) in late October 2022 has now spread to at least 29 countries.
It is rapidly increasing in number to become the dominant variant in the U.S., particularly in the northeast part of the country.
It has been seen to have a growth advantage and has replaced other variants in a few countries in Europe, as well.
The XBB.1.5 variant has demonstrated a “stunning increase” in prevalence in the U.S, and went from “4% of sequences to 40% in just a few weeks”, Dr. Ashish Jha, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator tweeted on January 4. As per CDC estimates, the variant is causing 75% of new cases in the northeast part of the U.S.
The XBB.1.5 variant is a descendant of XBB.1, which, in turn, descends from XBB. The XBB variant evolved through recombination of two descendants of the earlier Omicron BA.2 variant.
If XBB and XBB.1 already had high transmissibility and higher immune escape, the XBB.1.5 variant is even more transmissible while retaining significant immune escape ability.
A study posted on preprint server BioRxiv, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, found that both XBB.1 and XBB.1.5 “significantly” evaded convalescent plasma samples from BA.1, BA.5, and BF.7 breakthrough infections. However, XBB.1.5 displayed slightly weaker immune evasion capability compared with XBB.1.
The XBB.1.5 variant was first found in India on December 30 last year, and as per INSACOG five XBB.1.5 variants have been detected so far — three cases in Gujarat and one each in Karnataka and Rajasthan.
XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible variant that has been detected yet,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist and the WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19 said during a press briefing on January 4.
The higher transmissibility of XBB.1.5 will mean that it will be responsible for a larger fraction of COVID-19 cases in many countries and could also drive new surges.
While it is too early to say if XBB.15 will have increased severity, there has been a sharp increase in hospitalisations in the U.S.
IISER Pune’s new material removes pollutants from water (Page no 11)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Access to clean and drinkable water has now not only become a local problem but global as well. Water contamination is one of the world’s leading causes of death and the problem is only getting worse.
To tackle this, our team at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune came up with a custom-designed unique molecular sponge-like material — macro/microporous ionic organic framework — which can swiftly clean polluted water by soaking up sinister contaminants. The results were published recently in the journal, Angewandte Chemie.
Systematic studies have identified various organic (organic dyes, antibiotics, pesticides, etc.) as well as inorganic toxic pollutants such as iodides, oxo-pollutants like perrhenate that are carcinogenic in fresh water sources and can pose direct threat to humanity and living organisms.
In general, commonly utilised sorbent materials often trap these pollutants through ion-exchange strategy to purify water but suffer from poor kinetics and specificity.
To mitigate this issue, our group prepared a newly engineered material called viologen-unit grafted organic-framework (iVOFm).
The material employs amalgamation of electrostatics driven ion-exchange combined with nanometer-sized macropores and specific binding sites for the targeted pollutants.
The size and number of tunable macropores along with the strong electrostatic interaction of iVOFm can quickly remove various toxic pollutants from water.
To develop this unique material, our team employed a make-and-break strategy to grow a charged porous organic polymer (POP) as a sponge-like infinite framework on silica nanoparticles that is used as a template.
Following this, the silica nanoparticles were strategically removed to create ordered hierarchical interconnected macro/microporosity throughout the material.
This material features inherent cationic nature and macroporosity to allow fast diffusion of pollutants. When tested for a wide array of water pollutants, it showed ultrafast capture of all the pollutants — both organic and inorganic — with over 93% removal in just 30 seconds.
FAQ
The escalation on the India-China border (Page no 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
On December 9, 2022, Indian and Chinese troops clashed in the Yangtse area in the Tawang region along the India-China border.
The confrontation in Tawang was the most serious skirmish between the two sides since the Galwan Valley clash in 2020.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has found that the skirmish that took place in December was aided by new road infrastructure on the Chinese side, part of rapid infrastructure development by China along the border in this region allowing access to key locations on the Yangste plateau more easily than a year ago.
Through satellite imagery, ASPI examines the terrain in which the clash took place along the India-China border, where tens of thousands of Indian and Chinese troops continue to be deployed.
Tawang is a strategically significant Indian territory wedged between China and Bhutan. The region’s border with China is a part of the de facto but unsettled India-China border, known as the Line of Actual Control, or LAC. Within Tawang, the Yangtse plateau is important for both the Indian and Chinese militaries.
With its peak at over 5,700 metres above sea level, the plateau enables visibility of much of the region. Crucially, India’s control of the ridgeline that makes up the LAC allows it to prevent Chinese overwatch of roads leading to the Sela Pass — a critical mountain pass that provides the only access in and out of Tawang.
India is constructing an all-weather tunnel through the pass, due to be completed in 2023. However, all traffic in and out of the region along the road will still be visible from the Yangtse plateau.
India’s defences along the plateau consist of a network of six frontline outposts along the LAC. They are supplied by a forward base about 1.5 kilometres from the LAC that appears to be approximately battalion sized. In addition to this forward base, there are more significant basings of Indian forces in valleys below the plateau.
Although Indian forces occupy a commanding position along the ridgeline, it is not impregnable. The access roads leading from the larger Indian bases are extremely steep dirt tracks.
Business
India looking at multilateral agreements that are fair, equitable for all sides: Piyush Goyal (Page no 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Negotiations for bilateral free trade agreements with several countries are "well on track" and India is also looking at some multilateral pacts that are fair and equitable for all the member countries.
India has recently implemented a free trade agreement (FTA) with the UAE in May 2022 and on December 29, 2022 with Australia to boost bilateral trade and investments.
The country is negotiating FTAs with countries including Canada, European Union (EU) and the U.K. We are well on track in discussions with several other countries to look at bilateral trade agreements.
We are looking at one or two multilateral trade agreements also where we believe we can get benefit," Mr. Goyal said while virtually addressing the 27th Wharton India Economic Forum.
In a trade agreement, two or more countries either significantly reduce or eliminate customs duties on the maximum number of goods traded between them.
Besides, they ease norms to promote trade in services and investments. The Minister said that it is in India's interest to enter into bilateral free trade agreements.
It's essential that agreements are balanced and they are in the best interest of both the countries, they address the sensitivities of both the countries and help us protect certain sectors which we need to protect.
He said that India can not make every product efficiently and that imports are important for those goods. On the other hand, India is competitive in several sectors such as labour oriented areas such as textiles, leather, footwear, and pharma and for that these, trade agreements would be beneficial.
Due to this, “we decided that we must talk to like-minded countries particularly countries which have a rule-based trading order, which are transparent in their economic systems as India is and enter into arrangements which are win-win for both the sides and which are fair, equitable and balanced.