North Sea

Context:

• United Kingdom jets were scrambled to monitor a Russian reconnaissance aircraft flying close to U.K. airspace

About North Sea:

• North Sea, shallow, northeastern arm of the Atlantic Ocean, located between the British Isles and the mainland of northwestern Europe.
• The sea is bordered by the island of Great Britain to the southwest and west, the Orkney and Shetland islands to the northwest, Norway to the northeast, Denmark to the east, Germany and the Netherlands to the southeast, and Belgium and France to the south.
• It is connected to the Atlantic by the Strait of Dover and the English Channel and opens directly onto the ocean between the Orkney and Shetland islands and between the Shetland Islands and Norway.
• The Skagerrak, an eastward extension of the North Sea between Norway and Denmark, connects the North and Baltic seas via the Kattegat and the Danish straits.
• The North Sea has long been important as one of Europe’s most productive fisheries.
• It also serves as a prominent shipping zone among European countries and between Europe and the Middle East.
• A third aspect of economic importance has been the extensive reserves of petroleum and natural gas discovered beneath the seafloor.

eXtended Reality (XR)

Context:

• IIT Madras Virtual Reality (VR) centre to upscale research in XR

Introduction:

• Imagine what it might be like to live and work in our world in 2030 and beyond.
• Perhaps, thanks to advancements in extended reality (XR), an umbrella term used to describe immersive technologies that can merge the physical and virtual worlds, you might be able to shop for a new home anywhere in the world as if you were actually on-site or head to lunch in some faraway land.

eXtended reality (XR):

• XR is an emerging umbrella term for all the immersive technologies.
• The ones we already have today – augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) plus those that are still to be created.
• All immersive technologies extend the reality we experience by either blending the virtual and “real” worlds or by creating a fully immersive experience.
• Recent research revealed that more than 60% of respondents believed XR will be mainstream in the next few years.
• To get a better picture of XR, let’s review each of the existing technologies that exist today.

Augmented reality (AR):

• In augmented reality, virtual information and objects are overlaid on the real world.
• This experience enhances the real world with digital details such as images, text, and animation.
• You can access the experience through AR glasses or via screens, tablets, and smartphones.
• This means users are not isolated from the real world and can still interact and see what’s going on in front of them.
• The most well-known examples of AR are the Pokémon GO game that overlays digital creatures onto the real world or Snapchat filters that put digital objects such as hats or glasses onto your head.

Virtual reality (VR):

• In contrast to augmented reality, in a virtual reality experience, users are fully immersed in a simulated digital environment.
• Individuals must put on a VR headset or head-mounted display to get a 360 -degree view of an artificial world that fools their brain into believing they are, e.g., walking on the moon, swimming under the ocean or stepped into whatever new world the VR developers created.
• The gaming and entertainment industry were early adopters of this technology; however, companies in several industries such as healthcare, construction, engineering, the military, and more are finding VR to be very useful.

Mixed reality (MR):

• In mixed reality, digital and real-world objects co-exist and can interact with one another in real-time.
• This is the latest immersive technology and is sometimes referred to as hybrid reality.
• It requires an MR headset and a lot more processing power than VR or AR.
• Microsoft’s HoloLens is a great example that, e.g., allows you to place digital objects into the room you are standing in and give you the ability to spin it around or interact with the digital object in any way possible.
• Companies are exploring ways they can put mixed reality to work to solve problems, support initiatives, and make their businesses better.

Extended Reality Applications for Business:

• There are many practical applications of XR. Here are a few:
• Retail: XR gives customers the ability to try before they buy.
• Watch manufacturer Rolex has an AR app that allows you to try on watches on your actual wrist, and furniture company IKEA gives customers the ability to place furniture items into their home via their smartphone.
• Training: Especially in life-and-death circumstances, XR can provide training tools that are hyper-realistic that will help soldiers, healthcare professionals, pilots/astronauts, chemists, and more to figure out solutions to problems or learn how to respond to dangerous circumstances without putting their lives or anyone else’s at risk.
• Remote work: Workers can connect to the home office or with professionals located around the world in a way that makes both sides feel like they are in the same room.
• Marketing: The possibilities to engage with prospective customers and consumers through XR will have marketing professionals pondering all the potential of using XR to their company’s advantage.
• Real estate: Finding buyers or tenants might be easier if individuals can “walk through” spaces to decide if they want it even when they are in some other location.
• Entertainment: As an early adopter, the entertainment industry will continue to find new ways of utilizing immersive technologies.

Challenges of XR:

• Those developing XR technologies are battling with some of the challenges to mainstream adoption.
• First, XR technologies collect and process huge amounts of very detailed and personal data about what you do, what you look at, and even your emotions at any given time, which has to be protected.
• In addition, the cost of implementing the technology needs to come down; otherwise, many companies will be unable to invest in it.
• It is essential that the wearable devices that allow a full XR experience are fashionable and comfortable as well as always connected, intelligent, and immersive.
• There are significant technical and hardware issues to solve that include but are not limited to the display, power and thermal, motion tracking, connectivity and common illumination – where virtual objects in a real world are indistinguishable from real objects especially as lighting shifts.
• As each day passes, we are one step closer to solving these issues so that we will see many more mainstream applications of all XR technologies over the coming years.

UPSC Pre PYQ (2019):

In the context of wearable technology, which of the following tasks is/are accomplished by wearable devices?

1. Location identification of a person
2. Sleep monitoring of a person
3. Assisting the hearing impaired person

Select the correct answer using the code given below.

1. 1 only
2. 2 and 3 only
3. 3 only
4. 1, 2 and 3

Ans: D

Costs of population decline

What are the pros and cons of increasing fertility rates? Which are the States with a growing population of the elderly? Has it reached a crisis point in some States? Will an uneven population growth shake up the federal structure? What will happen in the next round of delimitation?

Introduction:

• The Chief Ministers of both Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu expressed concerns about the low fertility rates in their States recently.
• Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister has said that he planned to introduce legislation to incentivise more children per family.

Current demographic situation, especially in the southern States:

• After decades of family planning policies seeking to slow population growth, India has been waking up to the fact that the success of such policies is also leading to an increasingly ageing population.
• This is not a uniform phenomenon – southern States, as well as smaller northern States have seen a much sharper decrease in total fertility rates, defined as the average number of children born to women during their child-bearing years.
• Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, for instance, recorded fertility rates of 1.4 between 2019 and 2021, according to data from the Office of the Registrar General of India, while Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh had fertility rates of 1.5.
• At the other end of the spectrum are Bihar, with a fertility rate of 3, Uttar Pradesh (2.7), and Madhya Pradesh (2.6).
• States with lower fertility rates have largely developed faster, but are now faced with the spectre of a rapidly ageing population.
• The India Ageing report published by UNFPA last year used Health Ministry data to show that while the share of India’s elderly population is projected to rise from 10.1% in 2021 to 15% by 2036, the demographic transition is more advanced in some States.
• In Kerala, senior citizens accounted for 16.5% of the population in 2021, a figure that is set to rise to 22.8% by 2036; T.N.’s elderly will make up 20.8% of its population in 2036, while it will be 19% in Andhra Pradesh.
• In Bihar, on the other hand, only 7.7% were elderly in 2021, and this is projected to rise to just 11% in 2036.

Likely economic impact:

• India’s demographic transition is much ahead of its socio-economic transition.
• To understand the impact of this, the most important indicator is not the proportion of the elderly population, but rather the old age dependency ratio, that is, how many older people are there for every 100 people of working age, between 18 to 59 years.
• When this ratio goes above 15%, that is when you have the onset of an ageing crisis.
• A number of States have already crossed this point, according to projections by the National Commission on Population, with Kerala having an old age dependency ratio of 26.1 in 2021, followed by Tamil Nadu (20.5), Himachal Pradesh (19.6), and Andhra Pradesh (18.5).
• This means these States’ window of opportunity, to reap the demographic dividend of economic growth from a large number of young workers unburdened by the economic and health demands of a large number of minor or elderly dependents, has already closed.
• Health expenses are likely to rise significantly in States with ageing populations.
• One analysis of NSSO data, in a study on demographic diversity shows that the southern States, with just one-fifth of India’s population, spent 32% of the country’s total out-of-pocket expenditure on cardiovascular diseases in 2017-18, while eight Hindi belt States with half the country’s population, spent just 24%.
• The solution proposed by the Chief Ministers of increasing the fertility rate is also likely to reduce women’s participation in the labour force, which will also hurt their economies.
• Southern politicians have also raised concerns with the Finance Commission that while their successful economies have pumped in higher tax revenues to the central pool, they get a diminishing share of the central pie of resources due to their slowing population growth.

Political implications:

• Uneven population growth is set to shake up the federal structure, with the current freeze on the number of seats in Parliament set to expire in 2026, after which a new delimitation exercise will change the representation that States have in the Lok Sabha.
• The study by James and Kriti estimated that Uttar Pradesh is likely to gain 12 seats, followed by Bihar (10) and Rajasthan (7), while Tamil Nadu is set to lose nine seats, followed by Kerala (6) and Andhra Pradesh (5), due to their falling share in national population.

Solutions being considered:

• The southern CMs seem to be advocating pro-natalist policies by incentivising women to have more babies.
• This has not been a very successful approach internationally.
• Educated women know they are not reproductive machines, and forced fertility will not work, nor will incentives that do not recognise what families actually need.
• Changes in work-family policies, with paid maternity and paternity leaves, accessible childcare, and employment policies that reduce the “motherhood penalty”.
• States and nations with better gender equity are better able to maintain fertility rates at sustainable levels, as women are more likely to have children if they will not be deprived of economic independence while doing so.
• Another approach is to increase the working lifespan and thus reduce the old age dependency ratio.
• The southern States are already magnets for economic migrants.
• Though these migrants make social security demands of their destination States, they continue to be counted in their home States for political and financial distribution purposes, leaving southern States in a difficult tangle.

UPSC Mains PYQ (2015):

• Critically examine whether a growing population is the cause of poverty OR poverty is the main cause of population increase in India.