30 May 2018: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

A. GS1 Related

B. GS2 Related

C. GS3 Related

• The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) and the Centre are moving ahead to make gas trading hub a reality by the end of this year.
• The move would ensure that a market-based pricing mechanism is in place for the commodity, as India aims to increase the share of natural gas in its energy mix.

The gas trading hub

• The gas trading hub, which will function on the lines of the power exchange, has been conceived as part of measures to boost the consumption of natural gas in the country.
• The hub would serve as an electronic platform, facilitating trade in natural gas.
• The most important feature would be its role in arriving at the price of the commodity by a market-based mechanism as against the existing multiple formula driven prices.
• The hub could be a physical or virtual facility.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board

• Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) was established under The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board Act, 2006 to regulate downstream activities in the petroleum and natural gas sector.
• It has been constituted to protect the interests of consumers and entities engaged in specified activities relating to petroleum, petroleum products and natural gas and to promote competitive markets and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
• The board has also been mandated to regulate the refining, processing, storage, transportation, distribution, marketing and sale of petroleum, petroleum products and natural gas excluding production of crude oil and natural gas so as and to ensure uninterrupted and adequate supply of petroleum, petroleum products and natural gas in all parts of the country.

• The Chau mask of Purulia, the wooden mask of Kushmandi, the Patachitra, the Dokras of Bengal, and Madhurkathi (a kind of mat) have been presented with the Geographical Indication (GI) tag by the Geographical Indication Registry and Intellectual Property India.

Geographical Indication Tag

• A GI tag connects the quality and authenticity of a given product to a particular geographical origin, thereby ensuring that no one other than the authorised user can use the popular product’s name.
• GI tags are given on the basis of the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999.
• The first product to be included in the list was Darjeeling Tea.
• GI tags for these five rural crafts would not only help the artisans create their own brand but would also provide legal protection to artisans practising the crafts against attempts to duplicate them in other regions.
• Moreover, it will have a direct impact on the occupation of 5,000-6,000 families in the State.
• they are made by marginalised communities that, until a few years ago, found it hard to sustain themselves by producing these crafts.

Bengal scores

• In the year 2017-18, GI tags were awarded to 25 products, of which nine were from West Bengal.

Read more on Geographical Indication (GI) Tags in India

• Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has returned from near-extinction five times in the past 30,000 years under severe stress in a warmer, more acidic ocean.
• This suggests the reef may be more resilient than once thought.

Concerns

• But it has likely never faced an onslaught quite as severe as today.
• The grave concerns are about the ability of the reef in its current form to survive the pace of change caused by the many current stresses and those projected into the near future.
• In the past, the reef shifted along the sea floor to deal with changes in its environment — either seaward or landward depending on whether the level of the ocean was rising or falling, the team found.

Observations

• Based on fossil data from cores drilled into the ocean floor it was determined that the Great Barrier Reef was able to migrate between 20 cm and 1.5 metres per year.
• This rate may not be enough to withstand the current barrage of environmental challenges.
• The reef probably has not faced changes in sea surface temperature and acidification at such a rate.
• Over 10 years, they studied how it had responded to changes caused by continental ice sheets expanding and waning over 30 millennia.
• The GBR will probably die again in the next few thousand years anyway if it follows its past geological pattern as the earth is believed to be due for another ice age.
• But whether human-induced climate change will hasten that death remains to be seen.

Read more on Coral Reefs

D. GS4 Related

E. Editorials

Why in news

• A more concerted and intensive engagement will serve both India and Indonesia well
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Southeast Asia this week has the potential to spark a new period of maritime cooperation between India and Indonesia.
• An uptick in India-Indonesia relations will be a welcome development for both President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and Mr. Modi, who through their respective ‘Global Maritime Fulcrum’ and ‘Act East’ policies have envisaged sharper maritime collaboration in the region.

China, the common concern

• The visit comes against the backdrop of an offer from the Indonesian government to grant India access to its Sabang port for the development of the port and an economic zone.
• Located at the mouth of the strategically important Strait of Malacca, Sabang is only 100 nautical miles from the southern tip of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• India and Indonesia share multiple common concerns, one of which is China’s growing maritime footprint in the eastern Indian Ocean.
• Sabang, with its naval base, naval air station, and maintenance and repair facilities, has the potential to serve as the focal point of a budding strategic partnership between the two countries.

Choke points

• Both countries value the key sea lines of communication (SLOCs) that connect the Indian Ocean to the Pacific, and therefore the foundation of any strategic partnership will rest on how they both seek to manage the region’s strategically important choke points.
• The strategically important Straits of Malacca, Lombok and Sunda fall under the Indian Navy’s primary area of interest, and access to Indonesian naval bases such as Sabang will significantly enhance the Indian Navy’s ability to maintain a forward presence and monitor movements in the Straits of Malacca.
• Indonesia too has started recognising the benefits of a closer strategic partnership with India.
• Like many other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Jakarta remains apprehensive of Chinese intentions in the wider maritime theatre.
• The territorial dispute between China and Indonesia in the Natuna Sea is an issue that is close to Mr. Jokowi, and a strategic alignment with India will help Jakarta balance some of the security concerns emanating from Beijing’s aggressive stance in the South China Sea.
• The comprehensive defence cooperation agreement that is expected to be signed between the countries can possibly be a multifaceted logistical agreement — on the lines of the deal which India signed with France earlier in the year.
• Mutual logistical support and reciprocal berthing rights will facilitate a more intimate maritime security partnership.
• This will allow India to gain access to naval bases in Lampung on the Sunda Strait, and Denpasar and Banyuwangi on the Lombok Strait, augmenting the Indian Navy’s operational breadth in the eastern Indian Ocean.

Areas of engagement

• Indonesia, on its end, will also seek to negotiate the delimitation of the exclusive economic zone shared by the two nations in the Andaman Sea.
• Additional facets of this partnership can involve information sharing on white shipping, and enabling India to partner Indonesia in tracking commercial cargo ships at choke points such as Malacca which are getting increasingly congested.

India-Indonesia

• In the past, cooperation between India and Indonesia has been limited to anti-piracy patrols, search and rescue exercises and joint hydrographic exploration.
• It is important for the two countries to move to a more concerted and intensive engagement. India should leverage this opportunity and seek its inclusion in the Malacca Strait Patrols programme.
• India’s inclusion in the programme would augment India’s existing maritime domain awareness in the region, while the eyes-in-the-sky component will allow India to jointly patrol the region with its maritime surveillance aircraft.
• Chinese presence in these SLOCs is well known, and India’s ability to monitor Chinese naval movements in the locale will be a great boost to the Indian Navy’s security missions.
• Moreover, access to the Jayapura naval base in West Papua will expand the Indian Navy’s operating capacity in the Western Pacific, and complement Indian access to French naval bases in French Polynesia and New Caledonia in the Southern Pacific.

Economic viability

• A strategic confluence between New Delhi and Jakarta needs an economic direction.
• The development of the port and economic zone in Sabang can serve as blueprint for a connectivity partnership between the two nations, and more importantly, provide an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
• The proposed cruise tourism circuit between the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Sabang would further enhance such economic linkages.
• Additionally, a partnership that includes collaboration in defence industries and maritime training and education can ensure a dynamic maritime collaboration.
• At a time when countries are realigning themselves to accommodate the growing consensus around an Indo-Pacific strategic framework, India and Indonesia, as members of the Indian Ocean Rim Association, need to complement each other’s vision of a regional order.

An opportunity

• Modi is due to deliver the keynote at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore after his Jakarta visit, and he needs to use this opportunity to make public the strategic framework of his ‘Act East’ policy.
• India needs to supplement efforts in Jakarta and leverage its existing strategic relations with Singapore and other like-minded regional states if it is to cement its position as a ‘net security provider’ in the Indian Ocean.
• A closer logistical partnership with countries such as Singapore, Australia and Indonesia can be the starting point of an extensive strategic linkage that will help establish India as a regional provider of maritime security.
• The time has come for India to realise the potential of a strategic alignment with the archipelagic state that is geo-politically positioned at the centre of the Indo-Pacific, and an upgrade in maritime relations is the logical way forward.

Category: ECONOMY

1. Policy on biofuels: Green push?

Question 1. A bill corresponding to the alteration of the boundaries of a state can be introduced:

Question 2. Identify the correctly matched pairs.

Question 3. Which of the following statements about minimum support price (MSP) is 
not correct?

Question 4. Consider the following:

Question 5. Which of the following are included in Right to life?

Also, check previous Daily News Analysis