📰 Saraswati, a supercluster of galaxies
One of the largest superclustersto be discovered, and the furthest
•A group of Indian astronomers have discovered a massive supercluster of galaxies, and have named it Saraswati. The supercluster is about 4 billion light years away and spreads over a “great wall” about 600 million light years across. This makes it one of the largest superclusters to be discovered and also the furthest.
•The astronomers belong to Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) and Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Pune, besides NIT, Jamshedpur and Newman College, Thodupuzha.
•The first supercluster of galaxies, the Shapley Supercluster, was discovered in 1989, and the second, the Sloan Great Wall in 2003. The Milky Way galaxy is part of the Laniakea Supercluster, which was discovered in 2014.
•“It is the first time that we have seen a supercluster that is so far away. Even the Shapley is about 8-10 times closer,” says Somak Raychaudhury, Director of IUCAA and one of the authors of the paper being published in the latest issue of The Astrophysical Journal .
•Prof. Raychaudhury was part of the team that discovered Shapley, named after American astronomer Harlow Shapley. “We have a habit of naming galaxies after rivers; the Milky Way is referred to as Akash Ganga. So we thought of naming this supercluster after the ancient river Saraswati,” says Prof. Raychaudhury. Along with Dr. Joydeep Bagchi, the lead author of the paper, he began studying this region 15 years ago, using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and found two clusters close by. He suspected they were part of a larger group.
Clumpy universe
•The structure of the universe is not a homogeneous distribution of matter. It is clumpy with galaxies forming clusters and these in turn forming superclusters. There are thin “filaments” that connect galaxies, forming a cosmic web, and there are large voids in between.
•The current belief is that infant galaxies form in these filaments and then drift to the intersections of the filaments where they grow. The Saraswati supercluster could challenge this premise, because it had formed so early and building such a big structure far back might have been difficult. When sighting a supercluster of galaxies 4 billion light years away, the observer is looking back about 4 billion years. A light year is the distance travelled by light in one year. Given the belief that the universe is 13.8 billion years old, the discovery implies that such a huge structure existed even when the universe was just about ten billion years old. This raises questions about the formation of large structures and the nature of the universe, astronomers say.
•Dark matter and dark energy are invoked to explain the structure of the universe. Dark matter, being massive, binds together the universe while dark energy, exciting the surrounding space, drives it apart; the balance of the two effects helps in maintaining the universe in its present form.
•“Theory has always been confounded by nature. It is true that the balance between dark matter and dark energy can produce large structures, but a supercluster of this size does present an enigma,” says Prof. Raychaudhury.
📰 Probe ‘extra-judicial’ killings in Manipur, SC tells CBI
‘Death cannot be overlooked because of lapse of time’
•In a resounding blow to impunity for security and armed forces personnel in disturbed areas under the grip of the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, the Supreme Court on Friday ordered a time-bound CBI probe into the deaths of over 80 civilians, allegedly killed by police and armed forces in the north-eastern State of Manipur during the heights of insurgency.
•In a 26-page judgment, a Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and U.U. Lalit refused to entertain the Centre’s argument that these crimes were “vintage” and there was no need to re-visit them.
•The government tried to placate the court, saying the families of the victims were compensated for the loss of their loved ones and nothing more needed to be done.
•The Centre justified the years of neglect or lack of investigation by the Manipur Police, blaming “local pressures” and the “ground situation” in the sensitive State.
•But the court stood steadfast. Parents and families of the victims had approached the court for answers in the cases of 1,528 persons finished off in what they termed as “extra-judicial killings”, allegedly committed by the police and “personnel in uniform of the armed forces of the Union.”
•Justice Lokur, who wrote the judgment, said even the “dos and don’ts and the Ten Commandments of the Army Chief” accepts the ethos and principle that use of excessive force or retaliatory force by uniformed personnel resulting in death necessitates a thorough enquiry.
•To the government’s stand that these “fake encounter” cases were too old to be raked up, the court said, “if a crime has been committed, a crime which involves the death of a person who is possibly innocent, it cannot be over-looked only because of a lapse of time.”
Centre’stand
•To the Centre's stand that the State bowed to local pressures, the court replied that if there was a breakdown of law in Manipur, the Centre was obliged to step in. “Merely because the State has not taken any action and has allowed time to go by, it cannot take advantage of the delay to scuttle an inquiry,” the court held.
•Noting that the court cannot shut its doors on the victims and aggrieved families of those who suffered losses of life and property, the court retorted that mere payment of compensation cannot douse the pain and agony of the kin of those who were killed.
•“This [compensation] cannot override the law of the land. Otherwise all heinous crimes would get settled through payment of monetary compensation,” Justice Lokur observed. The court noted how not a single FIR was registered against any personnel of the Manipur Police for all these years.
📰 SIT to probe attack on Amarnath pilgrims
Five magazines emptied within a short time suggests ‘more than three militants’ may have been part of the terror strike
•The Jammu and Kashmir police have set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the attack on Amarnath pilgrims as the preliminary investigations suggest militants “wanted to inflict heavy casualty as five magazines were emptied on the bus.”
•A police official said at least 150 empty bullet cartridges or five magazines of AK-47 were found near Batengoo, Anantnag.
Seat arrangement
•“The number of bullets fired at the bus only indicates the intent. The seat arrangement in the bus seemed to have helped avoid casualties. The seat in the bus is far higher than a normal bus,” said the police.
•Over 30 bullet holes have been found on the bus, with many bullets hitting the roof. “It shows the militants came close and were driving on a motorcycle,” the police inquiry suggests.
Fired from two sides
•The militants, according to the police, fired from two sides and from the front.
•“They broke the front window. We are investigating if they wanted to enter the bus,” he added.
•The police have ruled out the bus being attacked at multiple points.
•Tracing the attack trajectory, the police inquiry suggests that the five magazines emptied within a short time only suggest “more than three militants” may have taken part in the attack.
•The police said they are focussing on technical details to establish the link of the militants, who carried out the attack, with the handlers across the Line of Control (LoC).
•The police said all pointers suggest the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s hand in the attack.
Ground workers quizzed
•Source said 10 over ground workers have been questioned in the attack for leads.
•Meanwhile, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police, South Kashmir, S.P. Pani will head the SIT and Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Anantnag, Altaf Ahmad Khan, will be assisting him.
•Seven pilgrims, including five women, were killed and 19 injured on Monday as militants opened fire on a bus carrying Amarnath pilgrims.
•The bus was not registered with the Amaranth Shrine Board and had reportedly violated the travel rules.
📰 Malabar drills aim at giving regional security, says Japan
Ambassador hints at more collaboration between defence forces in future
•The trilateral Naval exercise, Malabar 2017, involving India, the U.S. and Japan, is strategically very important and meant to maintain the rule of law and maritime security in the region, Japanese Ambassador to India, Kenji Hiramatsu said on Friday.
•In an interview to The Hindu , Mr Hiramatsu said, “This is very significant politically and [of] very symbolic value that the three countries are working together to safeguard the rule of law and maritime security in this region.”
•Earlier this week, Indian and U.S. Naval officials had said the exercise was not aimed at China in the light of Beijing’s repeated concerns about the joint exercises.
•The Ambassador said his country’s relations with India had a solid base, “for safeguarding peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region” adding that there could be more exchanges involving ground and air forces and an exchange of personnel in various areas.
Cooperation in Africa
•Asked whether the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor project — envisaging an India-Japan collaboration in Africa — was to counter China’s Belt and Road project, the Ambassador said it was not aimed at any specific initiative.
•“Our Prime Minister [Shinzo Abe] had already said it [Asia-Africa Growth Corridor] was for a free and open Indo-Pacific region and to make this region more inter-connected and prosperous. We are not particularly counter-balancing to some initiative. We are convinced this initiative is important for prosperity and security of this region,” he said.
Concrete plans
•On whether India and Japan would take up specific pilot projects in Africa, the Ambassador said there was a “good win-win situation”.
•“We think that India has vast experience, network in eastern part of Africa. We have good technology and financing to support African development,” Mr Hiramatsu said, adding that Japan has been working with Indian officials and businessmen for “a concrete development plan” in Africa.
•On the next steps in the on the civil nuclear agreement, signed between the two countries last year, given the Diet’s approval of the pact recently, the Ambassador expressed the hope that there would be discussion “in due course of time.”
Happy with GST
•Mr. Hiramatsu said the political situation was stable in India and this was one of the attractions for Japanese investors.
•The Ambassador added that Japanese investors in India were “very happy” with roll out of the GST. “We were waiting for this for many years. This is very good for facilitating smooth transportation from one State to another and it is a very simple tax system,” he said.
📰 New tax to hurt exporters
GST to impact liquidity, thereby affecting competitiveness
•The Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), the apex body for the country’s exporters, said the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime would impact the liquidity of the exporters and in turn hurt export competitiveness.
•A statement issued by FIEO on Friday quoted Ajay Sahai, director general and CEO, FIEO, as saying that “The GST will severely dent the liquidity of the exporter and increase the compliance cost of merchant exporters. Export competitiveness of India may tank by about 2% and this will be a big blow for exporters.”
•The government is looking into various options to neutralise the impact of the GST regime on the export sector, he added.
•FIEO had already asked the government to provide interest on delay in payment of refund of taxes/duties after 10 days of exporters filing claim under the GST regime. As per the refund rules, the interest on delayed payment would be due only after 60 days, it had said.
•Exporters are worried about liquidity issues as the refund mechanism would require payment of GST first and get refund subsequently, FIEO President G.K. Gupta had said.
•“The additional cost of credit to manage the liquidity should be borne by the government, if the present exemption is not brought forward in the GST. Export sector would be losing export competitiveness by about 2% and the same needs to be offset.”
Nodal officers
•Earlier, the government had appointed nodal officers at the Directorate General of Foreign Trade and the Central Board of Excise and Customs to look into the concerns of exporters with regard to the GST regime.
•A FIEO official said while transition input tax credits and inherent benefits of GST would lower costs, higher GST rates for products may spoil sport in some cases.
📰 EU, India set up fund for investments
To cover new investors as well as those already established in India
•The European Union (EU) and India on Friday announced the establishment of an Investment Facilitation Mechanism (IFM) for EU investments in India.
•“The mechanism will allow for a close coordination between the European Union and the Government of India with an aim to promote and facilitate EU investment in India,” according to an official statement.
•Ramesh Abhishek, secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (or DIPP — the nodal body for foreign direct investment policy), said: “The IFM has been established with the key objectives of paving the way for identifying and solving problems faced by EU companies and investors with regard to their operations in India.”
•He added that the IFM will cover new investors as well as those already established in India.
•“The IFM is also going to serve as a platform for discussing general suggestions from the point of view of EU companies and investors with regard to ease of doing business in India, which I am sure, would boost and encourage the EU investors to avail the investment opportunities available in India,” said Mr. Abhishek.
•Ease of doing business is a fundamental priority of the Indian Government’s Make in India Campaign and the establishment of IFM for facilitating EU investments in India is another step to achieve this goal, he said.
Brussels statement
•The IFM builds on the Joint Statement of the 13th EU-India Summit held in Brussels in March 2016, where the EU had welcomed India's readiness to establish such a mechanism and leaders from both sides had reaffirmed their shared commitment to oppose protectionism and to work in favour of a fair, transparent and rule-based trade and investment environment, according to the statement.
•As part of the IFM, the EU Delegation to India and the DIPP will hold regular high level meetings to assess and facilitate “ease of doing business” for EU investors in India.This will include identifying and putting in place solutions to procedural impediments faced by EU firms and investors in establishing or running their operations in India.
•Invest India, the Indian government's official Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency, will also be part of the IFM.
📰 Trade deficit widens to $13 bn
Imports climb 19% in June, exports see slower growth
•With goods imports outpacing exports in June, trade deficit for the month widened to $12.95 billion, according to data released by the commerce ministry on Friday. In June 2016, the goods trade deficit was only $8.1 billion.
•Continuing with growth indicated since September 2016, goods exports in June 2017 rose 4.39% year-on-year to $23.56 billion.
•However, imports in June jumped 19% to $36.5 billion.
Commodity imports
•Major commodity group of imports showing high growth in June were petroleum, crude & products (12.04%), electronic goods (24.22%), pearls, precious & semi-precious stones (86.31%), machinery, electrical & non-electrical (7.02%) and gold(102.99%).
•“After showing a robust trend, India’s export basket is showing signs of muted growth, though the engineering sector has maintained its vibrancy in June,” said T.S. Bhasin, chairman, EEPC India, the exporters’ body. The currency impact in terms of stronger rupee hurting the exports is clearly visible in the form of shipments showing a negative growth, measured in Indian rupees, he said. Unabated global liquidity flows into Indian financial markets are casting a shadow on the competitiveness of Indian exports, he added.
•Oil imports in June rose 12.04% to $8.12 billion.
📰 How Brexit has begun to unravel
With just 20 months to go till Britain is meant to leave the EU, it’s become potentially more of a time bomb
•It’s often the case that when a senior politician ridicules concerns about a policy or programme, you know it is really running into trouble. That’s certainly true of Brexit. David Davis, the “Brexit” secretary (the cabinet minister who heads the clunkily named Department for Exiting the European Union) told a House of Lords select committee earlier this week that he viewed with “amusement” press reports suggesting the government was “softening” its stance on Brexit, with some even suggesting that it might not happen at all. Nicholas Watt, a senior editor of the BBC news programme Newsnight, reported last week he had spoken to a number of senior figures, including influential supporters of Brexit, who now believed there was a “strong chance” it might not happen at all, a sentiment that has been repeated by others in one way or another since.
Electoral setback
•Questions about the viability of Brexit as the government had laid it out — in Prime Minister Theresa May’s crucial Lancaster House speech in January — emerged rapidly after the election and the government’s loss of its overall parliamentary majority. Ms. May had pegged the election around public support for her version of Brexit, which involved leaving the single market in order to satisfy public demand for border controls, as well as exiting the customs union in order for Britain to be able to negotiate tariff-free deals unrestrictedly with the rest of the world. With the loss of seats, and rise of Labour putting this mandate in question, many asked whether the party would be forced to soften its stance on a number of key issues, particularly given its alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland, which had made the issue of the open border between the two Irelands all the more important to solve. (The issue of how to keep an open border while ending the customs union is seen as one of the major practical challenges of Brexit.)
•There are a number of reasons why those questions have persisted since. Firstly, the practical issues around Brexit — and the interpretation of the “will of the people” vis-à-vis the referendum — seem to be burgeoning rapidly, highlighted by an ongoing controversy over Britain’s membership of the European nuclear industry regulator, Euratom. Britain had committed to leaving the agency when it notified Europe of its plans to leave the union, back in March. The government had suggested it had little option but to leave as it raised issues around jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice among other things, but legal opinion remains very divided, with many (even strident Brexiteers) suggesting that keeping Britain in Euratom remained completely viable and necessary. In fact, among those to criticise the government for its insistence on leaving was none other than the man who had headed the Vote Leave campaign, Dominic Cummings, who labelled those who were pushing to leave Euratom “morons”. Others have warned that by leaving the regulator, Britain would lose out on crucial developments that had taken place, particularly around radiotherapy, which could delay the delivery of cancer drugs to patients.
No deal or bad deal?
•Then there’s the confusion on what the government policy on crucial areas is: for example, around the now infamous slogan of the Prime Minister that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” That negotiating position has faced widespread criticism from both within and outside Conservative Party circles, for the perception internationally that Britain’s aggressive negotiating stance was likely to be counteractive. Major questions are now being asked about whether a plan exists for the “no deal” scenario, with differing answers from senior cabinet members. “Are ministers just making it up as they go along?” asked Emily Thornberry, Britain’s shadow foreign secretary at Prime Minister’s Questions this week. Another crucial area over which confusion reigns is the issue of the transitional period that would ease Britain’s exit for it and other member states, in particular what EU precepts or bodies would continue to be relevant over that period.
•Some fear the scale of the practical challenges facing the government is something they have not necessarily acknowledged. In an extraordinary intervention this week, Amyas Morse, the head of the National Audit Office, told the media ahead of the publication of a report that the government’s approach to Brexit was in danger of falling apart “like a chocolate orange” with little flexibility involved in the government’s approach or willingness to accommodate a backup plan. (The government’s inflexibility on major issues became apparent with the publication of the “repeal bill”, which removes the supremacy of EU law, and which includes no concessions on issues that opposition parties had sought such as on the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.)
•These issues arise at a time when economic conditions have toughened, factors Brexiteers say are unrelated to the exiting process, but which critics say were just some of the repercussions they had warned about all along. Inflation in May climbed to its highest rate in four years, 2.9%, with weakness of the pound persisting, as wages remain subdued. While the unemployment rate is at its lowest level since the 1970s, the Office for National Statistics said last week that real disposable incomes were falling at their highest rate since 2011, largely as a result of inflation. Anecdotal evidence has also suggested that concerns about Brexit have finally begun to hit investment into the country, while EU workers in areas such as health have begun to leave the country, creating potential skills shortages. Pessimism remains high about what will follow Brexit. On Wednesday, the ratings agency Moody’s warned that it was “unclear” whether the government would be able to deliver a “reasonably good outcome” in its negotiations with Europe, warning that the likelihood of an abrupt exit with no agreement and reversion to WTO trading rules had increased.
Continental shift
•Overall, one has a sense of the upper hand lying very much with the continent. Bluff and bluster has continued in Britain. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson scoffed at the “divorce bill”, the multibillion-pound payment that Europe believes is owed to it by Britain as it exits the union, telling MPs that the EU could “go whistle.” But his remarks were calmly rejected by Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator.
•He warned that without a recognition of the payments owed by Britain, trust would be broken and there would be little chance of negotiations moving forward. “I am not hearing any whistling, just the clock ticking,” he said this week. With just twenty months to go till Britain is meant to leave the union, with the purported mission of “taking back control” of borders, laws, and trade, it’s potentially more of a time bomb.
📰 Adrift at sea
The separation of a massive iceberg shows how precarious the Antarctic ecosystem is
•The dramatic but inevitable calving of a trillion-ton iceberg from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica raises the question, did a warming atmosphere have a significant impact on the process? Scientists from Project MIDAS, a U.K.-based Antarctic research project that has been looking at the ice shelf for many years, have said the formation of icebergs is natural, and no link to human-induced climate change was available in this case. Yet, the impact of such a loss on the stability of the ice shelf itself may not be benign. Should it disintegrate, glaciers normally feeding into the floating shelf may have nothing to restrain them, and could then contribute to sea level rise, possibly at a slow rate. Such fears are based on the unambiguous data on the thinning of the Larsen Ice Shelf. Researchers said in 2003 that Antarctic Peninsula ice shelves retreated each year since 1980 by about 300 sq.km. This erosion has been interspersed by two previous collapses of smaller ice shelves, Larsen A in 1995 and Larsen B in 2002, the latter providing strong evidence of subsequent accelerated glacier flow into the sea. While any negative impact of the latest event will likely be felt years or decades later, it highlights the need to stop continued warming of the planet from man-made carbon emissions.
•Antarctica is a climate stabilising factor, and the importance of the marine West Antarctic ice sheet was highlighted by U.S. scientists over four decades ago. In the context of rising emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, a cautionary note was sounded, on warming seas hastening the melting of the shelves that hold its great mass. Indeed, the point made was that except for man-made causes, there was no anticipated factor in the natural geological cycle that would disturb Antarctica. The separation of an iceberg almost 6,000 sq. km in size from the ice shelf shows the importance of such alarms. Fortunately, newer satellite technologies, which were not available during earlier instances of iceberg calving, will help in the study of the fragile peninsular region and Antarctica as a whole. Among the stark effects of changes could be a shift in biodiversity: species like emperor penguins which depend on sea ice to complete their life cycle are at risk if ice cover declines. Any dramatic changes will only add to the worry of irreversible effects of climate change, given that the Arctic and Greenland have also been losing ice cover. Clearly, the loss of a massive portion of the Larsen C Ice Shelf marks another milestone in the evolution of this remote region. Yet, the lack of long-term data on Antarctica, as opposed to other regions, makes it difficult to arrive at sound conclusions. What is clear is that the last pristine continent should be left well alone, with a minimum of human interference, even as research efforts are intensified to study the impact of human activities in the rest of the world on this wilderness.
