Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: McMahol Line, Shimla Convention
Mains level: India-China Border Issue
China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs has issued standardized names for 15 places in the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh, to be used henceforth on official Chinese maps.
MEA clarification
- The Ministry of External Affairs has dismissed the Chinese “invention”.
- Arunachal Pradesh has always been, and will always be, an integral part of India, said MEA.
Why is China giving names to places that are in India?
- China claims some 90,000 sq km of Arunachal Pradesh as its territory.
- It calls the area “Zangnan” in the Chinese language and makes repeated references to “South Tibet”.
- Chinese maps show Arunachal Pradesh as part of China, and sometimes parenthetically refer to it as “so-called Arunachal Pradesh”.
- China makes periodic efforts to underline this unilateral claim to Indian territory.
- Giving Chinese names to places in Arunachal Pradesh is part of that effort.
Earlier unilateral renamings
- This is the second lot of “standardized” names of places in Arunachal Pradesh that China has announced.
- Earlier in 2017, it had issued “official” Chinese names for six places spanning the breadth of Arunachal Pradesh
What is China’s argument for claiming these areas?
- The PRC disputes the legal status of the McMahon Line, the official boundary under the ‘Convention Between Great Britain, China, and Tibet’ — of 1914 (Simla Convention).
- China was represented at the Simla Convention by a plenipotentiary of the Republic of China, which had been declared in 1912 after the Qing dynasty was overthrown.
- The present communist government came to power only in 1949, when the People’s Republic was proclaimed.
- The Chinese representative did not consent to the Simla Convention, saying Tibet had no independent authority to enter into international agreements.
What is the McMohan Line?
- The McMohan Line, named after Henry McMahon, the chief British negotiator at Shimla, was drawn from the eastern border of Bhutan to the Isu Razi pass on the China-Myanmar border.
- China claims territory to the south of the McMahon Line, lying in Arunachal Pradesh.
- China also bases its claims on the historical ties that have existed between the monasteries in Tawang and Lhasa.
Intention behind these renamings
- This renaming is a part of the Chinese strategy to assert its territorial claims over Indian territory.
- As part of this strategy, China routinely issues statements of outrage whenever an Indian dignitary visits Arunachal Pradesh.
- Beijing keeps harping on its “consistent” and “clear” position that the Indian possession of Arunachal Pradesh.
- These claims have been firmly established and recognized by the world, as “illegal”.
Arunachal not all-alone
- Laying aggressive claims to territories on the basis of alleged historical injustices done to China is a part of Beijing’s foreign policy playbook.
- The claim on Taiwan is one such example, as are the consistent efforts to change the “facts on the ground” in several disputed islands in the South China Sea.
- The aggression is at all times backed in overt and covert ways by the use of China’s economic and military muscle.
Also read:
[RSTV Archive] India-China Ties Post-Galwan
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: GST slabs, Inverted Duty Structure
Mains level: Losses due to GST
Hours before the new GST rate was to take effect, the GST Council has decided to temporarily roll back the increase in tax rate for the textiles sector.
What was the proposal?
- The GST Council had recommended making certain rate changes for footwear and textiles to correct the inverted duty structure.
What is Inverted Duty Structure?
- An inverted duty structure arises when the taxes on output or final product is lower than the taxes on inputs.
- This creates an inverse accumulation of input tax credit which in most cases has to be refunded.
A loss for the govt
- Inverted duty structure has implied a stream of revenue outflow for the government prompting the government to relook the duty structure.
- For footwear, the government refunds around Rs 2,000 crore in a year.
What is the present rate of GST on textiles?
- At present, tax rate on manmade fibre, yarn and fabrics is 18%, 12% and 5%, respectively.
- Apparel and clothing up to Rs 1,000 per piece currently attracts 5% GST.
Issues with the tax increase
- This decision has created a negative impact resulting in drop in demand and recession.
- The new rate structure would cause closure of around 1 lakh textile units and losses of 15 lakh jobs nationally.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Chisumle- Demchok Road
Mains level: Critical border infrastructures
Ladakh’s Chisumle-Demchok Road, when it crosses the Umling Pass, is now the world’s highest motorable road.
Chisumle- Demchok Road
- The project to build the road through the pass — a part of Border Roads Organization (BRO) Project Himank — had been completed in 2017, after which vehicles had started playing on the route.
- The road is in south Ladakh. It passes through Umling La Pass, which is at a height of over 19,000 feet.
- The height of the pass makes it the highest motorable road in the world, and was recently recognized as such by Guinness World Records.
- The 52-km road ‘black-top’ tarmac road from Chisumle to Demchok betters the previous record of a road in Bolivia, which connects the volcano Uturuncu at 18,953 feet.
- The road was built under extremely challenging conditions, as temperatures in the region can fall to below minus 40 degrees Celsius, and oxygen levels go down to 50 per cent below normal.
Top of the world
- At the pass, the road is higher than both the base camps for the climb to Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain.
- The South Base Camp in Nepal is at a height of 17,598 ft, while North Base Camp in Tibet is at 16,900 ft.
- The Chisumle-Demchok road is also higher than the Siachen Glacier, which is situated at 17,700 feet.
- Khardung La in Leh, which at one time was among the highest roads in the world, is at an altitude of 17,582 feet.
Military significance of the road
- This road provides a direct route from Chisumle, which lies on the major road coming from Leh, Karu and Nyoma.
- All of these stations have important military stations which are close to the Line of Actual Control.
- Demchok has been an India-China flashpoint earlier, the site of a standoff between the two armies in 2016.
- In the current standoff in eastern Ladakh, which began in May 2020, Demchok has come up as a point of contention.
Other benefits offered
- The new axis will be helpful for the armed forces, making it easier to mobilize troops and equipment, including rations.
- The road will not only enable faster movement of armed forces to the region but will also boost tourism and improve the socio-economic condition of the local people in the region.
Certain limitations
- Since the road goes through such a high pass, road transport will be unfeasible during the winter, when the armed forces rely on air support.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Solid-state lithium ion battery
Mains level: Battery Technology for e-Vehicles boost
After Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, now another Indian origin is in the headline is Jagdeep Singh, CEO and founder of a US battery startup. The reason for his recent buzz for his breakthrough battery technology.
About QuantumScape
- QuantumScape Corp is a battery startup backed by Volkswagen AG.
- Its solid-state battery — lithium metal with a solid electrolyte separating the two electrodes — is seen as an exceptionally bright prospect in E-Vehicle industry.
What are Solid-state batteries?
- A solid-state battery is a battery technology that uses solid electrodes and a solid electrolyte, instead of the liquid or polymer gel electrolytes found in lithium-ion or lithium polymer batteries.
- Such batteries can provide potential solutions for many problems of liquid Li-ion battery, such as flammability, limited voltage, unstable solid-electrolyte interphase formation, poor cycling performance and strength.
What are Li-ion Batteries?
- Lithium-ion batteries use aqueous electrolyte solutions, where ions transfer to and fro between the anode (negative electrode generally made of graphite) and cathode (positive electrode made of lithium), triggering the recharge and discharge of electrons.
- The energy density of lithium-ion cells used in today’s mobile phones and electric vehicles is nearly four times higher than that of older-generation nickel-cadmium batteries.
Its limitations
- Low energy density: Despite improvements in technology over the last decade, issues such as long charging times and weak energy density persist.
- Small appliances: While lithium-ion batteries are seen as sufficiently efficient for phones and laptops, they still lack the range that would make EVs a viable alternative.
- Extreme reactivity: One major problem is that lithium metal is extremely reactive.
- Corrosion of cells: The main form of lithium corrosion is dendrites (branched lithium structures) that grow out from the electrode and can potentially pierce the separator short-circuiting the cell.
- Fire hazard: In current lithium-ion batteries, in which the electrolyte is a flammable liquid, dendrite formation can trigger a fire.
What is the breakthrough?
- QuantumScape claims to prevent dendrites formation.
- It uses a solid-state separator technology that eliminates the side reaction between the liquid electrolyte and the carbon/graphite in the anode of conventional lithium-ion cells.
- The replacement of the separator enables the use of a lithium-metal anode in place of the traditional
- The lithium metal anode is more energy-dense than conventional anodes, which allows the battery to store more energy in the same volume, according to the company.
Key advantages of QuantumScape Battery
- The advantages of the solid-state battery technology include higher cell energy density (by eliminating the carbon anode), lower charge time (by eliminating the need to have lithium diffuse into the carbon particles in conventional lithium-ion cells).
- It has the ability to undertake more charging cycles and thereby a longer life, and improved safety.
- Lower cost could be a game-changer, given that at 30 per cent of the total cost, battery expenses are a key driver of the vehicle costs.
India’s battery push
- The centre is working on a blueprint for a project of around 4,000 MWh of grid-scale battery storage system at the regional load dispatch centres that control the country’s power grid, primarily to balance the vagaries of renewable generation.
- Reliance Industries Ltd has announced plans to set up an Energy Storage Giga factory; state-owned NTPC Ltd has floated a global tender for a grid-scale battery storage project.
- The Ministry of Heavy Industries issued a request for proposal for setting up manufacturing facilities for Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) battery storage in India.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now