THE HINDU – CURRENT NOTE 16 February
ISRO launches 104satellitesin one go, creates history
These include the country’s earth observation satellite Cartosat-2 series.
•India, a one-rocket fledgling in space transportation compared to its European and U.S. counterparts, created launch history on Wednesday by placing a record 104 spacecraft in their desired orbits.
•The feat was performed on the old reliable launch vehicle, the PSLV, numbered C-37, which took off from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, at 9.28 a.m.
Precise launch
•C-37 was a largely commercial flight as all but three passenger satellites, small nanosats, belonged to six other countries. The 29-minute launch went off precisely as planned; it took just 11 minutes from the release of the primary Cartosat-2 series spacecraft to the last launch of a client satellite, ISRO said after the mega-payload launch.
•The PSLV, in the category of launch vehicles that can lift relatively light loads to space, now marks 38 successful missions in a row out of a total of 39 flights.
•This time, it took to space a total of 1,378 kg, of which the primary satellite was 714 kg.
•The latest Cartosat is the fifth in the series of six Cartosat-2 spacecraft, starting from Cartosat 2 in 2007 and followed by what were earlier marked A, B, C, D and E. The last one is due.
•“After a flight of 16 minutes and 48 seconds, the satellites achieved a polar Sun synchronous orbit of 506 km inclined at an angle of 97.46 degrees to the equator — very close to the intended orbit. In the next 12 minutes, all 104 satellites successfully separated from the PSLV fourth stage in a predetermined sequence, beginning with the Cartosat-2 series, INS-1 and INS-2,” an official communique said.
ISRO’s workhorse lives up to its billing
•The PSLV, which created launch history on Wednesday by placing a record 104 spacecraft in their desired orbits, has totally launched 46 Indian spacecraft, most of them Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites.
•As many as 180 small satellites of foreign customers contracted by ISRO’s commercial company Antrix Corporation have also reached space on this vehicle.
•This time, it took to space a total of 1,378 kg, of which the primary satellite was 714 kg.
•The latest Cartosat is the fifth in the series of six Cartosat-2 spacecraft, starting from Cartosat 2 in 2007 and followed by what were earlier marked A, B, C, D and E. The last one is due.
•“After a flight of 16 minutes and 48 seconds, the satellites achieved a polar Sun synchronous orbit of 506 km inclined at an angle of 97.46 degrees to the equator — very close to the intended orbit. In the next 12 minutes, all 104 satellites successfully separated from the PSLV fourth stage in a predetermined sequence, beginning with the Cartosat-2 series, INS-1 and INS-2,” an official communique said.
•The PSLV, 39 flights old since 1993, also launched the Indian Moon mission Chandrayaan-1 in 2008; and is set to launch a private lunar mission for Bengaluru start-up Team Indus in late December this year.
•“It is confirmed that all 104 satellites have been successfully deployed in the orbit,” PTI quoted PSLV Project Director B. Jayakumar at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) as saying.
•“After separation, the two solar arrays of Cartosat-2 series satellite were deployed automatically and ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bengaluru took over the control of the satellite,” the space agency said.
•In the coming days, the satellite will be brought to its final operational configuration.
Clouds over Maharashtrawill have a silver iodide lining
State government responds to frequent droughts in Vidarbha with a three-year cloud seeding experiment
•During monsoon 2017, weather scientists will fly airplanes loaded with silver iodide over clouds hovering above Solapur, Maharashtra and begin a three-year investigation into an old question: does cloud seeding produce sufficient rain?
•The ₹250-crore programme, coordinated by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, will be the first controlled experiment to quantify the extent to which clouds form water drops large enough to make rain.
•Seeding involves spraying chemicals into clouds. China used the technique during the 2008 Olympics to veer rain away from the inaugural venue and now has a full-fledged department that blasts rockets into clouds to induce rain and control pollution. “The benefits of cloud seeding aren’t well understood. Lots of organisations make claims,” Madhavan Rajeevan, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, said. “It’s time we have a proper scientific evaluation that State governments can rely upon.”
•Maharashtra has frequently toyed with the idea of cloud seeding because of the frequency of droughts over the Vidarbha region. The State Cabinet had approved a plan to seed clouds for 113 hours with a rainfall level of 1,381mm, at ₹28 crore. However above-normal rains pushed the plan to the back-burner.
•For their experiment, scientists will fly two aircraft and spray dry ice and silver iodide on 100 clouds and compare them with 100 unseeded clouds. Ground radar will track the clouds and verify which ones contributed rain. The programme will account for the variability of the monsoon. The move is part of a larger experiment of the Earth Sciences Ministry to understand how clouds and aerosols interact and influence climate.
The devil is in the fineprint
Electoral reforms announced in the Budget are not what they are claimed to be — they will neither cleanse our politics nor bring transparency
•Given his interest in cricket, this must be called Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s ‘doosra’. His announcement on electoral reforms in his Budget speech combined an element of surprise, some degree of deception and a sleight of hand — all that go into a doosra in cricket. It is a mark of his deftness that his delivery foxed many a seasoned player.
•Initial reactions to Mr. Jaitley’s announcement ranged from gushing to lukewarm approval. Breathless TV anchors announced it as a historic act of cleansing our polity, just as Mr. Jaitley would have us believe. More sober commentators saw it as a significant though inadequate step forward in the right direction. Even the sceptics felt that the Finance Minister had at least put the issue of political funding on the table. Everyone thought the ball was headed in the right direction. It took a while for democratic reform and right to information activists to find out that this was the wrong one. The fine print of the Finance Bill showed that Mr. Jaitley’s proposals for bringing ‘transparency and accountability’ would achieve exactly the opposite. Ranging from redundant to sinister, these proposals would rob the system of whatever little transparency and accountability that it has today. Worse, they draw national attention away from a series of electoral funding reforms that the Election Commission and democratic reform activists have been asking for a long time.
All the four elements
•This might sound like the usual oppositional and alarmist reaction. So, let us carefully unpack each of the four elements of the scheme announced by the Finance Minister to “cleanse the system of funding of political parties”. First, he claimed to follow the Election Commission in proposing a ceiling of ₹2,000 on the amount of cash donation that a political party can receive from one person in a year. Second, he announced that political parties would be “entitled to receive” donations by cheque or digital mode from their donors. Third, he proposed a new scheme of Electoral Bonds. Fourth, he said that every political party would have to file its Income Tax return within the prescribed time limit in order to enjoy exemption from payment of income tax. He insisted that this scheme will bring about “greater transparency and accountability in political funding, while preventing future generation of black money”.
•Now, the second and the fourth components of this scheme are redundant, as these are no different from what the existing law provides for. It does not require a new law to say that political parties are “entitled” to receive donations by cheque or digitally. They were always entitled to this and were already doing so. We needed a new law to mandate that the parties would be “required” to receive donations by cheque or digitally. The Finance Minister did not propose any such thing. Similarly, the existing law requires political parties to file their income tax returns to enjoy tax exemption. The Finance Bill now proposes a new proviso in Section 13A clause (d) of the Income Tax Act 1961 that explicitly says that the return should be filed within the stipulated time limit. So far, all major parties have routinely flouted this requirement. Big national parties file their return months after the due date and many parties don’t file the return at all. No one gets penalised for this non-compliance. The government really did not need this amendment if it had the will to enforce the existing law.
Limiting cash donations
•The proposal about limiting cash donations to ₹2,000 has been widely misunderstood and therefore welcomed as a first step in the right direction. Everyone was foxed into believing that the limit for anonymous donations, contributions that are exempt from reporting, has been reduced from the existing ₹20,000 to ₹2,000. That is what the Election Commission (EC) had asked for in its revised compendium of Proposed Electoral Reforms in December 2016. The Finance Minister’s speech claimed to follow the EC’s advice. The Finance Bill reveals something different. The existing limit of ₹20,000 on anonymous donation as per Section 23 of the Representation of the People Act (RPA) has been left untouched. The Minister has merely proposed a new, additional, clause that limits cash donation from one source to ₹2,000 in one year.
•Notice that there was and is no requirement to disclose a contribution by cheque or digital transfer up to ₹20,000. There was and is no limit to how much a party can receive from anonymous donations. More importantly, there was and is no limit to how much overall a party can receive in cash from all sources put together. Following the Law Commission’s recommendations, the EC had proposed that no party should be allowed to receive more than ₹20 crore or 20% of its overall donations from anonymous sources. The Minister did not pay heed to this.
•This proposal is unlikely to make any difference to the business as usual for political parties. The fact is that most political funds remain in the pockets of party leaders. A small amount enters the coffers of the party and becomes party funds. A tiny fraction of party funds is placed in the bank accounts of the party to meet some expenses that cannot remain invisible. The figures widely discussed in the media relate to that tiny fraction of party funds, which is a small proportion of political funds. Most of this is not voluntary contribution or donation. Much of what political parties show as donations is black money generated by party leaders which is turned into white money by way of book entries as donations to the party. So far, the accountant who had to covert, say, ₹100 crore had to make sure than the entire amount was broken down into entries of ₹20,000 or below. Now they will absorb the same amount by breaking it down into entries of ₹2,000 or below. All that the proposed law would ensure is more book entries and perhaps a higher fee for the accountant. Otherwise, it would be business as usual.
Trouble with electoral bonds
•Still, one can say that this change would do no harm. But that is not the case with the new proposal of Electoral Bonds. Although the detailed rules are yet to be framed, the basic outline of the scheme is clear. Anyone who wants to donate to a political party would be able to purchase bonds from authorised banks. This purchase will have to be in ‘white money’ against cheque and digital payments only. Once purchased, these bonds will be like bearer bonds and will not contain the name of the eventual beneficiary. These bonds shall be redeemable only in the designated account of a registered political party within a prescribed period. So, the donor’s bank would know about who bought how much of Electoral Bonds, but not the name of the party which received it. The party’s bank would know the amount deposited through Bonds, but not the identity of the donor. The Income Tax authorities and the EC would not know anything: reporting of donor, beneficiary, or even the amount of contribution has been exempted by amending the Income Tax Act Section 13A (b) and the RPA, Section 29C. The net effect, and indeed the purpose, of the Bonds will be that no
•one except the fund giver and the fund receiver would know about this exchange done in white money with full tax exemption.
•Let us think of a classic quid pro quo. A government favours a business house in a mining or spectrum or oil deal to the tune of ₹5,000 crore. Both of them have a fifty-fifty deal. Under the existing arrangement, the business house would have to either declare in its balance sheet a ‘donation’ of ₹2,500 crore to the ruling party, or find that much cash to secretly hand over to the party bosses. If the payment is in white, the party will have to declare the amount and the name of the company to the Income Tax authorities and to the EC. Now, the company could simply purchase Election Bonds worth ₹2,500 crore and hand it over to the party. The company’s balance sheet will show “purchase of Election Bonds” with no name of the beneficiary, while it enjoys 100% tax deduction on that amount. The party will simply deposit the money in its account, with no obligation to report anything to the IT authorities or to the EC. It may well report an innocuous amount of, say, ₹3.8 crore as its annual reportable income! So much for transparency!
•Once introduced, these bonds will mask whatever little transparency exists in the current system. Instead of the usual practice of converting black money into white, these bonds will push white money into a grey, if not black, trail. Indeed, the black money in politics might go down, as the white money has been provided a perfect cover of secrecy. Why would anyone give any money to a political party through cheque or digital payment and face all the hassle of disclosure?
•Arun Jaitley’s doosra is a great leap backwards in the history of election funding reforms.
•Yogendra Yadav is President of the newly formed party, Swaraj India.
ISRO sets the bar high
The Indian Space Research Organisation boosted its reputation further when it successfully launched a record 104 satellites in one mission from Sriharikota on Wednesday by relying on its workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket. An earth observation Cartosat-2 series satellite and two other nano satellites were the only Indian satellites launched: the remaining were from the United States, Israel, the UAE, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan and Switzerland. Of the 101 foreign satellites launched, 96 were from the U.S. and one each from the other five countries. Till now Russia held the record of launching 37 satellites in a single mission, in 2014, while the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the U.S. launched 29 satellites in one go in 2013. Last June, ISRO had come close to NASA’s record by launching 20 satellites in one mission. But ISRO views the launch not as a mission to set a world record but as an opportunity to make full use of the capacity of the launch vehicle. The launch is particularly significant as ISRO now cements its position as a key player in the lucrative commercial space launch market by providing a cheaper yet highly reliable alternative. At an orbital altitude of around 500 km, the vehicle takes about 90 minutes to complete one orbit. Though ISRO had sufficient time to put the satellites into orbit, it accomplished the task in about 12 minutes. With the focus on ensuring that no two satellites collided with each other, the satellites were injected in pairs in opposite directions. Successive pairs of satellites were launched once the vehicle rotated by a few degrees, thereby changing the separation angle and time of separation to prevent any collision.
ISRO plans to launch more Cartosat-2 series satellites and even an improved version. Besides setting the record for the most number of satellites launched in a single mission, the Indian space agency has launched two nano satellites weighing less than 10 kg. It is a technology demonstrator for a new class of satellites called ISRO nano satellites (INS). The main objective of the INS, which will be launched together with bigger satellites, is to provide a platform on which payloads up to 5 kg from universities and R&D laboratories, and ISRO itself can be easily integrated for carrying out scientific research activities. With many Indian universities already building and launching nano satellites, the availability of a dedicated nano satellites platform is sure to boost space research in India.
The foul air we breathe
A new international report has drawn attention to the deadly pollutants that pervade the air that people breathe in India, causing terrible illness and premature death. The State of Global Air 2017 study, conducted jointly by the Health Effects Institute and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, quantifies further what has been reported for some time now: that the concentration of the most significant inhalable pollutant, fine particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometres or less (PM2.5), has been growing in India. The rise in average annual population-weighted PM2.5 levels indicates that the Centre’s initiatives to help States reduce the burning of agricultural biomass and coal in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi have failed. The directions of the National Green Tribunal to Delhi, which were reviewed last year, could not end open burning of garbage and straw, or curb the urban use of diesel-powered vehicles. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the weighted national PM2.5 level estimated in the international report rose from 60 micrograms per cubic metre in 1990 (the acceptable limit) to 74 in 2015, with a steady rise since 2011. Weak policy on pollution is leading to the premature death of an estimated 1.1 million Indians annually, and the number is growing, in contrast to China’s record of reducing such mortality.
Several studies show long-term evidence of a steady deterioration in air quality in many countries, and South Asia, dominated by India, is today among the worst places to live. Although the central role played by burning of crop residues in causing pollution is well-known, and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute proposed steps to convert the waste into useful products such as enriched fodder, biogas, biofuel, compost and so on, little progress has been made. Last year, helpless farmers in the northern States who wanted to quickly switch from rice to wheat burnt the waste in the fields, in some cases defying local prohibitory orders. The government has no one to blame but itself, since it has not been able to supply affordable seeder machinery in sufficient numbers to eliminate the need to remove the straw. In a country producing about 500 million tonnes of crop residues annually, the issue needs to be addressed in mission mode. Easy access to cheap solar cookers and biogas plants will also cut open burning, and help the rural economy. Yet, there is no reliable distribution mechanism for these. On the health front, it is a matter of concern that in the most polluted cities, even moderate physical activity could prove harmful, rather than be beneficial, as new research indicates. India’s clean-up priorities need to shift gear urgently, covering both farm and city.
Dubai looks to China,Russiafor tourists astravel from India slows
Dubai’s mission to host 20 million travellers by 2020 is facing challenges from factors like demonetisation in India and Brexit as it seeks new markets to boost its tourism industry.
“We have increased the number of markets we are looking at,” Issam Kazim, CEO, Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing, told The Hindu in a telephone interview. “So we are opening up new markets and working closely with our partners — airlines and hotels.”
Mr. Kazim said factors like slowing economic activity in Saudi Arabia and demonetisation in India had had an impact on the number of travellers, including from key markets like India and Saudi Arabia, last year.
While the number of Indians travelling to Dubai recorded 12% growth in 2016, travel was impacted in the last two months due to the demonetisation in India.
India on top
India, however, maintained the number one spot for the second consecutive year in terms of the number of people travelling to Dubai, said Mr. Kazim. “We have seen great numbers from India in the past two years. India had become number one key source market for 2015 and they have maintained the number one position for the second year now. We have seen 1.8 million arrivals from India last year, which was 12% growth over 2015. Saudi was our key source market earlier and India surpassed Saudi in 2015,” said Mr. Kazim.
According to Dubai Tourism data, the city attracted 14.9 million overnight visitors in 2016, a 5% increase over 2015 and an impressive 4-year CAGR of 8%. About 80% are business travellers in the city while the rest are leisure travellers.
He said the number of travellers from China had shown double digit growth in the last couple of years and with the stabilisation of the Russian currency, the number of visitors from that country was also picking up.
“Few years ago, China jumped into the number 10 spot with 4.5 lakh travellers, and last year we saw 5.4 lakh travellers from China. We see lot of opportunity there. With stabilisation of the Russian currency, we see Russian travellers are starting to pick up again. The open sky policy of Dubai Airport has helped us to work with new destinations,” he said.
More hotels
Dubai Tourism is opening more 3-star and 4-star hotels so that budget travellers from India also find the price attractive and stay longer.
“We have to make sure more and more Indian travellers know what Dubai has to offer. I have to make sure not only I get 20 million but also people stay longer in Dubai and make sure you come back again,” Mr. Kazim added.
Exports record positivegrowthfor a fifth consecutive month
India’s goods exports recorded positive growth for the fifth consecutive month with shipments in January rising by 4.32% to $22.1 billion following good performance by major sectors such as engineering and petroleum as well as low base of 14.1% contraction in January 2016.
“We need to revisit the challenges faced by drugs and pharmaceuticals, gems and jewellery, carpets and plantations commodities so that they may also contribute to export growth in coming months,” said S.C. Ralhan, president, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO).
The slowdown in global trade continues to impact India as well, he said adding India’s goods exports for 2016-17 would be about $270 billion. Increasing protectionism, volatility in currencies and uncertainties clouding over global economy pose major challenges for India’s exports in 2017.
Imports rise
Imports in January, meanwhile, increased by 10.7% – a five-month high – to $31.9 billion, data released on Wednesday by the Commerce Ministry showed. This resulted in trade deficit increasing to $9.8 billion, more than $7.6 billion seen in January 2016. Gold imports shrunk by about 30% to $2 billion in January. In December, imports of the yellow metal had contracted 50.1% to $1.8 billion after having risen in the previous two months.
Export growth in January was “in consonance with the revival exhibited by exports in the previous four months,” Commerce Ministry said. It said as per latest World Trade Organisation statistics, the growth in exports is positive for the U.S. (2.63%), the European Union (5.47%) and Japan (13.43%) but was negative for China (1.51%) for November 2016 over the corresponding period of previous year.
Non-petroleum exports in January rose 1.6% to $19.4 billion while petroleum exports increased by 29% to $2.7 billion. Oil imports in January surged 61% to $8 billion while non-oil imports were marginally up by 0.01% to $23.8 billion. Exports during April-January 2016-17 were also marginally higher by 1.09% to $221 billion while imports during the period shrunk 5.8% to $307.3 billion. Trade deficit in April-January 2016-17 also narrowed to $86 billion from $107.7 billion during the same period in the previous fiscal.
India says delegation from Taiwan is non-political
India on Wednesday moved to stabilise ties with China, saying there was nothing political in the ongoing visit of a delegation from Taiwan, which criticised Beijing’s One China policy.
India’s statement came after China filed a diplomatic protest after the delegation argued that Taiwan’s independence is an international reality.
“We understand that a group of Taiwanese academics and business persons, including a couple of legislators, is visiting India. Such informal groups have visited India in the past as well for business, religious and tourist purposes. I understand that they do so to China as well. There is nothing new or unusual about such visits and political meanings should not be read into them,” said the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Vikas Swarup.
The statement, which came within hours of a major dinner hosted by BJP leader Ram Madhav in Delhi in honour of the delegation, is significant in view of the fact that Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar is expected to visit Beijing within a week. This will be the first high-level visit from India to Beijing in 2017.
At a briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Gen. Shuang said: “We hope India would understand and respect China’s core concerns and stick to the ‘One China’ principle and prudently deal with Taiwan-related issues and maintain sound and steady development of India-China relations.”
“The reason why China lodged the representation is because that we have been requiring countries that have diplomatic relations with China to fulfil their commitment to the ‘One China policy,” he said.
Tougher criticism of the Taiwanese visit came from the government-backed publication Global Times which described India as a “provocateur.”
“Some Indians view the Taiwan question as an Achilles’ heel of the mainland. They have long wanted to use the Taiwan question and the South China Sea and Dalai Lama issues as bargaining chips in dealing with China,” said Global Times and added: “By challenging China over the Taiwan question, India is playing with fire.”
The newspaper said India’s position of hosting the delegation goes against the policy of U.S.President Donald Trump who has also indicated his willingness to support the One China policy.
The Hindu had earlier reported that leader of the delegation Kuan Bi Ling had emphasised that Taiwan’s freedom and sovereignty is a reality in international affairs.
