ANY DATA EXTRACTION LAW MUST PASS A PRIVACY TEST A legislative proposal Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022 that let the police extract personal information that may compromise the safety of folks has provoked a controversy. Clarity on our right to privacy could allay worries. Issues

• It is widely appreciated that we must stay vigilant about very unlikely but dangerous events, such as mass nuclear irradiation.
• Advances in technology mean that these dangers have proliferated beyond easy comprehension, which may explain our policy laxity on vital matters left to languish. Like privacy. Dystopian fiction may have run ahead of possibility as much as likelihood, but perils do lurk in the gross misuse of data.
• To widen our consideration set of threats should we fail to safeguard the specifics of our bio-identities. Our normative frame tends to picture only benign uses of data, as we expect the law to look after us and public authorities like law-enforcers not to go rogue.
• Yet, leaks do happen, even if they are rare. This should call into debate the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022, which looks set to give the Indian police legal access to the biometric and biological data of convicts and potentially also under-trials.
• As pitched, the basic idea is to let the cop’s bio-tag law-breakers in their records, just as they take fingerprints and so on, for a watchful eye to be kept on them.
• This concerns all our citizens, though, and clear restraints need to be placed on the idea by a privacy framework that we still lack.
• Under the Bill’s proposals, as reported, the scope of what all could so far be sought under the Identification of Prisoners Act of 1920 will be enlarged to include iris and retina scans, analysis of physical and biological samples, and “behavioural attributes” such as a person’s signature, among other things, for a database that will be retained by the National Crime Records Bureau for 75 years.
• From a legal vantage point, while the Bill focuses on criminality, its text leaves space for data extraction from people other than convicts without due clarity on who all this may include.
• The proposal is clearer on bio-samples, which can yield genetic data and hence need tighter security; for these, the consent of an arrested individual would be mandatory, provided the suspect has not been charged with sexual offences against a child or woman, or accused of crimes punishable with at least seven years of jail.
• While this could act as a safeguard, in a country where assent can depend on power equations in lock-ups, awareness levels remain low and few can count on a pre-trial ‘right to remain silent’, it could get lost in the process of profile creation.
• Given how fuzzy the divide between norms and exceptions can prove in practice, the slightest exposure of people not yet found guilty could expose too many Indians to safety risks that will worsen over time as biotech possibilities expand.

Road Ahead:

• No doubt, DNA and biometric grabs are valuable crime-solving aids today. Still, this utility needs to be filtered by our basic right to privacy, as upheld by our Supreme Court but yet to be given legislative shape.
• Tools like narco analysis and brain mapping must be regulated with reference to that right, just as the collection, storage and use of genetic data should be.
•  Any aspect of law that abridges our privacy must not just be kept free of ambiguity in its application, but also be put to a careful cost-versus-benefit test before it’s adopted. This would help allay worries about, say, a civil protestor faced with the prospect of having a police record with invasive details.

SUICIDE IN WOMEN The high suicide rate among these women is a substantial public health challenge that requires immediate action.

• Only a scaffolding approach across domains as well as community involvement and awareness help address it in its complexity.

Statistics

• These are just three of the thousands of Indian housewives who ended their lives last year, on account of mental harassment, violence, and torture.
• Their deaths are indicative of a silent public health crisis brewing in India that has hardly received any attention - of the unusually high number of Indian housewives who kill themselves.
• In 2020, 22,372 housewives died by suicide in - an average of 61 suicides every day, or one every 25 minutes. 2020 wasn't an anomaly.
• Over the last twenty years, data shows that consistently, a fifth of the population committing suicide in India have been housewives - second only to farmers who kill themselves on account of poverty.
• Among women, housewives account for 50 per cent of suicide deaths in the country. What's more, research shows that the probability of death of an Indian woman by suicide rises by more than 200 hundred-fold if she is a housewife. Suicides are also more prevalent amongst Indian women than men.

What is driving thousands of Indian homemakers to take their own lives?

• Experts say a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors make Indian housewives particularly vulnerable to suicide.
• While biological changes such as hormonal changes during menstruation, pregnancy, and the presence of psychiatric disorders are known to be known contributors for suicide in women, these factors can exacerbate suicide risk amongst housewives who have limited financial freedoms and social agency, and who hardly receive any recognition for their work.
• Women are more prone to depression than men. This is due to both the physiological changes happening in a woman's body, as well due to the multiple roles played by Indian women that contribute to increased stress.
• The influence of hormones during a woman's reproductive years may also contribute to postpartum depression. Depression is known to be the most important precursor of suicide, according to the World Health Organization.
• And unlike the west, marriage in itself is likely to be less protective against suicide for women in India because of rigid gender roles and discrimination, arranged and early marriages, young motherhood, and economic dependence.
• Women who have just entered into marriage often find it difficult to adjust to a new environment. Interpersonal issues really affect their mental health.
• A majority of urban housewives who seek therapy are facing conflicts at home on account of this.  NCRB data too cites differences amongst couples as one of the major reasons for women dying by suicide.
• In rural India, married women face an increased risk of mental health issues due to a disproportionate burden of household labor and lack of companionship, among other reasons.
• It doesn't matter whether women are educated or not; if they belong to the rural or urban background.  An increasing number of women in India are finding themselves squeezed into a marriage. Changing gender roles which can sometimes get toxic, harassment and violence from spouses, and in-laws, illicit relationships are all putting a strain.
• In absence of any support or guidance, mostly women suffer silently, but at times, the abuse gets too much to bear.
• Domestic violence, in fact, is one of the most significant precipitants of suicide amongst women, with one-third of Indian women who take their lives having a history of suffering domestic violence.
• If a woman's support group does not defend her when she is the victim of violence, her suicide may be revenge suicide, intended to force others to take vengeance on the abusive husband. Abused, shamed, and powerless wives take their own lives to shift the burden of humiliation from themselves to their tormentors."
• A distinctive form of abuse witnessed in Indian society involves disputes over dowry. According to the NCRB report, Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India, dowry is the biggest reason for marriage-related deaths amongst women in India with an average of 5 women dying every day by suicide due to it in the last five years.

Regional skew

• There is also a 'strong geographic suicide gradient', with the more developed southern states (as well as states like Maharashtra and West Bengal) being more suicide-prone, compared to less developed northern states like Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.
• While in the northern states, the relative risk for suicide is higher for the unmarried than the married, when women do achieve higher levels of education, their risk levels are also higher. Interestingly, large families are inversely related to the risk of suicides amongst women in these states.
• In the southern states, where overall levels of human development are high, and family sizes smaller, the suicide rate for married women is higher than for the unmarried. These patterns make sense when viewed through the broader patterns of development in the country, and the changing expectations around social roles in India, especially pertaining to marriage.
• India's current generation is widely better educated than their parents. With education comes changing values and ways of living. In Northern India, experts say these processes are still relatively weak, and traditional expectations about women’s' social roles are still strong.
• In Southern India, where the achievement of female literacy is far more advanced, and women have, far more exposure to mass media, and are more aware of their rights, the conflicts are more pronounced.
• It is in southern India where female literacy is at its greatest, female empowerment relatively highest and women’s media consumption most intense, that the tensions between the confining expectations of older social conventions and the new romantic values of India's emerging younger generation are most acute.
• These deeply personal tragedies throw flashes of illumination on the changing nature of personal relations and the structure of the family in India.

Road Ahead

• Despite having one of the highest suicide burdens in the world, India has yet to develop a systematic response to suicides. The absence of a national suicide prevention strategy, inappropriate media reporting on the issue, legal conflicts in the interpretation of suicide being punishable, and inadequate multi-sectoral engagement continue to remain major barriers to effective suicide prevention in the country.
• The official data on suicides is also massively under-reported, on account of the lack of community-level reporting of suicides and social stigma.
• There also exists very less women-specific research on suicide. The first step in addressing the crisis therefore would be to improve the quality of data and to record suicide deaths more accurately. Prevention of female suicidal behaviour would also require a paradigm shift to address both ecological factors in addition to individual ones.
• Education, economic security, and empowerment of women should be an integral part of the suicide prevention strategy. So, we should be devising policies to tackle intimate partner violence in relationships.
• Since personal and social reasons are the leading reasons for suicide in married women, it is necessary to ensure strict enforcement of the prohibition of forced marriages, dowry, and child marriage.
• Ultimately, we need to recognise that suicides don't happen in a vacuum. The high suicide rate in India is a substantial public health challenge that requires immediate action. Only a scaffolding approach across domains as well as community involvement and awareness can reduce stigma around the issue and help address it in its complexity.

WHY DECISION TO WITHDRAW AFSPA FROM PARTS OF NORTHEAST IS SIGNIFICANT The Centre on March 30 2022 significantly reduced the footprint of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), 1958 in the Northeast, withdrawing it entirely from 23 districts in Assam, and partially from seven districts in Nagaland, six districts in Manipur, and one district in Assam. Once the decision is notified in the gazette, AFSPA remains in force in parts of these three states as well as in parts of Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir. Why is the decision significant?

• AFSPA, which has been called draconian, gives sweeping powers to the armed forces.
• For example, it allows them to open fire, even causing death, against any person in contravention to the law or carrying arms and ammunition, and gives them powers to arrest individuals without warrants, on the basis of “reasonable suspicion”, and also search premises without warrants. It can be imposed by the Centre or the Governor of a state, on the state or parts of it, after these areas are declared “disturbed’’ under Section 3.
• The Northeast has lived under the shadow of AFSPA for nearly 60 years, creating a feeling of alienation from the rest of the country. The move is expected to help demilitarise the region; it will lift restrictions of movements through check points and frisking of residents.

Why is the latest move significant?

• The NDA Govt has been reducing areas under AFSPA in the Northeast for a while now, but this move covers some districts of Nagaland and Manipur that armed force has red-flagged earlier. It will also help the Centre calm the anger over the Mon killings in Nagaland.

After being in force for many years, why has AFSPA been withdrawn now?

• The decision has come as the result of a combination of circumstances.
• Over the last two decades, various parts of the Northeast have seen a reduction in insurgencies, some of them up to 60 years old. A number of major groups were already in talks with the Indian government, and these talks received traction during the current regime.
• In Nagaland, all major groups the NSCN(I-M) and Naga National Political Groups (NNPGs) are at advanced stages of concluding agreements with the government.
• In Manipur, insurgency as well as heavy militarisation have been on the decline since 2012, when the Supreme Court started hearing a PIL on extra-judicial killings.
• In Nagaland, the killing of 14 villagers in Oting, Mon, is seen as having had a telling impact on reviving the demand to repeal AFSPA.

Why was AFSPA imposed on the Northeast in the first place?

• When the Naga nationalist movement kicked off in the 1950s with the setting up of the Naga National Council the predecessor of the NSCN.  Assam police forces allegedly used force to quell the movement. As an armed movement took root in Nagaland, AFSPA was passed in Parliament, and subsequently imposed on the entire state.
• In Manipur, too, it was imposed in 1958 in the three Naga-dominated districts of Senapati, Tamenglong and Ukhrul, where the NNC was active.
• It was imposed in the 1960s in the Kuki-Zomi dominated Manipur district of Chur Chandpur, which was under the sway of the Mizo insurgent movement, and extended to the rest of the state in 1979, when groups in the Meitei-dominated Imphal Valley groups began an armed insurgency. As secessionist and nationalist movements started sprouting in other Northeastern states, AFSPA started being extended and imposed.

What has made AFSPA unpopular among the people?

• In Nagaland, 60 years of living under the AFSPA regime has had psychological consequences, trauma and alienation of the people.
• While the Naga nationalist movement started peacefully, the use of force and AFSPA furthered the feeling of alienation of the Naga people, solidifying Naga nationalism.
• Various incidents of violence have been recorded in the Northeastern states, as AFSPA gives sweeping powers to security forces.
• In a writ petition filed in the Supreme Court in 2012, the families of victims of extra-judicial killings alleged 1,528 fake encounters had taken place in the state from May 1979 to May 2012. The Supreme Court set up a commission to scrutinise six of these cases, and the commission found all six to be fake encounters.

Are there any checks and balances?

• While the Act gives powers to security forces to open fire, this cannot be done without prior warning given to the suspect. It says that after apprehension of suspects, the security forces have to hand them over to the local police station within 24 hours.
• It says the armed forces must act in cooperation with the district administration and not as an independent body.

Have the alleged excesses been investigated, and action taken?

• Cases in Nagaland have not been investigated.
• In Manipur, with the Supreme Court having taken up extra-judicial killings, the CBI has investigated 39 cases (94 killings) and filed chargesheets in 29 cases. In 7 cases, prosecution has begun, in two cases that involved joint operations of the Assam Rifles and Manipuri Commandos, the Centre has denied permission to investigate the paramilitary force personnel.

What attempts have been made to repeal AFSPA or reduce its area of operation in the past?

• In 2000, the activist Irom Sharmila began a hunger strike that would continue for 16 years against AFSPA in Manipur.
• In 2004, the then central government set up a five-member committee under former Supreme Court Justice Jeevan Reddy, which submitted its report in 2005 recommending the repeal of AFSPA, calling it “highly undesirable”, and saying it had become a symbol of oppression.
• Subsequently, the Second Administrative Reforms Commission, headed by Veeerapa Moily, endorsed these recommendations.
• Former home secretary G K Pillai too supported the repeal of AFSPA. Former home minister P Chidambaram has said that the Act, if not repealed, should at least be amended.

What positions have state governments taken on the law?

• While the Act gives powers to the central government to unilaterally take the decision to impose AFSPA, this is usually done informally in consonance with the state government.
• The Centre takes its decision after having received a recommendation from the state government. There have been instances where the Centre has overruled the state, such as the imposition of AFSPA in Tripura in 1972.
• The fight to repeal AFSPA has largely been driven by civil society groups. Until the Oting firing, no state government had openly demanded the repeal of AFSPA from their states. After Oting, the Nagaland Assembly passed a resolution for the first time for repeal of AFSPA. Three chief ministers Neiphiu Rio of Nagaland, N Biren of Manipur, and Conrad Sangma of Meghalaya have demanded its repeal.

GREAT BARRIER REEF SUFFERS ANOTHER MASS BLEACHING EVENT: WHAT WILL IT TAKE FOR CORAL TO SURVIVE? Great Barrier Reef suffers another mass bleaching event. This is the first time the reef has bleached under the cooling conditions of the natural La Nina weather pattern, which shows just how strong the long-term warming trend of climate change is. Despite the cooling conditions, 2021 was one of the hottest years on record.

• Environmental activists protest in Brisbane to highlight the threat of climate change to the Great Barrier Reef.
• The Great Barrier Reef is suffering its fourth mass bleaching event since 2016.
• Descending beneath the surface at John Brewer Reef near Townsville, the iridescent whites, blues and pinks of stressed corals among the deeper browns, reds and greens of healthier colonies.
• This is the first time the reef has bleached under the cooling conditions of the natural La Nina weather pattern, which shows just how strong the long-term warming trend of climate change is. Despite the cooling conditions, 2021 was one of the hottest years on record.
• When coral bleaches, it is not dead, yet. Coral reefs that suffer widespread bleaching can still recover if conditions improve, but it’s estimated to take up to 12 years. That is, if there’s no new disturbance in the meantime, such as a cyclone or another bleaching event.

What it takes for coral to die?

• If water remains too warm for too long, corals will eventually die. But if the water temperature drops and the ultraviolet light becomes less intense, then the coral may recover and survive.
• While the average sea temperatures in the reef currently remain above average, they’ve shown signs of cooling to a more amenable average for coral survival.
• Sea temperatures in Cleveland Bay, near Townsville, were above 31, in early March, but thankfully have now reduced to below 29. Similarly in the Whitsundays, Hardy Reef experienced temperatures as high as 30, but has receded to nearer 26, in the past few weeks.
• If coral does survive a bleaching event, it is still impacted physiologically, as bleaching can slow growth rates and reduce reproductive capacity. Surviving colonies also become more susceptible to other challenges, such as disease.

Signs of stress

• Survival also depends on each individual coral’s own resilience: its ability to cope with higher temperatures and increased ultraviolet stress.
• For example, fast growing branching corals are the most susceptible to bleaching and are generally the first to die.
• Long-lived massive corals, such as porites, may be less susceptible to bleaching, show minimal effects of bleaching and recover quicker.
• Corals can use fluorescent pigments to shield themselves from excessive ultraviolet radiation, a bit like sunscreen that lets coral manage, filter and attempt to regulate the incoming light

• To the casual observer, fluorescent corals look bright purple, pink, blue and yellow. For reef scientists, fluorescence is an obvious signal that corals are stressed and struggling to regulate their internal balance. As we’ve seen, white and fluorescent corals are currently a common sight on many reefs.
• Most coral species have fluorescent pigments in their tissue. Some are always visible to humans, especially branching corals with bright blue or pink hues on their branch tips.
• Others are never visible, and some are visible only during times of heat stress when coral colonies boost these fluorescent pigments to fight the increasing ultraviolet intensity in warmer seas.

Coral can’t adapt fast enough

• Scientists measure heat stress on corals using a metric called degree heating weeks.
• One degree heating week is when the temperature at a given location is more than 1 degree Celsius over the historical maximum temperature.
• If the water is 2 degrees Celsius above the historical maximum for one week, this would be considered two-degree heating weeks.
• At four-degree heating weeks, scientists expect to see signs of stress and coral bleaching. It usually takes eight-degree heating weeks for coral to die.
• According to Bureau of Meteorology data, many parts of the Great Barrier Reef, such as off Cairns and Port Douglas, currently remain in the window of between four- and eight-degree heating weeks.
• But some areas, near Townsville and the Whitsundays, are experiencing severe bleaching stress beyond eight-degree heating weeks.
• While we hope many coral reefs will recover from this round of bleaching, the long-term implications cannot be understated.
• When corals bleach, they eject their zooxanthellae single-celled algae that gives coral colour and energy. Some corals may regain their zooxanthellae after the bleaching event is over, but this usually takes between three and six months.
• To make matters worse, full reef recovery requires no new bleaching events or other disturbances in the years that follow.
• Given the reef has bleached six times since the late 1990s, alongside global climate trajectories, this would appear an unlikely scenario.
• While some corals may learn to cope with these new conditions by potentially acquiring more heat-tolerant zooxanthellae, the reality is that change is happening too fast for coral to adapt via evolution.
• The severe bleaching in previous years also means future events may appear less severe. But this is simply because most of the heat sensitive corals have already died, potentially resulting in a lower probability of widespread severe bleaching.

We need stronger climate policies and action

• Australia has the world’s best marine scientists and marine park managers. And yet, our policies are rated ‘highly insufficient’, according to the latest Climate Action Tracker.
• If global emissions continue unabated, Australia may warm by 4 degrees Celsius or more this century. Under this scenario, widespread coral bleaching is likely on the Great Barrier Reef every year from 2044 onward.
• There have been some glimmers of hope in federal policy in recent years, such as statements recognising the existential threat climate change poses to coral reefs.
• Despite this recognition, substantial action is lacking, as any policy without action on climate change is ineffective. If the federal government, reef businesses and individuals are to show leadership and maintain healthy reefs, we need to work together and take rapid, drastic action to reduce carbon emissions.

NEPAL'S PM SHER BAHADUR DEUBA ARRIVES IN INDIA ON 3-DAY VISIT The visit of Nepal’s Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to India, beginning April 1 four years after a Nepali leader visited New Delhi is significant.

• It is the first bilateral visit abroad for Mr. Deuba who leads an election government; local elections are to take place on May 13 and federal elections are slated later in the year.

• In April 2018, Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli had a lacklustre-feel good visit to India, with little achievement worth talking about.
• Mr. Deuba assumed office in July 2021, his fifth time as Prime Minister, leading a fragile coalition that has not been able to make Parliament function.
• The Nepal Parliament has been dysfunctional since July 2020 after cracks within the former Communist alliance developed in December 2019. The novel coronavirus pandemic has been a face-saving event for political forces.
• Nepal’s relations with India, that plummeted to a historic low after the Indian blockade in September 2015, have yet to recover as Nepalis do not see relations with India improving any time soon.
• India’s refusal to accept demonetised bills with the Nepal Rastra Bank worth just INR?7 crore and the unknown fate of the report submitted by the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) have not helped in securing it a better image in Nepal.
• The fact that passengers boarding flights from Nepal to India are still subjected to a pre-boarding security check even over 20 years after the hijack of an Indian Airlines aircraft, determines the perception of trust of India in Nepal.
• This is despite thousands of Nepalis serving in the Indian Army and Nepali villages expressing grief whenever violence escalates in India as many lose their lives defending a country that is not their own.

Complicated geopolitics

• Geopolitics is a complicated challenge for Nepal, whose geography requires it to make best use of its position between China and India.
• The last couple of months are an example of how complicated it can get. When the Nepalese Parliament ratified a U.S.$500 million grant assistance-Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) pact, there were street protests and big-time social media campaigns supported by China.
• However, India’s silence and the offer of other routes for power transmission as an alternative to the MCC confused everyone: was India for or against the MCC grant to Nepal?
• With relations between India and the United States further complicated by the China factor and India abstaining on the Russia vote in the United Nations even as Nepal voted in favour of it, the problems have continued to mount.
• The recent visit by the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, to Nepal has resulted in a situation that everyone in Nepal is trying to decipher.
• Analysts also suggest that Mr. Wang did assure his Indian counterpart that Nepal should work out its internal equations with India and that China would stay out.
• But in reality, the Chinese engagement has been very deep as seen in the anti-MCC campaign. U.S. grant and investment activities are seeing a revival post the MCC ratification and India does not want to see other powers active in Nepal.
• With Mr. Deuba is leading a fragile coalition, there are not many issues he may want to accomplish, but he should be able to push some of the key pending ones.

The main priorities

• The power trade agreement needs to be such that India can build trust in Nepal. Despite more renewable energy projects (solar) coming up in India, hydropower is the only source that can manage peak demand in India.
• For India, buying power from Nepal would mean managing peak demand and also saving the billions of dollars of investments which would have to be invested in building new power plants, many of which would cause pollution.
• Trade and transit arrangements go through the usual extensions, it is time to undertake a complete rethink as the sales of goods and payments moves through electronic platforms this can provide many new opportunities for businesses on both sides of the border.
• The Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) signed between India and Nepal needs more attention from the Nepali side. A commitment from Mr. Deuba on implementing this would attract more foreign investments from Indian investors.
• The private sector in Nepal, especially the cartels in the garb of trade associations, are fighting tooth and nail against foreign investments. So, it will be important for Mr. Deuba to deliver a message that Nepal welcomes Indian investments and that he is willing to fight the domestic cartels knowing well that it may dent a bit of funding for his party for elections.

Road Ahead

• Finally, it is for Mr. Deuba to provide the confidence that Nepal is keen to work with India while at the same time making it clear that it cannot take on India’s pressure to ignore China or the U.S. In the context of Nepalis currently living in 180 countries, India must note that it is a new Nepal it has to deal with from now.
• Perhaps there is hope that the situation can improve in the appointment of Dr. Shankar Sharma, a seasoned economist, who was also Nepal’s Ambassador to the U.S., as Nepal’s Ambassador to India.
• He was responsible for recalibrating Nepal’s relations with the U.S. Perhaps we can hope that India will engage with him more deeply without the usual condescending attitude. Perhaps, an open moment has arrived.

UKRAINE WAR SHOWS THE WORLD NEEDS A NEW UN The conflict in Ukraine has metamorphosed into a multi-dimensional global crisis.

• The military battles, the breach of international law, the tragic displacement of millions, the raft of sanctions, all of this has been compounded by the inability of conventional diplomatic actors and mechanisms to play any meaningful role.

• Multilateral diplomacy at the United Nations has come up short. The four votes at the Security Council added up to zero significant outcomes. The General Assembly manifestly reflected a global sentiment, but not much more.
• The numbers accruing in support of the two General Assembly resolutions did little to resolve issues that cry for solutions.
• Despite military hostility, Russia and Ukraine are directly negotiating. Israel is trying its hand at quiet diplomacy. Turkey has stepped in to fill a lacuna by offering its platform.
• Turkey’s efforts may or may not work, but they point to a void. There is a need to have a platform to address global concerns of a new kind to prevent mushrooming of ‘new age weapons.

Typical interstate war of a bygone era

• In addition to the primary protagonists, powerful partners are part of the mix, and they are now critical to the resolution. Non-belligerents are resorting to coercive measures, which go beyond established templates.
• The consequences some intended and others unanticipated are adversely impacting bystanders. Indeed, some argue that it is a situation where they can be no bystanders.
• Geo-economic battlegrounds are impacting geopolitics in ways not fathomed earlier, and economic measures have become sharp instruments in diplomatic toolboxes.
• These are in response to a military conflict. It is conceivable that more states use such tools without armed conflict. Such use can also trigger armed hostilities. We are in uncharted territory.
• Since there is a premium on disseminating public information, global platforms have turned into opportunities for condemnation rather than arenas of cooperation. They are used to corner ‘the other’. They are arenas for displaying prowess. They have become spaces for showmanship, not for displaying statesmanship.

United Nation

• The UN Secretary-General, who usually has been a votary of working back channels, has fallen prey to the lure of public diplomacy. The UN system’s utility as a facilitator stands diminished.
• The inescapable conclusion is that existing institutional arrangements have not shown the capacity to prevent the conflict or stop the crisis from escalating.
• India has focussed on navigating the immediate concerns of the tragedy in Ukraine. Understandably, this is the first order of business. In every one of the UN votes, India has consistently abstained. No other UN member has such a record.
• However, that phase has ended. It is time to look beyond. The crisis in Ukraine has expanded the arena of disputation during a conflict.

Impact

• It has stretched to jurisdictions that don’t even need soldiers. A technical and administrative apparatus of lawyers, diplomats and economists are now combatants deployed to meet security objectives in areas such as finance, banking, technology, trade, cyberspace, media platforms, mobility, culture and sports.
• Security concerns beyond military threats are rising. Understanding and addressing their consequences is becoming vital for global security. New forms of conflict require new platforms of conflict resolution and new means of redressal.

Way forward

• There is a requirement for a space that promotes quiet engagement amongst those whose evolving global interests are affected.
• Any such arrangement need not be formal or structured. To start, it can be ad-hoc and flexible. It can meet when needed. It could be a sounding board for addressing subterranean differences before they erupt into sharp divergences. Numbers, though limited, need not be cast in stone.
• In a multipolar world, it can’t be a G2. Neither can it be the P5 whose ‘legalised hegemony’ has failed. The G7 is too narrow a grouping to represent the world of the 21st century.
• We need a forward-looking construct that can accommodate established powers such as the US, who are willing and capable of leading responses to global concerns, connectivity nodes of growing importance like the EU, and various countries with large evolving global networks such as India.
• It can be a G20 minus if that helps. The G20 can be the base from which to choose participants. Unlike the G20, this arrangement should primarily focus on growing security concerns, including non-traditional security matters such as climate, human mobility, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
• What is required is a space for diplomacy amongst those with the capacity and the ability to address emerging global issues. The need is for a discreet platform to tackle global challenges before they become choices between escalation and capitulation.
• The Ukraine crisis is a veritable canary in the coal mine. It highlights the need for serious consideration of alternate options for tackling complex issues beyond the current structures.
• India’s interests require us to be part of the conversation and contribute to the longer-term future. These challenges are too crucial to be left adrift, and we can’t afford to keep confronting them as bystanders.

WHY EXAMS AREN'T THE WAY TO ASSESS WHAT STUDENTS LEARN The word ‘assessment’ figures 65 times in the National Education Policy, 2020, while the word ‘examination’ figures only 11 times with respect to school education. That in itself is saying a great deal. It is crucial that our school ecosystem comprehends the subtle difference between the two. Towards assessments, distinct from exams

• An exam is typically understood as the formal process of testing the knowledge/skills gained by a student at the end of a course/module/syllabus in a predetermined period of time. In our system, it is either the term-ending or the year-ending test, or both.
• The results of an exam are often used for the purpose of moving to the next stage, promotion to a higher grade, higher education, employment etc.
• An assessment on the other hand is broadly a continuous process of measuring the knowledge and skills acquired, and the learning outcomes achieved over small intervals of time, undertaken in flexible formats and settings.
• Generally, it is not used for the purpose of promotion or employment, but mostly to check if the child is progressing as desired and whether any improvement or remediation is required. The terms ‘summative’ and ‘formative’ assessment are used interchangeably with the term’s ‘examination’ and ‘assessment’.

Mending the colonial legacy, via NEP 2020

• A UNESCO publication of 2013, entitled Examination Systems, states, “Curiously, although examinations originated in Asia, most secondary school examination systems within the Asia-Pacific are modelled on European, and to a lesser extent, North American patterns. This reflects colonial histories that have exerted an influence that has persisted since the colonial powers withdrew.”

• NEP 2020 for the first time after Independence lays down certain fundamental principles that point to a much more robust, yet student-centric approach to exams than what has existed so far.
• It focuses on regular formative assessment for learning rather than the summative assessment that encourages today’s ‘coaching culture’.
• It envisages a continuous system of formative/adaptive assessment to track and thereby individualise and ensure each student’s learning.
• There are two formal secondary boards of the central government – Central Board of Secondary Examination for formal education and National Institute of Open Schooling for distance learning.
• The National Assessment Survey 2017 report for CBSE schools showed that the students from these schools were certainly performing better than those from other boards/states, but were still performing in the range of around 50% in the assessed subjects through a competency-based assessment.

CBSE reforms, in order to become SAFAL

• NAS 2017 and NEP 2020 were the precursors to several reforms undertaken by the board, including structured school-based assessment system, focus of teaching-learning on well-laid and grade-appropriate learning outcomes, systematically including more and more case-based, source-based, and competency-based questions in the year-ending exams, providing the opportunity for one improvement exam, offering mathematics at two levels in Class 10, doing away with the word ‘fail’ from the board’s vocabulary, rolling out a teachers’ training module on competency-based education etc.
• Realising the need to bring down the burden and stress that children experience during board exams, a handbook on ‘Best Practices in Item Design and Test Development’ has been developed by the board to help teachers of all subjects to design test items that are a valid and reliable measure of student-learning and do not promote rote-learning. NIOS is also following quite a few of these practices.
• CBSE has also launched SAFAL (Structured Assessment for Analysing Learning), a competency based, diagnostic assessment for Classes 3, 5 and 8.
• This is in line with recommendations made by NEP 2020 for a school-based exam to be conducted in these classes to test achievement of basic learning outcomes, through assessment of core concepts and competencies along with relevant higher-order skills and application of knowledge in real-life situations, rather than rote memorisation.

Feedback loops, to help both students and teachers

• As a diagnostic assessment, it will provide developmental feedback to schools and teachers to improve teaching learning without additional exam pressure on students and to help parents to track learning progress throughout the school years.
• As we move towards a regime of scientifically designed formative and summative assessments, our focus has to remain on ensuring the holistic growth of the child through an engaging and joyful learning experience, where the child develops capabilities and abilities for living a good quality of life.
• During his tremendously popular Pariksha Pe Charcha interactions with school-going children, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always insisted that, “Exams should never become a burden. They should be celebrated like a festival as exams give us an opportunity to judge our capabilities.”
• Exams are a stepping stone for the child to develop the ability to learn how to learn. It is not higher grades but higher learning that will build the foundation of our children’s future.

SRI LANKA: IMPORTANCE OF MARITIME PACT WITH INDIA – AN INDIAN VIEW The agreement appears to be part of India's SAGAR (Security and Growth for all in the Region) initiative in the Indian Ocean, which has also seen India, Sri Lanka and Maldives give a new push to their 2011 Colombo Security Conclave that now includes Mauritius. Agreements

• India and Sri Lanka have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the Indian public sector Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) to set up a state-of-the-art Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre (MRCC) in Colombo. The MoU was signed on March 28 during the visit of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to Colombo.
• The agreement is significant as it enhances co-operation on maritime security between the two countries in a part of the Indian Ocean region where the India-China rivalry has taken centre stage over the last decade.
• Earlier this month, India also provided a naval floating dock to the Sri Lankan Navy, and two Dornier aircraft to the Sri Lankan Air Force.
• Indian Navy team has been training the Sri Lankan Air Force and Navy in helicopter operations. During the course of the training, the Sri Lankan pilots are being familiarised with India’s Advanced Light Helicopter.
• Further, the two navies conducted a joint exercise in the seas off Colombo. Indian Navy Ship Sharda was part of the exercise, along with Sri Lankan OPV Sayurala.
• According to senior officials, the engagement between the forces of the two countries will augment interoperability and seamless maritime actions like carrying out anti-smuggling operations in the Indian Ocean Region.

Enhancing Sri Lanka capacity

• MRCCs are part of an international network under the UN’s International Maritime Organisation to monitor the sea lanes with the objective of swift response to emergencies, such as vessels in distress, rescue and evacuation of people, and prevention of and containing environmental disasters such as oil spills.

• Each country is responsible for its own Search and Rescue Region. The work of MRCCs is coordinated by the Navy or Coast Guard in each country. In India, the Coast Guard is the coordinating agency. In Sri Lanka, it is the Navy.
• The Bengaluru-based BEL has proposed enhancing Sri Lanka’s small MRCC by setting up advanced software systems that will increase Sri Lanka’s capacities for communication and co-ordination in its SRR in the Indian Ocean, where it is the first responder. The MRCC will be established with a grant of $6 million from India.
• The enhanced MRCC will work out of the Sri Lankan Navy headquarters at Colombo, with a sub-centre at Hambantota, where a Chinese state-owned company runs a deep-water port that it helped to bill, and which was controversially leased to it by Sri Lanka in 2016.
• Seven other sub-units along Sri Lanka’s coastline will make up the proposed new network. In situations in which regional assistance has to be mobilised, as happened with the two recent ship fires in Sri Lankan waters, this MRCC will be able to share information with its Indian counterparts.

SAGAR push

• Sri Lanka’s SRR is a wide swathe of 1,778,062. 24 sq kms of the Indian Ocean, and nearly 200 ships pass through these waters every day.
• The agreement appears to be part of India’s SAGAR (Security and Growth for all in the Region) initiative in the Indian Ocean, which has also seen India, Sri Lanka and Maldives give a new push to their 2011 Colombo Security Conclave that now includes Mauritius.
• The recent meeting of the CSC National Security Advisers identified “five pillars” of co-operation: maritime safety and security; countering terrorism and radicalisation; combating trafficking and transnational organised crime; cyber security, protection of critical infrastructure and technology; and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
• The MRCC has been controversial in Sri Lanka. Parts of the agreement were leaked to the Sri Lankan press last week after it received cabinet approval.
• On Tuesday, the day after it was signed, Sri Lanka’s Defence Ministry issued a clarification on the MRCC, as well as on recent agreements with India for a naval floating dock and Dornier aircraft. The clarification has provided more details about the agreements than have been in the public domain so far.
• The recently signed maritime security pacts with the Government of India will neither result in hindrance nor threat to the national security of Sri Lanka, as misinterpreted by several print and electronic media.
• The receipt of Floating Dock Facility from the Government of India at no cost has been projected to reduce the annual outlay of Rs 600 million for outsourced docking repairs and this proposal has been in the pipeline since year 2015.
• The Dornier Reconnaissance Aircraft is basically deployed for maritime surveillance, search and rescue operations and to deliver information to various required platforms.
• The unavailability of this capability was the motive for bilateral dialogues between the Governments of India and Sri Lanka during the last couple of years and it was agreed upon to provide one Dornier Reconnaissance Aircraft to Sri Lanka free of charge.
• Accordingly, during the period earmarked for manufacturing process of the said aircraft, the Government of India will lend a similar aircraft which will be piloted by Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) pilots.
• An Indian training team will also arrive and stay in the island until the SLAF gains required expertise. Thus, SLAF aircrew will receive an added qualification enabling the country to further strengthen its maritime security while cutting a large cost as a result of the pacts.
• Further, with regard to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Colombo (MRCC), the Cabinet of Ministers has granted approval for the proposal to establish MRCC with a US $6 million grant from the Government of India.
• The establishment of MRCC is essential to instantly respond to the search and rescue services of vessels in distress operating in the region and ensure safety of vessels in compliance with various international conventions.
• Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) is the authority responsible for conducting Maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) operations for commercial ships around the island’s SAR region.
• Prior to the signing of the aforementioned three pacts, the Ministry of Defence has followed the standard criteria and procedures while channelling it through the other mandatory state establishments including the Attorney General’s Department.
• Therefore, except economic and security gains embedded with infrastructure and personnel development, the Defence Ministry assures there won’t be any kind of risk to the national security of Sri Lanka it is being a sovereign nation.