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GS Paper: GS2

  • What constitutes a War Crime?

    The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague announced that it would open an investigation into possible war crimes or crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

    What are War Crime?

    • War crimes are defined as serious violations of humanitarian laws during a conflict.
    • There are specific international standards for war crimes, which are not to be confused with crimes against humanity.
    • The definition is established by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
    • It is derived from the 1949 Geneva Conventions and is based on the idea that individuals can be held liable for the actions of a state or its military.
    • There is a long list of acts that can be considered war crimes.
    • The taking of hostages, willful killings, torture or inhuman treatment of prisoners of war, and forcing children to fight are some of the more obvious examples.

    How to identify war crimes?

    To decide whether an individual or a military has committed a war crime, international humanitarian law lays down three principles:

    1. Distinction: This principle says that you have to be constantly trying to distinguish between civilian and belligerent populations and objects.
    2. Proportionality: It prohibits armies from responding to an attack with excessive violence. If a soldier is killed, for example, you cannot bomb an entire city in retaliation.
    3. Precaution: It requires parties to a conflict to avoid or minimize the harm done to the civilian population. For example, attacking a barrack where there are people who have said they no longer participate in the conflict can be a war crime.

    Do war crimes constitute to genocides?

    • The UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect separates war crimes from genocide and crimes against humanity.
    • War crimes are defined as occurring in a domestic conflict or a war between two states.
    • However, genocide and crimes against humanity can happen in peacetime or during the unilateral aggression of a military towards a group of unarmed people.

    Discrepancy in defining war crimes

    • In practice, there is a lot of gray area within that list.
    • The laws of war do not always protect civilians from death. Not every civilian death is necessarily illegal.
    • Raids on a cities or villages, bombing residential buildings or schools, and even the killing of groups of civilians do not necessarily amount to war crimes — not if their military necessity is justified.
    • The same act can become a war crime if it results in unnecessary destruction, suffering and casualties that exceed the military gain from the attack.
    • Also civilian and military populations have become increasingly hard to distinguish

     

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  • Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)

    The Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) said it was putting on hold and reviewing all projects in Russia and Belarus.

    About AIIB

    • The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a multilateral development bank with a mission to improve social and economic outcomes in Asia, began operations in January 2016.
    • It aims to stimulate growth and improve access to basic services by furthering interconnectivity and economic development in the region through advancements in infrastructure.
    • AIIB has now grown to 102 approved members worldwide. US & Japan are not its members.
    • It is a brainchild of China. It has invested in 13 member regions.

    Capital and shareholding of AIIB

    • It has authorized capital of US 100 billion dollars and subscribed capital of USD 50 billion.
    • It offers sovereign and non-sovereign finance for projects in various sectors with an interest rate of London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) plus 1.15 % and a repayment period of 25 years with 5 years in grace period.
    • China is the largest shareholder in AIIB with a 26.06% voting power, followed by India with 7.62% and Russia with 5.92% voting power.

     

    Try this question from CSP 2019

    Q.With reference to Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), consider the following statements

    1. AIIB has more than 80 member nations.
    2. India is the largest shareholder in AIIB.
    3. AIIB does not have any members from outside Asia.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 1 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

     

     

    [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”si6cvunasz” question=”Please leave a feedback on this” opened=”1″]Post your answers here.[/wpdiscuz-feedback]

     

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  • Issue of handing down the death sentence in a cursory manner

    Context

    Last week, a little over 13 years after the blasts in 2008 (in July) in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, the designated court to conduct a speedy trial decided the fate of 78 of the accused people. Within a week, the court sentenced 38 of 49 people to death.

    The debate on the death sentence

    • The death sentence grants the state the monopoly of violence.
    • This monopoly is justified by claiming that such a step prevents crime or that it is a measure of long-due justice.
    • Use in ‘rarest of rare’ case: Fundamentally, ‘rarest of rare’ is a standard that allows a court of law to use public sentiment as a judicially reliable standard in handing out the death sentence.
    • Proportionality test: India’s carceral criminal jurisprudence requires a court to calculate proportionality between crime and punishment.
    • But a death sentence is a sentence that goes beyond the confines of these calculations to deprive a person of their life — committing an act whose central value itself is immeasurable.
    • The impossibility of reform, the heinous nature of the crime, the shock to the public conscience, none of these things sufficiently justify the right of a fallible institution to take someone’s life.

    Mitigating arguments

    • After the verdict is delivered in any criminal trial, lawyers make what are called ‘mitigating arguments’ — essentially to contextualise the convict as an individual and not as the accused.
    • Unlike other trial stages where a court adjudicates between competing legal identities of an accused, the complainant, etc., in mitigation, the court hears evidence of a person’s humanity. 
    • Hearing mitigating circumstances requires — however temporarily — for the trappings of distance and formality to be stripped away so that a court may see a person instead of a convict.

    The issue in the above case

    • In this case, first, the court orally convicted ‘en masse’ several of the accused instead of declaring the charges proved against them separately.
    • The prosecution argued that the defendants should argue for mitigation before it would even disclose which convicts it intended to seek the death sentence.
    • The role attributed to each of the accused was different.
    • By equating them for mitigation purposes (individual circumstances were unaccounted for and context and circumstances were considered to be the same) and handing down a mass death sentence, the court has only opened the door for greater misuse of a questionable power to end a life without any oversight.

    Conclusion

    A permanent sentence requires us to assume that our institutions are infallible and user-proof. To cast this as a simple ‘penalty’ ignores what it truly does — and did in this case; it negates the individual for the final time.

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  • Anti-microbial resistance needs urgent attention

    Context

    Ever since the pandemic struck, concerns have been raised about the improper use of antimicrobials amongst Covid-19 patients.

    Concern over anti-microbial resistance

    • The “Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in 204 countries and territories in 2019 (GRAM)” report, released last month, 4.95 million people died from drug-resistant bacterial infections in 2019, with 3,89,000 deaths in South Asia alone.
    • AMR directly caused at least 1.27 million of those deaths.
    • Lower respiratory infections accounted for more than 1.5 million deaths associated with resistance in 2019, making it the most burdensome infectious syndrome.
    • Amongst pathogens, E coli was responsible for the most deaths in 2019, followed by K pneumoniae, S aureus, A baumannii, S pneumoniae, and M tuberculosis.

    Concern for India

    • As per the yearly trends reported by the Indian Council of Medical Research since 2015, India reports a high level of resistance in all these pathogens, especially E coli and K pneumoniae.
    • Only a fraction of the Indian data, available through the WHO-GLASS portal, has been included in the GRAM report.
    • India has been reporting high levels of resistance to fluoroquinolones, cephalosporins and carbapenems across the Gram-negative pathogens that cause almost 70 per cent of infections in communities and hospitals.
    • Therefore, the Indian data on the AMR burden may not look very different from the estimates published in the report.
    • Now that we know that AMR’s burden surpasses that of TB and HIV, a sense of urgency in containing such resistance is called for.
    • With no new drugs in the pipeline for drug-resistant infections, time is running out for patients.

    Addressing AMR through a multipronged and multisectoral approach

    • Use existing antimicrobials judiciously: The urgency to develop new drugs should not discourage us from instituting measures to use the existing antimicrobials judiciously.
    • Improved infection control in communities and hospitals, availability and utilisation of quality diagnostics and laboratories and educating people about antimicrobials have proved effective in reducing antimicrobial pressure — a precursor to resistance.
    • The National Action Plan for AMR, approved in 2017, completes its official duration this year. The progress under the plan has been far from satisfactory.
    • There is enough evidence that interventions like infection control, improved diagnosis and antimicrobial stewardship are effective in the containment of AMR.

    Conclusion

    The GRAM report has underlined that postponing action could prove costly.

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  • What is WHO’s Pandemic Treaty?

    Members of the World Health Organisation (WHO) held the first round of negotiations towards the pandemic treaty on February 24, 2022.

    What is the Pandemic Treaty?

    • In December 2021, the World Health Assembly agreed to start a global process to draft the pandemic treaty.
    • The need for an updated set of rules was felt after the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the shortcomings of global health systems.
    • The Health Assembly adopted a decision titled “The World Together” at its second special session since it was founded in 1948.
    • Under the decision, the health organization established an intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) to draft and negotiate the contents of the pandemic treaty in compliance with Article 19 of the WHO Constitution.

    What is it likely to entail?

    • The pandemic treaty is expected to cover aspects like data sharing and genome sequencing of emerging viruses and equitable distribution of vaccines and drugs and related research.
    • Solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic have seen an inequitable distribution of vaccines so far, with poorer countries at the mercy of others to receive preventive medication.

    Why need such treaty?

    • Most countries have followed the “me-first” approach which is not an effective way to deal with a global pandemic.
    • A widely-accepted theory points that the novel coronavirus may have jumped from animals to humans in a wildlife market of China.
    • Many nations want a ban on wildlife markets.

    Issues in negotiations

    • While the EU wants the treaty to be legally binding, the U.S., Brazil and India have expressed reservations about the same.
    • The legal nature of the treaty is yet to be defined.

     What is Article 19 of the WHO Constitution?

    • Article 19 of the WHO Constitution gives the World Health Assembly the authority to adopt conventions or agreements on matters of health.
    • A two-third majority is needed to adopt such conventions or agreements.
    • The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was set up under Article 19 and it came into force in 2005.

     

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  • New Rules for Deputation of DIGs

    After its proposal to amend the All India Service Rules that would allow it to call any IAS, IPS or IFoS officer on central deputation with or without the state’s consent, the Centre has issued another order on central deputation of Deputy Inspector General-level IPS officers.

    What is the order?

    • The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has said that IPS officers coming to the Centre at DIG level would no longer be required to be empanelled at that level with the Union Government.
    • According to existing rules, a DIG-ranked IPS officer with a minimum experience of 14 years could only be deputed to the Centre if the Police Establishment Board empanelled them as DIGs at the Centre.
    • The board chooses the panel on the basis of officers’ career and vigilance records.
    • Only Superintendent of Police-level officers do not require empanelment at the Centre.
    • The new order makes the entire pool of DIG-level officers in a state eligible for central deputation.

    Why has it been issued?

    Ans. Huge Vacancies

    • The move is aimed at increasing the pool of DIG-level IPS officers for central deputation in the backdrop of massive vacancies in central police organisations (CPOs) and the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs).
    • Out of 252 posts reserved for IPS officers at DIG level at the Centre, 118 (almost half) are vacant.
    • IPS officers have a quota of 40% in CPOs and CAPFs.

    How will the move help?

    • The idea is to ease up the process of central deputation as verification of records takes a long time.
    • Also, it increases the size of the pool of officers available to the Centre.

    So why would states have a problem?

    Ans. Relieving the Officers

    • States would have to be willing to relieve these officers.
    • The new order may be seen by many states as the Centre’s attempt at pushing the envelope further on increasing its powers over officers serving in the states.
    • With these orders, the Centre would have powers to demand, within a stipulated time frame, a certain quota of officers from the state for central deputation.
    • It may also call any IAS officer on central deputation in “public interest”.
    • In case the state failed to relieve the officer, he/she would be deemed relieved following the date fixed.

    Why don’t states relieve officers?

    Ans. Vacancy in states

    • There is a serious paucity of officers in the states too.
    • In a cost-cutting move during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime, the size of IPS batches among other government staff was reduced even though sizeable vacancies existed even then.
    • From 80-90 officers each, IPS batches were cut to 35-40 officers (in 1999-2002, the average was 36).
    • The average attrition rate of IPS officers due to superannuation is 85 per year.
    • The strength of IAS officers too had been impacted due to low intake during the 1990s.

    How has this impacted the services?

    • The anomaly in IPS recruitment adversely affected cadre management over the years.
    • At some levels, there are fewer officers than sanctioned posts, while at others there is a glut. For example, UP has a shortage of DIGs and IGs, but too many officers at the level of ADGs.

     

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  • Escaping the global sanctions net

    Context

    A shift is taking place in the business of global dominance and hegemony, from the model of expressing force through troop presence to financial sanctions. It is led by the US and has become recently visible in the US and EU sanctions on Russia.

    How sanctions works

    • Sanctions are designed by the government and implemented by both profit-making and non-profit private enterprises, domestic and international NGOs (including the United Nations).
    • From rule-bound globalism, there is a move to an understanding of the management of individual economies, bound together by multiple networks of investment and trade.
    • This is a global economy of individual rivalries between countries and corporations, continually shifting alliances, and contingencies overtaking assumed structural certainties.
    • A system of licencing: In Afghanistan, financial manipulations from afar in the form of sanctions may result in subjecting trading activities and investment ventures to the approval of the US Treasury through a system of licencing.
    • This may give the US a say in who trades with whom, but already China has found ways of working with or around US sanctions in several countries, including Iran.
    • Confiscation of foreign exchange reserves: Another way of exerting control from afar is through the confiscation of foreign exchange reserves in American banks.
    • Following the withdrawal of the American troops on August 15, the US froze Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves of $7 billion deposited in the New York Federal Bank.

    Issues with sanctions

    • An economic lever to China: Sanctions offer economic lever to China in its dealings with the Taliban, to the Chinese state-owned enterprises and private corporations with an opportunity to invest in Afghanistan’s infrastructure, linking it to the Belt and Road project, and in its rich mineral resources of copper, cobalt, and lithium.
    • Implications for India: China could also use this as an opportunity to unite investments in Afghanistan and Pakistan, isolating India.
    • Evading the sanction:  China and Russia, in concert, may provide a way out of the sanctions regime.
    • Possibility for China in Middle Eurasia: Russian military and political escalation to re-institute control over former Soviet regions, including Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, and the rapprochement between China and Russia against the West, may open up new possibilities for China in Middle Eurasia.
    • Banning Russia from SWIFT is not effective: Banning Russia from the SWIFT system of international payments is a problem for the global financial system.
    • The Russian economy is more isolated, protected and less reliant on international funding than was the Afghan economy.
    • The impact of any disruption in Russian exports of oil, gas, palladium, wheat and fertiliser at a time when those prices are barely recovering from inflationary pressures caused by Covid-19 disruptions, is likely to offset any leverage the Western sanctions may hope to gain.

    Conclusion

    In the new game, the Western alliance led by the US seems lost in a maze of sanctions, largely ineffective in a global economy, the control of which is eluding its grip.

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  • Doubts over Defence Supplies to India

    With tensions escalating between Russia and the West over the Ukraine crisis, India, which has major defence cooperation with Moscow and Kyiv, faces uncertainty over timely deliveries of the S-400.

    About S-400

    • The S-400 is known as Russia’s most advanced long-range surface-to-air missile defence system, capable of destroying hostile strategic bombers, jets, missiles and drones at a range of 380-km.

    US reservations against S-400 purchase

    • The US has made it clear that the delivery of the five S-400 systems is considered a “significant transaction”.
    • Such deals are considered under its Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) of 2017.
    • It could trigger sanctions against Indian officials and the Government.

    About CAATSA

    • The CAATSA is designed to ensure that no country is able to increase military engagement with Iran, North Korea and Russia without facing deterrent punitive action from the US.
    • The sanctions are unilateral, and not part of any United Nations decision, and therefore no country is bound to accept them.
    • Section 231 says the President shall impose no fewer than five different sanctions on any Government that enters into a significant defence or intelligence deal with Russia.
    • Section 235 lists 12 options, including stopping credit lines from US and international banks such as the IMF, blocking sales of licensed goods and technology, banning banks, manufacturers and suppliers, property transactions and even financial and visa sanctions on specific officials.
    • However, the law also empowers the President to waiver sanctions or delay them if the waiver is in the US’s “vital national security interests”.

    Has the US used CAATSA before for S-400 sales?

    • The US has already placed sanctions on China and Turkey for purchase of the S-400.
    • The sanctions included denial of export licences, ban on foreign exchange transactions, blocking of all property and interests in property within the US jurisdiction and a visa ban.

    Types of sanctions laid

    • In 2020, the US sanctioned its NATO partner Turkey, which it had warned about CAATSA sanctions for years, besides cancelling a deal to sell Ankara F-35 jets.
    • The sanctions on Turkey’s main defence procurement agency, also included a ban on licences and loans, and blocking of credit and visas to related officials.

    Likely impacts after India’s purchase

    • The Biden administration has no firm indication on where it leans on India’s case.
    • However, several senators (US parliamentarians) have called upon the Biden administration to consider a special waiver for India.
    • This is on account of India’s importance as a defence partner, and as a strategic partner on US concerns over China and in the Quad.
    • Other US leaders thinks that giving a waiver to India would be the wrong signal for others seeking to go ahead with similar deals.

    India’s dependence on Russia

    • While Russia has been a traditional military supplier sharing platforms and technologies that others would not, the cooperation has further deepened in recent years.
    • The defence trade between the two countries has crossed $15 billion since 2018.
    • Even today, over 60% of Indian military inventory is of Russian origin, especially with respect to fighter jets, tanks, helicopters and submarines among others, while several deals are in the pipeline.

    Why is the S-400 deal so important to India?

    • Security paradigm: S-400 is very important for India’s national security considerations due to the threats from China, Pakistan and now Afghanistan.
    • Air defence capability: The system will also offset the air defence capability gaps due to the IAF’s dwindling fighter squadron strength.
    • Russian legacy: Integrating the S-400 will be much easier as India has a large number of legacy Russian air defence systems.
    • Strategic autonomy: For both political as well as operational reasons, the deal is at a point of no return.

    Conclusion

    • The deal is a way for the Government to assert its strategic autonomy.
    • India had earlier agreed to stop buying Iranian oil over the threat of sanctions in 2019, a move that caused India both financial and reputational damage.
    • Not giving in to the US’s unilateral sanctions would be one way to restore some of that.

     

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  • Anti defection: Related issues

    Context

    In its verdict in the Goa MLAs case, Bombay High Court has misread the 10th schedule of the Constitution, which was meant to prevent horse trading among legislators.

    Understanding the Paragraph (4) of Tenth Schedule

    • Paragraph (4) is an exception to the Tenth Schedule’s main provisions.
    • It operates only when the defectors’ original political party has merged with the party to which they have defected and two-thirds of the members of the legislature belonging to that party have agreed to the merger.
    • Under this provision, the merger of the original political party has to take place first, followed by two-thirds of the MLAs agreeing to that merger.
    • The basic premise of the February 25 judgment is that sub-paragraph (2) is distinct from the parent paragraph, and a factual merger of the original political party is not necessary.
    • This does not square with the content, context and thrust of paragraph (4), which contemplates the factual merger of the original political party — in this case, the INC.
    • The court’s view — the merger of the 10 MLAs of the Congress Legislative Party with the BJP should be regarded as the Congress itself merging with the BJP — goes against the letter and spirit of the Tenth Schedule, paragraph (4) in particular.

    Process for the merger: 2 conditions need to be satisfied

    • 1] Merger alone is not enough: The opening words of sub-paragraph (2) — “for the purposes of sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph” — clearly mean that to exempt a member from disqualification on account of defection, and for considering this member’s claim that he has become a member of the party with which the merger has taken place, a merger of two political parties alone is not enough.
    • 2] Not less than 2/3 members should also agree: Not less than two-thirds of the members should also agree to such a merger.
    • The lawmakers made it tough for potential defectors to defect.
    •  The words “such merger” make it clear beyond any shadow of doubt that the merger of the original political party has to take place before two-thirds of the members agree to such a merger.
    • The members of the legislature cannot agree among themselves to merge as the court has said, but they can agree to a merger after it takes place.

    Conclusion

    The anti-defection law was designed to eliminate political defection. However, the judgment of the Bombay HC seems to assume that paragraph (4) of the 10th schedule is meant to facilitate defection. This judgment is likely to open the flood gates to defection. The Supreme Court must intervene quickly.

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  • Controversy around the $500 million MCC grant to Nepal

    Nepal’s House of Representatives has ratified 500 million US Dollar grant assistance-Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) pact along with the “interpretative declaration”.

    What is Millenium Challenge Corporation?

    • The MCC was founded in 2004 as a US foreign aid agency that acts in accordance with governments that have demonstrated a commitment to good governance, economic freedom, and citizen investment.
    • It was envisioned as an organisation that would follow the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness’ key principles.
    • MCC works with countries that have been identified as being eligible for assistance to develop programmes that are based on MCC’s purpose of decreasing poverty via economic growth.
    • MCC’s results framework, which is based on the fourth and fifth principles of the Paris Declaration, Results and Mutual Accountability.
    • It provides a framework for applying the agency’s rigorous methods for projecting, tracking, and evaluating the effects of its programmes.
    • MCC uses this framework to address basic questions about aid effectiveness.

    Investments made by MCC

    • Compact and threshold programmes are the two types of programmes in which MCC invests.
    • Compacts are large, five-year grants implemented by an accountable entity established by each partner nation.
    • Thresholds are smaller funds focusing on policy and institutional transformation in selected countries implemented by MCC.

    The background of the project

    • MCC’s partnership with Nepal began in 2011, when the country requested assistance.
    • MCC first chose Nepal for a smaller threshold grant, and subsequently in December 2014, for a larger compact.
    • Three years later, in September 2017, the MCC-Nepal compact was signed, with the US committing $500 million and Nepal committing $130 million.
    • Nepal is expected to generate an electricity infrastructure with 400kVA transmission lines through the MCC project, which will be used to distribute power both domestically and to India.
    • Furthermore, the MCC’s implementation could boost the Nepalese economy by increasing employment possibilities and increasing per capita income.

    Issues with the project

    • It is estimated that if the agreement is not passed by Parliament, the power producers in the country are likely to lose a staggering Rs. 142 billion every year.
    • As a result, PM Sher Bahadur Deuba is striving to get the MCC passed in Parliament as soon as possible, even if it means splitting the coalition government.
    • In addition, if he fails to get it through Parliament, there is a possible risk of losing his international credibility.

    America vs China: Objections around MCC

    • The MCC agreement has created a political divide in Nepal.
    • The compact has been criticised in Nepal as endangering the country’s sovereignty, integrity, and constitutional autonomy.
    • The claim that the MCC agreement supersedes the national charter and shall prevail over Nepal’s domestic laws.
    • Many have interpreted this to suggest that the compact replaces the constitution, compromising Nepal’s sovereignty.
    • The MCC’s inclusion in the Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) is considered problematic for Nepal, as the majority of the country’s political class views the US strategy as anti-China.

    India’s role in the ongoing political crisis in Nepal

    • Few claim that the electricity generated by MCC will be only for export to India and will not be for the local public.
    • As a result, it will not benefit the local economy directly.
    • Nepal’s hydroelectric generation potential is huge, with over 6,000 large and small rivers.
    • However, through a series of barrages and dams, India has control over the majority of Nepal’s major rivers.
    • Nationalists in the Himalayan country have strongly objected to this.
    • In Nepal, where India is still perceived as a meddling big brother, its goal of strengthening India’s military capabilities through this agreement to counter China’s was questioned.

     

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