📰 Talent, recognition
Science awards are an encouragement and should not be cut down
•The Centre has decided that awards, prizes and fellowships by various ministries and departments need a wholesale relook. The Ministry of Home Affairs, which is executing this directive, has moved much beyond its usual remit of awards for police officers and gallantry medals and irrupted into the world of scientific and medical research. India’s scientific ministries recently made presentations to the Union Home Secretary, Ajay Bhalla, on awards given to scientists at different stages of their career. They also had to list out which were ‘National Awards’ and which were funded out of private endowments. Though a final call is yet to be taken, the quorum — and this consisted of the Secretaries, or the heads of each of these ministries — was of the opinion that most awards ought to be done away with and ministries could either retain only some of the National Awards or institute one or two ‘high status’ awards. The rationale for pruning, Mr. Bhalla has said, follows from a “vision” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding “Transformation of the Awards Ecosystem”. In 2018, Mr. Modi had said that his government had modified the system of the Padma awards and ensured it recognised ordinary people doing selfless work rather than well-known personalities who repeatedly bag them. The awards, Mr. Bhalla has said, ought to be restricted, and have a transparent selection process.
•Awards and prizes recognise achievement, but in science and medical research, they are also meant to spur younger scientists towards loftier, imaginative goals. Unlike in sport — or even gallantry awards — where it is relatively easier to define a set of benchmarks and confer medals on achievers, scientific research is open ended, circuitous and — as the history of science reveals — punctuated by lucky breaks. It is possible to train talented youth to be Olympians or international cricketers but impossible to create an Einstein or a Chandrasekhar. Almost every Nobel Laureate in the modern era has won various secondary prizes and recognition in their early career and every year; there is as much debate on who was omitted as on the person who won. Recognising early career potential will remain fraught with subjectivity and, with fewer awards on offer, could provoke increased discontent. Contrary to the Prime Minister’s vision, fewer awards may actually miss many more promising talents and amplify epaulettes to the already decorated. Awards cost ministries money but the meeting did not discuss whether cutting costs was a factor in the rationalisation. As it is unclear what existing problem the new scheme solves, the Centre should reconsider the merits of its proposal.
📰 ASI finds Buddhist caves, temples in Madhya Pradesh’s Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve
46 new sculptures have come to light in exploration that took place 84 years after the last such effort in 1938
•The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) earlier this year discovered Buddhist caves and stupas, and Brahmi inscriptions, dating back to the 2nd century, and Hindu temples from the 9th-11th centuries, and possibly the world’s largest Varaha sculpture also dating to the same period, at the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh.
•The Varaha sculpture is among the many monolithic sculptures of the 10 incarnations of Lord Vishnu that were discovered by an ASI at the national park earlier this year. The exploration took place 84 years after the last such effort in 1938.
•“A total of 46 new sculptures have come to light and have been reported,” Shivakant Bajpai, Superintending Archaeologist, Jabalpur Circle, Madhya Pradesh, who led the exploration team, said here on Wednesday. Ten sculptures had already been found and reported in the previous ASI survey of 1938, he said.
•Dr. Bajpai said the exploration in the Bandhavgarh area is being carried out in three phases, the first of which was completed in the Tala range in May-June this year. In the next two phases, the Khitouli and Magadhi ranges of the tiger reserve will be explored.
•The ASI team discovered 26 mostly Buddhist caves dating back to the 2nd and 5th centuries. The caves and some of their remains had ‘Chaitya’ (rounded) doors and stone beds typical of Mahayana Buddhism sites. This discovery brings the total number of caves found in Bandhavgarh to 76, as 50 are already in the records since the last survey.
•Apart from this, the ASI team found 24 inscriptions in Brahmi text, all dating back to the 2nd-5th centuries. The inscriptions mention sites such as Mathura and Kaushambi, and Pavata, Vejabharada and Sapatanaairikaa. The kings they mention include Bhimsena, Pothasiri and Bhattadeva.
•The remains of 26 temples date to the Kalachuri period between 9th-11th centuries. In addition to this, two Saiva mutts have also been documented. The Kalachuri dynasty, which spread over parts of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, is also associated with the earliest Ellora and Elephanta cave monuments.
•Some remains of the Gupta period, such as door jambs and carvings in caves, have also been found.
•Observing that the coming to light of these archaeological remains has added a new chapter to the history of the region also known as Baghelkhand, ASI Director and spokesperson Vasant Swarnkar said: “We certainly need to conserve this, but the first step has to be documentation,” adding, “Though we want to explore faster, the problem is with permissions as it is a reserved forest area.”
📰 Rediscovering the Bay of Bengal
•The Bay of Bengal (the Bay) is experiencing an increase in geo-economic, geopolitical, and geo-cultural activity. It is poised to once again play a key role in shaping the maritime order in Asia. Therefore, it is noteworthy that at the fourth BIMSTEC summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the opening of the Centre for Bay of Bengal Studies (CBS) at Nalanda University. The official launch of the CBS has once again demonstrated India’s commitment to advancing constructive agendas by forging connections and setting up platforms for all those with an interest in the Bay.
Rethinking the Bay
•CBS will offer collaborations in areas such as geo-economics and geopolitics, ecology, trade and connectivity, maritime security, maritime law, cultural heritage, and blue economy to generate opportunities for the Bay region. This will strengthen India’s overall framework for maritime engagement, which aims to advance sustainable economic growth for all by fostering closer nautical ties.
•The Bay has long been a major commerce hub for the Indian Ocean. It created a conduit between the East and the West in terms for trade and culture. An Indo-Pacific orientation and the realignment of global economic and military power towards Asia have had a considerable impact on the Bay region. The key sea lanes of communication in this area are lifelines for global economic security and are crucial to the energy security that powers the economies of many countries in the region. Further, non-traditional dangers including terrorism and climate change have become more prevalent. The Bay also provides an opportunity for greater regional cooperation in the environmentally friendly exploration of marine and energy resources. The Bay has a biodiverse marine environment. It receives water from some of the world’s largest rivers. It is a partially enclosed sea that has given rise to several geological characteristics. It is home to many rare and endangered marine species and mangroves, which are essential to the survival of the ecology and the fishing sector.
Disorder at the Bay
•The region’s maritime environment has changed as a result of major powers expanding their economic and geopolitical influence. Political and cultural engagement, together with economic competition, have taken on new dimensions. More crucially, the Bay’s ecosystem is going through an unprecedented crisis brought on by widespread environmental exploitation and geopolitical unrest. Species extinction is a result of careless exploitation of the maritime environment, which has severe consequences on biodiversity.
•Problems such as population growth, altered land use, excessive resource exploitation, salinisation, sea level rise, and climate change are exerting significant strain on the Bay’s environment. Operational discharge from small and medium feeder ships, shipping collisions, unintentional oil spills, industrial waste, pollution, and the accumulation of non-biodegradable plastic litter are all contributing to the deterioration of the Bay. A dead zone has formed as a result, and the mangrove trees that protect the shore from the fury of nature are under more threat than ever.
•For a better knowledge of challenges, and strategies to overcome them for the sustainable development of the region, more focused and interdisciplinary study is required on these issues. By founding the CBS, Nalanda University has already started its journey and given the nation a unique interdisciplinary research centre devoted to Bay-focused teaching, research, and capacity building. Additionally, scholars from many countries and academic streams are already participating in CBS’s first certificate programme on the Bay.
•It is essential that nautical neighbours develop a partnership and cooperate because of the maritime domain’s interrelated and interdependent nature, transnational character, and cross-jurisdictional engagement of various governments and diverse organisations and enterprises. A few concerns that need immediate attention include expanding cooperation in maritime safety and security, enhancing cooperation on maritime connectivity and the ease of maritime transit, and boosting investment possibilities in the maritime connectivity sector. The latter subject involves addressing non-traditional threats and fostering group efforts to reduce illicit, unreported, and unregulated fishing. Standardising and harmonising data reporting remains a challenge. Furthermore, regional marine entities should strive to balance opportunities and goals on a national, regional, and international scale.
•Littoral governments need to support and promote skill-building, research, and training. Countries in the region will need to mobilise incentives and investments, manage oceanic affairs more effectively, and support people as they switch to alternative lifestyles. Working together is important due to shared nautical concerns and the complexity of the marine environment.
•The justification for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February will long be debated. Every big power has fears of being surrounded. On its historically vulnerable western front, Russia had one supportive neighbour, six North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) adversaries, and two who are ambiguously inclined, while Ukraine’s relations with the European Union (EU) and NATO were always a matter of contention. After the Putin-Biden Geneva encounter in mid-2021, the high intensity of interactions between NATO members and Russia raised hopes of a detente, but Russian President Vladimir Putin chose invasion over negotiation, ignoring the degraded and inexperienced state of his armed forces, Ukraine’s military being the biggest in Europe with 2,00,000 men, 6,00,000 reserves, 1,000 tanks and 130 aircraft, Ukraine’s willingness to resist, and NATO’s determination to punish Russia.
The West’s hypocritical sanctions
•Ukraine has been massively assisted by NATO weaponry, training, communications, satellite and human intelligence, reconnaissance, information processing systems and total control over the global media. While the World Bank is slow to help devastated war-torn nations such as Yemen and Afghanistan, it rushed $4.5 billion to Ukraine, while the International Monetary Fund came up with $1.4 billion. The West fails to understand how hypocritical its sanctions appear. For example, the United States exerted much effort persuading India and others to boycott Iranian and Venezuelan oil, only to try to get those shipments back on the market after its opposition shifted to Russia.
•For its confused objectives, poor strategy and weak logistics, Russia has paid a high price, militarily, economically and diplomatically. More human losses have already been sustained than during its 10-year intervention in Afghanistan. The war has also caused huge devastation in the most industrial parts of Ukraine, with over 10 million persons crossing to neighbouring countries and over seven million internally displaced.
Actions and counter-actions
•The current Ukraine counter-offensive that claims to have retaken 6,500 square kilometres and driven Russian forces back to the Kharkiv border, led to the announcement by Mr. Putin of holding a referendum in the occupied provinces of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson (on joining Russia), mobilising 3,00,000 Russian reservists, and threatening to use nuclear weapons. Ukraine and NATO regard these actions as evidence of Russian weakness, noting that an army in retreat loses morale rapidly, and Russian public opinion is highly prone to mood swings.
•Mobilisation is something the Kremlin wished to avoid, correctly fearing there was little Russian appetite to fight, especially against fellow Slavs. Experts believe the additional manpower will not offset the intrinsic weaknesses of the Russian forces. Mr. Putin’s tactic through referenda to define parts of Ukraine as Russian — like Crimea — will remain unrecognised, though Russia controls most of Luhansk and Kherson, about 80% of Zaporizhzhia and 60% of Donetsk. Nearly 8,00,000 new Russian passports have been issued in Ukraine over the past two years.
•In 2020, Russia declared it would use nuclear weapons in four instances: if alarmed by an incoming missile; subjected to attack by weapons of mass destruction; suffered damage to infrastructure that housed its nuclear arsenal, or when conventional war threatened the existence of Russia. Mr. Putin now interprets the current war as an existential struggle in which Russia would make use “of all weapon systems available to us”. Russia has 5,977 nuclear warheads, of which 1,588 are deployed operationally. There has been vigorous western pushback to Mr. Putin’s threat, pointing out that no such thing as a limited nuclear war could exist.
•Washington has declared that it will accept no compromise, and is ready to continue the fight until the last Ukrainian if necessary. This disincentivises Mr. Putin, for whom any peace deal is acceptable only if it includes the lifting of all sanctions. Big powers, fearing loss of political legitimacy and strategic status, have always proved unwilling or incapable of ending wars even at great cost to themselves and the victims, even though they knew victory was beyond them.
•What are the consequences of the first major armed conflict in Europe since the Second World War? A country devastated by Russia would remain hostile; resistance instigated by the West will continue, making life in the absorbed enclaves difficult. Mr. Putin’s objective of ensuring Russia’s security will remain elusive. If the war drags on, it will suit the West, just as prolonged American entanglement in Afghanistan suited its adversaries. Under pressure from both domestic anti-war activists and ultra-nationalists, Mr. Putin will suffer reputational damage internationally and domestically. Therefore, even a Russian face-saving outcome could prove pyrrhic.
•Today’s world is “shaped by raw power politics, where everything is weaponised”, as the EU Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell put it, when major powers are divided, the international community polarised and protectionism rampant. Rivalries during the new Cold War would be sharper than its predecessor, particularly through the menace of nuclear arms because the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons will come under huge stress to stay relevant. Elements of western coercion on a massive scale, covering energy, sanctions, finance, banking, cyberspace, digital technologies and social media, signal the weapons of the future.
Where China and India stand
•The Russian invasion leaves China in a complicated predicament; Beijing could enlist Russia as a junior partner or buttress it even though China thereby risks confronting its major trade partners, the United States and the EU. As the only permanent member in the UN Security Council not directly involved in the war, China enjoys both leverage and self-interest in shaping the outcome of the conflict, considering the politico-strategic ramifications on its own future. But it has no history or experience of peacemaking or mediation.
•The strength of nationalism, based on ethnicity, culture, religion, history and language, will grow. The Ukraine war will lead to major economic shifts. States suffering from western sanctions or affected collaterally will seek alternative financial and monetary platforms beyond the control of Washington and Brussels in order to bypass current transnational financial arteries and challenge the dollar as a reserve currency. Fragmentation of the monetary and financial order should be anticipated, including increased protectionism and a retreat from globalisation which will severely depress the growth of world trade. Clashing self-perceptions by both the West and Russia that are messianic and self-righteous, make the gulf in mutual understanding unbridgeable. Russia declares an intention to shift to an eastward orientation advocated by ideologues of Eurasianism such as Aleksandr Dugin, but rebalancing would be difficult in view of Russia’s major security concerns and the cultural preferences of its élite.
•As for India, the diminution of Russia as a partner will set back its longed-for multi-polar world and its security in terms of political support and collaborative projects in defence, space and nuclear energy. However, the expected turn to the U.S. would come at the cost of greater expense and greater conditionality.
📰 In nature’s warning signs, a nudge to riparian states
•There has been an increase in the magnitude, the frequency and the intensity of floods in many parts of the world. As an example, nearly a third of Pakistan is experiencing devastation, with a spread of diseases and severe shortage of potable water after intense flooding. In June this year Assam experienced one of its worst floods in living memory which affected over 30 districts. In some districts in Assam and Bihar, flooding is a recurrent feature, and thus a major impediment in ensuring poverty alleviation and meeting Millennium Development Goals.
•Flooding is still considered to be a natural phenomenon that cannot be entirely prevented. But it is compounded by the lack of transparency in the sharing of hydrological information and also information relating to activities (such as by one riparian state) that are transboundary in their effect (affecting other riparian states), thus serving as an obstacle in understanding the magnitude of flooding.
On customary international law
•In accordance with customary international law, no state has to use its territory in a manner that causes harm to another state while using a shared natural resource; this amounts to saying that there is a binding obligation on all states not to release water to cause floods in another co-sharer of the river water. This obligation gives rise to other procedural norms that support the management of floods, which include notification of planned measures, the exchange of data and information, and also public participation.
•The International Court of Justice (ICJ), in the Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay (Argentina vs Uruguay) case (2010), upheld that conducting a transboundary environmental impact assessment (TEIA) of a planned measure or projects on the shared water course is part of customary international law. In fact, the ICJ noted that the acting state must notify the affected party of the results of TEIA to “enable the notified party to participate in the process of ensuring that the assessment is complete, so that it can then consider the plan and its effects with a full knowledge of the facts”.
The Brahmaputra and India’s concerns
•Closer home, there is the case of China being the upper riparian in the Brahmaputra, which spans India and Bangladesh, enjoying apparent leverage vis-à-vis lower riparian India. During the monsoon, flooding has been the recurrent feature in the last several decades in Assam. India faces other woes in the form of the construction of dams by China. China’s excessive water release, as a “dam controller”, in violation of customary international law has the potential to exacerbate flooding in Assam in future. India’s main concern is that there is no comprehensive sub-basin or all basin-level mechanism to deal with water management of Brahmaputra. Neither India or China are party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (UNWC) 1997 or the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes 1992 (Water Convention).
•The UNWC contains a direct reference to floods, which covers harmful conditions and emergency situations. Article 27 of the Convention says: “Watercourse States shall, individually and, where appropriate, jointly, take all appropriate measures to prevent or mitigate conditions ...that may be harmful to other watercourse States, whether resulting from natural causes or human conduct, such as floods or ice conditions, water-borne diseases, siltation, erosion, salt-water intrusion, drought or desertification.”
•In the absence of any mechanism, India relies on its memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China in 2013 with a view to sharing hydrological information during the flood season (June to September). The MoU does not allow India access to urbanisation and deforestation activities on the Chinese side of the river basin. With the MoU in the background, India by becoming a party to either the UNWC and the Water Convention could lay the groundwork for a bilateral treaty on the Brahmaputra but subject to the reservation that it should not insist on the insertion of a dispute settlement mechanism provision.
India, Nepal and flood prevention
•Floods are also a recurrent problem in the Koshi and Gandak river basins that are shared by India and Nepal. The intensity and magnitude of flooding is rising because of heavy seasonal precipitation as well as glacial retreat due to global warming and human-induced stressors such as land use and land cover changes in the river basin area of Nepal (Terai) and Bihar. It is important that the two neighbours view the river basins as single entities, which will help in facilitating an integrated approach for improved basin and flood risk management. The India-Nepal Koshi agreement 1954 (revised in 1966) is aimed at reducing devastating flooding in the river basin. The treaty-based joint bodies have also tried to refine the early warning systems for flood forecasting. In contravention of procedural customary international law obligation, India considers data on transboundary rivers as classified information, which is one of the key challenges in developing cross-border flood warning systems. In light of the cataclysmic floods in Pakistan and the visible effects of climate change, it is important that all riparian states must comply with all the procedural duties pursuant to the no harm rule. They must also think of becoming a party to either the UNWC or the UNECE Water Convention.
