EDITORIALS & ARTICLES
18th June 2021
8th ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus
Recently, the eighth edition of ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM+) was held.
ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM+)
- It is an annual meeting of Defence Ministers of 10 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries and eight dialogue partner countries.
- The eight dialogue partner countries are Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States.
- Brunei is the Chair of the ADMM Plus forum for 2021.
- The objectives of the ADMM-Plus, are:
- To benefit ASEAN Member States in building capacity to address shared security challenges, while cognizant of the differing capacities of various ASEAN Member States;
- To promote mutual trust and confidence between defence establishments through greater dialogue and transparency;
- To enhance regional peace and stability through cooperation in defence and security, in view of the transnational security challenges the region faces;
- To contribute to the realisation of an ASEAN Security Community which, as stipulated in the Bali Concord II, embodies ASEAN’s aspiration to achieve peace, stability, democracy and prosperity in the region where ASEAN Member States live at peace with one another and with the world at large;
- To facilitate the implementation of the Vientiane Action Programme as it calls for ASEAN to build a peaceful, secure and prosperous ASEAN.
Indo-Pacific Strategy
- The Union Minister of Defence called for an open and inclusive order in Indo-Pacific based upon respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations.
- The Defence Minister also stressed on peaceful resolutions of disputes through dialogue and adherence to international rules and laws.
- The Defence Minister reiterated India’s support to freedom of navigation, over-flight and unimpeded commerce for all in international waters in accordance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
- India supports utilisation of ASEAN-led mechanisms as important platforms for implementation of our shared vision for the Indo-Pacific.
India’s Act East Policy
- The Defence Minister stated that the key elements of the policy aim to promote economic cooperation, cultural ties and develop strategic relationships with countries in the Indo-Pacific region through continuous engagement at bilateral, regional and multilateral levels.
Terrorism and Radicalisation
- The Defence Minister, terming terrorism and radicalisation as gravest threats to world peace and security, has called for:
- Collective cooperation to fully disrupt terror organisations and their networks;
- Identify the perpetrators and hold them accountable; and
- Ensure that strong measures are taken against those who support and finance terrorism and provide sanctuary to terrorists
Cybersecurity Threats
- The Defence Minister has called for a multi-stakeholder approach, guided by democratic values, with a governance structure that is open and inclusive.
- The cybersecurity should aim to a secure, open and stable internet with due respect to sovereignty of countries, that would drive the future of cyberspace.
COVID-19 Pandemic
- The minister highlighted that globally available patent free vaccines, unhindered supply chains and greater global medical capacities are some of the lines of effort that India has suggested for a combined effort.
Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations
- India remains one of the first to respond in times of distress in the immediate as well as extended neighbourhood.
- India seeks to enhance capacity building through collaboration in the areas of Maritime Search & Rescue as a founding member of the Heads of Asian Coast Guard Agencies Meeting (HACGAM).
Heads of Asian Coast Guard Agencies Meeting (HACGAM)
- It was established in 2004.
- Its members are Australia, Bahrein, Bangladesh, Brunei, Philippines, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan, Republic of Korea, Laos, Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam.
- The following coast guard functions are discussed in HACGAM meetings;
- Search and Rescue at sea,
- Marine Environment Protection,
- Preventing and Controlling Unlawful Act at Sea,
- Countermeasures against piracy and armed robbery,
- Capacity building,
- Exchange of information and experience on coast guards functions.
Approval of Corporatization Ordnance Factory Board
Recently, the union cabinet chaired by Prime Minister has cleared the corporatization of the Ordnance Factory Board into 7 companies.
Key Highlights
- The board will now be split into seven entities owned by the government that will produce ammunition and explosives, vehicles, weapons and equipment.
- The corporatization would provide these companies with autonomy as well as help improve accountability and efficiency.
- The government has ensured that the service conditions of the existing central government employees of OFB are protected.
- All employees of the OFB belonging to the production units would be transferred to the corporate entities on deemed deputation initially for a period of two years without altering their service conditions.
Ordnance Factory Board (OFB)
- The OFB is an umbrella body for the ordnance factories and related institutions and is currently a subordinate office of the Ministry of Defence.
- The organisation dates back over 200 years and is headquartered in Kolkata.
- It is a conglomerate of 41 factories, nine training Institutes, three regional marketing centres and five regional controllers of safety.
- It provides a major chunk of the weapon, ammunition and supplies for Indian armed forces, paramilitary forces and police forces.
- The products of OFB include:
- Civilian and military-grade arms and ammunition;
- Explosives, propellants and chemicals for missiles systems; and
- Military vehicles, armoured vehicles, optical devices, parachutes, support equipment, troop clothing and general store items
Need for Corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB)
- The committees on Defence reforms set by the governments between 2000 and 2015 have recommended the corporatisation of OFB.
- T.K.A. Nair Committee, Dr. Vijay Kelkar Committee, Raman Puri Committee and Shekatkar Committee have recommended corporatisation of the OFB.
- The lack of addressing the quality issues with serious delays of OFB affects the preparedness or forcing the Army to look elsewhere.
- The present structure showcase several issues such as monopoly supply, quality issues, high cost of incidentals and overheads, lack of innovation and low productivity.
Significance of Corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB)
- The corporatisation will result in the conversion of the OFB into one or more 100 per cent government-owned entities under the Companies Act, 2013 like other public sector undertakings.
- The proposed transformation of OFB from a government department to a public sector corporate entity will have such as:
- Improvement of efficiency,
- Reducing import dependency for arms and ammunition,
- Enhanced combat efficiency of the armed forces,
- Ensuring customer satisfaction and
- Greater penetration in defence export market
- The corporatised ordnance factories can form strategic alliances with Indian and overseas companies to develop new products and carve out a niche in the international armament industry.
Argument against Corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB)
- Corporatisation leading to privatisation: The main apprehension of the employees is that corporatisation would eventually lead to privatisation.
- Unable to survive market environment for defence: The corporate entities would not be able to survive the unique market environment of defence products that has very unstable demand and supply dynamics.
- It poses a risk to national security in case of the growth of private players in the event of possible failure of the proposed OFB corporatisation, resulting in disinvestment and even closure.
- The ordnance factories cannot be run on a commercial basis since a 'war reserve' has to be kept at par with the armed forces to maintain capacity to take care of surge in demands in a war-like situation.
Viewpoint of the Union government on Corporatisation of the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB)
- The notion of corporatisation was listed as one of the 167 ‘transformative ideas’ to be implemented in the first 100 days of the Narendra Modi government’s second term.
- The Union Finance has announced the decision of Corporatisation of OFB for ‘improving autonomy, accountability and efficiency in ordnance suppliers’.
- The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) for Corporatisation was constituted to oversee and guide the transition support and redeployment plan of employees while safeguarding their wages and retirement benefits.
Growing Stockpile of Nuclear Warheads: SIPRI Yearbook
Recently, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has released the SIPRI Yearbook 2021 which highlights the global expansion of nuclear arsenals.
Asian Nuclear Superpowers
- China, Pakistan and India have 350, 165 and 156 nuclear warheads respectively as of January 2021 and they appear to be expanding their nuclear arsenals.
- The governments of India and Pakistan make statements about some of their missile tests but provide no information about the status or size of their (nuclear) arsenals.
- The institute also pointed out that China is modernizing and expanding its nuclear weapon inventory, along with India and Pakistan.
Nuclear Weapon Countries
- There are nine countries in the world that have nuclear weapons i.e. the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
- It highlights that Russia and the US together possess over 90 percent of the estimated 13,080 global nuclear weapons.
- The US and Russia continued to reduce their nuclear weapon arsenals in 2020, but both are estimated to have had around 50 more nuclear warheads in operational deployment at the start of 2021.
- The US and Russia deployed strategic nuclear forces remained within the limits set by the 2010 Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START).
Nuclear Materials
- It also talked about the fissile raw material stocks that the countries have for their nuclear weapons.
- India and Israel have produced mainly plutonium, and Pakistan has produced mainly highly enriched uranium (HEU) but is increasing its ability to produce plutonium.
- China, France, Russia, the UK and the US have produced both HEU and plutonium for use in their nuclear weapons.
Import-Export of Nuclear Arsenals
- It also said Saudi Arabia, India, Egypt, Australia and China were the five largest importers of major arms in the world between 2016 and 2020.
- It added that Saudi Arabia had 11 percent share and India 9.5 percent in the global imports of the major arms in this time period.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
- It is an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament.
- It was established in 1966 to provide data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public.
- Its vision is a world in which sources of insecurity are identified and understood, conflicts are prevented or resolved, and peace is sustained.
- SIPRI’s mission is to:
- Undertake research and activities on security, conflict and peace;
- Provide policy analysis and recommendations;
- Facilitate dialogue and build capacities;
- Promote transparency and accountability; and
- Deliver authoritative information to global audiences
Federal Reserve signals hike in interest rates
Recently, the Dow Jones Industrial index in the US fell 0.77% and treasury yields rose after the Federal Reserve indicated that there could be two rate hikes by 2023.
- In India, the benchmark Sensex fell marginally and the rupee lost over 1% against the dollar after indication from Federal Reserve.
- The wholesale price index-based (WPI) inflation have scaled a record high of 12.94% in recent month which was pushed by higher fuel and commodity prices and a low base effect.
- It also translated into retail inflation of 6.30% which led to breach of the inflation target of 4 ± 2% set by the Reserve Bank of India.
Key Highlights of signals from Federal Reserve
- They said that they would continue with an accommodative monetary policy and bond buying programme to support the economy, generate employment and achieve inflation of around 2%.
- It discussed the rate hike and an eventual reduction, or tapering, of the central bank’s bond buying programme.
- The Fed had signalled that there could be at least two rate hikes by 2023 as economic activity indicators have strengthened and inflation has firmed up.
Impact of an early hike in interest rates
- The indication of a hike in interest rates earlier than expected resulted in a rise in bond yields and strengthening of the dollar.
- It impacts currencies and stock markets in emerging economies such as in India, benchmark Sensex fell 461 points or 0.87% during the day.
- It would lead to an outflow of funds from equities into US treasury bonds and outflow of funds from emerging economies to the US.
- The experts believe that a rise in yields leads to a situation where they start competing with equities, and market movement is severely impacted.
- The rupee is also expected to come under pressure as the dollar strengthens.
Concerns associated to domestic inflation
- The wholesale inflation has been rising for five months, and is expected to rise further as the impact of high crude prices and surging commodity prices feed in.
- The global prices for a large number of commodities are now getting reflected in their domestic prices.
- The petrol, diesel and LPG witnessed inflation of 62.3%, 66.3% and 60.9%, respectively, in May 2021.
- The food inflation component for retail inflation rose significantly higher to 5.01% in May from 1.96%.
Concerns associated with investors
- The experts say the rise in interest rates in the US and tapering of the monthly bond buying programme (currently $120 billion/month) may impact stock market movement.
- It is believed that the rising inflation in the domestic market will be key for equity market movement alongside the economic recovery and growth.
- The timing and pace of the US interest are hiked and tapering of the bond buying programme will be critical for equity markets in India.
Space-time induces neutrino oscillations
Recently, the scientists from S N Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences (SNBNCBS) have showed that the geometry of space-time can cause neutrino oscillations through quantum effects even if neutrinos are massless.
Key Highlights
- The experiment showed that the neutrinos "oscillate" which implies that different types of neutrinos change into one another.
- The probing of oscillations of neutrinos and their relations with mass are crucial in studying the origin of the universe.
- The researchers said that the neutrinos, electrons, protons and other particles which are in the category of fermions show a certain peculiarity when they move in presence of gravity.
- It highlighted that the space-time induces a quantum force in addition to gravity between every two fermions.
- The force can depend on the spin of the particles, and causes massless neutrinos to appear massive when they pass through matter, like the Sun’s corona or the Earth’s atmosphere.
Neutrinos
- A neutrino is a subatomic particle that is very similar to an electron, but has no electrical charge and a very small mass, which might even be zero.
- Neutrinos are mysterious particles, produced copiously in nuclear reactions in the Sun, stars, and elsewhere.
- Neutrinos interact very weakly with everything else i.e. trillions of them pass through every human being every second without anyone noticing.
- A neutrino’s spin always points in the opposite direction of its motion, and until a few years ago, neutrinos were believed to be massless.
- It is now generally believed that the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations require neutrinos to have tiny masses.
Fermion
- Fermions are particles which have half-integer spin and are constrained by the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
- Quarks and leptons, as well as most composite particles, like protons and neutrons, are fermions.
- They possess conserved baryon or lepton quantum numbers.
- The name fermion was coined by English theoretical physicist Paul Dirac from the surname of Italian physicist Enrico Fermi.
- There are six quarks (up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top), and six leptons (electron, electron neutrino, muon, muon neutrino, tauon and tauon neutrino), along with the corresponding antiparticle of each of these.
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