📰 Locally made trainer aircraft finishes sea trials
The HANSA-NG, developed by CSIR-NAL, is reportedly one of the most advanced trainers
•A first of its kind, indigenously developed aircraft trainer, HANSA-NG, developed by the CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR-NAL) has completed sea level trials at Puducherry, a necessary prelude to it being evaluated by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
•The HANSA-NG, or HANSA-New Generation, is reportedly one of the most advanced flying trainers, powered by a Rotax Digital Control Engine with features such as a composite light weight airframe, a glass cockpit, a bubble canopy with a wide panoramic view, and electrically operated flaps, among other features. The CSIR-NAL says that the HANSA-NG is designed to meet the need for trainer aircraft by flying clubs in India. “It is an ideal aircraft for Commercial Pilot Licensing (CPL) due to its low cost and low fuel consumption. NAL has already received more than 80 nos. of LoIs [Letters of Intent] from various flying clubs,” the organisation said in a statement.
•The HANSA-NG had so far completed 37 flights and 50 hours of flying and a few more were necessary before securing “type certification” from the DGCA. This certification process is likely to be completed by April 2022, and thereafter will begin to be manufactured industry.
•For the sea trials, the aircraft was flown to Puducherry covering 140 nautical miles in one-and-half-hours at a cruising speed of 155 km per hour on February 19, 2022. The objectives of the sea level trials were to evaluate handling qualities, climb/cruise performance, balked landing, and structural performance, including positive and negative G-forces, power plant and other systems performance. The CSIR-NAL said in a statement that “all the objectives of the sea level trials are met” and the aircraft was being ferried back to Bengaluru, the headquarters of the CSIR-NAL.
•The two-seater Hansa-NG, a revamped version of the original Hansa developed three decades ago, had a successful maiden flight on September 4 when it took off from the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) airport and flew for about 20 minutes. The CSIR-NAL has said it has already received 72 Letters of Intent from various flying clubs. The aircraft will be certified within the next four months, before it gets inducted into service.
📰 In conflict, a ‘settings change’ for social media
A clear protocol that governs such platforms is a must given their intersection with global public life in critical situations
•The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has brought multiple questions to the fore on the validity of international law. Fingers have been pointed at the accepted norms of state behaviour. Cyberspace is no alien to these questions, where ad hoc has brought multiple questions to the fore on the validity of international law. Fingers have been pointed at the accepted norms of state behaviour. Cyberspace is no alien to these questions, where ad hoc standard setting has been practised as a norm for decades now.
Cover of ‘tech neutrality’
•The challenges specific to the case now — the Ukraine conflict, where Russia is clearly the aggressor state — are not new either. Armed conflicts within and between states have played out in cyberspace for years. It is no surprise then to see the same dynamics play out on social media platforms. The increased attention is undoubtedly a function of the location of the conflict — Europe. The struggles of the Ukrainian population facing Russian aggression are by no means to be ignored, but the world outside Europe and North America has seen more than its share of conflicts, materialising and exacerbating the troubles of kinetic conflict through cyberspace. Social media platforms have gone by the mantra of “tech neutrality” to avoid taking decisions that may be considered political for too long.
•The years that have passed have seen an active ignoring of the concerns around social media platforms during a conflict. It does not help that the harbingers of a free and open world did little to create norms for social media as a new dimension of conflicts. This worrying but unaddressed concern has been a looming threat since the world learned about its use by the Islamic State in the early 2010s, and continues to complicate our understanding of the limits of warfare. The lack of clear systems within social media companies that claim to connect the world is appalling. It is time that they should have learned from multiple instances, as recent as the Israeli use of force in Palestine.
Corporations and problems
•In the context of conflict, social media platforms have multiple challenges that go unaddressed. Content moderation remains a core area of concern, where, essentially, information warfare can be operationalised and throttled. These corporations do not have the obligation to act responsibly as is expected of a state. Yet, their sheer magnitude and narrative-building abilities place a degree of undeniable onus on them. After years of facing and acknowledging these challenges, most social media giants are yet to create institutional capacity to deal with such situations. Ad hoc the context of conflict, social media platforms have multiple challenges that go unaddressed. Content moderation remains a core area of concern, where, essentially, information warfare can be operationalised and throttled. These corporations do not have the obligation to act responsibly as is expected of a state. Yet, their sheer magnitude and narrative-building abilities place a degree of undeniable onus on them. After years of facing and acknowledging these challenges, most social media giants are yet to create institutional capacity to deal with such situations. Ad hoc responses to many predictable scenarios do not create an image of responsible action from such corporations.
•Additionally, they also act as a conduit for further amplification of content on other platforms. Major social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter also provide space for extremist views from fringe platforms, where the degree of direct relation to the user generating such content is blurred. Even though these big platforms create special teams to handle such content, the magnitude overwhelms the teams that are sparingly staffed. It is also a concern that the mascots of the liberal world where such fringe social media platforms are registered do little to regulate them.
Technology falls short
•Misinformation and disinformation are thorny challenges to these platforms. Algorithmic solutions are widely put to use to address them. These include identification of content violative of their terms, reducing the visibility of content deemed inappropriate by the algorithm, and in the determination of instances reported to be violative of the terms by other users. More often than not in critical cases, these algorithmic solutions have misfired, harming the already resource-scarce party. This reiterates human ingenuity and sensitivity to context. It is an essential ingredient to thwarting nefarious activity on social media platforms that cannot be outsourced to technology.
•Instances such as these are an opportunity for these corporations to demonstrate their commitment to the values they profess. They should not stop at the point of creating small-overworked teams with minimal understanding of the geographical and cultural dimensions of problems. The operational realities of these platforms require that the safety of users be prioritised to address pressing concerns, even at the cost of profits.
•There was no unpredictability over conflicts in the information age spilling over to social media platforms. It did not even require pre-emption, since these have been recurrent events in the past decade. The international community and the liberal world order had to be proactive but failed to do so. We have missed the chance to have established a clear protocol on balancing the business interests of social media platforms and their intersection with global public life in critical situations. Though late, it would be valuable to have insights and clear frameworks to guide the behaviour of states and these corporations in cases of conflict, which will inevitably spill over to social media platforms in today’s information age.
India has a role
•For India, there are many lessons. India’s strategic position in the global order appears to be diminishing. The time is ripe to set that right and gain currency in the developing world order. The ruling party seems to be adept at using social media platforms to set a domestic narrative to its liking. However, India is yet to demonstrate any such aptitude before the international community. It will be useful to add that to the Indian agenda on all matters international.
•The lack of coherent norms on state behaviour in cyberspace as well as the intersection of business, cyberspace, and state activity is an opportunity for India. Indian diplomats can initiate a new track of conversations here which can benefit the international community at large. India should ensure that it initiates these conversations through well-informed diplomats. Ultimately, this will contribute to maintaining a rule-based word order that can greatly benefit India.
Transparency, accountability
•Finally, it is necessary to reassess the domestic regulatory framework on social media platforms. Transparency and accountability need to be foundational to the regulation of social media platforms in the information age. The moral standing for initiating any change to the global order must stem from a domestic policy that reflects the protection of the interests of the people over that of the political masters. We must stray away from the trend of regulatory norms that are deeply infringing on the rights accorded in a democracy.
•Uncertainties of conflict overwhelm people and institutions. The dangerous conflation of social media as the civilian public square and site of international conflict will not bode well. A protocol that outlines the norms of behaviour on social media during such situations can help in addressing the multitude of evolving factors. It is in our national interest and that of a rule-based global polity that social media platforms be dealt with more attention across spheres than with a range of reactionary measures addressing immediate concerns alone.
A well chosen target, the massive gas pipeline is one of the key issues central to the Ukraine conflict
•Russia’s attack on Ukraine has triggered “unprecedented’ economic sanctions by the United States, though how deeply they damage the Russia-Europe energy relationship remains to be seen. The speed with which the U.S. declared the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to be “dead at the bottom of the sea” indicates that this massive gas pipeline is one of the key issues at the bottom of the conflict.
Still a critical fuel
•Despite global efforts to decarbonise energy, natural gas is set to remain one of the principal sources of primary energy till at least 2040. Europe is the world’s second largest market for natural gas, and hence the battleground between the superpowers of hydrocarbon energy, the U.S. and Russia. Germany, despite a decade of “energiewende” (an ‘energy turnaround’ or the ‘ongoing transition to a low carbon, environmentally sound, reliable, and affordable energy supply’), is still one of the world’s largest importers of oil and gas. It is again at the epicentre, as it has been in earlier energy pipeline disputes.
•The post-war European security order under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact was underpinned by an energy order in which oil was sold to West Europe from West Asian/Middle Eastern fields controlled by U.S. companies; and to East Europe from the giant oilfields of the Soviet Union. West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany or the FRG) and other European countries had “economic miracles” and were drawn into the dollar denominated oil trade cycle, which supports U.S. global dominance to this day. Problems arose in the 1960s when Soviet production expanded rapidly and their planned “Druzhba” pipeline network went beyond integrating East Europe, to offering West Europe both lower prices for oil and large orders for specialised pipes and transmission equipment. The FRG found the offer compelling and the U.S. fought to preserve market dominance by pressurising NATO partners into an embargo on pipe sales — applied retroactively. The FRG’s then 87-year-old Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, finally acquiesced after a bitter internal debate. The Soviets built the pipeline with a two year lag; however, they only won a large share of the West European oil market after the West Asia/Middle East oil supply crises of the 1970s and fall in U.S. domestic production made it an importer.
An energy transition
•The 1970s European energy transition to natural gas led to the geoeconomic linkage of giant Soviet gas fields to West European markets via pipelines through East Europe, again generating lucrative sales of large diameter pipes for German companies. The synergy of Germany’s Ostpolitik with the Siberian pipeline worked during the U.S.-Soviet détente; but during the 1981-83 crisis over Soviet backed martial law in Poland, there was another showdown when the U.S. tried to stop the completion of the huge Siberian pipeline. The U.S. had no alternative to offer except coal; and the formidable German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, faced down U.S. sanctions, saying bluntly “the pipeline will be built”. Built it was, and the U.S. gave up the sanctions within six months, switching to other tools to win the Cold War. The 1986 oil price crash caused by friendly Saudi Arabia which dented the Soviet economy may have been one.
•The victorious U.S. then used NATO expansion into Eastern Europe and the Baltic States to create a new European security order in the face of a diminished Russia, and a risk-averse European Union. Breaking up Russia’s good friend Serbia in 1999 after 79 days of NATO bombing, was an early success. Plans to probe further into Georgia and Ukraine have however divided NATO. For the U.S., maintaining leadership in the face of Russia’s determined pushback now requires curtailing the growing EU-Russia gas synergy as a strategic objective, combined with a 1960s style fight over market share.
Impact of Putin’s push
•Russian President Vladimir Putin revived Russia by leveraging oil and gas production which provide 60% of exports, 25% of government revenue, and have boosted national reserves to $600 billion. It can, and has used gas as an instrument of influence in its “near abroad”. However, for the EU (60% of Russia’s gas exports), and its main customer Germany, Russia has been a most reliable supplier right through the Cold War, the break-up of the Soviet Union, the division of the assets of the pipeline network with Ukraine and other successor states, and economic chaos under Russia’s Boris Yeltsin. A new pipeline was built to Germany via Belarus and Poland; and Russia now supplies 35%-40% of the EU’s gas needs. In the early 2000s, the EU noted the stability of Russia’s gas deliveries. However in 2004, political instability in Ukraine began causing problems for gas flow, and thereafter, work on the direct Russia-Germany link via the undersea giant Nord Stream project was planned.
•The two Nord Stream pipelines are gamechangers as they can meet nearly all of Germany’s import requirements, and are symbols of synergy with Russia. Crucially, however, they deprive Ukraine and East European transit countries of revenues and leave them dependent on Russia for continued supplies. Some have had to get Russian gas via eastward flows from Germany! Hence, their strident opposition to the Nord Stream project from the outset, and with U.S. support they have launched the Three Seas Initiative to develop north-south gas connectivity using liquefied natural gas (LNG) imported via maritime terminals on the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Seas.
The U.S. strategy
•As in the 1950s, the U.S. can now deliver energy — LNG — to buttress its security umbrella. The shale gas revolution has made the U.S. the world’s largest producer of gas; and as production surpassed the peak set in 1973, it has become a major exporter of LNG. The strategy of reducing Russia’s grip on the lucrative EU gas market is thus being pursued ruthlessly for both strategic and commercial reasons. U.S. LNG exports to the EU have grown rapidly to 22 billion cubic meters (BCM) worth $12 billion in 2021; and will go up sharply, if Nord Stream 2 remains non-functional and Germany has to set up LNG terminals instead. In case “green” activism curbs U.S. shale gas expansion, the geopolitically risk-laden effort to create a long-term Europe-Mideast gas nexus using the enormous gas reserves of Iran (and Qatar) could be revived.
•German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s support for Nord Stream 2 has been threatened since his assumption of office last December, which coincided with U.S. intelligence leaks about the imminent invasion of Ukraine. The beleaguered leader was ambivalent even in early February when U.S. President Joe Biden audaciously announced in Mr. Scholz’s presence, that in case of an invasion of Ukraine “there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2... We will bring an end to it”. His hand has now been forced and regulatory certification of the pipeline is suspended; and Mr. Scholz announced a U-turn away from Ostpolitik to closer coordination with NATO.
Key reasons, looking ahead
•Nord Stream 2 is a well chosen target as the recently completed €10 billion asset is wholly owned by Russia’s Gazprom unlike Nord Stream 1 (functional for a decade) which is jointly owned with European companies. Mr. Scholz’s Green coalition partners are also sceptical about it. The Nord Stream project has larger capacity than all of Russia’s current and planned gas pipelines to China; so it remains of great importance for Moscow. Nord Stream 1 survives, as Europe will suffer without it, but preserving market share in the EU requires Russia to keep gas also flowing through Ukraine.
•The implications for the U.S.’s Indo-Pacific strategy, of the current focus on Europe are presently unclear. Much will depend on how Mr. Putin’s gamble plays out: i.e. of a pre-emptive strike against Ukraine itself, rather than a “minor incursion”, perhaps in Donbass, which Mr. Biden said would divide NATO over how to respond. Whether the EU, now sans the fervently NATO-inclined U.K., is actually jolted enough to take on a military dimension is a question for the future. For the present, the U.S. aims to maintain preponderance at the western end of Eurasia with energy included in its arsenal.
📰 A safety net for students abroad
Agreements that oblige host countries to ensure the welfare of Indian students during crises should be given importance
•For centuries, from Mahatma Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar and Jawaharlal Nehru to Amartya Sen and Manmohan Singh, Indians have gone abroad to pursue higher education. Before the onset of the pandemic, more than 7,50,000 Indian students were studying abroad, spending $24 billion in foreign economies, which is around 1% of India’s GDP. The number is expected to rise to around 1.8 million by 2024 when our students will be spending nearly $80 billion outside India. Demand is soaring for various reasons, including the gap in India’s supply of quality education against the demand. With more than half the Indian population under the age of 25, and no Indian university in the world’s top 100, it is natural that aspirational students would look to study abroad.
Large benefits
•Sushma Swaraj, as External Affairs Minister, referred to Indians abroad as “brand ambassadors”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson call Indians in the U.K. the “living bridge” between both countries. We celebrate the achievements of Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella. Yet, one has to only look at social media or hear some conversations to realise how much contempt a section of Indians shares towards those studying abroad. While such opinions do make some noise, the larger benefits in terms of soft power, knowledge transfer and remittances that come back to India render such noise baseless.
•It is estimated that around 20,000 Indian students were stranded in Ukraine. The work of the Union government, complemented by the efforts of some active State governments, is aimed at bringing our fellow citizens back home. These efforts are ably supported by embassies in the region, voluntary organisations like NISAU, and other people’s collectives. This is the duty of any responsible government and any moral people, and deserves due appreciation.
•The unfortunate deaths of two Indian students (one died in shelling, the other suffered a stroke) in Ukraine warrant serious intervention though it can be argued that what is happening in Ukraine is an external armed aggression and so chaos is expected. However, what happened in Canada recently is not. Around 2,000 students whose colleges have abruptly closed have been protesting. They allege that lakhs of rupees in fees have been taken from them by colleges, which are now bankrupt, thereby jeopardising the students’ futures. Something similar happened in the U.K. a few years ago with hundreds of ‘bogus’ colleges being closed, adversely impacting thousands of international students. And one can’t forget what happened during the pandemic. Australia shut its borders to the thousands of Indian students enrolled to study on its campuses. Even in a country like the U.K., we found ourselves needing to provide food and accommodation to stranded Indians who had lost the economic means to support themselves. Almost all credible forecasts project that Indian students will continue to go abroad in large numbers for many years to come. India is the second largest source of international students after China, and this is expected to continue.
Mandating protection
•Given a proper ecosystem, Indian students can significantly contribute to India’s development by transferring advanced knowledge and best practices. They are consumers of higher education abroad, and guests of the nations they reside in. It is only natural then for us to mandate protection of our people abroad by ensuring that host countries take on this responsibility. The Indian government should proactively create a safety net for the international students. International agreements that oblige host countries to ensure the welfare of Indian students during times of crises and contingencies should be given paramount importance. The trade agreements India is currently negotiating with the U.K. and Australia make for great opportunity to do so. A mandatory student insurance scheme as well as responsibility of welfare of students in the foreign country should be incorporated into agreements to secure the interests of students who also spend considerably in the host country. For instance, higher education has been one of the strongest exports for the U.K., generating £28.8 billion in revenue. Contrary to popular opinion, a considerable chunk of students who study abroad are not from wealthy families. They take expensive loans from institutional and non-institutional sources to finance their education. The aspiration to secure a better exposure and future can render them prone to difficulties, which can be offset by such a safety net arrangement. When the achievement of Indians abroad is ours to celebrate, so is the responsibility to safeguard their welfare.
