With just a pickaxe, Kerala farmer carves out a tunnel
GS-2
Myanmar monks flee temples amid fighting
WEF Summit
GS-3
Storm warnings of a megacity collapse
Web3: A vision for the future
India UK Early Harvest deal Challenges Involved
With just a pickaxe, Kerala farmer carves out a tunnel
(Can use in Mains as an Example GS-4)
It was a holiday trip to Thailand that inspired 69-year-old C.T. Thomas to take a pickaxe and shovel and dig a 25-metre tunnel through a hill beside his home in Peruvamba Eramam Kuttar gram panchayat in Kannur district of Kerala.
(Example of Foreign Culture Influence)
Find out if any Indian Culture has influenced foreigners to do something similar at their own places. Collect such 3-4 examples not exclusively of Individuals but practices or designs conceived by others)
His enthusiasm sparked by a tunnel cave made by residents of a Thai island, Mr. Thomas decided to replicate the novelty in the laterite hill slope adjoining his house. Six months later, his efforts have borne fruit despite local opposition and the tunnel cave is now a popular attraction, including for those who warned him against it.
Take Geography perspective from here, the slope was/Was not possible in Laterite soil type? What would have been more suitable for this adventure? What were the steps taken here that prevented collapse, can they be applied in larger projects?
Aware of the fragility of the slopes and amidst dire warnings that the tunnel would collapse, Mr. Thomas worked on the tunnel with only his trusty pickaxe avoiding electrical tools that could have damaged the rocks. With the COVID lockdown affording him free time, he began work on a spot close to his house, which is also built on one such laterite slope.
“I removed all the soil after working 14 hours a day without using any electrical machinery or outside labour,” Mr. Thomas said, his work belying his age. All that was with him was a torch as he went on to dig the six feet high tunnel through the laterite hill. Even though the work is exhausting, as he goes digging deep inside the hill, it gives a sense of happiness and satisfaction. he said.
The tunnel opens in front of his house and stretches about 25 metres through the hill to end at the back of his house. Inside the tunnel are small chambers and above the tunnel are full-grown rubber trees, which keep the tunnel freezing cold at all times.
Another Perspective, Is this activity Legal/ Illegal? Which code does it violate if Illegal?
What steps have to be taken in case it has to be opened to visitors?
Would you appreciate this activity or warn against it?
Myanmar monks flee temples amid fighting
Hundreds of Buddhist monks fled two major towns in Myanmar, a witness said on Sunday, among thousands recently displaced by intense fighting between the military and rebel groups opposed to last year’s coup.
A military power-grab 11 months ago expelled civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s government with mass protests and subsequent crackdowns killing more than 1,400 — as dozens of rebel groups sprang up to oppose the regime.
Loikaw town — in eastern Myanmar’s Kayah state — saw intense fighting last week and the United Nations estimates that almost 90,000 people have fled, with local NGO’s placing that figure far higher at 1,70,000.
“More than half the population of Loikaw township has been internally displaced,” the UN said, with even the holy men of the town scattering as the fighting raged.
“It was impossible for us to stay there,” said one Buddhist monk, adding around 30 monasteries were fleeing — an unusual sight in a nation where they are revered and temples are considered safe havens.
Perspective: Similar situations recently built up in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Poland Belarus Border, East Ukraine, Sudan, Eretria, Tigray, Nagaland, Assam-Mizoram border. Basic thing is repercussions of war on the local population.
Collect examples from 2021 and 2022 to use in Mains answers. Specially note tribes/Ethnic group names like Hazara etc.
WEF Summit
The World Economic Forum is held at the Swiss ski resort of Davos every year in January. But this time, the event has been postponed due to Covid-19. A week-long online event titled Davos Agenda is being held instead to decide on the talking points for the annual meeting scheduled in summer.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Monday deliver a special address at the World Economic Forums (WEF) Davos Agenda on Monday. According to the WEF website, the address is scheduled to take place at 1600 hours Central European Time (CET) or 8.30pm IST.
The event is being held in virtual mode from January 17-21 due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
About WEF
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, which is mostly funded by its 1,000-member companies – typically global enterprises with more than five billion US dollars in turnover – as well as public subsidies, views its own mission as improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas.
The WEF is mostly known for its annual meeting at the end of January in Davos, a mountain resort in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland. The meeting brings together some 3,000 paying members and selected participants – among which are investors, business leaders, political leaders, economists, celebrities and journalists – for up to five days to discuss global issues across 500 sessions.
Next to Davos, the organization convenes regional conferences in locations across Africa, East Asia, Latin America, and India and holds two additional annual meetings in China and the United Arab Emirates. It furthermore produces a series of reports, engages its members in sector-specific initiatives and provides a platform for leaders from selected stakeholder groups to collaborate on multiple projects and initiatives.
The Forum suggests that a globalised world is best managed by a self-selected coalition of multinational corporations, governments and civil society organizations (CSOs), which it expresses through initiatives like the Great Reset and the Global Redesign.
It sees periods of global instability – such as the financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic – as windows of opportunity to intensify its programmatic efforts.
The World Economic Forum and its annual meeting in Davos have received criticism over the years. Issues raised about the conference and the WEF include: the public cost of security, the organizations tax-exempt status, unclear decision processes and membership criteria, a lack of financial transparency, the environmental footprint of its annual meetings, and institutional whitewashing initiatives.
As a reaction of criticism within Swiss society, the Swiss federal government decided in February 2021 to reduce its annual contributions to the WEF.
Storm warnings of a megacity collapse
(Only the Important Points from Editorial, Connect to perspective by yourself)
The unpredicted spell of staggering rain over Chennai on December 30, 2021 capped a season of repeated monsoon inundation and urban paralysis, coming as a stark reminder to political leaders that they are underestimating the risk of urban collapse due to extreme weather events.
Tamil Nadu’s capital, with an international airport and a major seaport, was gridlocked after heavy rain at the tail end of the northeast monsoon, presenting a dystopian picture of ambulance sirens wailing in still traffic, people deserting vehicles to walk to rail terminals in blinding rain and workers unable to return home until late in the night. The nightmare revived memories of the great deluge of 2015, although the death toll was not comparable. Suburban gated communities on the city’s IT corridor and inner-city residents alike were affected, and COVID-19 was momentarily forgotten, as rail and Metro lines were quickly overwhelmed.
Background
The catastrophic 2015 flood, an unprecedented event, raised expectations of a major shift in priorities for urban development. That deluge was akin to the great flood of 2005 in Mumbai, which too raised hopes that policies would be redrawn.
In spite of immense community support and active mobilization for change, both cities witnessed a regression, as informality remained dominant, laws were just on paper, and unsustainable changes were made to the urban environment. Permanent, elite constructions were favored at the cost of ecology.
Note this for Environment Concern, term is important Permanent Elite Constructions. Find a list of matching constructions built recently.
The monsoon of 2021 in Chennai, with its black swan evening of 24 cm rain, raises a question: would urban development be more sustainable and equitable if the guiding principle is climate change? This new approach would priorities ecological and sustainability concerns over aesthetics, and reject market-oriented ‘fantasy plans’, as some scholars describe an increasingly flashy vision of urbanisation. While green roofs, electric vehicles and solar power would be welcome, they would not replace conservation of natural flood plains, rivers, mangroves, marshes and gardens. It would be the future-proofing that India’s cities need, to avert sudden dysfunction caused by climate events.
NITI Ayog Suggestion
In its report on Reforms in Urban Planning Capacity in India (September 2021), NITI Aayog cites the COVID-19 pandemic as a revelatory moment that underscores the dire need for all cities to become healthy cities by 2030. Climate impacts are certain to affect cities even more fundamentally and permanently.
Consistent with the approach of the present Central government, NITI Aayog recommends 500 priority cities to be included in a competitive framework, adopting participatory planning tools, surveys and focus group discussions to assess the needs and aspirations of citizens. There is considerable importance given to technological tools, private sector talent and mapping strategies to identify a city’s assets and to plan spatially.
What is needed is a central role for democratically-elected local governments, to ensure greater inclusion and a sense of community.
In Tamil Nadu, urban local bodies have not had elections for a decade, while the long coastline of the State has been hit by cyclones that have crippled Chennai and other towns.
3D Factors
All dimensions of a city’s growth, starting with affordable housing, play a central role in adapting to future climate change. They can lower carbon emissions growth even during infrastructure creation if biophilic design and green materials are used. A large volume of new housing stock is being created in the 7,933 urban settlements in the country today, of which the bulk is in a small number of million-plus cities.
Less than half of all cities have master plans, and even these are ruled by informality, since both influential elites and the poor encroach upon commons such as wetlands and river banks, as Chennai and Mumbai have witnessed. After a catastrophic flood, the emphasis is on encroachment removal directed almost entirely at the less affluent.
Note here: Both Elite and Poor are creating the same problem. And both are not the major causing part of this problem. It is bad urban planning and management
Climate Change as Priority!
A top-level department for climate change adaptation is best suited to serve as a unifier, bringing all relevant departments in a State, such as housing and urban development, transport, water supply, energy, land use, public works and irrigation to work with elected local governments that set priorities and become accountable.
Neglect of municipal councils, lack of empowerment and failure to build capacity among municipal authorities have produced frequent urban paralysis in extreme weather. In Chennai, the focus after every flood has been on the storm water drain network, while commercial encroachment of the vast marshland in Pallikaranai, a natural sponge for the city, gets insufficient attention.
Same case in Mumbai
This experience echoes the fate of encroachments along Mumbai’s Mithi river, where the Mithi River Development and Protection Authority, after the 2005 flood, favoured removal of dwellings, while sparing ‘permanent structures’ that were too big to touch.
Economy’s Role in all this
The encroachment of important commons reflects the extreme dependence on market forces to supply affordable urban houses. In Chennai, speculative values have outpriced the middle class and young workers aspiring for their first home, sending them out of the city to relatively cheaper suburbs.
Most of these suburban investments do not reflect their true value, even if they are layouts ‘approved’ by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, because outlying town panchayats have little capacity or funds to create even basic infrastructure such as water supply, sanitation and roads.
For many residents, monsoon 2021 was no different from others before it. They may live in gated towers along the IT corridor but they struggled to stay afloat, using boats or trucks to get supplies and to travel. Such images rarely get media play, as they represent the unflattering reality of high house prices. Suburban home buyers would gladly transfer some part of the price for infrastructure building, rather than let it be cornered solely by speculators.
Now that Chennai is working on a new master plan and a climate action plan, with planned investments in infrastructure including Metro rail links to the western and southern suburbs, it should introduce regulation to ensure value capture.
Conclusion and Way Forward
India’s cities will continue to be drivers of economic growth with significant production and consumption, but that sunrise story is threatened by unsustainable urban development in the era of climate change. The experiences of Mumbai earlier and Chennai recently are storm warnings, and greater centralisation of governance can do little to address this.
The need today is not for flashy retrofitted ‘smart’ urban enclaves but sound, functional metropolitan cities that can handle floods, heat waves, pollution and mass mobility to keep the engines of the economy running. Urban India would otherwise turn into a subprime investment.
Web3: A vision for the future
The concept of Web3, also called Web 3.0, used to describe a potential next phase of the internet, created quite a buzz in 2021. The model, a decentralized internet to be run on blockchain technology, would be different from the versions in use, Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. In web3, users will have ownership stakes in platforms and applications unlike now where tech giants control the platforms.
What do we need to know of versions in use?
Web 1.0 is the world wide web or the internet that was invented in 1989. It became popular from 1993. The internet in the Web 1.0 days was mostly static web pages where users would go to a website and then read and interact with the static information. Even though there were e-commerce websites in the initial days it was still a closed environment and the users themselves could not create any content or post reviews on the internet. Web 1.0 lasted until 1999.
Web 2.0 started in some form in the late 1990s itself though 2004 was when most of its features were fully available. It is still the age of Web 2.0 now.
The differentiating characteristic of Web 2.0 compared to Web1.0 is that users can create content. They can interact and contribute in the form of comments, registering likes, sharing and uploading their photos or videos and perform other such activities.
Challenges Involved in Current Age?
In Web 2.0, most of the data in the internet and the internet traffic are owned or handled by very few behemoth companies. This has created issues related to data privacy, data security and abuse of such data. There is a sense of disappointment that the original purpose of the internet has been distorted. It is in this context that the buzz around Web3 is significant.
Gavin Wood, founder of Ethereum, a block chain technology company, used the term Web3 first in 2014 and in the past few years many others have added to the idea of Web3. In 2021, owing to the popularity of crypto-currency, more discussions happened on Web3.
How Web 3 fights Data Monopoly?
As per the Web3 foundation, Web3 will deliver “decentralized and fair internet where users control their own data”. Currently if a seller has to make a business to the buyer, both the buyer and seller need to be registered on a “shop” or “platform” like Amazon or Ebay or any such e-commerce portal. What this “platform” currently does is that it authenticates that the buyer and seller are genuine parties for the transaction. Web3 tries to remove the role of the “platform”. For the buyer to be authenticated, the usual proofs aided by block chain technology will be used. The same goes for the seller. (Basically, KYC in India)
With block chain, the time and place of transaction are recorded permanently. Thus, Web3 enables peer to peer (seller to buyer) transaction by eliminating the role of the intermediary.
This concept can be extended to other transactions also. Consider a social media application where you want to share pictures with your followers. It could be a broadcast operation from you aided by blockchain and you don’t need social media accounts for all the participants to be able to perform this.
The key concepts in Web3 seen so far are peer to peer transaction and block chain. The spirit of Web3 is Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) which is that all the business rules and governing rules in any transaction are transparently available for anyone to see and software will be written conforming to these rules. Crypto-currency and block chain are technologies that follow the DAO principle. With DAO, there is no need for a central authority to authenticate or validate.
In a Nutshell, it is a future technology that is not really supposed to go off as big as Web 2.0 as mostly a middle platform is required in the global mindset. So what’s important here is we note Challenges involved in Web 2.0 and keep in mind the National solutions proposed for such problems. Like Data privacy, Monopoly, Fair competition etc._nbsp;
India-UK Early Harvest Deal
India wishes to fast-track its free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with several countries like the UK, Australia, the European Union, and Canada.
As part of these negotiations, India is keen to conclude an “early harvest” trade deal with some of these countries, liberalising tariffs on select goods. Many commentators welcome India’s rethink on FTA since it marks a departure from the trade protectionism that India has been practising over the past few years.
Arvind Subramanian and Shoumitro Chatterjee have argued that between 2014 and 2020, India increased tariff rates on a wide category of products. This reversed the tariff liberalisation policy that successive governments have followed since 1991.
The rise in protectionism ensured that India shied away from signing FTAs in the last seven years despite the Economic Survey 2019-2020 concluding that FTAs have been beneficial for India.
But FTAs are not just about economics. They are also about international law — an aspect that rarely gets the requisite attention. While countries are free to enter into FTAs based on their mutual interests, this freedom is circumscribed by the international law rules contained in the General Agreements on Tariff and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Being WTO members, these rules invariably apply to India and its prospective FTA partner countries.
WTO System
The WTO system is premised on the principle of most favoured nation (MFN), that is, countries are prohibited from discriminating between their trading partners. So, an FTA where countries give preferential access to each other’s products at the cost of other countries is inconsistent with the MFN rule.
Nevertheless, countries are allowed to sign FTAs subject to certain conditions. One such condition, given Article XXIV.8(b) of GATT, is to eliminate customs duties and other trade barriers on “substantially all the trade” between the FTA member countries. Although the meaning of “substantially all the trade” is not given in the agreement, it is evident that the FTA should cover a very high proportion of trade between the FTA member countries.
The reason for this requirement is that since FTAs depart from the MFN principle, which is the foundational rule of the multilateral trading order, such departures should not be easily permitted.
It is here that India’s “early harvest” trade deals that focus on selective tariff liberalisation could run into rough weather. For instance, the commerce minister, Piyush Goyal, recently said that the “early harvest” deal with Australia would cover half of the goods trade. This is well below the legal requirement of “substantially all the trade”. Any trade deal between WTO member countries that does not cover substantive trade between them will be vulnerable to a legal challenge at the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism.
However, these “early harvest” trade deals can be saved from a possible indictment at the WTO if they are designed and presented as “interim agreements” leading to the formation of an FTA. Article XXIV of GATT allows countries to sign interim agreements subject to certain conditions. First, countries can enter into an interim agreement provided it is necessary for the formation of a free trade area. In other words, for the interim agreement to be consistent with the GATT and WTO requirements, it will have to pass the necessity test.
Thus, if India’s measures (such as lowering the tariff rate on a product because it is part of an “early harvest” deal) is challenged on the grounds of violating the MFN principle, India will have to show that it will not be able to enter into an FTA without the measure at issue, that is, without the “early harvest” trade deal.
Second, the interim agreement should include a plan or a schedule for the formation of an FTA within a reasonable period of time. Third, as required by Article XXIV.7(a) of GATT, the interim agreement should be notified to WTO members, who, in turn, can make recommendations if they believe that the interim agreement is not likely to lead to the formation of an FTA. India should be mindful of all these legal requirements since it is pursuing the strategy of arriving at an “early harvest” trade deal before signing a full FTA.
Related Information
What are early harvest pacts?
Early harvest agreements are used to open up bilateral trade between two countries on a restricted list of goods and services, primarily as a frontrunner to clinching a more comprehensive FTA.
The problem, though, is that these early harvest schemes potentially target the low-hanging fruits, leaving the tougher goods and services for later. This strategy can lead to significant delays in wrapping up the mode broad-based FTAs, which could potentially lead to impediments. India had concluded an early harvest agreement with Thailand in 2004 but has not been able to conclude a comprehensive FTA with the country. India also has a trade agreement with Sri Lanka dealing with goods but was not able to conclude an agreement on services and investments.
Early harvest agreements that do not graduate into full-scale FTAs are exposed to legal challenges from other countries that are members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), an organisation that was formed on the premise that member countries should not discriminate between their trading partners. The exception to the rule are full-scale FTAs, subject to some conditions. One rider, incorporated in Article XXIV.8(b) of GATT, stipulates that a deal should aim to eliminate customs duties and other trade barriers on “substantially all the trade” between the WTO member countries that are signatories to an FTA. “For the purposes of this Agreement… a free-trade area shall be understood to mean a group of two or more customs territories in which the duties and other restrictive regulations of commerce… are eliminated on substantially all the trade between the constituent territories in products originating in such territories”, the Article specifically states.
Experts noted that it is often beneficial to negotiate the entire deal together, as an early harvest deal may reduce the incentive for one side to work towards a full FTA. Biswajit Dhar, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, said: “These agreements are not just about goods and services but also issues like investment. If you are trying to weigh the costs and benefits, it is always better to have the larger picture in front of you.” He noted that in the case of the early harvest agreement inked with Thailand, automobile industry associations had complained that relaxations extended to Bangkok in the early harvest had reduced the incentive for Thailand to work towards a full FTA. Dhar, however, noted that early harvest agreements may serve the function of keeping trading partners interested as they promise some benefits without long delays, as India had become known for long-drawn negotiations for FTAs.
What is the status of the trade pacts under negotiation?
India now has in place 10 FTAs and six PTAs (preferential trade agreements). In addition, India is negotiating 16 new and expanding seven existing agreements, including with trading partners such as Canada, the EU, the US, alongside Australia and the UK.
Government officials maintain that “a majority” of FTAs under negotiations are “comprehensive” and cover goods, services, investment, IPR, etc”. Non-Tariff Measures, regulatory procedures and trade facilitation are part of such negotiations. Unlike with the UK and Australia, there are indications that the proposed trade deal with the EU — restarted after a gap of six years as the two sides earlier pulled out citing disagreements over tariff rules covering the auto sector and the free-movement rights for professionals — is not aiming at an early harvest and is instead looking at a full-scale comprehensive FTA.
Meanwhile, India is also simultaneously carrying out a review of the existing FTAs with South Korea, Japan and ASEAN on the ground of India’s rising trade deficit with these trading partners. Experts noted that New Delhi may seek conditions in such FTA that trading partners import more from India.
