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  • Freedom of Navigation Operations

    The US Navy has had “asserted navigational rights and freedoms approximately 130 nautical miles west of Lakshadweep Islands, inside India’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), without requesting India’s prior consent, consistent with international law”.

    Try this question:

    Q.What do you mean by Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs)? What are its legal backings?  Discuss its significance.

    Freedom of Navigation Operations

    • FONOPs are closely linked to the concept of freedom of navigation, and in particular to the enforcement of relevant international law and customs regarding freedom of navigation.
    • It involves passage conducted by the US Navy through waters claimed by coastal nations as their exclusive territory.
    • It is carried under the US policy of exercising and asserting its navigation and overflight rights and freedoms around the world”.
    • It says these “assertions communicate that the US does not acquiesce to the excessive maritime claims of other nations, and thus prevents those claims from becoming accepted in international law”.

    Significance of FONOPs

    • FONOPs are a method of enforcing UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) and avoiding these negative outcomes by reinforcing freedom of navigation through practice.
    • It is exercised by sailing through all areas of the sea permitted under UNCLOS, and particularly those areas that states have attempted to close off to free navigation as defined under UNCLOS.

    What about EEZs?

    • An exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
    • It is an area of the sea in which a sovereign state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind.
    • It stretches from the baseline out to 200 nautical miles from the coast of the state in question.
    • It is also referred to as a maritime continental margin and, in colloquial usage, may include the continental shelf.
    • The term does not include either the territorial sea or the continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical mile limit.
    • The difference between the territorial sea and the exclusive economic zone is that the first confers full sovereignty over the waters, whereas the second is merely a “sovereign right” which refers to the coastal state’s rights below the surface of the sea.
    • The surface waters, as can be seen on the map, are international waters.

    Is FONOP violative of India’s EEZ?

    • As per India’s Territorial Waters Act, 1976, the EEZ of India “is an area beyond and adjacent to the territorial waters, and the limit of such zone is two hundred nautical miles from the baseline”.
    • India’s “limit of the territorial waters is the line every point of which is at a distance of twelve nautical miles from the nearest point of the appropriate baseline”.
    • Under the 1976 law, “all foreign ships (other than warships including submarines and other underwater vehicles) shall enjoy the right of innocent passage through the territorial waters”.

    Back2Basics: UNCLOS

    • The Law of the Sea Treaty formally known as the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was adopted in 1982 at Montego Bay, Jamaica. It entered into force in 1994.
    • The convention establishes a comprehensive set of rules governing the oceans and replaces previous U.N. Conventions on the Law of the Sea
    • The convention defines the distance of 12 nautical miles from the baseline as Territorial Sea limit and a distance of 200 nautical miles distance as Exclusive Economic Zone limit.

  • People are free to choose religion: Supreme Court

    The Supreme Court has said people are free to choose their own religion and lashed out at a PIL claiming that there is mass religious conversion happening across the country.

    Right to freedom of Religion

    Article 25 of the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion to all persons in India. It provides that all persons in India, subject to public order, morality, health, and other provisions:

    • Are equally entitled to freedom of conscience, and
    • Have the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion.

    It further provides that this article shall not affect any existing law and shall not prevent the state from making any law relating to:

    • Regulation or restriction of any economic, financial, political, or secular activity associated with religious practice.
    • Providing social welfare and reform.
    • Opening of Hindu religious institutions of public character for all the classes and sections of the Hindus.

    What did the Supreme Court say?

    • Instead, a Bench led by Justice Rohinton F. Nariman said people have a right under the Constitution to profess, practise and propagate religion.
    • Justice Nariman said every person is the final judge of their own choice of religion or who their life partner should be. Courts cannot sit in judgment of a person’s choice of religion or a life partner.
    • Religious faith is a part of the fundamental right to privacy.
    • Justice Nariman reminded Mr Upadhyay of the Constitution Bench judgment which upheld inviolability of the right to privacy, equating it with the rights to life, dignity and liberty.

  • SARTHAQ Plan

    Union Education Minister has launched ‘Students’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement through Quality Education (SARTHAQ), the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 implementation plan for school education.

    SARTHAQ

    • SARTHAQ keeps in mind the concurrent nature of education and adheres to the spirit of federalism.
    • The plan delineates the roadmap for the implementation of NEP 2020 for the next 10 years.
    • States and Union Territories have been given the flexibility to adapt the plan with “local contextualization”.
    • They have been allowed to modify the plan as per their needs and requirements.

    Envisaged outcomes

    • Increase in Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), Net Enrolment Ratio (NER), transition rate and retention rate at all levels and reduction in dropouts and out of school children.
    • Access to quality ECCE and Universal Acquisition of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy by Grade 3.
    • Improvement in Learning Outcomes at all stages with an emphasis on teaching and learning through mother tongue/local/regional languages in the early years.
    • Integration of vocational education, sports, arts, knowledge of India, 21st-century skills, values of citizenship, awareness of environment conservation, etc. in the curriculum at all stages.
    • Introduction of Experiential learning at all stages and adoption of innovative pedagogies by teachers in classroom transaction.
    • Integration of technology in educational planning and governance and availability of ICT and quality e-content in classrooms.

  • Production of Poppy Straw

    The Central government has decided to rope in the private sector to commence production of concentrated poppy straw from India’s opium crop.

    What is the move?

    • The move aims to boost the yield of alkaloids, used for medical purposes and exported to several countries.
    • Among the few countries permitted to cultivate the opium poppy crop for export and extraction of alkaloids, India currently only extracts alkaloids from opium gum at facilities controlled by the Revenue Department.
    • This entails farmers extracting gum by manually lancing the opium pods and selling the gum to government factories.
    • The Ministry has now decided to switch to new technologies after trial cultivation reports submitted last year by two private firms showed higher extraction of alkaloids using the concentrated poppy straw (CPS).

    Opium Poppy

    • The milky fluid that seeps from cuts in the unripe poppy seed pod has, since ancient times, been scraped off and air-dried to produce what is known as opium.
    • The seedpod is first incised with a multi-bladed tool.
    • This lets the opium “gum” ooze out.
    • The semi-dried “gum” is harvested with a curved spatula and then dried in open wooden boxes.
    • The dried opium resin is placed in bags or rolled into balls for sale.

    Why such a move?

    • India’s opium crop acreage has been steadily declining over the years.
    • The CPS extraction method is expected to help cut the occasional dependence on imports of products like codeine (extracted from opium) for medical uses.

    Amendments to NDPS Act

    • Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are the three traditionally opium-growing States, where poppy crop cultivation is allowed based on licences issued annually by the Central Bureau of Narcotics.
    • While roping in private players in producing CPS and extracting alkaloids from it is likely to require amendments to the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.
    • The Revenue Department has decided to appoint a consultant to help frame the bidding parameters and concession agreements for the same.

  • [pib] NanoSniffer: A Microsensor based Explosive Trace Detector

    A Union Minister has launched NanoSniffer, the world’s first Microsensor based Explosive Trace Detector (ETD) developed by NanoSniff Technologies, an IIT Bombay incubated startup.

    Can you name some explosives?

    NanoSniffer

    • NanoSniffer is a 100% Made in India product in terms of research, development & manufacturing.
    • It can detect explosives in less than 10 seconds and it also identifies and categorizes explosives into different classes. It detects all classes of military, conventional and homemade explosives.
    • It gives visible & audible alerts with a sunlight-readable colour display.
    • NanoSniffer provides trace detection of the nano-gram quantity of explosives & delivers result in seconds.
    • It can accurately detect a wide range of military, commercial and homemade explosives threats.
    • Further analysis of the algorithms also helps in the categorization of explosives into the appropriate class.

  • Maoist Attack in Sukma

    The article deals with the counterinsurgency strategies to deal with the issues of left wing extremism in India

    Threat of left-wing extremism

    • The killing of 22 security personnel by Maoists serves as a grim reminder that left-wing insurgency continues to be one of the biggest internal security threats for the country.
    • In the past few years, Maoist violence seemed to have been on a downward spiral.
    • The figures associated with the key indicators of violence like the number of incidents also support the contention that “insurgency is on the downward spiral”.
    • But the attack should thus serve as a wake-up call to those who had begun to get complacent about the Maoist threat.

    Approach in counterinsurgency strategy

    • One school believes that given the Maoist insurgency posturing itself as a “people’s war”, the mandate is for a people-centric approach of “winning hearts and minds”.
    • Others argues that an enemy-centric approach predicated on kinetic operations is best suited for the Maoist insurgency, where the fear of the population seceding from India is remote.
    • The success of the erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh in curbing the Maoist problem is often attributed to this enemy-centric approach.
    • However, there is robust scholarly work available that shows that the Andhra government based its counterintelligence strategy on a judicious mix of the enemy-centric and population-centric approaches.
    •  Andhra Pradesh had successfully implemented short-gestation-period developmental works in the Maoist-affected rural areas.
    • Moreover, the erstwhile state is also the first state to have a comprehensive surrender-cum-rehabilitation policy.
    • After the 2014 guidelines of the central government were brought out, many states have crafted attractive surrender and rehabilitation policies.
    • Another important question is whether the government should keep the option of talking to Maoists open.
    • The willingness to talk to rebel groups seems to incentivise insurgents and may demonstrate that violence pays.
    • But bringing an end to civil war invariably involves negotiating with the enemy.

    Way forward

    • Indian counterinsurgency has to work with a dual objective of defeating the insurgents militarily and fully quell the insurgent impulses.
    • This will need institutional overhauls.
    • In the last decade or so, insurgency-affected states have started to raise special forces on the lines of Greyhounds.
    • These forces are being given rigorous training in “counter-guerrilla” tactics and jungle warfare.
    •  Besides, the jungles around the interstate borders have always been the preferred hiding spaces for the Maoists.
    •  States must do more to synergise their efforts by launching coordinated operations, thereby denying Maoists any space for manoeuvrability.
    • These efforts need to be supplemented by well-crafted development schemes.
    • It is also important to segregate the population from the insurgents both operationally and ideologically.
    • The conflict over the distribution of resources can be mended with economic development.
    • But the bigger challenge would be to create a system where the tribal population feels that the government is representative, not repressive.
    • Opening negotiation channels and policies like surrender and rehabilitation can give such a representative sense to the rebels.

    Consider the question “Discuss the causes of left wing extremism in India. Suggest the way forward to deal with the issue.”

    Conclusion

    The government needs to follow these policies to end the challenge of left wing extremism from India.

  • What is Durbar Move?

    A tradition of a century and a half is set to be broken in Jammu and Kashmir, with only “sensitive records” being taken from Jammu to Srinagar this summer during the “Durbar Move”.

    Discuss the feasibility, benefits and constraints caused by multiple administrative capitals in Indian states with special context to Jammu and Kashmir and the state of Andhra Pradesh. (250W)

    Durbar Move

    • Durbar Move is a bi-annual shifting of the Civil Secretariat and other offices of the state government from Jammu to Srinagar in summer, and vice versa in winter.
    • This is done as Jammu & Kashmir has two capitals: Kashmir during summer and Jammu during winter.
    • In Jammu, offices shut on the last Friday and Saturday of April and reopen in Srinagar on the first Monday after a gap of a week.
    • In Kashmir, offices shut on the last Friday and Saturday of October, to reopen in Jammu on the first Monday after a week’s gap, in November.

    The reasons why

    • Durbar Move is a tradition started 149 years ago started by the erstwhile Dogra rulers who hailed from Jammu but had expanded their boundaries to Kashmir including what is now Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and Ladakh.
    • Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh are very different from one another geographically, linguistically and culturally, and in those days were poorly connected by road.
    • It is generally understood that the Durbar Move was started to take the administration to the doorstep of the people of Kashmir which is closer to Ladakh.
    • During summer, ruling from Kashmir also helped in ensuring adequate supplies to Ladakh, which is closer to Kashmir than Jammu, before the winter snowfall would cut off Ladakh.
    • The practice also enabled greater interaction and bonding among the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.

    The effort

    • Until 2019, the administration used to engage hundreds of trucks and buses for carrying office records and officials from one capital city to another.
    • For safe transportation, the Jammu & Kashmir police and paramilitary forces would dominate the entire Jammu-Srinagar national highway.
    • Apart from the expenses incurred on hiring trucks and buses, the moving staff also used to be paid TA and DA, besides arrangements for their accommodation.

    The criticism

    • Voices of protest started during the late 1980s, over the amount of money and time spent on the exercise.
    • However, the practice also enjoyed public support.
    • In recent years, many criticised the government for spending nearly Rs 200 crore on this exercise every year when it did not have enough funds even to pay salary to its employees.
    • Last year, the Jammu & Kashmir High Court observed that there was no legal justification or constitutional basis for the Darbar Move tradition.
    • The court recommended that in case the practice was rationalized, the resources and time saved could be utilized towards the welfare and development of the UT.
    • The money saved could also be used to address Covid-related issues like food shortage, unemployment and healthcare.

    What next?

    • The UT government has decided to switch to e-governance, will all office records converted into digital format.
    • As a result, while the Secretariat employees and some offices will move from Jammu to Srinagar, as usual, this year, only sensitive records will be shifted from one place to another.

  • Central Vigilance Commission (CVC)

    The CVC has modified the guidelines pertaining to the transfer and posting of officials in the vigilance units of government organisations, restricting their tenure to three years at one place.

    Revise all statutory and constitutional bodies from your Polity Book at least 2-3 times before the prelims.

    Central Vigilance Commission (CVC)

    • CVC is an apex governmental body created in 1964 to address governmental corruption.
    • In 2003, the Parliament enacted a law conferring statutory status on the CVC.
    • It has the status of an autonomous body, free of control from any executive authority, charged with monitoring all vigilance activity under the Central Government of India.
    • It advises various authorities in central Government organizations in planning, executing, reviewing and reforming their vigilance work.

    Its establishment

    • It was set up by the Government Resolution on 11 February 1964, on the recommendations of the Committee on Prevention of Corruption, headed by Shri K. Santhanam.
    • N Srinivasa Rau was selected as the first Chief Vigilance Commissioner of India.

    Composition

    • The Commission shall consist of:
    1. A Central Vigilance Commissioner – Chairperson;
    2. Not more than two Vigilance Commissioners – Members.
    • The CVC and other VCs shall be appointed by the President on the recommendation of a Committee consisting of the PM (Chairperson), the Minister of Home Affairs (Member) and the Leader of the Opposition in the House of the People (Lok Sabha).

  • Supreme Court Portal for Assistance in Court’s Efficiency (SUPACE)

    The Supreme Court has unveiled its Artificial Intelligence (AI) portal SUPACE, designed to make research easier for judges, thereby easing their workload.

    SUPACE

    • A pet project of the former Chief Justice of India S A Bobde, the SUPACE is a tool that collects relevant facts and laws and makes them available to a judge.
    • The Supreme Court’s system is not designed to take decisions, but only to process facts and to make them available to judges looking for input for a decision.
    • The CJI had then said that AI is to the intellect, what muscle memory is to the mind.

    Its’ utility

    • SUPACE will produce results customized to the need of the case and the way the judge thinks.
    • This will be time-saving. It will help the judiciary and the court in reducing delays and pendency of cases.
    • AI will present a more streamlined, cost-effective and time-bound means to the fundamental right of access to justice.
    • It will make the service delivery mechanism transparent and cost-efficient.

  • Muon G–2 Experiment

    The results from the Muon g-2 experiment show that fundamental particles called muons behave in a way that is not predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics.

    After genetics, AI and the blockchain, Particle Physics is making several headlines these days. This is something intuitive.

    What is Muon?

    • Fermilab, the American particle accelerator, has released first results from its “muon g-2” experiment.
    • These results spotlight the anomalous behaviour of the elementary particle called the muon.
    • The muon is a heavier cousin of the electron and is expected to have a value of 2 for its magnetic moment, labelled “g”.
    • Now, the muon is not alone in the universe.
    • It is embedded in a sea where particles are popping out and vanishing every instant due to quantum effects.
    • So, its g value is altered by its interactions with these short-lived excitations.

    Main characteristic: Anomalous magnetic moment

    • The Standard Model of particle physics calculates this correction, called the anomalous magnetic moment, very accurately.
    • The muon g-2 experiment measured the extent of the anomaly and announced that “g” deviated from the amount predicted by the Standard Model.
    • That is, while the calculated value in the Standard Model is 2.00233183620 approximately, the experimental results show a value of 2.00233184122.
    • They have measured “g” to an accuracy of about 4.2 sigma when the results are combined with those from a 20-year-old experiment.
    • This makes physicists sit up and take note, but it is not yet significant enough to constitute a discovery – for which they need a significance of 5 sigma.

    The g factor

    • The muon is also known as the fat electron.
    • It is produced copiously in the Fermilab experiments and occurs naturally in cosmic ray showers.
    • Like the electron, the muon has a magnetic moment because of which, when placed in a magnetic field, it spins and processes, or wobbles, slightly, like the axis of a spinning top.
    • Its internal magnetic moment, the g factor, determines the extent of this wobble.
    • As the muon spins, it also interacts with the surrounding environment, which consists of short-lived particles popping in and out of a vacuum.