Railways installing solar fences to save elephants
MILAN to be held in Vizag from Feb. 25
NASA’s plan to decommission the International Space Station
9,000-year-old shrine found in Jordan
A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists said Tuesday that it had found a roughly 9,000-year-old shrine at a remote Neolithic site in Jordan’s eastern desert.
The ritual complex was found in a Neolithic campsite near large structures known as “desert kites, or mass traps that are believed to have been used to corral wild gazelles for slaughter.
Such traps consist of two or more long stone walls converging toward an enclosure and are found scattered across the deserts of the Middle East.
“The site is unique, first because of its preservation state, said Jordanian archaeologist Wael Abu-Azziza, co-director of the project. “Its 9,000 years old and everything was almost intact.”
Within the shrine were two carved standing stones bearing anthropomorphic figures, one accompanied by a representation of the “desert kite,” as well as an altar, hearth, marine shells and miniature model of the gazelle trap.
The researchers said in a statement that the shrine “sheds an entire new light on the symbolism, artistic expression as well as spiritual culture of these hitherto unknown Neolithic populations.”
The proximity of the site to the traps suggests the inhabitants were specialized hunters and that the traps were “the center of their cultural, economic and even symbolic life in this marginal zone, the statement said.
The team included archaeologists from Jordan’s Al Hussein Bin Talal University and the French Institute of the Near East. The site was excavated during the most recent digging season in 2021.
Indian stand ‘balanced, independent’, says Russia
Welcoming India’s ‘independent’ stand at the Security Council on its moves on eastern Ukraine, Russia’s acting Ambassador said the new sanctions imposed on Russia would not affect delivery of the S-400 missile system and other defence equipment India has purchased.
He also stressed that the ongoing visit by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to Moscow would in no way affect ties between India and Russia, adding that the Pakistan-Russia partnership does not envisage a defence relationship at present, and Russia stands firm on its policy that Kashmir is a bilateral dispute.
A day after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the recognition of two eastern Ukrainian enclaves of Donetsk and Luhansk, the diplomat set out the Russian position behind the move that has sparked outrage worldwide, and attracted punitive financial sanctions and severe condemnation from the U.S., the European Union, the U.K., Japan and Australia.
At the Security Council, U.N. Permanent Representative T.S. Tirumurti had said India has “deep concerns” about the developments in the region, stopping short of criticising Russian actions.
“Russia welcomes the Indian position expressed several times in this regard [Ukraine] because India is acting according to its status of a global power and takes a balanced and independent position,” said Roman Babushkin, Charge d’Affaires at the Russian Embassy in Delhi. He said the two countries had discussed the situation at various bilateral and multilateral levels, including at the U.N., and that “Indian partners are well aware and clearly understand why this [Mr. Putin’s announcement] happened. Mr. Babushkin even suggested that, in time, Russia hopes that its friends and partners “including India” would also recognise the “new republics” of Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic.
According to the Russian diplomat, U.S.’s new financial sanctions, in addition to previous sanctions like the CAATSA law, would have no bearing on the $5–billion S-400 missile system agreement, which is being delivered to India. “The project is being implemented according to our agreements and timelines discussed, and sanctions would not affect this.”
Old pension scheme back in Rajasthan
Presenting a populist budget ahead of the 2023 State Assembly election, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday announced restoration of the old pension scheme for the government employees who joined the service on or after January 1, 2004. No new taxes were levied in the budget in view of the pandemic’s impact on all sectors of economic activities.
Mr. Gehlot said the National Pension Scheme (NPS), introduced in 2004, had led to apprehensions among the employees about their security in old age. “Bringing back the old scheme is a historic decision. The then Union government might have brought the NPS for some strong reasons, but we need to consider it again,” he said.
Mr. Gehlot said the National Pension Scheme (NPS), introduced in 2004, had led to apprehensions among the employees about their security in old age. “Bringing back the old scheme is a historic decision. The then Union government might have brought the NPS for some strong reasons, but we need to consider it again,” he said.
The Chief Minister also rolled back a decision of the previous BJP regime in 2017 to cut the salaries of employees, which had created a
The Chief Minister also rolled back a decision of the previous BJP regime in 2017 to cut the salaries of employees, which had created a discrepancy in the assured career progression. The budgetary announcement for restoration of the next grade pay system will put an annual burden of ?1,000 crore on the State government from 2022-23.
In his three-hour-long speech, Mr. Gehlot announced new measures for welfare of different sections of society with the focus on health, education, infrastructure, social security and tourism. He also presented the first-ever agriculture budget separately, with a provision of ?5,000 crore for Krishak Sathi Yojana and adoption of mission mode for 11 thematic areas.
The budget proposed an increase in the health cover under the ambitious Chiranjeevi Health Insurance Scheme from ?5 lakh to ?10 lakh per year per family and free-of-cost IPD and OPD services in the government health facilities. The State government will also spend ?4,500 crore on giving power tariff subsidy to the consumers in different slabs.
The Indira Gandhi Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme will be launched to provide 100 days of employment on lines of the rural employment guarantee scheme with a budget outlay of ?800 crore, while the work for 125 days instead of the earlier 100 days will be provided under the latter.
A Right to Service Guarantee and Accountability Bill will also be brought shortly in the State, for which the civil rights groups have been agitating since long.
Mr. Gehlot proposed to conduct the Rajasthan Eligibility Examination for Teachers (REET) in July following its recent cancellation because of a controversy over the leak of its question paper. An anti-cheating cell would be set up in the Special Operations Group (SOG) of Rajasthan police, Mr. Gehlot said.
Reacting to the budget, BJP State president Satish Poonia said though several announcements were made in the health and education sectors, there were no sincere efforts to develop their infrastructure. “It is difficult to understand what will be the financial source of budgetary provisions. The government claims that its manifesto promises and previous budgetary announcements have been fulfilled, but the situation on the ground is different,” he said.
Drafting a new Constitution is impossible
Recently, the Chief Minister of Telangana said India needs a new Constitution, as, according to him, governments at the Centre over the years have been suppressing the powers of the States. Being a citizen and a constitutional head of state, he was not wrong in exercising his fundamental right to express his views freely. Nor was what he said wrong: Central governments have indeed been suppressing the powers of the States in various ways. The Supreme Court, in judgments such as S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994) and Govt. Of NCT of Delhi v. Union of India (2018), has castigated governments at the Centre for this.
But the question is, can the people of India give themselves a new Constitution? Noted jurist Fali S. Nariman, in a lecture titled ‘The Silences in Our Constitutional Law’, delivered in 2005, rightly said, “We will never be able to piece together a new Constitution in the present day and age even if we tried: because innovative ideas — however brilliant, howsoever beautifully expressed in consultation papers and reports of commissions — cannot give us a better Constitution.
In Constitution-making there are other forces that cannot and must never be ignored — the spirit of persuasion, of accommodation and of tolerance — all three are at a very low ebb today”. We can add a few more forces which cannot be ignored today, such as casteism, nepotism and corruption.
Nation first
This article highlights a few events that took place while India’s Constitution was drafted to argue how these events may never take place in the present scenario. The first is the appointment of B.R. Ambedkar as chairman of the Drafting Committee. Granville Austin, in his book The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation, wrote that Ambedkar was originally elected to the Assembly as a member from Bengal, but lost his seat during Partition.
He was subsequently elected from the Bombay Presidency at the behest of the Congress high command. This shows that the biggest party then had an accommodative spirit, which seems lacking today. Ambedkar was fighting to ensure rights for the depressed classes and, in his own words, he came to the Assembly to “safeguard the interests of the Scheduled Castes”. But he was trusted for his passion and talent and elected chairman of the Drafting Committee by the Constituent Assembly, which was dominated by the Congress. The result is the Constitution we see today, which safeguards the rights of majority and minority communities. Today, when caste and nepotism play a pivotal role in electing even a ward member, consensus over a new Constitution would be impossible.
It took two years, 11 months and 18 days to draft the present Constitution. During this period, the members read the constitutions of other nations, consulted constitutional experts, drafted the Constitution, debated it, redrafted it and approved it. During Constituent Assembly debates, if five minutes were wasted one day, the House would assemble five minutes earlier the next day and sit until night to complete pending work. This showed value for time, and value for work done for the nation. Now, all we see is ruckus and noise in Parliament, with little debate or discussion taking place on Bills. During Constituent Assembly debates, dissenters and hard-core critics were tolerated and their suggestions, if found apt, were accommodated. If their suggestions were not found apt, there would be a healthy debate. Now, Bills are passed without allowing Opposition members to express their views completely, let alone accommodating their suggestions.
Third, the members of the Constituent Assembly emerged from the clutches of colonial rule. They knew the sufferings that they and the nation had undergone under foreign rule and were determined to frame a Constitution, and spelled out fundamental rights, which allow every individual a right to live their life with liberty and dignity and challenge the state’s arbitrary decisions before an independent judiciary.
Fourth, the Constitution states that India is a “Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic”. It protects the rights of every section of society. On the other hand, today’s leaders give priority to particular ideologies and castes. Given this, drafting a new Constitution will be a chaotic exercise and will shut the voices of some sections, especially the vulnerable.
Fifth, and most importantly, an unelected body was trusted by the Constitution framers to declare the law. The purpose behind choosing an unelected body was that, by its nature of being not answerable to anyone except the Constitution, the judiciary can adjudicate disputes in an independent, free, fair and impartial manner. Today, leaders may choose to become judges as well as rulers. For instance, through the Constitution (Thirty-Second Amendment) Act, 1973, a proviso to clause 5 of Article 371D was inserted which gave power to the Andhra Pradesh government to modify or annul any order passed by the Administrative Tribunal, constituted to deal with service matters in which the government is a party.
This Tribunal replaced the High Court. When the government is party to the litigation and when the Tribunal is exercising the powers of the High Court, how can the government be given power to override the decisions of the Tribunal? Fortunately, the Supreme Court declared this proviso as unconstitutional in P. Sambamurthy v. State of A.P. (1986). There are other such examples.
A strong Centre
Before independence, India comprised over 550 princely States, suffered from the problems created by Partition and faced a looming economic crisis. Thus, the Constituent Assembly’s members tilted towards a strong Centre with a blend of cooperative federalism.
It is true that the governments at the Centre abuse their powers to cripple Opposition-ruled States, but that does not call for creating a new Constitution. It calls for seeking mandate from the people to elect regional parties in general elections so that States can have dominance in the Union, besides approaching the Supreme Court under Article 131 whenever the need arises to resolve conflicts between the Centre and State.
The Chief Minister should remember that if he could become the Chief Minister of Telangana, it is only because of the present Constitution, as despite the Assembly of united Andhra Pradesh rejecting the resolution in 2013 to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh, it was Parliament, which by exercising powers conferred under Article 3 of the Constitution, carved out the two States.
Railways installing solar fences to save elephants
Elephants are intelligent enough to overcome the barrier of conventional fences put up for the protection of farms.
To overcome this problem, the Agricultural Engineering Department is planning to install hanging solar-powered fences. Though the concept is not new to the State, it will be carried out with a 40% back-ended subsidy to be provided to farmers willing to have such fences.
The barrier, to be hung from a height of about 12 ft, is made up of hot-dip galvanised aluminium conductor steel reinforced wires, which are considered rust-free. This is said to be useful in protecting the fields against wild boar and bison attacks. The cost varies depending upon the number of lines of the wire. For instance, wires with five lines are estimated to cost about ?2.91 lakh, of which the government’s subsidy will cover around ?1.16 lakh. If the number of lines is 10, the cost goes up to approximately ?3.37 lakh, of which the subsidy component will be nearly ?1.35 lakh.
Apart from this type of fence, the Department is also funding the installation of normal fences. A total of 510 farmers will be covered this year.
As of now, no break-up has been worked out for the two types of fences, an official says. Ten companies have been shortlisted for implementing the scheme. The government has set apart ?5.68 crore for the scheme.
MILAN to be held in Vizag from Feb. 25
The latest edition of Indian Navy’s multilateral exercise Milan-2022 is scheduled to commence from February 25 in Visakhapatnam.
It is being conducted over a duration of nine days in two phases with the harbour phase scheduled from February 25 to 28 and sea phase from March 1 to 4.
The theme of the Milan is ‘Camaraderie – Cohesion – Collaboration’ which aims at projecting India as a responsible maritime power to the world.
Sea cadets participating in the city parade as part of rehearsals for Exercise MILAN, in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday.
Biennial multilateral naval exercise
Milan is a biennial multilateral naval exercise incepted by Indian Navy in 1995 at Andaman and Nicobar Command. Since its inception, the event has been held biennially except for 2001, 2005, 2016 and 2020. While the 2001 and 2016 editions were not held due to International Fleet Reviews, the 2005 editions was rescheduled to 2006 due to the 2004 tsunami. 2020 edition was postponed to 2022 due to COVID-19.
It began with the participation of only four countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand, in the 1995 edition. But since then exercise has transitioned leaps and bounds in terms of number of participants and complexity of exercises.
Considering the infrastructure requirements of a large naval gathering, it was decided to shift the event to mainland, and Visakhapatnam, being the Headquarters of Eastern Naval Command, was nominated to host the event.
40 countries
This edition will witness the largest ever participation, with more than 40 countries sending their warships and high-level delegations.
This edition would be larger in ‘scope and complexity’ with focus on exercises at sea including exercises in surface, sub-surface and air domains and weapon firings. Operational Conferences and Seminars are also being conducted.
NASA’s plan to decommission the International Space Station
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced plans to retire and decommission the International Space Station (ISS) by 2031. The U.S. space agency has detailed its goals for the next decade in the International Space Transition Report as it aims to hand over operations to commercial organisations. NASA has listed an elaborate outline of the plan to decommission the space station. Other international partners that operate the ISS are, however, yet to approve it.
What is the ISS?
The ISS was launched in 1998 as part of joint efforts by the U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe. The space station was assembled over many years, and it operates in low-earth orbit. Since its inception, the ISS has served as a laboratory suspended in space and has aided multiple scientific and technological developments.
The idea of a space station originated in the 1984 State of the Union address by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. “A space station will permit quantum leaps in our research in science, communications, and in metals and lifesaving medicines which could be manufactured only in space. We want our friends to help us meet these challenges and share in their benefits. NASA will invite other countries to participate so we can strengthen peace, build prosperity, and expand freedom for all who share our goals,” he had said.
ISS has consistently maintained human presence for the past 21 years, providing astronauts with sophisticated technologies for scientific research.
Why is NASA planning to decommission the ISS?
The ISS was originally built to operate for 15 years. The space station has already surpassed that checkpoint by being active for 21 years, with plans to continue operations till 2030.
However, the limitations on the life-cycle of the station are catching up. The ISS goes through 16 rotations of the earth per day, causing extreme temperature changes on the exterior. The side facing the sun can get heated up to 121°C while the temperature on the opposite, darker side can fall to –157°C, causing intense expansion and contraction of the building material. This orbital thermal cycling, coupled with dynamic loading, affects the longevity of the primary structure of the space station. The technical lifetime is also limited by parts like radiators, modules and truss structures that tend to degrade over time.
NASA is planning to transition operations in low-earth orbit to private players and focus energies on its missions to explore the moon and Mars.
What is the procedure to de-orbit the ISS?
NASA plans to remove the ISS from its orbit around the earth and eventually plunge it into the ocean at a point farthest from human civilisation. The space agency will use the dual method of natural orbit decay and a re-entry manoeuvre to bring an end to the ISS as we know it.
According to the plan, the earth’s natural atmospheric drag will be used in lowering the altitude of the ISS while setting up the de-orbit. The space station operators will then provide the final push to it to lower the structure to the maximum possible height and ensure safe re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere, leading it to Point Nemo over the South Pacific Oceanic Uninhabited Area (SPOUA). The exterior of the modules is expected to melt when the debris re-enters the earth’s atmosphere. The exposed internal hardware is also expected to burn or vaporise during the process. It is believed that denser components like the truss sections will survive the re-entry and fall into the SPOUA. Alternative options like disassembly and return to the earth, boost to a higher orbit, and random re-entry were also considered.
The ISS is a huge structure — almost the size of a football field — and it was not designed to be disassembled easily in space. This process would have posed huge logistical and financial challenges. ISS cannot be decommissioned by boosting to a higher orbit because of its large mass and low operational altitude. The station currently operates in low-earth orbit above 400 km in altitude, at a point where it still experiences atmospheric drag and requires re-boosts to continue in its orbit.
The station also has a mass of over 4,30,000 kg. Existing propulsion systems do not have the capacity to raise the station’s altitude to a high target and escape low-earth orbit. The random re-entry method was discarded since it carries a huge risk for the human population on the ground.
Are there any environmental hazards associated with the plan?
NASA claims that the debris of the ISS that survives the re-entry will settle on the ocean floor and not cause any substantial long-term impact.
What is the future of space stations?
As the ISS plans to end operations in space, new players are already lining up to replace it. In January 2022, China announced that its space station will be ready for operations this year. Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Jeff Bezos, has also announced its plans to build Orbital Reef, a commercially developed, owned, and operated space station in low-earth orbit. Blue Origin is working alongside Sierra Space on the project.
