Abstention louder than any vote
The article is about India's abstention vote in UNHRC against Sri Lanka. The author wants to show how its a bold expression and a signal in decision-making of foreign policy makers
Behind the shifts in stance
India's old policy: not voting on country-specific resolutions
2012 and 2013 : India voted against Sri Lanka
Author: This decision was a political one.
Reason: The UPA’s (then) ally, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and other parties in Tamil Nadu had claimed that if India didn’t vote for the resolutions, the State would erupt in violent protests.
But this time when India abstained from vote -- no such spontaneous reaction from the streets --> the truth behind the claims of DMK revealed.
So first shift: corrects the aberrations of the past few years and we again follow our old policy.
The next shift : India’s acknowledgement of progress in the Sri Lankan reconciliation process,
India’s permanent representative to the U.N. in Geneva, Ambassador Dilip Sinha : the elections in the Northern (Tamil) Provinces held in 2013 a “significant step forward.”
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had laid stress upon Elections in the Northern Provinces in numerous meetings with the Sri Lankan leadership, and it was important to acknowledge the outcome of that pressure. To have voted against Sri Lanka despite the elections having being held would have rendered these efforts meaningless; to have acknowledged the progress is a valid assertion of India’s regional influence.
The third shift, the decision to abstain on a resolution after having voted with the United States and the European Union in the past two years, was because of the language of the resolution itself.
The resolution seems to follow a dual principal:
1. exhorting Sri Lanka to adopt the findings of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) — (it was appointed by Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa in May 2010, to look into allegations of human rights violations by Sri Lankan forces) —
2. while at the same time ordering another inquiry into the same allegations.
The setting up of an “international inquiry mechanism” to inquire into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka during the final offensive against the LTTE is a departure from the texts of the past. For India, that holds the question of sovereignty so dear, to have supported such an “intrusive” resolution would have set another precedent.
If the LLRC is in fact “constructive” and noteworthy, according to the sponsors of the resolution, where is the need for another investigation? Instead, the resolution could have proposed punitive measures against the Sri Lanka government until it adopts and acts on the LLRC’s recommendations. In any case, strong measures like having an international inquiry are normally reserved for countries that refuse access to U.N. delegations. While U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay had many complaints about her week-long visit to Sri Lanka in August last year, she was accorded, by her own admission, access to “any place she wished to see” on what was the longest official visit by the HR High Commissioner to any country.
More about political signals
But according to author India's decision to abstain also was due t political considerations:
1. the UPA government and the Congress party didn’t have to worry about alliance partners in Tamil Nadu withdrawing support this time.
2. bolstered by the new entry of two powerful countries, Russia and China, in the composition of the UNHRC who would clearly have voted with Sri Lanka and against the West. Had India voted with the western bloc this time, it would have been an Asian exception: while countries like Japan and Indonesia abstained, others like Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan voted against the resolution.
Most notable shift: South Block is wresting back control of its decision-making authority from that domestic sphere that has ridden roughshod over several foreign policy decisions.
Points to show that External Affairs Ministry was being sidelined over past few years:
1. Diplomatic officials wanted PM to travel to Colombo for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) summit. But our PM did not go.
2. stopping the Teesta agreement with Bangladesh, dealing with China, or restarting talks at a technical level with Pakistan.
Criticism of India’s abstention vote includes this — that it would have better suited India’s stature as a regional leader of 1.3 billion people to have voted a firm ‘yes or no’ instead.
Even so, the significance of India’s vote has been lost on no one. President Rajapaksa’s decision to free all Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan custody as a sort of “goodwill return gesture” is testament to how important the shift is being seen in Colombo.
The importance can also be gauged from the fact that international human rights organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have issued statements specifically critical of India’s position.
An elusive detector for an elusive particle
India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) slated to come up near Theni district in Tamil Nadu, by 2020. According to the 12th Five Year Plan report released in October 2011, it will be built at a cost of Rs.1,323.77 crore, borne by the Departments of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Science & Technology (DST).
By 2012, these government agencies, with the help of 26 participating institutions, were able to obtain environmental clearance, and approvals from the Planning Commission and the Atomic Energy Commission. Any substantial flow of capital will happen only with Cabinet approval, which has still not been given after more than a year.
If this delay persists,
- the Indian scientific community will face greater difficulty in securing future projects involving foreign collaborators because we can’t deliver on time.
- Worse still, bright Indian minds that have ideas to test will prioritise foreign research labs over local facilities.
China : second major neutrino research laboratory — the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), to be completed at a cost of $350 million (Rs. 2,100 crore) by 2020.
Tension for India's Physicist:
Both project's date of completion is same and once ready, both INO and JUNO will pursue a common goal in fundamental physics. Should China face fewer roadblocks than India does, our neighbour could even beat us to some seminal discovery.
Seminal discovery ----> more investors, more name, more credibility
Lesson from the past:
In the 1960s, a neutrino observatory located at the Kolar Gold Fields in Karnataka became one of the world’s first experiments to observe neutrinos in the Earth’s atmosphere, produced as a by-product of cosmic rays colliding with its upper strata. However, the laboratory was shut in the 1990s because the mines were being closed.
However, Japanese physicist Masatoshi Koshiba and collaborators built on this observation with a larger neutrino detector in Japan, and went on to make a discovery that (jointly) won him the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2002. If Indian physicists had been able to keep the Kolar mines open, by now we could have been on par with Japan, which hosts the world-renowned Super-Kamiokande neutrino observatory involving more than 900 engineers.
Importance of time, credibility
In 1998, physicists from the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai, were examining a mathematical parameter of neutrinos called theta-13. As far as we know, neutrinos come in three types, and spontaneously switch from one type to another (Koshiba’s discovery).
The frequency with which they engage in this process is influenced by their masses and sources, and theta-13 is an angle that determines the nature of this connection. The IMSc team calculated that it could at most measure 12°. In 2012, the Daya Bay neutrino experiment in China found that it was 8-9°, reaffirming the IMSc results and drawing attention from physicists because the value is particularly high. In fact, INO will leverage this “largeness” to investigate the masses of the three types of neutrinos relative to each other.
For many reasons, the Reserve Bank of India’s forthcoming bi-monthly policy statement for 2014-15 will be unique. The idea to have a policy statement once in two months was mooted by the Urjit Patel Committee. The RBI is signalling acceptance of some of the recommendations, which do not involve discussion with the government. However, the core recommendations of the Committee’s report involving inflation targeting and shifting the monetary policy’s anchor to CPI (retail ) inflation, instead of WPI, will be implemented only after a consensus is reached.
More children going to private schools: NCAER
The Issue : Technology being used to abet mass production of Banarsi Saris
How: traders in varanasi take pictures using Whatsapp of designs and send it to traders in Surat.
In Surat, automated looms ‘copy’ these designs, print them on fabric and send the saris back to traders in Varanasi in large quantities.
Abundant power supply, yarn and cheap labour ensures that Surat can produce five times the volume Varanasi can and around four times cheaper.
Beneficiaries of this practice:
1. Traders and store owners who buy samples of designs from weavers in Varanasi and, using WhatsApp, order finished products of the same design from Surat at a cheaper price.
2. Customers also benefit as they can buy the intricate designs of the Banarasi sari at the cost of the inexpensive Surat fabric.
But weavers find themselves at a loss. For them, WhatsApp enables traders in Surat and Varanasi to collude to sell copies of their world-famous designs through the multimedia app. “With technology, no design is safe. Earlier, a single design would last for 3 years, now it’s hardly exclusive for more than three months,”
The United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), Sri Lanka’s ruling coalition led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, retained the country’s Western and Southern provinces after the provincial council elections held on Saturday.
Following the publication in the journal Ophthalmology last May of a ground-breaking paper that established the existence of a sixth layer in the cornea — medical science till then recognised only five corneal layers — Professor Harminder Singh Dua and his team at Nottingham University have published another paper in the British Journal of Ophthalmology last month on yet another breakthrough that will have significant implications for the understanding of glaucoma.
Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world particularly affecting women and persons of Asian origin.
The newly detected sixth corneal layer was named the Dua layer, in recognition of Dr. Dua’s work.
Two other layers, the Bowman’s layer and the Descemets membrane, already carry the names of the doctors who discovered them. The Dua layer lies in front of the Descemet’s membrane.
Corneal surgeons have hailed the isolation of the Dua Layer as a major advance that considerably improves our understanding of lamellar corneal surgery, which in turn will lead to improved safety and outcomes for patients undergoing corneal grafts.
“By retaining the innermost lining of the patient’s cornea we can almost completely avoid corneal transplant rejection. ” Dr. Dua explained.
The aqueous fluid of the eye drains out of the eye through a sieve-like structure located at the periphery of the cornea called the trabecular meshwork.
The paper in simple terms shows that the Dua Layer opens up at the periphery and extends outwards as the beams of the sieve (meshwork) through which the eye fluid drains. Damage to or hardening of the beams of the sieve reduces the flow of fluid, causing pressure to build up resulting in glaucoma.
Delhi has the worst air quality across India
The Capital has been listed as the worst performer across the country with respect to the presence of alarmingly high level of Particulate Matter up to 10 micrometer in size (PM10) concentration. This exposes residents here to a host of diseases including respiratory disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and lung cancer.
“Introduction of the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in 2004 was the last major intervention to deal with poor air quality in the Capital. Since then the regulatory and policy mechanisms in Delhi have been unable to keep up with the growth in vehicular population and construction activity in the city. These are the primary causes of poor air quality, in addition to industrial emissions.”
Understanding the co-relation between poor air quality and diseases, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare recently took the first step towards tackling the issue. “The Ministry convened a steering committee meet on health issues relating to air pollution trying to take a multi-sectoral approach. The hope is that over the course of its year-long mandate, the committee can provide a set of actionable policy options to deal with what is a burgeoning public health issue,” Mr. Krishna said.
Meanwhile according to a recently released Environmental Performance Index study, India officially has the worst air pollution beating China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. It ranks last on ambient air quality of all 170 plus countries surveyed.
