Shaping bilateral ties with exchange of young minds (mint)

Mains Paper 2: International Relations
Prelims level: Open Doors 2019 report
Mains level: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India's interests and Indian Diaspora

Context:

• Academic links between India and the US have grown exponentially since the first woman student from India arrived on a US university campus in 1883.
• The tide of Indian students going to the US started to rise in the 1960s and 1970s, but it was in the latter part of the 20th century that the numbers surged.

Highlights of the Open Doors 2019 report:

• The Open Doors 2019 report on student mobility, sponsored by the US Department of State, says the number of Indians studying in the US crossed the 200,000 mark, up 3% over the previous year.
• The number of Indian students to the US has doubled in the last 10 years.
• NAFSA: Association of International Educators, in one of its reports, advocated that international students on US campuses are its greatest foreign policy assets.
• The report highlighted the contribution of foreign students to the US economy, estimated to be about $39 billion, of which the share of Indian students was $8.1 billion in 2018-19.
• The Indian diaspora’s accomplishment is visible in several areas. CEOs of companies such as Microsoft, Adobe and Google are of Indian origin who started their journeys in the US as students.
• Presidents of several US universities like the University of Houston, University of California, San Diego, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, received their initial education in India before going to the US for higher studies.
• The American landscape is dotted with ‘success stories’ of Indian students that can be attributed to the quality of education and opportunities they received in the US.
• India, too is bracing to emerge as a destination of study for international students.
• While the draft 2019 New Education Policy stresses improving study-abroad capacity at Indian institutions as an integral component of internationalization of Indian campuses, the latest Open Doors report indicates a 15% drop in the number of US students in India.
• We are optimistic the Indian government’s recent initiatives to internationalize home-grown institutions will ignite the interest of US students and faculty to pursue India-specific studies.

Major implications of the various scholarship program:

• The Fulbright Program, which recently completed 70 years in India, has been an important initiative between the two counties not only to strengthen bilateral ties but also provide an impetus to two-way mobility.
• By providing a critical plank to support educational exchange, it has helped foster people-to-people connect over a diverse range of subjects, including the sciences, arts, food, culture, climate change and politics.
• Whether it is a veteran American flautist working with his Indian host to popularize the bansuri in the West, or a young Indian postdoctoral researcher collaborating with his American mentor to innovate solar energy technologies.
• The Fulbright Program chronicles impressive growth stories of Indian and American students and scholars who have made significant contributions to important issues relevant for both countries.

Conclusion:

• The most notable result of the educational and cultural exchange is the development of a vibrant network of citizen ambassadors who are constantly engaged in building mutual trust and understanding.

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National Infrastructure Pipeline (mint)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: National Infrastructure Pipeline
Mains level: Infrastructure projects

Context:

• The Union government has announced its plan to invest Rs 102 lakh crore in infrastructure projects across India that will be implemented between fiscal 2020 and 2025. This would be a significant increase over the last six years, when the Centre and States together spent Rs. 51 lakh crore on infrastructure.
• The new pipeline consists of 39 % projects each by the Centre and states and the balance by 22 % by private sector.
• Of the total project, capital expenditure sectors such as energy (24 %), urban (16 %), railways (13 %) and roads (19 %) are estimated to account for more than 70 % of the projected investments.

Key challenges:

• Identifying the projects to be put on the pipeline is the easy part, however, there are a few hurdles that the NIP task force needs to watch out for.
• Going by the present fiscal situation, it will be no small challenge for the Centre to raise Rs. 39 lakh crore, even if it is over the next five years, while the State’s fiscal capacity faces a crunch (more than 20 states already have a debt-GSDP ratio of above 25 per cent) to even meet already committed state expenditure.
• The Rs. 22 lakh crore expected from private investment also looks steep considering the lack of appetite for fresh investment by the private sector in the last few years. In fact, this factor has been a major drag on economic growth.
• Infra-based investments have to deal with extra-market factors involving delays in land acquisition processes, enforcement of contracts and delay in court-case resolutions and they take years, sometimes decades, to be actualised.
• This is precisely why many major banks, even in case of credible borrowers, remain cautious with long-term supply of loans. If not managed well, a private public working model may accentuate some of these worries, exacerbate debt ridden projects and crowd-out investments from private players.

Way ahead:

• A critical step in addressing dwindling private sector participation in infrastructure can be
  institutionalising dispute resolution mechanism to efficiently resolve disputes related to PPP projects.
• Investments must be made in the institutions created under the Commercial Courts Act 2015, the Specific Relief (Amendment) Act 2018 and the New Delhi Arbitration Centre Act 2019 for speedy resolution.
• The task force has suggested contract enforcement and asset monetisation among other reforms for achieving infra investment targets.
• Asset monetisation can be undertaken through sale of land, non-operational assets through long-term lease with significant upfront lease payment, toll-operate-transfer (TOT) model for operational road assets, infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs), sale of portfolio of assets to strategic/financial investors and loan asset monetisation through securitisation and value capture financing (VCF).
• All this will come to naught if there is no review mechanism, hence, a periodic review is paramount if this is not to degenerate into a mere collation and listing of projects.

Conclusion:

• While there are genuine obstacles that the task force needs to manage, these should not detract from the need for a concerted effort to invest in infrastructure.
• A well-planned NIP will enable more infra projects, grow businesses, create jobs, improve ease of living, and provide equitable access to infrastructure for all, making growth more inclusive and have a strong multiplier effect in giving a much-needed boost to the economy.

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Artificial Intelligence: Challenges and Opportunities for India

Introduction:

• Artificial Intelligence can be described as a system’s ability to learn and interpret external data via software/algorithms or machines/devices for problem solving by performing specific roles and tasks currently executed by humans.
• The term AI has been used interchangeably with other closely related terms such as expert systems, decision-support system, knowledge-based systems, machine learning, natural language processing, neural networks, pattern recognition, recommender systems and text mining.

Background:

• Although the origin of the term AI can be traced back to early 1950s, the relatively recent advancement in information technology (such as big data, improved computing, storage capability and super-fast speed of data processing machines) and robotics has enabled AI to gain significant momentum in terms of its development, application and use within public and private sector organizations.
• The recent developments in AI offer the potential for significant opportunities for industry, governments and society, but there are many challenges and subsequent risks as Al-based systems are adopted for an ever increasing range of tasks and duties. In this article, we aim to briefly outline the opportunities and challenges, particularly focusing on elements of policy that could act as a major roadblock for development and further diffusion of AI-based systems.

Opportunities and Applications:

• A multitude of opportunities have been presented for the application and use of Al-based systems in various domains particularly to assist where structured decision making is needed.
• The ability of AI to the computationally intensive, intellectual and perhaps creative limitations of humans opens up new application domains within manufacturing, law, medicine, healthcare, education, government, agriculture, marketing, sales, finance, operations and supply chain management, public service delivery and cyber security.
• Within the education sector, AI can be deployed to improve teacher effectiveness and student engagement by offering capabilities such as intelligent game-based learning environments, tutoring systems and intelligent narrative technologies. Schmelzer suggested that AI can impact education in three ways.
• Firstly, Al-enabled hyper-personalisation helps in developing student specific learning profiles and in developing customised learning environments based on ability, preferred mode of learning and experience.
• Secondly, the use of smart assistants (Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple Siri, and Microsoft Cortana) and associated technologies offer significant potential to help students. Universities are already using voice assistants to help answer common questions about campus, student schedules and courses.
• Thirdly, AI systems can assist educators with secondary tasks such as grading activities, providing personalised responses to students, handling routine and repetitive paperwork and dealing with logistics-related matters. Al-based analytics can help with academic research within various disciplines and potentially transform library processes and staffing requirements with aim to provide a richer user experience.
• AI technology can be used within several other sectors for enhancing both efficiency and effectiveness. Specifically, AI can help in achieving good health and well-being goals within rural and remote areas in developing countries where access to medical care is limited. In such scenarios, Al-based systems can be utilised for conducting remote diagnosis supporting doctors to help improve health service delivery.
• Al-based systems can also help achieve the “Zero Poverty and Zero Hunger” (SDG 2) by assisting in resource allocation for predicting adverse environmental conditions, diagnose crop diseases and identify pests in a timely manner to mitigate the risk of catastrophic agricultural events. Similarly, Al-based systems can be used to predict energy and utility demand to help in achieving SDGs such as “Clean water, sanitation” and “Affordable clean energy”.

Application of AI in India:

• Within the Indian context, a number of key indicators from health, education and agriculture sectors are important to highlight as AI is further adopted. India has 0.8 per thousand doctor-to-patient ratio (UK: 2.8, Australia: 5, China: approximately 4). This low ratio implies a heavy workload on Indian doctors. In India, doctors spend just 2 minutes per patient, whereas in the US it is close to 20 minutes. AI could be a valuable assistive tool for doctors in helping reduce their workload and assisting in diagnosis.
• Al-assisted diagnostics can provide access to quality healthcare for people in remote areas. The per hectare cereal productivity in India is almost half that of China and UK (3000 kg/ha vs. over 6000 kg/ha). There is a significant loss of productivity due to pests and diseases.
• The Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency has partnered with Anna University to launch a Tamil smart assistant called `Anil”. This NLP-based smart assistant provides a step-by-step guide to people in helping them apply online for scores of critical government services. The Tamil Nadu Government has been one of the pioneers in using AI for public service delivery.
• The agency has recently launched an Al-based agricultural pest and disease identification system and made it available to over half a million farmer families through a mobile app. The farmer clicks an image of diseased crop or a pest and the system processes the image through an AI algorithm to identify the pest or disease and sends a message to the farmer advising the remedial measure. This system is gaining a good field response in which nearly 400 fanners are posting identification requests and getting answers every day.
• The Tamil Nadu Government is implementing an innovative use of AI through face recognition for recording attendance. The system is saving more than 45 minutes per day and is freeing up extra time for core educational activities in schools. Within healthcare, AI solutions such as radiographic diagnostics like “detection of internal bleeding in the brain from CT scans” are being tried to assist doctors and increase their reach to serve remote areas of India.

Challenges and Shortcomings:

• There exists a number of challenges and limitations of successfully implementing and utilising AI in both public and private sector organisations. Some of the key challenges are briefly outlined here.

Lack of explain ability:

• Generally AI operates effectively as a black-box-based system that does not transparently provide the reasoning behind a particular decision, classification or forecast made by the systems. This is a major limitation of this technology as it has direct impact on transparency, hence trust and confidence of using decisions made.

Lack of contextual awareness and inability to learn:

• Al-based systems are good at performing with given parameters and rules. However, they still have major limitations in terms of making decisions where context plays a critical role. Unlike humans, Al-based systems cannot learn from their environment. This limits the application of AI to specific types of domains.

Lack of standardization:

• Al-based systems that may have utilised different types of technologies/techniques are increasingly being embedded in a variety of products and services (for example, smart assistants, modules for enterprise products, widely available cloud libraries and bespoke data science-driven applications).
• This poses a critical question: how can the inferences delivered by different AI components be integrated coherently when they may be based on different data and subject to different ecosystem conventions (and the associated quality differences)? Furthermore, organisations face challenges on how to ensure AI and human work together successfully.

Job losses:

• Increasing automation will lead to significant job losses particularly at operational and lower skill levels for repetitive tasks. This critical consequence of AI Use will continue to impact all sectors and countries across the world but particularly developing economies where employment opportunities are already limited.
• This emphasizes the need for strategic management of AI transition requiring organizations' to carefully consider a number of major challenges: how to select tasks for automation; how to select the level of automation for each task; how to manage the impact of Al-enabled automation on human performance and how to manage Al-enabled automation errors.

Lack of competency and need for re-skilling and up-skilling workers:

• A large number of organisations still lack in-house competency to successfully develop and implement Al-based systems. In such a scenario, organisations utilise specialised consultancy firms which can be very resource intensive.
• But this restricts organisations having limited resources in using such systems. Similarly, using or working with Al-based systems requires workers to be equipped with a new and advanced set of skills, which is a challenge for government, organisations and individuals.

Lack of trust and resistance to change:

• Due to the above mentioned issues and negative media coverage on the consequences of AI, people are generally apprehensive about its implementation. This poses a major challenge on how to establish trust among workers and stakeholders in the management of resistance to change in adopting AI systems.
• Public policy is facing unprecedented uncertainty and challenges in this dynamic world of AI. The velocity and scale of impact of AI is so high that it creates an interesting dynamics in terms of the need to predict its impact and inability to draw boundaries. We have identified six key public policy challenges of AI.

Ethics:

• Ethics for machines has been an area of immense interest for the researchers. However, defining has proven to be problematic and difficult to make it computable.
• To tackle this, we need to deal with ethics purely from an AI perspective. There are two dimensions of ethics in AI:

1. Privacy and data protection and
2. Human and environmental values.

(i) Privacy and Data Protection:

• Privacy is possibly the top-most concern while using AI systems. Users’ sensitive and highly granular data is likely to be stored and shared across the AI network (for example, a person’s location for the day based on face recognition and CCTV feeds, food habits, shopping preferences, movies, music etc.).

(ii) Human and Environmental Values:

• Any AI system has to conform to the human value system and the policymakers need to ask: Has the AI system been sensitised to human values such as respect, dignity, kindness, compassion, equity or not? Does the system know that it has a preferential duty towards children, elderly, pregnant women, sick and the vulnerable? An important aspect which needs to be built into AI systems is the overall cost of their decisions on the society.

Transparency and Audit:

• In the future, many of the Al-based systems could be interacting with humans in fields such as finance, education, healthcare, transportation and elderly care. The technology providers must explain the decision-making process to the user so that the AI system doesn’t remain a black box.
• There exists a legal need to explain the decision taken by such systems in case of litigation. These AI systems must provide an audit trail of decisions made not only to meet the legal needs but also for us to leam and make improvements over past decisions.

Digital Divide and Data Deficit:

• Since the entire AI revolution has data at its foundation, there is a real danger of societies being left behind. Countries and governments having good quality granular data are likely to derive maximum benefit out of this disruption. Countries where the data is of poor quality or of poor granularity would be left behind in harnessing the power of AI to improve lives of its citizens adversely affecting low-resource communities.
• AD can disrupt social order and hierarchy creating new social paradigms, which could damage the social fabric exposing people lower in the bargaining hierarchy with a real threat of exploitation and unfair treatment.
• This could lead to commoditization of human labour and chip away human dignity. An AI system designed with equity as a priority would ensure that no one gets left behind in this world. Another key need for autonomous systems is fairness. They must not exhibit any gender or racial bias and they must be designed to stay away from ‘social profiling’ (especially in law enforcement, fraud detection and crime prevention areas). The recent reports questioning the neutrality of AI systems used by police to identify crime-prone individuals has brought this issue out in sharp focus.

Accountability and Legal Issues:

• Without AI, any system designed by a human is only a machine under the control of the operator. Therefore, accountability has not been an issue.
• Almost all civil and criminal liability laws of the world fairly unanimously attribute accountability to the operator, owner and manufacturer of the machine in varying degrees depending upon the facts of the ease. However, once machines are equipped with AI and take autonomous decisions, the question of accountability becomes very hard to answer, more so when the algorithms are unknown to the designer.

Misuse Protection:

• This possibly is the toughest of all six questions. How do we insulate every new technology to prevent it from being twisted for achieving destructive goals?
• An ease in point - how internet proliferated across the globe benefitting billions but also carried along with it a wave of cybercrime, malware, viruses and violent online games which resulted in loss of innocent lives of teens around the world. Autonomous AI systems must be designed for misuse protection. It cannot be an afterthought.

Conclusion:

• AI as a technology holds tremendous potential for a country like India, which is data rich and has the requisite technological capability to create AI solutions for many of its problems. States like Tamil Nadu have already started deploying AI systems at scale for addressing sonic of the key challenges in health, education and agriculture sectors.
• Public roll-out of AI systems needs to address issues of ethics, transparency, audit, fairness, equity, accountability and misuse prevention. An effective public policy framework for AI along with a practical scorecard would be needed to make this AI revolution work towards an equitable prosperity.

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Leadership in Science: Need to Challenge Existing Assumptions

Introduction:

• An ability to question basic assumptions in any situation is fostered by probing the frontiers of science, whatever field one may be engaged in, whether it is Biology, Genetics, Atomic Science or Space Research.
• It is this ability rather than an ‘empirical hit-and-miss approach which proves most effective in tackling the day-to-day problems of the world. It follows from this that for its nationals to do front-rank research within, the resources which are available.
• It is equally necessary; having produced the men who can do research, to organise task-oriented projects for the nation’s practical problems.

Inevitable consequences of modern technology:

• One of the inevitable consequences of the introduction of modern technology is a gradual erosion of existing values-a drift towards a man centred world substituting another in which man is only one element in all of nature.
• Hinduism has a substratum of philosophy which is fascinating to the modem scientist. The life of the common man reflects many of the values related to this philosophy, unconsciously imbibed through literature, the arts and social traditions. We recognise that perception involves the outside object as well as the observer. We appreciate the subjective character of personal experience. We accept that there are a thousand paths to enlightenment.
• In relativity we learn of the importance of the frame of reference of the observer and how the results of observation depend on the relative state of his frame with respect to that which he observes.' Absolute right and wrong do not exist in the ’values of those who have understood the Upanishads or those who have followed the concepts of relativity.

Science and National Sovereignty:

• Concerning science and human values - by tiding an example which is related to the implications of science and technology to modem warfare and how these affect national sovereignty.
• As soon, as hydrogen bombs could be delivered with inter-continental ballistic missiles capable of hitting a target to an accuracy of a few miles at a distance of six to eight thousand miles, the implications of a war between adversaries possessing such weapons were too grave for anyone to contemplate armed conflict as a means of solving international disputes. If coexistence between nations formed a part of the “Panchsheel '' adopted by Asians from Buddhism, it was also advocated by Premier Khrushchev from an appraisal of the consequences of the balance of terror that exists between the East and the West.
• At all times social change has been related to technological developments and in each era new constraints, social and political, are imposed on those who partake of the change. Just as an. Individual who chooses to live in a community voluntarily renounces the right of throwing a stone anywhere he pleases, which he undoubtedly could exercise in the jungle, so in the atomic age, nations are forced to accept a self-discipline where the freedom of settling disputes through the use of' force on a grand scale is no longer meaningful.

Application to Real Problems:

• To create conditions for the application of science and scientists to the real problems of society, we have to encourage scientists to interest themselves in problems outside their fields of specialization. Sure enough, one does not expect to give to the opinion of a scientist special weight in fields other than his own.
• But a person who has imbibed the ways of science injects into a situation a new way of looking at it, hopefully perhaps, a degree of enlightenment with regard to the approach to problems and thus provides leadership which is very valuable.

Way forward:

• Moreover, we can secure acceptance of the notion that such task oriented activity, seriously undertaken and with a well-defined objective to be realised in a given period, should receive financial reward which will ameliorate the total situation in least one important aspect.
• Leadership in science may then arise out of a new climate for growth.

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(The Gist of Science Reporter) Discovery of New Property of Light

Discovery of New Property of Light

• Researchers from several institutes of Spain and the US have discovered a new property of light.
• Interestingly, the scientists found that light can also be twisted, a property called angular momentum which has highly structured angular momentum known as Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM).
• In These types of beams, mini waves rotate around the centre of the beam in the form of the helix giving it the shape of a doughnut.
• The researchers combined pairs of waves with the same orbital angular momentum and fired them into a cloud of argon gas from where a single twisted croissant-shaped light emerged.
• The researchers finally concluded that there is a force named self-torque responsible for twisting the light as well as altering the speed at which light waves twist. The study was published in Science.

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(The Gist of Science Reporter) Kilogram Redefined

Kilogram Redefined

• Based on a historic decision at the General Conference on Weights and Measures in Versailles, France, organised by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), all the SI units would now be defined in terms of constants that describe the natural world. Four fundamental units — Kilogram , Kelvin , Mole & Ampere — have undergone a change which came into force worldwide on the World Metrology Day celebrated on 20 May 2019.

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(The Gist of Science Reporter) World’s First Living Creature with Fully Synthetic DN

World’s First Living Creature with Fully Synthetic DNA

• For the first time, scientists at Cambridge University artificially recreated Escherichia coli which has entirely synthetic and radically altered DNA code.
• The purpose of using the method is to better define the minimum set of genes required for a free living cell.
• Before creating a synthetic version of E.coli DNA, scientists read & redesigned the DNA of E.coli and then created a microbe named Syn61 made of synthetic and highly modified DNA.
• The bacterium is slightly longer as compared to its natural counterpart and takes longer to grow and survive. The study was published in Nature.

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(The Gist of Science Reporter) New Type of Skin-cell Coordinates Tail Regeneration

New Type of Skin-cell Coordinates Tail Regeneration

• A team of scientists from Cambridge University found a specialised population of new type of skin-cells responsible for tail regeneration in tadpoles.
• These Regeneration Organizing Cells (ROC) provide an opportunity to understand how this ability can be achieved in mammalian tissues also.
• Using single-cell genomics, the scientists of Cambridge University tried to unveil how this regeneration of tail happens in different tadpole cells.
• The study was published in Science.

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(The Gist of Science Reporter) Great White Shark’s Genome Decoded

Great White Shark’s Genome Decoded

• Researchers from Nova Southeastern University’s (NSU) Save our Seas Foundation, Shark Research Centre and Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI), Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, and Monterey Bay Aquarium, decoded the white shark genome and compared it with genomes of other vertebrates, including the giant whale shark and humans.
• Decoding the white shark’s genome showed not only its huge size i.e., 1.5 times the size of the human genome, but also a plethora of genetic changes which led to the evolutionary success of these sharks.
• This research has potential applications in the field of health and disease prevention.
• The findings are reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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(The Gist of Science Reporter) New Sensory Organ Discovered

New Sensory Organ Discovered

• Researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have discovered a new sensation organ in skin which is sensitive to the risky environmental irritation and capable of detecting painful mechanical damage.
• The newly found organ comprises glia cells which have multiple long protrusions and collectively make a mesh-like organ within the skin.
• The study was published in Science.

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(The Gist of PIB) Lt Gen M.M. Naravane appointed as Chief of Army Staff

Lt Gen M.M. Naravane appointed as Chief of Army Staff

• Government has decided to appoint Lt Gen Manoj Mukund Naravane, as the next Chief of the Army Staff after the retirement of General Bipin Rawat on December 31, 2019.

Key highlights:

• Lt Gen Naravane will take over as Chief of the Army Staff in the substantive rank of General with effect from December 31, 2019.
• The Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) is the professional head, commander, and the highest-ranking military officer of the Indian Army. The position is always held by a full general.
• Appointments to the office are made by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC).
• The COAS reaches superannuation upon three years in the office or at the age of 62, whichever is earlier.

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(The Gist of Science Reporter) First Smartphone App to Detect Ear Infection

First Smartphone App to Detect Ear Infection

• Scientists at Washington University have developed the first Smartphone App that can detect ear infection in children by detecting the fluid behind the eardrum.
• With the help of a piece of paper, the Smartphone’s microphone and speaker, the fluid can easily be detected with the probability of 85%.
• The ear infections can then be treated with proper medication and monitoring once the problem is diagnosed.
• The study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

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(The Gist of Science Reporter) World’s First-ever 3-D Heart

World’s First-ever 3-D Heart

• A team of scientists from the Tel Aviv University, Israel, has printed the world’s first 3-D heart made from a human patient’s tissue. Its size is similar to a rabbit’s heart.
• This is the first successfully engineered and printed human heart filled with cells, blood vessels, ventricles and chambers.
• The technology has the potential to reduce dependency on organ donation.
• The study was published in the journal Advanced Science.

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(The Gist of Science Reporter) International Environment Conferences 2019

International Environment Conferences 2019

1. Climate Action Summit:

• At the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi addressed the United Nations Climate Action Summit and the Universal Health Coverage Meeting, held in New York on 23 September 2019.
• Leadership Group: India and Sweden together with other countries, announced a new ‘Leadership Group for Industry Transition’ to help guide the world’s heaviest greenhouse gas emitting industries towards a low-carbon economy.
• Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI): PM announced global Coalition for CDRI, an international partnership that will support both developed and developing countries to build climate and disaster-resilient infrastructure. The coalition’s secretariat is based in Delhi.
• PM called for a “Global People’s Movement” to bring about behavioural change to deal with climate change and made a pledge to more than double India’s non-fossil fuel target to 400 gigawatts.

2. United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD): COP 14

• For the first time ever, India hosted the 14th session of the conference of Parties (COP 14) of the UNCCD, held at India Expo Mart Limited, Greater Noida from 2 to 13 September 2019.
• The theme of the Conference was “Restore land, Sustain future”.
• The Conference adopted the Delhi Declaration in which parties expressed commitment for a range of issues, including gender and health, ecosystem restoration, taking action on climate change, private sector engagement, Peace Forest Initiative and recovery of five million hectares of degraded land in India.
• India, the global host for COP 14, has taken over the COP Presidency from China for the next two years until the next COP is hosted in 2021.

3. International Conference on Augmenting Nature

• An International Conference on Augmenting Nature by Green Affordable New-Habitat (ANGAN) was held from 9 to 11 September 2019 in New Delhi.
• The conference focused primarily on achieving Energy Efficiency in the building sector. It was organised by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), Ministry of Power in collaboration with GIZ under the INDO German Technical Cooperation Initiative.

4. BRS Conventions COP in Geneva

• The 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention (BC COP 14), the 9th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Rotterdam Convention (RC COP 9), and the 9th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention (SC COP 9) held from 29 April to 10 May 2019, in Geneva.
• The theme of the meeting was “Clean Planet, Healthy People: Sound Management of Chemicals and waste”.

5. Basel Convention in Geneva

• The 14th meeting of the Basel Convention, which laid down guidelines on the movement of hazardous waste, concluded in Geneva on 10 May 2019.
• A key outcome of the meeting was an amendment to the Convention that includes plastic waste in a legally-binding framework, which would make global trade in plastic waste more transparent and better regulated, whilst also ensuring that its management is safer for human health and the environment. However, it does not bar countries from exporting various categories of plastic waste.

6. International Stocktaking Conference on Tiger Conservation

• The 3rd International Stocktaking Conference on Tiger Conservation, relating to the Global Tiger Recovery Program (GTRP) implementation was held in New Delhi on 28 January 2019.
• The conference was hosted by the National Tiger Conservation Authority, Ministry of Environment, forest and Climate Change in close collaboration with the Global Tiger Forum.

7. COP 24

• The 24th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 24) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was concluded in Katowice, Poland.
• The conference finalised a rulebook for implementation of the Paris Agreement termed as “Katowice rule”. The Paris climate pact will come into effect in 2020 and will replace the existing Kyoto Protocol.
• The 25th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 25) will be held in Chile.

8. BASIC Meeting on Climate Change

• The BASIC countries held their 28th ministerial meeting on Climate Change from 14 to 16August 2019 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
• The BASIC Ministers urged developed countries to fulfil their climate finance commitments of mobilizing USD 100 billion annually by 2020 for developing countries in a transparent manner and on a grant basis.
• The BASIC group was formed as the result of an agreement signed by the four countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) on 28 November2009.

9. World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS), 2019

• The three-day World Sustainable Development Summit 2019 was inaugurated by the Vice President of India in New Delhi from 11-13 February 2019. The theme of the summit was “Attaining the 2030 Agenda: Delivering on our Promise”.
• The WSDS is the annual flagship event of the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).

10. UN Environment Assembly

• The 4th session of the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-4) took place in Nairobi, Kenya. The theme of UNEA-4 was “Innovative Solutions for Environmental Challenges and Sustainable Consumption and Production”.
• Nations unanimously agreed to significantly cut down on single-use plastic products like cups, cutlery and bags by 2030.
• Along with the summit, the United Nation Environment Program has also launched the Global Environment Outlook Report.

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(The Gist of Science Reporter) First-ever Successful Mind Controlled Robotic Arm

First-ever Successful Mind Controlled Robotic Arm

• A group of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in collaboration with the University of Minnesota has made a major breakthrough in the area of non-invasive robotic device control with the first-ever successful mind-controlled robotic arm non-invasive Brain-computer Interface (BCI) capable of tracking and following a computer cursor.
• The established framework addresses and improves upon the “brain” and “computer” components of BCI by enhancing the user engagement and training, and also by the spatial resolution of non-invasive neural data through EEG source imaging.
• The paper was published in Science Robotics.

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(The Gist of Science Reporter) Fedor — Humanoid Robot in Space

Fedor — Humanoid Robot in Space

• Russia’s first humanoid life-sized robot “Fedor (Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research) or Skybot F850” was launched for a two-week mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on 22 August 2019.
• Fedor was sent in an uncrewed spacecraft (Soyuz MS-14) for use in operations that are risky for onboard humans.
• The size of the robot is 1.80 metres tall and 160 kg in weight and it mimics human body movements.
• The robot has its own Twitter and Instagram account on which it can upload every activity.

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(The Gist of PIB) Rohne and Rabodih Coal Mines

Rohne and Rabodih Coal Mines

• The Ministry of Coal has allotted two Coking Coal mines, Rohne and Rabodih located in Jharkhand, to the Steel Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE’s).

Key highlights:

• Allocated under the Coal Mines (Special Provision) Act, 2015, these mines located in Jharkhand will add about more than 10 MT per annum and boost the coking coal production in the country.
• The ‘Rohne’ Coal Mine has been allotted to National Mineral Development Corporation Limited.
• The ‘Robodih OCP’ coal mine has been allotted to Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited.
• This allotment is in addition to 5 coal mines which have been allocated to successful bidders and 6 coal mines which have allotted to PSU’s. In all, the 13 mines will add more than 35 MT per annum coal to the domestic availability of coal.

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(The Gist of PIB) Global Sulphur cap compliant fuel oil

Global Sulphur cap compliant fuel oil

• Minister of State for Shipping (I/C) and Chemical and Fertilizers informed that the Government has taken many steps to clear the uncertainty of the Shipping industry arising out of impending IMO regulations to reduce the level of sulphur oxide emissions from ship’s exhaust from January, 2020.

Key highlights about the steps:

• The Directorate General of Shipping issued Engineering Circular 02 of 2019 (Compliance with the provisions of MARPOL Annex VI. Regulation 14) on 29th August 2019, which provides guidance to stakeholders on the following aspects, for a consistent and smooth implementation towards compliance with the Global Sulphur Cap {0.5% mass/mass max.} effective from 1st January 2020.
• Preparation of a ship implementation plan, to mitigate risk which may arise due to quality of fuel oil supplied at various parts of the world.
• Procedure for issuance of International Air Pollution Prevention (IAPP) certificate by Recognized Organizations.
• Procedure for acceptance of alternative arrangement such as fitment of Scrubbers to meet the regulatory requirements.
• Inspection methodology to be followed by the Indian Port State Control Officers.
• Guidance to approved Bunker suppliers regarding regulatory changes in Bunker receipts and maintenance of quality of supply chain.
• Web-link for assessing list of approved Bunker suppliers.
• A centralized help desk at the Directorate General of shipping to help Owners/Managers facing issues related to non-availability of compliant fuel at foreign ports or breakdown of alternative means of compliance (Scrubbers).

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(The Gist of PIB) Centre of Excellence for Next Generation Transportation Systems

Centre of Excellence for Next Generation Transportation Systems

• The National Rail Transport Institute (NRTI) has signed an MoU with the University of Birmingham to set up its first Centre of Excellence for Next Generation Transportation Systems.

Key highlights:

• This Centre will be involved in promoting development of the Rail and Transportation sector in India which include training programmes for in-service professionals and undertaking joint research projects in areas such as signalling, communication, asset maintenance etc.
• Indian Railways is a founding partner of this centre.

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(The Gist of PIB) MDRs in Madhya Pradesh

MDRs in Madhya Pradesh

• The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of India signed a $490 million loan for public-private partnership (PPP) project to upgrade about 1,600 km of state highways and major district roads (MDRs) in Madhya Pradesh.

Key highlights:

• The project will upgrade 750 km of state highways and 850 km of MDRs to two-lane and all-weather standards with road safety features.
• This will open a new partnership by introducing PPP through the hybrid-annuity model (HAM), thereby leveraging government financing and improving sustainability of capital investments.
• ADB was established in 1966. It is owned by 68 members 49 from the region.

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