Daily Current Affairs : 24th October

Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE

Topics Covered

1. Merger of BSNL and MTNL
2. Non Alignment Movement
3. Ozone hole
4. Elnino
5. Ease of Doing Business
6. Quantum computing
7. Snow Leopard Survey, East Antarctic marine park

1 . Merger of BSNL and MTNL

Context : In an effort to revive the beleaguered state-owned telecom firms BSNL and MTNL, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a package worth nearly ₹70,000 crore. The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also gave an in-principle nod for the merger of the two entities.

About the crisis

• BSNL is in extreme financial trouble. The company has been in this situation for a while and the condition has worsened to an extent that it is not able to pay salaries to its employees.
• BSNL has been in trouble since the last 10 years due to poor government policies and delays in bringing new infrastructure. The inferior infrastructure, as well as the company structure, have further resulted in this situation. Even the Department of Telecommunications has asked BSNL not to go to banks for getting more loans.
• Main reasons are stiff competition in mobile segment, high employee cost and absence of 4G services (except in few places for BSNL) in the data-centric telecom market which is eroding the competitive strength. Human resource comprises 5% of cost for other telecom operators, for BSNL and MTNL the number is over 70%.

Recent Cabinet Decisions

• Administrative allotment of spectrum for 4G services to BSNL and MTNL so as to enable these PSUs to provide broadband and other data services. The said Spectrum will be funded by the Government of India by capital infusion in these PSUs at a value of Rs 20,140 Cr in addition; the GST amount of Rs 3,674 Cr to this spectrum value will also be borne by the Government of India through Budgetary resources. By using this spectrum allotment, BSNL and MTNL will be able to deliver 4G services, compete in the market and provide high speed data using their vast network including in rural areas.
• BSNL and MTNL will also raise long-term bonds of Rs 15,000 Cr for which sovereign guarantee will be provided by the Government of India (GoI). With the said resources, BSNL and MTNL will restructure their existing debt and also partly meet CAPEX, OPEX and other requirements.
• BSNL and MTNL will also offer Voluntary Retirement to their employees, aged 50 years and above through attractive Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS), the cost of which will be borne by the Government of India through budgetary support. The ex-gratia component of VRS will require Rs. 17,169 Cr in addition, GoI will be meeting the cost towards Pension, Gratuity and Commutation. Details of the scheme will be finalised by BSNL/MTNL.
• BSNL and MTNL will monetise their assets so as to raise resources for retiring debt, servicing of bonds, network upgradation, expansion and meeting the operational fund requirements.
• In-principle merger of BSNL and MTNL

Benefits

• It is expected that with the implementation of said revival plan, BSNL and MTNL will be able to provide reliable and quality services through its robust telecommunication network throughout the country including rural and remote areas.

2 . Non – Aligned Movement

Context : Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu will represent India at the 19th Non Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Baku, Azerbaijan on October 25 and 26, marking the second time in a row that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will give the summit a miss.

About Non-Aligned Movement

• The Non-Aligned Movement was formed during the Cold War, largely on the initiative of then-Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito, as an organization of States that did not seek to formally align themselves with either the United States or the Soviet Union, but sought to remain independent or neutral.
• The basic concept for the group originated in 1955 during discussions that took place at the Asia-Africa Bandung Conference held in Indonesia.
• Subsequently, a preparatory meeting for the First NAM Summit Conference was held in Cairo, Egypt from 5-12 June 1961.
• Currently there are 120 members
• Theme of this years summit is ‘Upholding the Bandung Principles to ensure concerted and adequate response to the challenges of contemporary world’.

Objectives

• NAM has sought to “create an independent path in world politics that would not result in member States becoming pawns in the struggles between the major powers.”
• It identifies the right of independent judgment, the struggle against imperialism and neo-colonialism, and the use of moderation in relations with all big powers as the three basic elements that have influenced its approach.
• At present, an addition goal is facilitating a restructuring of the international economic order.

Principal Organs

• NAM does not have a formal constitution or permanent secretariat, and its administration is non-hierarchical and rotational. Decisions are made by consensus, which requires substantial agreement, but not unanimity

Troika

• Created in 1997, this body consists of past, serving and future Chairs, and operates at the discretion of the incumbent chair.

Non-Aligned Security Council Caucus

• The Caucus consists of NAM countries who are elected to the UN Security Council as rotating members. These States seek to adopt unified positions and to reflect the decisions and positions adopted at NAM Summits and Ministerial Conferences.

India’s Position

• India being a founder and largest member in NAM was an active participant in NAM meetings
• It is a widely held belief that the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was highly relevant for India and its foreign policy interests during the bipolar era of the Cold War a
• It is true that NAM played an important role during the Cold War years in furthering many of the causes that India advocated: decolonisation, end to apartheid, global nuclear disarmament, ushering in of new international economic and information orders, etc. But what is generally ignored is the fact that NAM was more or less irrelevant for India in terms of helping to protect and promote its security and interests – the principal criterion by which the utility of a multilateral group should be measured.
• NAM’s lack of utility for protecting and promoting India’s security and interests is clearly demonstrated by the diplomatic positions adopted by member countries during the various wars in which India has been involved. On each of these occasions, NAM members invariably adopted diplomatic positions that were not favourable towards or supportive of India.

Relevance of NAM in the current Scenario

• It is a widely held belief that the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was highly relevant for India and its foreign policy interests during the bipolar era of the Cold War and that it has, since the 1990s, lost this relevance in a unipolar international order.
• The world today has moved on from what the NAM founding leaders faced in Bandung in 1955. The scales of global geo-political balance have shifted, and continue to do so, propelled by forces of globalisation and transformational technological progress.
• Long-held assumption and alignments rooted in the legacies of colonialism and the ideology of the Cold War are making way for new configurations and partnerships
• Climate change, environmental degradation, terrorism, radicalisation, poverty, public health emergencies, humanitarian and natural calamities, cyber security threats, and the serious security implications of frontier technologies are just some of the challenges of this new world.
• These challenges can only be faced together, not when we are divided. It requires collaboration, not coercion.

Conclusion

• In sum, the Non-Aligned Movement was not relevant for promoting India’s important national interests during the Cold War years. And since the end of the Cold War, India’s increasing integration with international economic, political and security structures has led to NAM losing even its earlier limited usefulness as a vehicle for articulating India’s dissatisfaction with the international order.

3 . Ozone hole

Context : During September and October, the ozone hole over the Antarctic has been the smallest observed since 1982, NASA and US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists have reported.

Ozone layer

• The ozone layer resides in the stratosphere and surrounds the entire Earth.
• UV-B radiation (280- to 315- nanometer (nm) wavelength) from the Sun is partially absorbed in this layer. As a result, the amount of UV-B reaching Earth’s surface is greatly reduced. UV-A (315- to 400-nm wavelength) and other solar radiation are not strongly absorbed by the ozone layer.
• Human exposure to UV-B increases the risk of skin cancer, cataracts, and a suppressed immune system. UV-B exposure can also damage terrestrial plant life, single cell organisms, and aquatic ecosystems.

What is ozone hole

• The ozone “hole” is really a reduction in concentrations of ozone high above the earth in the stratosphere. The ozone hole is defined geographically as the area wherein the total ozone amount is less than 220 Dobson Units.
•  Man-made chlorines, primarily chloroflourobcarbons (CFCs), contribute to the thinning of the ozone layer
• Manufactured chemicals deplete the ozone layer. Each spring over Antarctica (it is now spring there), atmospheric ozone is destroyed by chemical processes. This creates the ozone hole, which occurs because of special meteorological and chemical conditions that exist in that region.
• Ozone is also created close to the surface as a byproduct of pollution can trigger health problems such as asthma and bronchitis.

Why its small this year

• There have been abnormal weather patterns in the atmosphere over Antarctica. In warmer temperatures like this year, fewer polar stratospheric clouds form and they don’t persist as long, limiting the ozone-depletion process.
• NASA has cautioned it is important to recognise that what we are seeing this year is not a sign that atmospheric ozone is suddenly on a fast track to recovery.

Montreal Protocol

• The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is the landmark multilateral environmental agreement that regulates the production and consumption of nearly 100 man-made chemicals referred to as ozone depleting substances (ODS).
• When released to the atmosphere, those chemicals damage the stratospheric ozone layer, Earth’s protective shield that protects humans and the environment from harmful levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sun.

4 . Elnino

Context : In a new study, researchers have found that because of climate change, extreme El Niño events are likely to become more frequent.

What El Niño means

• El Niño is a climate phenomenon that takes place over the equatorial Pacific. It is one phase of an alternating cycle known as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). When there is a warming of the sea surface temperature in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific Ocean, it is known as El Niño. When the opposite cooling phase takes place, it is known as La Niña.
• ENSO can cause extreme weather events in many regions of the world, and therefore has very important implications for seasonal climate predictions, including the monsoon in India. While El Niño causes warmer temperatures over the equatorial Pacific, these are known to suppress monsoon rainfall. When La Niña happens, it has been found to be helpful in bringing good rainfall.

About the new Study

• The researchers examined details of 33 El Niño events from 1901 to 2017. For each event, they evaluated the onset location of the warming, its evolution and its ultimate strength. Based on such parameters, the team identified four types of El Niño, each with distinct onset and strengthening patterns.

Key Findings

• They found a shift in El Niño behaviour since the late 1970s. All events beginning in the eastern Pacific occurred prior to that time, while all events originating in the western-central Pacific happened since then.
• The researchers suggested, therefore, that climate change effects have shifted the El Niño onset location from the eastern Pacific to the western Pacific, and caused more frequent extreme El Niño events.

Implication

• The team focused on the factors that seemed to be controlling these shifts, including increased surface temperatures in the western Pacific warm pool, and easterly winds in the central Pacific. They found that with continued global warming, those factors may lead to a continued increase in frequency in extreme El Niño events.
• “Simulations with global climate models suggest that if the observed background changes continue under future anthropogenic forcing, more frequent extreme El Niño events will induce profound socioeconomic consequences

5 . Ease of Doing Business

Context : India has climbed 14 places, to be ranked 63 among 190 countries, in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business 2020 report. It was also among the top ten economies with the most notable improvement in doing business.

About Ease of Doing Business (EDB)

• The EDB, an indicator put out by the World Bank, is meant mainly as an index of the effect of government regulations on running a business. It is also meant to reflect the extent of property rights in a society
• A country’s ranking is based on the extent to which government regulations facilitate the following: starting a business, obtaining construction permits, getting an electricity connection, registering property, accessing credit, protection of investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcement of contracts and resolving insolvency.
• From a rank of 134 in 2014, India’s rank improved to 77 in 2018 and 63 in 2019.
• Criticism : It measures the effect of government regulations alone. While it is important to take this aspect into account, in any situation the ease of doing business is dependent upon other factors too.

Details of the new ranking

• The country performed better in six of the ten parameters used for ranking including starting a business, dealing with construction permits, trading across borders, resolving insolvency, paying taxes and getting electricity.
• In the three areas of getting credit, protecting minor investors and enforcing contracts, India fared the same as last year while its performance fell for registration of properties.
• The cities covered in India for carrying out the study continued to be New Delhi and Mumbai despite some speculations that this time Bengaluru and Kolkata, too, would be included.

6 . Quantum computing

Context :  Google announced that it has achieved a breakthrough called quantum supremacy in computing.

What is quantum supremacy?

• It is a term proposed in 2012 by John Preskill, professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology.
• It describes the point where quantum computers can do things that classical computers cannot.
• In Google’s case, researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara have claimed to have developed a processor that took 200 seconds to do a calculation that would have taken a classical computer 10,000 years.

What is a quantum computer?

• Our traditional computers work on the basis of the laws of classical physics, specifically by utilising the flow of electricity.
• A quantum computer, on the other hand, seeks to exploit the laws that govern the behaviour of atoms and subatomic particles.
• At that tiny scale, many laws of classical physics cease to apply, and the unique laws of quantum physics come into play.

Mechanism

• In a classical computer Bits of information are stored as either 0 or 1. Every string of such digits (bitstrings) represents a unique character or instruction; for example, 01100001 represents the lowercase “a”.
• In a quantum computer, information is stored in quantum bits, or qubits. And a qubit can be both 0 and 1 at the same time.
• Quantum physics involves concepts that even physicists describe as weird. Unlike classical physics, in which an object can exist in one place at one time, quantum physics looks at the probabilities of an object being at different points. Existence in multiple states is called superposition, and the relationships among these states is called entanglement.
• The higher the number of qubits, the higher the amount of information stored in them. Compared to the information stored in the same number of bits, the information in qubits rises exponentially. That is what makes a quantum computer so powerful. And yet, as Caltech’s Preskill wrote in 2012, building reliable quantum hardware is challenging because of the difficulty of controlling quantum systems accurately.
• Challenges : Quantum researchers need to cool the qubits to close to absolute zero to limit vibration — or “noise” — that causes errors to creep into their calculations. It’s in this extremely challenging task that the research team at Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc, has made significant progress.

Googles Achievement

• Google developed a microprocessor, named Sycamore, that packs a total of 54 qubits. Measuring about 10 mm across, it is made using aluminium and indium parts sandwiched between two silicon wafers.
• In their experiment, the researchers were able to get 53 of the qubits — connected to each other in a lattice pattern — to interact in a so-called quantum state.
• They then set the quantum computer a complex task to detect patterns in a series of seemingly random numbers. It solved the problem in 3 minutes and 20 seconds. They estimated that the same problem would take 10,000 years for a Summit supercomputer – the most powerful in the world today — to solve

Applications

• Quantum computers could one day result in huge advances in science research and technology. Among areas that stand to gain are artificial intelligence, and new drug therapies.

7 . Facts for Prelims

Snow Leopard Survey

• India will commission its first-ever survey to estimate the population and geographical range of the snow leopard, an elusive and endangered predator.
• The snow leopard is found along the upper reaches of the Himalayan range and, in India, it is reported to have a presence in Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.
• The snow leopard is found in 12 countries — India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Mongolia, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
• It is the State animal of Himachal Pradesh and the National Heritage Animal of Pakistan.
• IUCN Red list status – Vulnerable, CITES – Appendix I
• Inhospitable terrain and the reclusive nature of the animal have so far made a scientific estimation impossible.
• The Global Snow Leopard & Ecosystem Protection Program, GSLEP : To conserve the species, President Almazbek Atambayev of the Kyrgyz Republic hosted the first World Forum on the conservation of the snow leopard and its ecosystems in Bishkek in 2013. The event has galvanised the international snow leopard community, and has become a starting point for an unprecedented joint effort to save this unique animal: The Global Snow Leopard & Ecosystem Protection Program, GSLEP. Under this program, snow leopard range countries have committed to securing 20 landscapes across the cat’s range by 2020.

Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR)

• The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) was established by international convention in 1982 with the objective of conserving Antarctic marine life. This was in response to increasing commercial interest in Antarctic krill resources, a keystone component of the Antarctic ecosystem and a history of over-exploitation of several other marine resources in the Southern Ocean.
• CCAMLR is an international commission with 26 Members, and a further 10 countries have acceded to the Convention. Based on the best available scientific information, the Commission agrees a set of conservation measures that determine the use of marine living resources in the Antarctic.
• The key institutional components of CCAMLR are:
  • the CAMLR Convention which entered into force on 7 April 1982
  • a decision-making body, the Commission
  • a Scientific Committee which advises the Commission using the best available science
  • Conservation measures and resolutions
  • CCAMLR’s Membership and provisions for international cooperation and collaboration
  • a Secretariat based in Hobart, Tasmania, that supports the work of the Commission.