EDITORIALS & ARTICLES
3rd March 2021
India and Japan back in new Sri Lanka port project
- Sri Lanka recently said it will develop the West Container Terminal (WCT) at the Colombo Port, along with India and Japan.
- The decision comes a month after the Rajapaksa government ejected the two partners from a 2019 tripartite agreement to jointly develop the East Container Terminal (ECT), citing resistance to “foreign involvement”.
INDIA AND JAPAN:
- Sri Lanks said approval had been granted to develop the WCT with investors nominated by India and Japan.
- While the High Commission of India had “approved” Adani Ports, which was to invest in the ECT project earlier, Japan is yet to name an investor.
- Neither India nor Japan has officially commented on the offer, or on the said private investment from the countries.
- According to official sources in New Delhi, Colombo had been in talks directly with the Adani Group, while the government “was not part of” the discussions.
- Both India and Japan had expressed displeasure about Colombo “unilaterally” pulling out of the 2019 agreement.
WEST CONTAINER TERMINAL:
- The deal had been signed by the former Maithripala Sirisena-Ranil Wickremesinghe government.
- The February 1 decision came amid mounting opposition from port worker unions and sections of the clergy to “foreign involvement” in the country’s national assets.
- The Rajapaksa government has offered India and Japan the WCT as an alternative, allowing higher stakes.
- In the ECT project agreed upon earlier, the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) was to hold majority 51%, but in the WCT proposal, India and Japan will be accorded 85% stake, as is the case in the nearby Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT), where China Merchants Port Holdings Company Limited holds 85%, the government said.
- The terminal’s further development, which is now to be undertaken by the Sri Lanka Port Authority, is aimed at augmenting operations at an estimated cost of up to $700 million.
- The West Container Terminal, however, has to be built from scratch, requiring a much higher investment.
- The WCT is adjacent to the China-run CICT and just a couple of kilometres away from the China-backed Port City being built on reclaimed land, making it a strategically desirable spot for India, whose concerns over China’s presence in Sri Lanka are well known.
IMPLICIT SUPPORT:
- Colombo’s alternative offer also comes at a time when Sri Lanka is seeking support at the ongoing UN Human Right Council session, where a resolution on the country’s rights record will soon be put to vote.
- The government recently wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Asked if the two developments were linked, Sri Lanka said they were “two different areas — one is commercial, other one, more of international relations.
Engineering research policy launched
- Karnataka launched the country’s maiden Engineering Research & Development (ER&D) Policy recently to raise its contribution to the sector in the country to 45% in the next five years.
- The State government anticipates the policy has the potential to create over 50,000 jobs in the ER&D space in five years.
- According to industry apex body Nasscom, ER&D has the potential to become a $100-billion industry in the countryin the next five years.
FASTEST GROWING INDUSTRY:
- Unveiling the policy, Deputy Chief Minister, who holds the IT/Biotechnology and Science and Technology portfolios, said, “The ER&D sector in the country is the fastest growing industry with a CAGR of 12.8%.
- Meanwhile, the global engineering research and development industry is expected to reach a spend of $2 trillion by 2025.
- Considering this scenario, this policy aims to prepare the State to make use of the future opportunities emanating from this sector.
- Karnataka is already the leading contributor to the country’s ER&D industry revenue and is home to over 400 R&D centres, global capability centres and engineering service providers.
- Through this policy, Karnataka is aiming to grow our contribution, develop more intellectual properties (IPs), and make the state a skilled knowledge capital.
- The government would invest in skilling, improve academia and industry collaboration, and also encourage IP creation locally in a big way.
- The new policy, drafted jointly by the Department of Electronics, IT, Biotechnology and Science and Technology, Karnataka Innovation and Technology Society, and Nasscom in consultation with industry stakeholders, has identified five key focus sectors such as aerospace and defence; auto, auto components and EV; biotechnology, pharma and medical devices; semiconductors, telecom, ESDM; and software products.
- The new ER&D policy heralds a new chapter in the State’s position as a hub of innovation and transformation.
Himalayan serow spotted in Assam
- A Himalayan mammal, somewhere between a goat and an antelope, has been confirmed as the newest creature to be spotted in Assam.
- A couple of nature guides had spotted the Himalayan serow, a goat-antelope, in the 950-sq.km Manas Tiger Reserve on December 3.
- The animal — a high-altitude dweller usually found 2,000-4,000 metres above sea level — was seen being chased by wild dogs.
AUGURING WELL:
- Experts have confirmed the animal as the Himalayan serow, spotted close to the border with Bhutan in Manas’s Bansbari-Mathanguri forest. The sighting augurs well for the health of the tiger reserve.
- They said the serow has been spotted for the first time in the tiger reserve or anywhere else in Assam, but “this does not mean the animal never visited the forests before”.
- The sightings of rare animals and birds in Manas is an outcome of better access to remote parts of the protected area where extremists and hunters once ruled.
- There are chances of more faunal species, found in the higher reaches, being spotted in the park.
BLACK-NECKED CRANE:
- The Reserve is contiguous with the 1,057-sq. km. Royal Manas National Park in Bhutan. The black-necked crane was also recently sighted in Manas.
- A pair each of such cranes was sighted on January 10 and February 18. The Buddhists revere the bird that nests in the Tawang region.
- Officials in Manas said the critically endangered white-bellied hero was also seen a few weeks ago.
- In February, birders had sighted the colourful Mandarin duck in the Maguri-Motapung wetland near eastern Assam’s Dibru-Saikhowa National Park.
- This duck was last spotted in Assam 118 years ago.
Rising polymer raw material prices hit MSME plastic units
- About 50,000 units in the plastics processing sector are believed to be operating below 50% of their rated capacitydue to a sharp rise in raw material prices, said heads of All India plastic industry associations.
- They added that if the crisis prolonged, about 20,000 MSME plastic units would be forced to close down.
IMPACTING THE COST COMPETITIVENESS:
- Industry bodies said large petrochemical companies, including PSUs, had exponentially increased raw material prices by 40-155% in the last 8-10 months.
- The associations have urged the Centre to direct Indian Oil, GAIL, OPAL, Haldia Petrochemicals and MRPL to streamline supply of raw materials at fair prices.
- Several industry associations have urged the government to ban the export of the raw materials for one year and allow import of raw materials not produced in the country.
- The industry is facing acute shortage of polymers, the main raw material for plastic goods production, which has varied applications.
- The increase in raw material costs and its acute shortage in market is leading to escalation in project costs and is adversely impacting the cost competitiveness of MSMEs.
Interconnected sectors raise need for robust cyber defence strategy
- Even as contradictory claims emerge from the Centre and the Maharashtra government over the involvement of Chinese actors in the Mumbai power outage of October last year, the allegations have put focus on the need for India to be better prepared to protect its critical infrastructure against globally rising cyber-attack attempts on key infrastructure.
- Cybersecurity experts pointed out that this is particularly significant given the increasing interconnectedness of sectors and proliferation of entry points into the internet, which could further grow with the adaption of 5G.
NATIONAL CYBER SECURITY STRATEGY:
- A National Cyber Security Strategy is being formulated by the Office of National Cyber Security Coordinator at the National Security Council Secretariat.
- A strategy document prepared by an inter-ministerial task force involving representatives from different central government ministries and departments has now been forwarded to an Empowered Technology Group for consultation.
- Once the process is through, the document will be placed before the Cabinet Committee on Security for deliberations and approval.
- Hackers targeting critical infrastructure is not a new trend but experts believe that propensity for damage is more than ever, especially with countries investing in cyber offensive capabilities.
- In 2015, in what was the first known successful cyber attack on a power grid, hackers compromised systems of three energy distribution companies in Ukraine thereby disrupting electricity supply.
LOW LEVEL OF PREPAREDNESS:
- Critical infrastructure is getting digitised in a very fast way — this includes financial services, banks, power, manufacturing, nuclear power plants, etc. Because of these a lot of security issues arise.
- The SolarWinds hack impacted national critical infrastructure in the US.
- Most countries are not prepared for combating the sophistication of attacks that are happening.
- A lot of countries have started taking advantage of this. They’re spending unprecedented amount of money and are building armies.
- Israel is a good example, they say that there is a fourth unit in the defence system, which is for defence and offence.
- Most countries though are not prepared, India not being an exception but there is a need for high level of preparedness because an attack can have a great impact on the economy, safety, etc.
- For the Mumbai incident, while the Centre has denied that the outage was a result of cyber attack by Chinese group Red Echo, the Maharashtra government — citing an analysis of Maharashtra Cyber Police’s report by Maharashtra State Electricity Board’s (MSEB) Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system — said “there is some evidence to point at probable cyber sabotage on MSEB servers”.
- In addition to the Mumbai incident, Chinese actors are also said to be involved in the attack on IT systems of vaccine makers Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech.
NEED FOR AN UPDATED CYBERSECURITY POLICY:
- There were 6.97 lakh cyber security incidents reported in the first eight months of 2020, nearly equivalent to the previous four years combined, according to information reported to and tracked by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), suggesting a surge in cyber incidents.
- The surge in number is perceptive since 2018 – 2.08 lakh reported incidents – and 3.94 incidents reported in 2019. In 2017, the number was 53,117 and 50,362 in 2016.
- Consequently, there is also a need for an updated cybersecurity policy in the country, which the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology is expected to come out with soon.
- The current cybersecurity framework put out by the government dates back to 2013.
- It is important for the corporates or the respective government departments to find the gaps in their organisations and address those gaps with the help of next generation security solutions.
- It is essential that there is a layered security system, wherein security threat intelligence sharing is happening between different layers.
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