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Colombo Security Conclave as a much-needed security dimension

Context:

  • The scope for cooperation between the Colombo Security Conclave member-states is aligned with the maritime security challenges prevalent in the Bay of Bengal region

Introduction:

  • The Colombo Security Conclave (CSC) reached a milestone with India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Mauritius signing a Charter and a memorandum of understanding, for the establishment of the CSC secretariat.
  • Though Bangladesh, a newly inducted member to the grouping, was absent, no conclusive explanation has surfaced.
  • The Seychelles participated as an observer state.

Bay of Bengal as strategic theatre:

  • This achievement, for the CSC, marks significant progress in a shared synergy and the commitment of the grouping since its inception.
  • The shared geography between the member-states encompasses the Bay of Bengal and the western Indian Ocean.
  • For India, the Bay of Bengal remains an important strategic theatre, and the CSC provides an opportunity to add a much-needed security dimension to its outlook towards the region.
  • In the evolving context of global geopolitics, regional forums have emerged as important instruments of expanding influence and shaping broader architectures of regional security.
  • Importantly, such forums also serve as frameworks for the construction of a regional outlook towards issues of common concern.
  • For India, coalescing robust institutional frameworks for boosting synergy and cooperation on issues of security has remained a critical challenge.
  • In the Bay of Bengal region, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) has remained an important forum for developing synergy and cooperation.
  • But the ambit of cooperation within the grouping has largely remained in the realm of economic cooperation and connectivity, with a marginal emphasis on security.
  • This has made it imperative for India to cultivate a forum for regional cooperation with a security-oriented agenda in the Bay of Bengal.
  • In this context, the steady progress made by the CSC appears to provide an opportunity to India, and other member-states to enhance cooperation on issues of maritime security in the Bay of Bengal region.
  • With key pillars of cooperation that include maritime safety and security; countering terrorism and radicalisation; combating trafficking and transnational organised crime; cyber security and protection of critical infrastructure and technology; and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, there is scope for cooperation under the CSC which suits the maritime security challenges prevalent in the Bay of Bengal region.

China’s actions:

  • Why is a security-oriented approach in the Bay of Bengal essential for India?
  • China’s growing naval footprint and expanding political influence in the Indian Ocean have caused alarm in India’s strategic circles.
  • Beijing continues to exhibit key interest in the Indian Ocean for the fulfilment of its energy security demands and expanding trade networks.
  • China’s aggressive actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea have already demonstrated its desperation to resort to coercive mechanisms to seek control and project power in the Indo-Pacific.
  • With Chinese warships, research vessels, and submarines entering the Indian Ocean, it is evident that Beijing seeks to assume an active role and have a notable naval presence in the region.
  • The Bay of Bengal’s geography sits as a bridge between the South China Sea and the wider Indian Ocean.
  • The region is also of significant importance to India with critical maritime interests.
  • Unlike the South China Sea region where China has demonstrated a coercive approach, its strategy in the Indian Ocean has been more nuanced.
  • Here, China has sought to expand its influence by developing partnerships with littoral states in the region, which has, in turn, facilitated its naval presence.
  • Additionally, the Bay of Bengal region remains vulnerable to climate change and natural disaster-induced security threats such as rising sea levels and cyclones as well as trafficking and other such transnational crimes.
  • These have formed the rationale for a security-oriented approach in the Bay of Bengal.

Revised outlook:

  • Though the CSC was stagnant between 2014-20, ever since its revival, the grouping has taken strides in exhibiting a willingness to enhance cooperation, even resulting in the expansion of its membership.
  • Mooted as a trilateral between India, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, the grouping later inducted Bangladesh and Mauritius.
  • Evidently, the Bay of Bengal geography prominently features in the spatial ambit of the grouping.
  • Given the absence of any security-oriented forum for regional cooperation in the Bay of Bengal, and the vital security challenges posed by the evolving strategic dynamics in the region, the progress made by the CSC presents an opportunity to construct a forum sensitive to the urgent security concerns in the region.
  • For India, the CSC appears to be directing a security-oriented outlook towards the Bay of Bengal – a region that is likely to continue posing critical maritime security challenges.

 

Gold

Context:

  • Each of the Nobel Prizes to be awarded from October 7 will include a medal of electrum, an alloy of gold and silver, plated with 24 carat gold.

About Gold:

  • Gold is a precious metal famed for its use in jewellery and as a form of investment.
  • Its atomic number is 79 and its Latin name is ‘aurum’, thus its symbol on the periodic table, Au.
  • Some 10% of all the gold produced around the world is used every year in industry thanks to the metal’s many desirable properties.
  • For example, gold doesn’t dissolve in strong nitric acid whereas most metals do; this is why the term ‘acid test’ is used to refer to a test of someone’s character.
  • Among the Nobel metals, only platinum is less reactive.
  • Gold does dissolve in a solution of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid that alchemists called aqua regia, or “royal water”.
  • It also dissolves in some alkaline solutions and in mercury, and is malleable, ductile, corrosion-resistant, and a good conductor of electricity.
  • It is commonly used in industry to form connectors in computers.
  • South Africa has produced most of the world’s gold since the late 19th century, but today the largest producer is China (no. 6 on this list is the small country of Ghana).
  • The cost of extracting and refining gold depends on where it is found, although gold nuggets are typically found in mountainous areas that also have quartz veins.

 

The discovery that led to an explosion in planet hunting

Context:

  • On October 6, 1995, astronomers announced the discovery of 51 Pegasi b.
  • This exoplanet, also known by the names Bellerophon and Dimidium, was the first planet discovered orbiting a distant sun-like star.

More about this discovery and how it changed in a big way our understanding of our place in the universe:

  • The 51 Pegasi b is the first exoplanet discovered orbiting a sun-like star.
  • Exoplanets are planets that orbit a star outside of our own solar system.
  • In the nearly three decades since the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the number of exoplanets discovered has ballooned to over 5,000, altering our understanding of ourselves.
  • This exoplanet wasn’t the first to be discovered, but it was the first discovered to be orbiting a sun-like star.
  • The first exoplanets of any type were discovered in 1992. Astronomers detected two planets orbiting a pulsar star.
  • Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars emitting beams of radiation in regular phases, are very unlike stars like our own sun.

Hot Jupiter:

  • As far as 51 Pegasi b is concerned, it is a “hot Jupiter,” meaning it is a gas giant exoplanet.
  • Located 51 light-years from Earth, this exoplanet is 47% less massive than Jupiter, while being 50% larger than Jupiter.
  • It’s a star-hugging planet, meaning it circles just 7 million km away from its host star, taking just four days to complete an orbit (a year for 51 Pegasi b is therefore just four days!).

 

  • According to nomenclature, 51 Pegasi corresponds to the parent star, and the b denotes that it is the first planet discovered in the star system.
  • If more planets are discovered (not the case with 51 Pegasi), they are denoted with c, d, e, and so on.
  • Before 51 Pegasi b’s discovery, Earth was one of just eight known planets (or nine until 2006, since Pluto’s reclassification as a dwarf planet only took place that year).
  • In the span of 29 years since then, Earth has gone on to become one of over 5,000 known planets.
  • There’s reason to believe that every star in the Milky Way hosts at least a planet on average.
  • There are suggestions that one out of every five sun-like stars harbour a potentially habitable, relatively Earth-like planet.
  • This would mean that Earth is one of trillions of planets. And yet, it is the only one (we know of) that harbours life.

Techniques employed in planet hunting:

  • There are five techniques currently used to find a planet: radial velocity, transit, direct imaging, gravitational microlensing, and astrometry.
  • In the radial velocity method, also called the Doppler wobble method, exoplanets are detected by measuring the reflex motion of a star.

 

Why the academic ranking framework for higher education needs a relook

Context:

  • An examination of how the NIRF rankings can be streamlined and refined to be more inclusive and equitable

Introduction:

  • Recently the National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) published its results under various categories including Overall, Universities, State Public Universities, Open Universities, Skill Universities, Colleges, Research Institutions, Innovation Institutions, Engineering, Management, Pharmacy, Architecture and Planning, Law, Medical, Dental, Agriculture and Allied Sectors.
  • The ranking framework has enabled the colleges to benchmark themselves using the framework and build capacity to meet the demand.
  • The idea of including state public universities as a separate category is an inclusive approach.
  • This was implemented based on central universities being able to access relatively higher funding resources in contrast to state public universities.
  • However, still there is scope for streamlining and refining the framework to be more inclusive and equitable.

 

  • It has been consistently inferred that only Delhi-based institutions occupy the top five to six positions followed by colleges from other states.
  • Delhi-based institutions primarily focus on undergraduate education and postgraduate courses are mostly conducted by the Delhi University.
  • On the other hand, the ranked institutions in South India predominantly have research as a culture owing to their postgraduate education.
  • The question of comparing institutions of different orders on the same platform is not equitable as the efforts in curating and managing the data would not be of the same order.

Justice and fairness:

  • Though “outreach and inclusivity” are part of the parameters, the equity performance of academic institutions is not reckoned as part of the NIRF metrics to measure the practice of “justice” and “fairness” through distributive equity that solicits a different treatment to the disadvantaged institutions in order to practice SDG 4.
  • Therefore, colleges that perform excellently well with the available socio-economic status (SES) and demographic constrictions are not able to scale up under the ranking framework.
  • Institutions ranked due to their exclusive cognitive excellence and meritocratic philosophy for admissions are valued through the existing framework more than inclusive institutions that admit students hailing from varied learning styles.
  • Institutions with socio-economic advantage, demographic, historical legacy, exclusive identity, familial networks, social support system, personal endowments, material wealth, and a host of other intangibles that work in tandem to boost their prospects have to be differentiated from that of disadvantaged while evaluating performance under various rubrics.
  • Assessment of ‘teaching and learning’ processes gives importance to the infrastructure as per the framework than to the competency of the human resources, thus requiring a controlled perception building by the institution.
  • However this has led to marketing manipulations by the institutions.
  • Thus, if one goes only by the NIRF ranking, students ending up in a college with a low quality of education but better infrastructure with best data capture or simulation system.

Institution’s USP:

  • Each institution is known for intangible non-cognitive traits as a unique selling proposition (USP) that would add value to its culture.
  • Academic success, personality and leadership development are created through ‘social learning’ integrated as part of the ‘campus life’ through non-credited activities.
  • Though prescribing metrics for this is beyond this article’s scope, it can be perceived that a longitudinal qualitative assessment to capture the institution’s USP through qualitative assessment would beget a comprehensive perception.
  • A few representative performance indicators of social learning could be civic responsibility, political agility, networking ability and social astuteness.

Conclusion:

  • It is obvious that NIRF ranking is all about the institution’s agility to curate data proactively through proper documentation for assessment. The question as to whether the data and the academic reality are conformable is a question that is to be debated, as NIRF does not involve physical verification.
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