📰 India, Singapore begin sea drills
Missile and torpedo firings to be part of this year’s bilateral naval exercise.
•The 25th edition of the India-Singapore bilateral naval exercise, SIMBEX, has begun at the tri-services command in Port Blair.
•The exercise, which kicked off on Saturday off the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, will conclude on November 21.
•“Started as basic Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) exercises in 1994, today these exercises have graduated to complex maritime combat drills, including missile and torpedo firings, and shore-based intensive professional exchanges,” the Navy said in a statement.
12 ships to join drills
•Seven ships from the Indian Navy and five ships from the Singapore Navy along with an Archer class submarine and a Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle will take part in the exercise.
•Maritime patrol aircraft of both countries, P8I of Indian Navy and Fokker F50 from Singapore, will also take part.
•The number of missiles and torpedo firings being undertaken are in fact unprecedented and perhaps the largest the Indian Navy has undertaken with any foreign Navy till date, the Navy added.
Logistical support
•The two countries have vastly expanded their military cooperation in recent years under India’s Act East policy. Late last year, the two countries signed a naval agreement which has a provision for mutual logistical support and gives India access to the Changi naval base.
•India and Singapore are working on a trilateral exercise with an Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) country, likely Thailand, and eventually plan to scale it up to a multilateral format.
📰 Cyclone clouds ISRO’s GSAT-29 launch plan
GSLV-MkIII set to lift off from Sriharikota on Wednesday
•Much expectation is pinned on the November 14 space mission being taken out by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at Sriharikota, weather willing.
•ISRO is readying itself to put communication satellite GSAT-29 on its heavy-lift vehicle, the GSLV-MkIII, in an evening launch on that day. The spacecraft as well as the vehicle are important to the space agency and its road map.
•Weather watch is a routine pre-launch activity for space agencies and especially so for ISRO around this time of the year.
•A senior official said mission managers were keeping an eye on the cyclonic buildup on the east coast in Andhra Pradesh, where the launch centre is located.
•ISRO is also preparing for a PSLV mission on November 26 to launch HySIS, a new variant of Earth observation satellites, along with 20-30 small commercial satellites. One significance of the GSAT-29 mission is that an Indian spacecraft will be flown after about seven months: the last one was the IRNSS-1I launched on April 12. For the other, it would be ISRO’s second communication satellite mission of 2018. It had launched another communication satellite, GSAT-6A, on March 29 but lost it in space a day later.
•The subsequent post-mortems of the 6A mission and the recall of the 5,400-kg GSAT-11 satellite from Guiana before its launch have also pushed back ISRO’s ambitious plan to have a mission a month.
•A third factor weighing on Wednesday's mission: this would be only the second trial or developmental flight, D2, of the GSLV-MkIII or MkIII.
Major missions
•On its success hinge many major future missions, including lunar lander-rover Chandrayaan-2 that is slated for January next year.
•Although there was a PSLV mission on September 16, the two small satellites on it were commercial Earth observation spacecraft belonging to a U.K. agency.
•The GSAT-29 satellite itself is one of the planned Indian HTS quartet. The HTSs or high throughput satellites are being sent out to provide a vastly improved and faster Internet connectivity. GSAT-19, the first of the series, was sent up in June 2017 from Sriharikota.
•The third and ISRO’s heaviest to date, GSAT-11, awaits a scheduled launch on December 4 on a European space vehicle, Ariane-5, from French Guiana.
•GSAT-11 was brought back from French Guiana to Bengaluru in April this year for additional tests and was re-transported last month for a confirmed launch.
•ISRO had later said it did not want to take risks with such an advanced and costly satellite as GSAT-11 — put at 1,200 crore, including the launch fee of Arianespace.
•Thus the November mission should also put many of ISRO’s satellite-related apprehensions to rest.
📰 Ripples of discord: on gravitational waves
A forthcoming paper on the detection of gravitational waves will be illuminating
•On September 14, 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) made the Nobel prize winning detection of gravitational waves. These waves are ripples in the fabric of space-time, arising from the merger of a pair of black holes in distant space, and their detection had been a long-time pursuit of physics. LIGO’s feat was among the most electrifying announcements in recent years. Since detecting this binary black hole (BBH) merger, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) has made six such observations. Five of these were mergers of black holes in very different locations in space and with very different characteristics such as mass, and one was the merger of a pair of so-called neutron stars (binary neutron stars). Such mergers had been modelled theoretically even before the detection. The measurement was made easier because the team had templates for the type of signals to expect. The last few detections have been done in conjunction with another detector, Virgo. After the first discovery, the LSC made public its data. Analysing this, in 2017 a group of scientists questioned the validity of the first detection. They argued that the two detectors belonging to LIGO were correlated and that this led to a correlation in the noise factor. Weeding out noise from the signal is crucial in any such experiment, and James Creswell et al claimed that this had not been done properly by the LSC. Since then, a version of their preprint has been published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. After a long silence, on November 1, the LSC has put up a clarification on its website.
•The clarification is cryptic, referring to “misunderstandings of public data products and the ways that the LIGO data need to be treated” by those raising objections. This encompasses a range of things, starting with lacunae in the analysis of data by Mr. Creswell and his collaborators. It transpires that in their analysis Creswell et al had used the data supplied by LIGO for a figure in their paper rather than the raw time series data that were made publicly available. While responding with a defence regarding processing of data is fine, it is unfortunate that the LSC team supplied data for the figure in the published paper that differed from the raw data. That said, a simpler and more direct corroboration of LIGO’s discovery stems from the wide variety of its sources. Now, the LSC plans to come out with a paper that carries detailed explanations. This would not be a second too soon. Put together, this is how science makes progress — in leaps and bounds, with thoughtful critiques and interventions in between. And in this case, the attendant controversy has captured the interest of even those beyond the world of science.
📰 Protect the little helpers
Hundreds of species of pollinators may be in dangerous decline
•Across India’s agrarian plains, plantations and orchards, millions of birds, bats and insects toil to pollinate crops. However, many of these thousands of species may be in dangerous decline.
•In 2015, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found that pollinators lead to huge agricultural economic gains. The report estimated pollinator contribution in India to be $0.831-1.5 billion annually for just six vegetable crops. This is an underestimation considering that nearly 70% of tropical crop species are dependent on pollinators for optimal yields.
•The decline of moths, bees, butterflies, hoverflies and other pollinators is undeniably linked to human activity: large tracts of natural habitats have been cleared for monoculture cultivation, while the use of pesticides and fertilisers is pushing out nature’s little helpers. In a series of studies at the University of Calcutta, researchers have showed that native Indian bees, when exposed to multiple pesticides, suffer from memory and olfactory impairment, lower response rates, and oxidative stress which damages cells. Parthiba Basu and his team estimated that between 1964 and 2008, there was a 40-60% growth in relative yields of pollinator-dependent crops, while pollinator-independent crops such as cereals and potatoes saw a corresponding 140% rise in yields. In Kashmir, researchers have pinned lowering yields of apple trees on the declining frequency of bee visits. In north India, lowering yields of mustard cultivation may be caused by disappearing pollinators.
•At the turn of the millennium, many countries, particularly the U.S., observed with some anxiety the phenomenon of bees deserting their hives. By 2014-15, the U.S. had established a Pollinator Health Task Force and a national strategy that focussed on increasing the monarch butterfly population and planting native species and flowers in more than 28,000 sq km to attract pollinators. Around the same time, the U.K. developed 23 key policy actions under its National Pollinator Strategy. Meanwhile, after the IPBES report, almost 20 countries have joined the Coalition of the Willing on Pollinators.
•Apart from promoting organic farming and lowering pesticide usage, landscape management is key. The EU Pollinators’ Initiative adopted in June can provide pointers to India, particularly a policy of direct payment support to farmers to provide buffer strips for pollinators for nectar- and pollen-rich plants. India has millions of hectares of reserve forests, some of which have been converted to pulpwood plantations. Much of this can be restored to become thriving homes for pollinators. The same can be done in gram panchayat levels. Fallow areas and government land can be used to plant flowering species for pollinators.
📰 Decoding the Central Board of the RBI
A low-down on the Board’s constituents and functions
•The Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently been a topic of much discussion, in the light of both the recent public tussle between the RBI and the Finance Ministry and the second anniversary of demonetisation.
What is the RBI Board?
•The RBI Board is a body comprising officials from the central bank and the Government of India, including officials nominated by the government. According to the RBI, the “general superintendence and direction of the affairs and business of the RBI is entrusted to the Central Board” and the Board exercises all powers and does all acts and things that are exercised by the RBI. The Board is also to recommend to the government the design, form and material of bank notes and also when and where they can serve as legal tender.
Who sits on the Board?
•The Board consists of official directors, who include the Governor and up to four Deputy Governors, non-official directors, who include up to ten directors from various fields and two government officials, and one director from each of four local boards of the RBI.
•Currently, the Board members are: RBI Governor Urjit R. Patel; Deputy Governors N. S. Vishwanathan, Viral V. Acharya, B.P. Kanungo, and Mahesh Kumar Jain; Dr. Prasanna Kumar Mohanty, Dilip S. Shanghvi, Revathy Iyer, Sachin Chaturvedi, Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Bharat Narotam Doshi, Sudhir Mankad, Ashok Gulati, Manish Sabharwal, Satish Kashinath Marathe, Swaminathan Gurumurthy; Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg and Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar.
•The Governor and Deputy Governors hold office for not more than five years, the ten directors nominated by the government hold office for four years, and the government officials are to hold a term on the RBI Board as long as the government sees fit.
•According to the RBI Act, the director of the RBI Board cannot be a salaried government official (except for the ones specifically nominated by the government), be adjudicated as insolvent or have suspended payments to creditors, an officer or employee of any bank (again, this does not include the government nominee), or, interestingly, “is found lunatic or becomes of unsound mind”.
When does the Board meet?
•The Governor has to call a Board meeting at least six times in a year, and at least once each quarter. A meeting can be called if a minimum of four Directors ask the Governor to call a meeting. The Governor or, if for any reason unable to attend, the Deputy Governor authorised by the him to vote for him, presides the Board meetings. In the event of split votes, the Governor has a second, or deciding vote.
Why has the RBI Board been in the news?
•The RBI Board recently entered the news during the public spat between the central bank and the Finance Ministry. One of the reasons for the disagreement was the government’s alleged threat of invoking Section 7 of the RBI Act.
•Section 7 basically empowers the government to supersede the RBI Board and issue directions to the central bank if they are considered to be “necessary in public interest”.
📰 Behind India’s leap in ease of doing business
The rankings serve as a trusted ready-reckoner for foreign investors looking to invest in a country
•India’s leap in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings this year has slipped under the radar, in the cacophony over demonetisation and the RBI-Centre spat.
•The country has, in fact, been one of the biggest ‘improvers’ in the 2019 study, with its rank shooting up from 100 to 77, among 190 countries. This is quite a big jump, given that its rank crept up from 142 to 100 in the four years from 2015 to 2018.
•The World Bank now deems India an easier place to do business in than BRICs peers such as Brazil (109) and South Africa (82) and West Asian economies such as Qatar (83) and Saudi Arabia (92).
•But it has a long way to go before it can catch up with China (46, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is at 4), the U.S. (8) or Singapore (a lofty 2). New Zealand is the top dog here.
•But what drove India’s meteoric rise? In which aspects of doing business did India see big improvements and where did it lag?
What improved
•India’s climb in the 2019 rankings seems to have come mainly from sharply higher scores on two ‘doing business’ indicators — securing construction permits and trading across the borders. It also made smaller improvements in starting a business and getting credit.
•The World Bank found that India’s top cities managed to drastically shrink the number of days they took to give out construction permits, from 144 days last year to 95 days, while slashing their costs from 23% of the building value to just 5%. Single-window clearance for securing building permits in Delhi and a new online system in Mumbai, brought about this quantum change.
•From 146 on cross-border trade, its rank climbed to 80. In 2017-18, importers spent 264 hours at the border complying with formalities, but only spent 97 hours this year. For exporters, the timeline shrank from 106 to 66 hours, delivering big savings.
•Upgrades in port infrastructure, a move to online documentation and facilities for exporters to seal their containers on their own, helped.
•India also managed incremental reforms in a few other indicators. On starting up a business, its rank improved from 156 to 137, as the time taken to start a new company was crunched from 30 days to 17 days, thanks to quicker GST registration and the abolition of site inspections in Mumbai.
What didn’t
•While India managed dramatic changes in some indicators, there were others where its scores barely budged.
•Its score remains dismal on registering property, where it ranks 166. While it takes 69 days to register a piece of property and costs about 8% of its value in India, the norm for OECD countries is just 20 days at half that cost. New Zealand gets this done in a single day.
•The other vexatious aspect that most business folk will readily identify with, is paying taxes. Despite the advent of GST, India has remained a back-bencher on this at a rank of 121. A typical Mumbai-based firm makes 13 tax payments a year, spends 278 hours on this and coughs up 52% of its profits.
•But businessmen in Hong Kong make just three payments a year, those in Singapore spend just 49 hours paying taxes. The average tax rate across global economies is less than half of the Indian rate! India also fares poorly, at rank 163, on enforcing contracts. While enforcing a claim through the courts in Mumbai takes 1,445 days and costs 31% of claim value, OECD nations manage this feat in 582 days at a cost of 21%.
What is measured
•But how exactly does World Bank manage to reduce a fuzzy thing such as ‘ease of doing business’ to a single number?
•The EODB study tries to capture the experience of small and mid-sized companies in a country with their regulators, by measuring the time, costs and red tape they deal with.
•To collect data, it empanels experts from the largest business cities in each country, with Mumbai and Delhi surveyed in India. It has many rounds of interactions with them — typically lawyers, business consultants, accountants, freight forwarders, government officials — who can capture the experience of multiple businesses. Over 13,800 experts participated in the 2019 study, from June 2, 2017 to May 1, 2018. Each country is assigned a rank out of 190 based on the total score it earns on 10 key aspects of doing business.
•The indicators considered now are: starting a business, getting construction permits, securing electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, cross-border trade, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.
•In short, the World Bank’s intent is to measure a country’s progress on a few ‘doing business’ indicators in great depth, without trying to be comprehensive about the indicators, or striving for a statistically large sample. The above facts make the shortcomings of the study obvious. In India, it may not reflect the experience of partnership or proprietorship firms that dominate the small business space, or those located in tier 2 or tier 3 towns. With the ten indicators measured by the study well-known, it is also easy for governments to specially target these areas for reforms.
•But the EODB rankings do serve as the most trusted ready-reckoner for foreign investors looking to set up shop in a country. For that reason, this is an achievement for India to celebrate.
