📰 India leaves out offset clause for S-400
Aim is to advance deliveries of the system, though Russia was ready to accede to the condition
•The ₹40,300-crore deal between India and Russia for five S-400 air defence missile systems does not have any offset clause. India has decided to drop it so as to advance deliveries, though it was Russia that initially did not want offsets.
•“They [Russia] agreed for offsets later, but we decided not to include them as it would drive up the cost and delay the delivery schedule,” a defence source said.
On schedule
•As per the schedule, Russia will start deliveries after 24 months, which is 2020-end. Contract negotiations started after an inter-governmental agreement was concluded in October 2016. Speaking to a group of presspersons at Aero India 2017 in Bengaluru, Victor N. Kladov, director, international cooperation and regional policy, Rostec State Corporation of Russia, said there was no offset component in the S-400 deal and this would be a “strategic system” and “no offset package is the best choice” because it would cause delays.
•Under the defence procurement procedure, deals worth ₹2,000 crore or more have a 30% offset clause. This is meant to bring technologies to the country and build domestic defence manufacturing capabilities. As a result, manufacturers add the cost of fulfilling the offset obligations to the deal.
Strict criteria
•In an indication of the tough bargain India has to take up for a sanctions waiver under the Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), a spokesperson of the U.S. State Department said on Saturday that there were “strict criteria” for a waiver, and urged all its allies and partners to “forgo transactions” with Russia.
•“The waiver authority is not country-specific. There are strict criteria for considering a waiver. The waiver is narrow, intended to wean countries off Russian equipment and allow for things such as spare parts for the previously purchased equipment,” the spokesperson said, without any reference to India.
•The spokesperson said a focus area for the implementation of the CAATSA would be “new or qualitative upgrades in capability,” including the S-400. The recent sanctions on a Chinese government entity for an S-400 delivery underscored the seriousness of the Donald Trump administration’s resolve.
📰 Opening doors to women at Sabarimala
•With a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court lifting the decades-old ban on women in the 10-50 age group from entering the Sabarimala Ayyappa Temple, it is up to the Kerala government and the Travancore Devaswom Board to ensure that women who may choose to offer prayers at the temple during the coming pilgrim season are given protection. The season starts on November 18.
What did the court rule?
•On September 28, Chief Justice Dipak Misra (now retired) and Justices A.M. Khanwilkar, Rohinton F. Nariman and D.Y. Chandrachud held that the ban on women in the temple was a smear on their dignity and the consequence of a hegemonic patriarchy. In her dissenting judgment, Justice Indu Malhotra took the position that the court could not impose its morality or rationality on the form of worship of a deity. Doing so, she felt, would negate the freedom to practise one’s religion according to one’s faith and beliefs.
What does the verdict imply?
•The parties to the dispute are likely to seek a review of the verdict. A protest against the ruling is gathering momentum in the State. As things stand, there is no way of knowing how many women would turn up at the temple during the season. With the political colour that the issue has acquired, the State government is treading cautiously, hoping that there would not be a sudden inflow of women devotees. The police will deploy 500 additional personnel at the temple.
•The temple is situated atop a hill in the deep forests of the Periyar Tiger Reserve in the Western Ghats in Pathanamthita district. Steeped in legend, this ancient forest shrine, situated 210 km from Kochi, draws pilgrims from different parts of the country. With the development of road transport and communication facilities, Sabarimala has been witnessing a phenomenal increase in the number of pilgrims. The Travancore Devaswom Board, which administers the temple, estimates that around 5 crore devotees had visited the temple during the last pilgrim season. The season normally begins in mid-November and ends in January. The revenue from the temple last year was Rs. 255 crore.
What are the challenges?
•The biggest challenge is to create sufficient infrastructure to meet a possible increase in the number of devotees, especially women. The mid-August floods brought down several structures at Pampa, where the uphill trek to the temple begins. Among these were a temporary shelter, which could house 5,000 pilgrims at a time, three multi-storey toilet blocks, bathing ghats and three bridges across the River Pampa. The pumphouse of the Kerala Water Authority still remains buried under a huge deposit of sand, and the waterlines on the banks of the river are clogged with sand, badly affecting drinking water supply. The government and the Devaswom Board are racing against time to put the place back into some shape before the season begins.
What’s the government doing?
•The State government has entrusted the task of rebuilding the Pampa river bank to Tata Projects. The foot overbridge that facilitates pilgrims’ passage to the trekking path and transport of goods to Sabarimala have been restored. The real challenge will be restoration of drinking water and sewage facilities and creation of sufficient temporary facilities for devotees, especially women, to stay before and after the trek to the temple. For decades, Sabarimala has almost exclusively hosted male devotees. With the Supreme Court extending the right of worship to women, the immediate challenge is to make it gender-friendly.
📰 Experts urge Centre to reverse stand on e-cigarettes
Ask it to allow products that reduce the initiation into and continuous use of tobacco products
•Experts have called on the Union Health Ministry to reverse its stand on electronic cigarettes and help lower tobacco risk and abuse.
•“The Union Health Ministry has adopted a policy on vaping that will harm the health of millions of Indians and protect and entrench smoking,” said former president of the International Harm Reduction Association Alex Wodak. He added that countries that aim to eradicate tobacco use usually get terrible results. It is much more effective to try and reduce the initiation and continuing use of tobacco products as well as encouraging less risky options.
•Advocating for allowing vaping to be allowed in India, experts say that most countries around the world allow vape products.
•“Countries generally welcome safer products that have a potential to save lives,” said Professor David Sweanor, chair of the advisory board at the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics, University of Ottawa, Canada.
•He explained that Canada was among the countries that initially tried to ban vaping products, based on the science, recently had changed its stance to actively encouraging smokers to switch.
Preventable deaths
•“We have seen the same in fellow Commonwealth Country New Zealand. We have an opportunity to achieve a public health and consumer rights’ breakthrough of historic proportions, and governments should seize the opportunity. Twenty thousand people die each day due to disease caused by inhaling cigarette smoke. These premature deaths are preventable, but the cure needs to come from political action,” he added.
•Experts have urged the India government to legalise and regulate safer alternatives to the tobacco products currently available in India.
•“India risks missing a historic opportunity to reduce the harm caused by smoking tobacco. The country should consider the available evidence and take measures to endorse and regulate safer alternatives. E-cigarettes and safer alternatives to India’s high-risk tobacco options should be made legal and appropriately regulated in India. Millions of lives could be saved,” said Konstantinos Farsalinos, MD, research fellow at the National School of Public Health, Athens.
•Experts presenting their case to the India government said, “Nicotine, while addictive, is not particularly harmful. Burning tobacco, not nicotine, is why smoking harms smokers and public health. E-cigarettes and other ‘vaping’ products eliminate combustion and provide nicotine in a much cleaner form.”
•In 2014, Dr. Farsalinos and co-author Professor Riccardo Polosa published a systematic review of the evidence on e-cigarettes.
Smoking cessation
•“We found they are much safer than cigarette smoking. The evidence since then has convincingly confirmed this.”
•Professor Rajesh Sharan Department of Biochemistry and director of Design Innovation Centre at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong among the few experts in India who have studied e-cigarette science said, “In 2016 we encouraged the then Union Health and Family Welfare Minister to consider policies that would facilitate smoking cessation by providing smokers with safe and regulated tobacco alternatives. We believed then, and believe more strongly now, that public health in India is at a greater risk under a prohibitive environment than by allowing smokers, who wish to cease tobacco use, an alternative option based on nicotine replacement via e-cigarettes.”
📰 Environment Ministry to act as nodal agency for NCZ: NGT
Green tribunal Bench dismisses its review petition
•The National Green Tribunal (NGT) held that the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has to act as the nodal agency to ascertain whether the sub-regional plans for protection of National Conservation Zones (NCZ) prepared by the States are in consonance with the regional plans prepared by the National Capital Region Planning Board. The green panel earlier dismissed a review petition moved by the Environment Ministry.
•A Bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel observed, “Review of the order has been sought for to the extent that instead of MoEF&CC, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs [MoHUA], be made the nodal agency as the latter Ministry has the mandate and resources to accomplish the job of finalisation of revised regional plan of the National Capital Region [NCR] being undertaken.”
•The green panel further observed that the MoEF&CC, in the initial order was made the nodal agency “for effective monitoring”.
•“The paramount consideration of doing so was for effective monitoring work of delineation of NCZ having regard to the fact that the primary consideration for the exercise is to ensure safeguard of the environment in respect of which the apex body is MoEF&CC,” the Bench held.
•The Environment Ministry in its plea had contended that it is “only one of the participating members of the NCRPB” for providing all technical and advisory support.
📰 Prithvi-II missile night trial successful
•India’s Strategic Forces Command on Saturday successfully test-fired its indigenously developed nuclear capable Prithvi-II missile during night time as part of a user trial by the Army from a test range in Odisha, Defence sources said.
•The surface-to-surface missile, which has a strike range of 350 km, was launched from a mobile launcher from launch complex-3 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur near Balasore around 8.30 p.m., they said.
•Prithvi-II was previously successfully test-fired during night time on February 21 this year from the ITR at Chandipur. The missile is capable of carrying 500 to 1,000 kg of warheads.
📰 Why is the Facebook data breach serious?
What happened?
•On September 16, Facebook noticed an unusual spike in the number of times the platform’s ‘View As’ feature was being used. The feature allows users to see how their Facebook page will appear to another user. On September 25, Facebook announced that it had identified this as a malicious activity in which the access tokens of 50 million users were appropriated by unknown hackers, and certain personal details possibly accessed.
What is an access token?
•An access token is a digital key that allows users to stay logged into Facebook on a device or browser without having to sign in repeatedly using their password. It extends its reach to other apps or services that users sign into using their Facebook account. If hackers have the access tokens, they do not require passwords to get into Facebook accounts or apps like Instagram that utilise the Facebook login.
What did hackers do?
•The ‘View As’ feature was introduced by Facebook as a privacy control feature, allowing users to check the information they were sharing with others. But this proved to be an Achilles’ heel because of some bugs that were introduced in the software in July 2017. According to Techcrunch, while using the ‘View As' feature, Facebook’s video uploader tool also appeared on the page at times, generating an access token that was not the user's but of the person the user was looking up. For example, if Hacker A selected User B for ‘View As,’ and the video uploader appeared on the page, it generated an access token for User B which was then available to Hacker A.
What was Facebook’s response?
•Facebook had to force the affected 50 million users, and an additional 40 million users who had used the ‘View As’ feature since last July to log in again so that their access tokens changed. Facebook has since said it has resolved the bugs that caused what is said to be the largest breach in the history of the platform. Facebook is said to be working with the FBI on the issue. It also informed the Irish Data Protection Commission, since the European Union’s strict new data protection law states that it has to be informed within 72 hours if anyone in the European Economic Area is affected. The Commission has started a probe, and Facebook faces a fine that could go over a billion dollars.
Why is it significant?
•This breach again puts the spotlight on the vulnerabilities of Facebook, the digital behemoth that claims over two billion users and along with Google controls more than half of the global digital advertisement revenue. It was caught on the wrong foot earlier this year when the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, revealing that data of up to 87 million users were harvested and used for political campaigning. There are ongoing investigations into that scandal, and the new breach is not helping Facebook redeem itself. Aside from the direct impact of private data being accessed, massive data sets allow for psychological profiling a la Cambridge Analytica. This could lead to targeted political advertising and manipulation, especially at a time when crucial mid-term elections are due in the United States and in India. It also undermines the faith in the ‘single sign-in.’ The Facebook sign-in has been utilised by a whole set of services, from gaming apps to news apps, as a way to log in to their sites or apps based on the idea that large digital entities like Facebook and Google provide better security. This trust now stands shaken. While Facebook has reportedly refreshed the access tokens of all affected parties, the extent to which the hackers had access to connected third-party apps remains unclear.
📰 Eastern Ghats face loss of forest cover, endemic plants
Forest cover shrunk from 43.4% to 27.5% in 95 years
•The Eastern Ghats spread across Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, has lost almost 16% of its forest area over a span of 100 years, a recently published study shows.
•Researchers from the University of Hyderabad studied historical maps and satellite images from 1920 to 2015 to understand the changes in land use and land cover. The forest cover, which was 43.4% of the total geographical area in 1920, has reduced drastically to 27.5% in 2015. Over the years, about 8% of forest area was converted into agricultural fields, while about 4% converted into scrub or grassland.
•They also found that the number of patches of land had increased indicating fragmentation. In 1920 there were about 1,379 patches which kept steadily increasing over the years reaching a whopping number of 9,457 in 2015.
Threat to species
•Previous studies have shown that the Eastern Ghats is home to more than 2,600 plant species and this habitat fragmentation and destruction can pose a serious threat to the endemic plants.
•“We have sampling points across the four States where we regularly monitor the plants. When we carried out forest map overlay informatics analysis, we found fragmentation in areas where there are several rare, endangered, threatened and endemic species. Best suitable habitats for the plant species have decreased in the Eastern Ghats,” says Reshma M. Ramachandran, Ph.D. scholar at the Centre for Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Hyderabad and first author of the paper published in Ecological Indicators.
•Habitat reduction mainly occurred in the districts of Gajapati (Odisha), Mahbubnagar (Telangana), and also in Nallamalai and Kolli hill ranges.
•While agriculture was the main reason for deforestation during the early years, post 1975, mining and other developmental activities such as the construction of dams, roads were the culprits. In 1920, the mining area was only 622 sq.km, and in 2015 it had increased to 962 sq.km.
•“The Eastern Ghats are often ignored. Even stakeholders are interested only in the Western Ghats and Himalayan studies. But they need to understand that the Eastern Ghats are also ecologically important. They play an important role in the monsoon break of both North-East and South-West Monsoon,” says Dr. Parth Sarathi Roy from Centre for Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Hyderabad. “There are also many tribal communities in this region and the government needs to shift its focus and fund more studies and monitoring programmes in this region.”
