📰 Understanding forest fires and their effect on carbon emissions
Burn indices help demarcate forest fire burn scars
•“Growing up in Uttarakhand, forest fires were a common sight every year. I’ve woken up with smoke hovering around,” says Sandeep Bhatt from IIT, Roorkee, who spent years tracking these fires and has now reported, along with an international team, their effect on carbon emission and the ecosystem.
•During 2003–2017, a total of 5,20,861 active forest fire events were detected in India, and according to the report of the Forest Survey of India, over 54% of the forest cover in India is exposed to occasional fire.
•The study published in Science of the Total Environment used remote sensing–based models to measure primary productivity over an area and also looked at burn indices, which help to demarcate the forest fire burn scars using satellite imagery.
Common index
•“The normalized burn ratio is an effective burn index commonly used to identify burnt regions in large fire zones. In normal conditions, healthy vegetation exhibits a very high reflectance in the near-infrared spectral region and considerably low reflectance in the shortwave infrared spectral region. These conditions get dismantled and reversed if a fire occurs,” explains Srikanta Sannigrahi, the first author of the paper in an email to The Hindu. He is a postdoctoral researcher at University College Dublin, Ireland.
Promising tool
•He adds that the spectral differences between healthy vegetation and burnt forest areas can easily be identified and highlighted byremote sensing burn indices. It can be a promising tool for land resource managers and fire officials.
•The team notes that the States of northeast India, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are the most fire-prone in India.
•Previous studies using forecasting models and in-situ observations in western Himalaya have shown a sharp increase of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and ozone during high fire activity periods. The current paper noted very high to high carbon emissions in the eastern Himalayan states, western desert region and lower Himalayan region.
•They note that the occurrence of high fire intensity at the low altitude Himalayan hilly regions may be due to the plant species (pine trees) in the area and proximity to villages. Villages make them more susceptible to anthropogenic activities like forest cover clearance, grazing and so on.
•Studies have shown that the sharp increase in average and maximum air temperature, decline in precipitation, change in land-use patterns have caused the increased episodes of forest fires in most of the Asian countries.
•The team plans to further work on the prediction of forest fires with the support of advanced machine learning models and AI-based techniques.
•“Identifying the forest fire hotspots and forecasting the fire location and time accurately is the need of [the hour]. We, therefore, seek many scholarly scientific contributions to mitigate this concurrent issue in a smarter way,” adds Prof. Sandeep Bhatt.
Washington could punish India under a new law for buying Russian arms
•The ‘Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act’ (CAATSA) was passed by a Republican-controlled U.S. Congress in July 2017, in part to tighten the screws on President Donald Trump’s ability to lift sanctions on Russia or alter the U.S.-Russia dynamic significantly without Congressional review. Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was at the time being scrutinised for any Russian links.
•CAATSA’s stated purpose was to provide “congressional review and to counter aggression by the Governments of Iran, the Russian Federation, and North Korea, and for other purposes”. Mr. Trump reluctantly signed CAATSA into law in August 2017, calling it “seriously flawed” because it “encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate”.
•The sanctions against Russia, as per Congress, were for its interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, its military aggression against Ukraine, including the annexation of Crimea, as well as for human rights violations. Section 231 of the law provides for secondary sanctions on persons that engage in “significant transactions” with Russian defence and intelligence sectors. In September 2018, the U.S. invoked secondary CAATSA sanctions on a Chinese military department and its head for the purchase of 10 SU-35 Russian combat aircraft in 2017 and S-400 equipment in 2018.
CAATSA and India
•India and the U.S. have had a growing defence relationship — from “near zero” in U.S. arms sales to India in 2008 to $15 billion in 2019, as per the State Department. India was designated a “Major Defence Partner” of the U.S. in 2016 and it was granted Strategic Trade Authorization tier 1 status in 2018. These designations allowed India easier access to sensitive U.S. defence technology.
•With this context in mind, then Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, joined by lawmakers from both parties who favoured a close U.S.-India relationship, made a strong case on Capitol Hill for a CAATSA waiver for countries like India (and also Vietnam and Indonesia), which had historically bought Russian arms but were now buying more U.S. arms. At a Congressional hearing in May 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asked lawmakers to ensure “sanctions don’t hit folks that were not intended to be harmed by these sanctions”.
•Consequently, in the summer of 2018, the U.S. Congress passed a CAATSA waiver as part of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2019. For it to apply, Congress required the President to certify that the waiver was, among other things, in the U.S.’s national security interest, the entity in question was reducing its reliance on Russian weapons and that it was cooperating with the U.S. on security matters critical to America’s security interests.
•In the months since then, the U.S. administration, across departments, has reiterated that CAATSA waiver language is not country-specific and that India should not rely on getting a waiver. These comments were made repeatedly in the context of India’s October 2018 decision to purchase a $5.4 billion long-range surface-to-air missile defence shield from Russia, the S-400. Last week, the U.S. put out the same message after the Defence Acquisition Council approved the procurement of 21 MiG-29 fighter jets for the Indian Air Force (IAF), an upgrade for 59 of these and the acquisition of 12 Su-30 MKI jets — with an estimated bill of ₹18,148 crore.
Example of Turkey
•CAATSA can be understood more by examining the case of Turkey. “You can look at the very serious conversation that’s taking place with our NATO partner Turkey. And the same concerns will apply should India proceed with an S- 400 purchase,” a State Department official told media in May 2019.
•The U.S. had expelled Turkey from its F-35 fighter jet programme following Turkey’s receipt of the first shipments of the S-400 in July 2019, over American concerns that system might compromise its F-35 jets. Turkish pilots are no longer allowed to train on the F-35 and the NDAA for fiscal year 2020 prohibited the sale of these jets to Turkey. In December 2019, Chris Van Hollen, a Senate Democrat, and Senate Republican and Trump ally Lindsay Graham urged Mr. Pompeo to invoke CAATSA against Turkey. That has not happened yet.
•While in Washington in the autumn of last year, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar asserted India’s right to direct its own defence relationships. “ We would not like any state to tell us what to buy or not to buy from Russia any more than we would like any state to tell us to buy or not buy from America,” he had said.
📰 How is India building up the squadron strength of its air force?
•The story so far: On July 2, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh approved defence deals worth ₹38,900 crore which includes procurement of 21 MiG-29 fighter jets for the Indian Air Force (IAF) along with upgradation of 59 existing MiG-29 jets in the IAF inventory and procurement of 12 Su-30MKI aircraft from Russia.
What are the major deals approved?
•The Defence Ministry said the MiG-29 procurements and upgradation from Russia are estimated to cost ₹7,418 crore while the 12 Su-30 MKIs, which will be licence-produced by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), are estimated to cost ₹10,730 crore. Other deals approved by the DAC include Pinaka rocket ammunition, long-range land attack missile system of over 1,000 km range and close to 250 Astra Beyond Visual Range (BVR) air-to-air missiles for the IAF. The Astra Mk-1 has been integrated on the Su-30MKI jets and is being inducted into the force. An ungraded variant, the Astra Mk-II is under development by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
What are the new fighter jets for?
•The Defence Ministry said in a release after the DAC meeting that these decisions will address the long-felt need of the IAF to increase its fighter squadrons. The IAF currently has 30 fighter squadrons against a sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons and is set to phase out its MiG-21 fighters in the next few years further reducing the strength. As seen during the Balakot air strikes (Pakistan) in February 2019, air power will be key to swiftly respond to any short escalations and especially relevant amid the ongoing stand-off with China on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
•The 21 MiG-29s to be procured from Russia have already been manufactured for an unfulfilled order and will now be upgraded and delivered to India. These will add to the three MiG-29 squadrons in service with the IAF which are already undergoing an upgrade. The 12 Su-30 MKIs are meant to make up for the gaps in the Su-30MKI squadrons caused due to crashes over the years. India has contracted 272 Su-30 jets from Russia in different batches, a majority of which are being licence-manufactured by HAL.
What other steps is the Indian Air Force taking to address the shortage?
•In July-end, the IAF will start adding the first batch of the 36 Rafale multi-role jets contracted from France. Another deal for 83 Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Mk-1A estimated to cost ₹38,000 crore is expected to be signed in the next two months which the IAF Chief Air Chief, Marshal R.K.S. Bhadauria, termed as “top priority”. The deal has assumed even greater importance with the emphasis on indigenisation in defence advocated by the Finance Minister recently.
•The IAF currently has one squadron of LCA in initial operational configuration (IOC) and in May, it constituted the second LCA squadron with one aircraft in the final operational clearance (FOC) configuration. It is scheduled to get 20 IOC aircraft and 20 FOC aircraft in all and will eventually operate 123 LCA including the 83 Mk-1A aircraft.
•The more capable and larger LCA Mk-2 is under development which the IAF is keen to add in large numbers. An indigenous fifth generation advanced medium combat aircraft (AMCA) is also under development and is expected to make first flight by 2032. There is also a tender for 114 fighter jets that has been floated to global aircraft manufacturers to be manufactured in India under technology transfer.
•The IAF is also upgrading all aircraft in its current inventory to make up for the shortfall. The Jaguar, Mirage-2000, MiG-29 fighters are all being upgraded and negotiations are on with Russia for a major upgrade of the Su-30MKI fleet.
What about budgetary allocations?
•The defence budget has been going down as a percentage of the GDP, and the novel coronavirus pandemic has put further budgetary constraints on military modernisation. For instance, the defence allocation for 2020-21 is pegged at ₹3.37-lakh crore excluding defence pensions which accounts for 1.5% of the GDP. There is a steep rise in defence pensions, 13.5%, from ₹1.18-lakh crore in revised estimates of last year to ₹1.34-lakh crore this year. The ₹3.37-lakh crore allocated is 5.67% higher compared to the budget estimate of last year and just 1.8% higher compared to the revised estimates of 2019-20 which stood at ₹3.31 lakh crore.
•Of the total capital allocation of ₹1.13-lakh crore, the IAF got 38% which comes to ₹43,281 crore, but in real terms the capital allocation for IAF has gone down from the revised estimates of 2019-20 which was ₹44,869 crore. In comparison, last year, the IAF had committed liabilities, payments for deals already signed for, of over ₹47,000 crore which was more than its entire capital allocation. The IAF has signed several major deals which include 36 Rafale jets from France, S-400 air defence systems from Russia, Apache attack helicopters and Chinook heavy lift helicopters from the U.S. among others.
📰 Should Kuwait’s draft expat bill worry India?
What is the proposal? Will it be difficult to reduce the foreign workforce in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries?
•The story so far: The Kuwait National Assembly (NA) is discussing several proposals to reduce the share of foreigners in the country’s population, which is now pegged at 70%. There are many proposals under consideration, and one is to put caps on the number of emigrants in the country. In this, the plan is that Indians should not exceed 15% of Kuwaiti citizens, while Egyptians, Bangladeshis and Filipinos among others must not each exceed 10% of Kuwaitis.
•The head of the Parliamentary Human Resources Development Committee, MP Khalil Al-Saleh, is pushing for a drastic reduction in the number of expatriates. Assembly Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanim and the government believe that such drastic measures are impossible, though everyone appears to agree in principle that the proportion of foreigners in the population must be reduced. The Speaker has said this week that he and other MPs would submit a new draft law aimed at binding the government to gradually reduce the number of expats, according to Kuwait Times. Kuwait’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Of Interior and State For Cabinet Affairs Anas Al-Saleh had also promised last week to send a draft law to the NA within two weeks.
Where is the proposal headed?
•Kuwait’s Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah had said, “the ideal population structure is to have 70 per cent Kuwaitis and 30 per cent non-Kuwaitis”. Currently, it is the other way around. Such a turnaround will require a drastic and impossible reduction in the country’s total population and the concerns about the proposal are overhyped, said Reaven D’Souza, Managing Editor, The Times Kuwait. “It is difficult to foresee any law on this being made during the current term of the NA. If and when it is made, there could be measures to gradually reduce the proportion of foreigners. The concern that there could be mass deportation has no basis.” The full draft of the proposal has not been published.
Why has this proposal come up in the middle of a pandemic?
•Kuwaitis are a minority in Kuwait. Of the total population of 4.3 million, Kuwaitis are 1.3 million, which is less than one third. There are more Indians than Kuwaitis in Kuwait — 1.45 million, according to one account. However, statistics available on the website of the Indian Embassy in Kuwait puts the number at above a million. If Indians cannot exceed 15% of Kuwaitis, the cap would be around two lakh. Migration studies experts warn that calculations regarding the potential numbers that could be affected by the law are based on estimates which are various. “Gulf countries are not very open about population data because citizens are a minority,” an Indian working with a Gulf Cooperation Council government said. This has been a lingering concern in all GCC countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — but the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic renewed the debate. Said Ginu Zacharia Oommen, who conducted a post-doctoral field study among Indians in Kuwait, “In the past, high unemployment among the natives, economic crisis and demographic imbalance had triggered movement for nationalisation of the workforce. Arab Spring added a new concern of political stability among the regimes. COVID-19 exposed the huge concentration of certain populations among the expatriates, and the resulting imbalances.”
•“The current debate in the context of COVID-19 must be distinguished from the nationalisation debate. This one is about diversification of the expatriate community,” the official cited above said.
What is the profile of the Indian community in Kuwait?
•According to the Indian Embassy in Kuwait, besides the million-plus who are in the country as legal workforce, there are about 10,000 Indian nationals who have overstayed their visas. The Indian community in Kuwait has been growing at 5-6% per annum until the economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic put an abrupt stop to immigration to the country. Indians are the largest expatriate community and Egyptians are the second largest. Three fourths, or about 7.5 lakh Indians are males as against only 2.5 lakh females. It is estimated that 5.23 lakh Indians are deployed in the private sector, as construction workers, technicians, engineers, doctors, chartered accountants, IT experts, etc. About 1.16 lakh are dependents and there are about 60,000 Indian students studying in 23 Indian schools in the country; about 3.27 lakh are domestic workers (i.e. drivers, gardeners, cleaners, nannies, cooks and housemaids) who are not allowed to bring their spouses/children into the country. About 28,000 Indians work for the Kuwaiti government in various jobs such as nurses, engineers in national oil companies, and a few as scientists. In 2018, India received nearly $4.8 billion from Kuwait as remittances.
What has India’s response been?
•India’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Anurag Srivastava said the Foreign Ministers of India and Kuwait discussed the issue over the phone. “We share excellent bilateral ties which are deeply rooted in people-to-people linkages. The Indian community in Kuwait is well-regarded in Kuwait and elsewhere in the Gulf region and their contributions are well recognised. We have shared our expectations that Kuwait’s decision will take into account,” Mr. Srivastava said.
What happens now?
•Around eight million Indians work in the GCC countries. Around 2.1 million of them are from one State — Kerala. Other major contributors to the Indian expatriate communities in GCC countries are Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, West Bengal, Punjab and Rajasthan. A renewed push for nationalisation of jobs and diversification of expatriates is possible. However, the structure of the GCC economies makes any dramatic change unlikely. Nationalisation of government jobs can be achieved to a significant extent, but the private sector will continue to draw the majority of its workforce from abroad.
•“The costs associated with hiring a citizen are too prohibitive for the private sector, which will leave the country if it is forced to,” an official admitted. There is a social stratification in GCC countries that has natives at the top, followed by white professionals from the U.S. and Europe, immigrants from other Arab countries and then others including workers from India. “There is a division of labour among these classes and that cannot be changed in a hurry. Replacement of Indian or Asian workers on a large scale is not possible, and native Arabs will not do certain categories of work,” said the official.
📰 ‘We are still in a crisis and need a full reset of India-China relations’
The disengagement terms are dangerous, as they suggest that we are withdrawing from territory which we have controlled consistently, says former NSA
•India and China must fully reset ties, says former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon , cautioning that any move to allow buffer zones, mutual pull-outs and suspending patrols at the LAC sends out the wrong message that both sides are equally responsible for the aggression.
What do you think will be the lasting impact of the stand-off at the LAC?
•Well, I think there is no question that after this, India-China relations will be reset, as there is no going back on the situation before [the Ladakh stand-off]. What China did this time — pressing forward on multiple points along the LAC, then changing the definition of LAC claims, the deaths for the first time since 1975 [in the June 15 Galwan clash] — represents a significant change in Chinese behaviour. This actually calls into question the whole structure of agreements and confidence building measures that were put in place since 1988, and with the 1993 agreement, which had kept the peace on the border for some time. But this is still a crisis. I don’t see this as having been solved yet or being behind us. And I am sure that India-China relations will have to be reset after this.
What do you make of some of the terms of disengagement on both sides, the creation of buffer zones, suspending patrols on the LAC, etc.?
•These [terms] are dangerous, as they suggest that we are withdrawing from territory which we have controlled consistently, and that we were part of the problem to start with. China stopped us from doing our normal patrols in these areas, which we have done for years. If we are withdrawing from territory that we have controlled, it seems to me that we are setting a dangerous pattern.
•And this started with Doklam, where we negotiated withdrawals by both sides from the face-off point in 2017. The Chinese then proceeded to establish a very strong, permanent presence on the plateau, leaving the face-off point itself free. I think it is a political and diplomatic failure not to call them out for changing the status quo, something that China committed to maintain both with Bhutan and with us. So, frankly, [China] learned the lesson that as long as the Indian [government] could walk away with a propaganda victory, they could actually make gains and change the outcomes on the ground in their favour. What we are seeing is more of the same strategy that China has followed in the South China Sea where she changes facts on the ground, presents you with a fait accompli , takes two steps forward and then negotiates one step back. And if we are agreeing to a similar kind of arrangement, no matter how temporary you say it is… all these temporary arrangements tend to become relatively permanent.
So are you saying that status quo ante is something that has to be enforced soon?
•What we need to do is to insist that China implement what she has committed to implement under the agreements, what she says she is committed to do, which is to respect the LAC and maintain the status quo.
There is a suggestion now that India could militarise the Quad or make the Indo-Pacific a strategic concept. Do you think that is the way for India to counter China?
•Well, that is not the entire solution because India-U.S. congruence actually applies to the maritime domain. Our problem with China right now is on land… it is a continental problem and that problem is not going to be solved by the U.S. That is something we have to solve by our own self-strengthening.
You spoke of the congruence with Washington, and yet, the one message that India sent out during this time, was the visit by the Defence Minister to Moscow…
•It has never been binary for us, either the U.S. or Russia or even U.S. or China. We have worked with both, and we will continue to work with both. Russia is still the source of our major military platforms. I do think that one consequence of what we have seen happening in Ladakh and the whole reset of India-China relations, will be stronger India-Russia relations as well.
What do you see as the diplomatic roadmap ahead?
•You know, right now we are in the middle of the crisis. So everything is possible. We could go the 1986-88 way after Sumdorong Chu when the Chinese came in and sat on territory on our side in eastern sector. And we ended up with the Rajiv Gandhi visit, and the new understanding, the modus vivendi of 1988, which kept the peace for several years, and enabled us both to develop and grow. Or we could go the 1959-62 way, which is a steady downward spiral in the relationship where public opinion and actions drive the two sides into conflict, which is the worst option. Thirdly, we could go into a sort of “no-war, no-peace”, an indeterminate space where relations are much more adversarial. My expectation is of a sort of muddling through for the time being, but that always contains the risk of things getting worse.
