DAILY

 CURRENT AFFAIRS

ANALYSIS

Current Affairs – 04 Jan 2022

 

For UPSC IAS Exams Preparation

  

Source: The Hindu Newspaper

 

1. China constructing bridge on Pangong lake in Ladakh

     It will bring down time to move troops and equipment

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Page No. 1, The Hindu Newspaper

News:

China is constructing a bridge in eastern Ladakh connecting the north and south banks of Pangong Tso (lake), which will significantly bring down the time for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to move troops and equipment between the two sectors.

China’s new law on land borders has come into effect from the New Year. While some feel India should worry about its border areas, others note that China’s actions have been aggressive even without it.

 

China’s new law on land borders, passed on October 23, came into effect on January 1. This has happened at a time when the border standoff in eastern Ladakh remains unresolved, when China has renamed several places in Arunachal Pradesh as part of its claim on the Indian state, and when the Chinese Embassy in Delhi has written to Indian MPs, including a minister, who had attended a dinner reception hosted by the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile.

 

The New Law:

·       The Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress passed the law for the “protection and exploitation of the country’s land border areas”.

·       State media Xinhua reported that under the law, “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of… China are sacred and inviolable”, and the state needs to “take measures to safeguard territorial integrity and land boundaries and guard against and combat any act that undermines [these]”.

·       It mandates the state to take measures “to strengthen border defence, support economic and social development as well as opening-up in border areas, improve public services and infrastructure in such areas, encourage and support people’s life and work there, and promote coordination between border defence and social, economic development in border areas”. This means that it is encouraging the development of villages for civilians in the border areas.

·       However, the law also asks the state to follow the principles of “equality, mutual trust, and friendly consultation, handle land border related-affairs with neighbouring countries through negotiations to properly resolve disputes and longstanding border issues”, Xinhua reported.

·       The law lays down four conditions under which the state can impose emergency measures, including border shutdown.

·        

Why did China bring it?

·       Shuxian Luo, a post-doctoral fellow at the Washington DC-based John L Thornton China Centre of the Brookings Institute, wrote in November that several factors may have led to China’s move.

·       First, she said, “this law reflects Beijing’s renewed concerns over the security of its land border while it confronts a slew of unsettled disputes on its maritime front… the confrontations on the Sino-Indian borders in recent years may have reminded Beijing that as a classic land-sea power China must always ready itself to cope with threats in both the continental and maritime domains”.

·       The Covid-19 pandemic “also underscores the imperative for Beijing to exert greater control over its somewhat porous land border”. Also, the law “reflects Beijing’s thinly-veiled worries about the stability of its hinterland bordering Central Asia” as the withdrawal of the US forces and Taliban takeover “aggravated Beijing’s concerns that Afghanistan… may become a hotbed for terrorism and extremism that could spread to Xinjiang”.

·       She believes domestic politics too may have been a contributing factor, bolstering President Xi Jinping’s standing in the lead-up to the 20th Party Congress later this year when he would secure a third term.

Does it concern India?

 

·       Although the law is not meant specifically for India, it is bound to have some impact. China and India share a disputed 3,488-km boundary, the third longest among China’s 22,457-km land boundaries with 14 countries, after the borders with Mongolia and Russia. Besides India, Bhutan (477 km) is the only other country with which China has a disputed land border.

·       There is a growing suspicion that China may have been stalling further negotiations on the standoff in eastern Ladakh for this new law to come into force. The Corps Commanders last met in October. India had hoped that China would agree to disengage from Patrolling Point 15 in Hot Springs, which it did not. The meeting did not even result in a joint statement, as had been happening for most earlier meetings. The date for the round meeting is still awaited, amid concerns that the Chinese delegation can use the new law to try to bolster their existing positions.

·       Apart from PP15, China is blocking Indian troops from accessing its traditional patrolling limits—PP10, PP11, PP11A, PP12 and PP13—in Depsang Plains. Also, certain “so-called civilians” have pitched tents on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control in Demchok and are refusing to vacate it.

·       Another sticking point could be that the new law prohibits construction of permanent infrastructure close to the border without China’s permission. Both, India and China have been building new roads, bridges and other facilities faster since the standoff began; in fact, China had objected to India’s workers even before.

 

What impact can it have on India-China relations?

 

·       The view is still divided. Much depends on China’s actions, regardless of the new law.

·       Some experts feel the new law will make China dig its heels in, on the ongoing standoff as well as for resolution of the larger boundary issue. Others feel the new law is only a tool China government will use if it wants, as its actions have been aggressive even before this law.

·       The Brookings article in November said “Beijing appears to be signaling determination to resolve the border disputes on its preferred terms. The law sets an overall tone of resolve upfront.”

 

2. Institute of Mathematical Sciences is 60

From a small beginning, it has grown to 52 faculty members, 125 PhD students

 

The News:

·       The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai got here into the sixtieth 12 months of its existence on January 3 this 12 months.

·       Since its inception, 295 PhDs had been awarded to students.

·       From its beginning as a small institute of about a dozen faculty, it has grown to 52 faculty members, 125 PhD students and 35 post-doctoral Fellows.

 

3. ‘ISRO gearing up for multiple missions in year

K. Sivan says 3 space science missions are in the pipeline

 

The News:

·       The X-ray Polarimeter Satellite is an ISRO planned space observatory to study the polarization of cosmic X-rays. It aims to study various dynamics of astronomical sources in extreme conditions. XPoSat will study the 50 brightest known sources in the universe, including pulsars, black hole X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, and non-thermal supernova remnants.

·       DISHA stands for Disturbed and quiet-type Ionosphere System at High Altitude and will involve twin satellites orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 450 km.

·       The mission aims to study the Earth’s aeronomy, the uppermost layer of a planet’s atmosphere which interacts with space.

·       The TRISHNA mission (Thermal infraRed Imaging Satellite for High-resolution Natural resource Assessment) is a French-Indian mission to acquire imagery of Earth’s surface in the thermal infrared frequency with a high resolution.

 

4. Sudan’s PM Hamdok resigns amid crackdown on protesters

He cites lack of political consensus, conflict with military as reasons for move

 

The News:

 

Hamdok had served as prime minister for more than two years under a power-sharing arrangement between civilians and the army, until the military toppled him in October, accusing politicians of hostility to the army.

·       Under an agreement to partly reverse that coup, he returned to lead a government of technocrats, intended to serve until elections in 2023.

·       But his deal with the military was opposed by key political parties and by the protest movement that had brought down Bashir.

·       Hamdok had said he would only stay in his post only if he could mobilise political support. But on Jan 2 in a televised address he said he had been unable to unite polarised factions sufficiently to be able to move forward with the transition.

 

Why does it matter?

 

·       The fate of the transition will determine the balance of power in Sudan, a country of 46 million people in which a popular uprising had carved a way out from decades of autocracy, internal conflict and economic isolation under Bashir.

·       Sudan’s course will have a bearing on a volatile region bordering the Sahel, the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa where international powers are vying for influence. The conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region sent tens of thousands of refugees into Sudan one year ago, and renewed tensions over farmlands on the neighbours’ disputed border.

 

5. Engineering student detained in app case

 

 

The News:

 

The Cyber Cell of the Mumbai police detained an engineering student in Bengaluru on in connection with the controversial Bulli Bai app.He is reported to be one of the four followers of the app.

 

The Delhi police said they had written to hosting platform GitHub seeking information on accounts which posted photos of Muslim women on the app, where they were being “auctioned”. Officers, however, said no breakthrough had been achieved in identifying any suspect.

Background:

·       The app used pictures of the women stolen from their social media handles and invited “users” to bid for them.

·       IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has announced that GitHub has blocked the user, and the Indian Computer Emergency Response System (Cert-In), the nodal agency for monitoring cyber security incidents, has been asked to form “a high-level committee” to investigate.

What is GitHub?

GitHub is the world’s largest open-source developer community platform where users upload their projects and code for others to view, edit, and tweak.

The idea of GitHub is this: any developer can upload whatever software code or app code or software idea they have on the platform, and have others collaborate with them to help improve it, find errors, and fix problems.

The platform uses the software Git, which was created in 2005 by Linus Trovalds, the developer of the open-source operating system Linux, to track changes in a set of files and for coordination in software development.

 

Miscellaneous News :

1)    Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh inaugurated Kalpana Chawla Centre for Research in Space Science & Technology (KCCRSST) at Chandigarh University on January 03, 2022.

2)   The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has come out with the framework for facilitating small-value digital payments in offline mode, a move that would promote digital payments in semi-urban and rural areas.

3)   Five global nuclear powers pledged to prevent atomic weapons spreading and to avoid nuclear conflict, in a rare joint statement ahead of a review of a key nuclear treaty later this year.

4)   On December 21, NASA launched into space a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which carried the Dragon 2 spacecraft loaded with various equipment for astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS). The launch marked the 24th cargo mission of billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket company to the ISS for the space agency.

5)   Researchers from SNM College Maliankara, the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, and the Payyanur College have reported two new plant species from the biodiversity-rich Western Ghats regions in Thiruvananthapuram and Wayanad districts of Kerala.They have been christened Fimbristylis sunilii and Neanotis prabhuii.

6)   The Congress government in Rajasthan is preparing an ambitious road map in the New Year for mining of lignite in Bikaner district’s Gudha West and the installation of a new lignite-based thermal power plant in its vicinity.