Why in news ?

The report titled “Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction: Special Report on Drought 2021” was published on June 18, 2021 by UNDRR (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction). It will be a part of discussions at vital UN climate talks called COP26, scheduled to take place in Glasgow in November 2021.

About:

• As per the report, Drought is a hidden global crisis which can become “the next pandemic” if no urgent action is taken on water & land management and tackling climate emergency.
• About 1.5 billion people are directly affected by drought this century.
• Economic cost was roughly estimated at $124bn. However, True cost is likely to be many times higher as these estimates do not include much impact in developing countries.
• Most of world will be with water stress in next few years and demand will outstrip the water supply during certain periods.
• Report highlights, drought is now widespread and by end of this century most of the countries will experience it in some form.

Why in news ?

Four-day Summit for vaccine internationalism by Progressive International was opened on June 18, 2021.

Highlights

• Summit was opened with the goal of ending “covid-19 pandemic as quickly as possible by administering and securing COVID-19 vaccines for all”.
• Vaccine summit brings together political leaders, Global south governments, healthcare workers and vaccine manufacturers from about twenty countries and follows criticism of G7’s plan.
• Recently, U.N. aid Chief Mark Lowcock had criticised G-7 plan as not serious and lacking necessary urgency.

Agenda of the summit

• Participants of the summit seek to boost up production, distribution and delivery of the vaccines across world as presently, only 6.2% of the world population is fully vaccinated against COVID.
• Summit hope to consider concrete proposals to bring technology, invoke patent waivers and invest in rapid production of vaccines.
• Representatives from governments of Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Cuba, Venezuela Kerala (India) and Kisumu (Kenya) will be joined by four vaccine manufacturers namely, Fiocruz (Brazilian manufacturer), Virchow Laboratories (Indian manufacturer), Biolyse (Canadian firm) and BioFarma Cuba (Cuba manufacturer)

Why in news ?

The Minister of Tribal Affairs has launched the ‘Adi Prashikshan Portal’.

About Adi Prashikshan Portal:

• Adi Prashikshan Portal aims to act as a central repository for information on all training programmes conducted by Tribal institutions across the country under Adi Prashikshan-Training for Tribals initiative.
• Developed by: Ministry of Tribal Affairs in collaboration with UNDP and Tribal Research Institutes (TRIs)-Odisha.
• Institutions covered under the portal: The portal would act as a Central Repository of all training programs conducted by:
  • Tribal Research Institutes(TRIs)
  • Different divisions of the Tribal Ministry
  • National Society for Education of Tribal Students(NESTS)
  • Centre of Excellences funded by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and
  • National Tribal Research Institute.

Why in news ?

The maiden Indian Navy – European Union Naval Force (IN-EUNAVFOR) Exercise is being conducted in Gulf of Aden.

• Participants
  • Along with Indian Navy, other naval forces are from Italy, Spain and France.
  • The naval exercise included advanced air defence and anti-submarine exercises, tactical manoeuvres, Search & Rescue, and other maritime security operations.
• Aim:
  • To enhance and hone their war-fighting skills and their ability as an integrated force to promote peace, security and stability in the maritime domain.

Why in news ?

The United Nations General Assembly appointed Antonio Guterres as the ninth UN Secretary General (UNSG) for a second term beginning 1^st January, 2022 and ending on 31^st 2026.

About Antonio Guterres:

• Guterres took oath of office on 1^stJanuary, 2017 and his first term ends on 31^st December 2021.
• Guterres served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for a decade from June 2005 to December 2015.
• He was the former Prime minister of Portugal

Why in news ?

The illegal cultivation of Herbicide Tolerant (HT) Bt cotton has seen a huge jump as the sale of illegal seed packets has more than doubled from 30 lakh in 2020 to 75 lakh in 2021.

About:

Bt Cotton:

• Bt cotton is the only transgenic crop that has been approved by the Centre for commercial cultivation in India.
• It has been genetically modified (GM) to produce an insecticide to combat the cotton bollworm, a common pest.

Herbicide Tolerant Bt (HTBt) Cotton:

• The HTBt cotton variant adds another layer of modification, making the plant resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, but has not been approved by regulators.
• Fears include glyphosate having a carcinogenic effect, as well as the unchecked spread of herbicide resistance to nearby plants through pollination, creating a variety of superweeds.

 Syllabus: General studies paper 2 ( international relations)

Context:

Nine years after two italian marines shot dead two fishermen off kerala under the belief that they were pirates; the criminal proceedings against them are set to be formally closed.

Background:

• In 2012, indian police had detained two italian marines posted on oil tanker enrica lexie who had shot at two indian fishermen on an indian vessel, apparently mistaking them for pirates operating near the kerala coast.
• The fishing vessel was within the country’s contiguous zone and it was quite clear that the offence warranted arrest and prosecution under domestic law.
• The supreme court had ordered the centre to set up a special court to try the case. Prior to the supreme court verdict, the kerala high court too had found that the marines enjoyed no immunity.
• In 2014, the marines had successfully gained a stay order on the investigation by the national investigation agency.
• According to unclos, disputes can be resolved through four process, one of which was for ad-hoc arbitrationas outlined in annex vii of the convention.
• Accordingly, a specially-designated tribunal was constituted with five members on november 6, 2015.
• A year later, the supreme court froze its own proceedings when italy approached the permanent court of arbitration (pca) in the hague.
• Itruled that the italian marines accused of killing two fishermen off the coast of kerala on february 15, 2012 enjoy immunity.
• They are outside the jurisdiction of indian courts as they were acting on behalf of a state.

Important takeaways from judgement:

• The permanent court of arbitration (pca) in the hague stated that both india and italy had concurrent jurisdiction in the matter but concluded that the marines’ immunity precluded india’s jurisdiction.
  • The pca is an intergovernmental organizationestablished by a treaty at the first hague peace conference, netherland in 1899.
  • All its decisions – called “awards” are binding on all the parties in the dispute and have to be carried out without delay.
  • Diplomatic immunity under vienna convention on diplomatic relations: it specifies the privileges of a diplomatic mission that enable the diplomats to perform their diplomatic functions without the fear of any legal trouble or harassment from the host country.
• In india’s favour,the pca found that the italian vessel violated the right and freedom of navigation of the indian fishing vessel under unclos. The loss of lives, property and harm, merited compensation.
  • No case for piracy: the pca rejected a key argument by italy that india, by arresting the marines, violated its obligation to cooperate with measures to suppress piracy under article 100 of unclos.
  • However, the tribunal endorsed that the italian ship had violated national and international maritime laws. It will serve as a warning to foreign freight and passenger ships.

Indian reaction:

• The centre informed the supreme court that it has decided to “accept and abide” by an international tribunal’s ruling india is bound by the award of the arbitral tribunal formed under the united nations convention on the law of the sea (unclos).
• The award is “final and without appeal,” as india is a party to the u.n. convention.
• It is in tune with article 51(c) and (d) of the constitution: “the state needs to foster respect for international law and treaty obligations and encourage settlement of international disputes by arbitration.

Concerns:

The pca’s award, which is final and has been accepted by india, is a huge setback for the expectation that the two marines would face a criminal trial in india.

• Legal and diplomatic delays: the union government should have taken over the prosecution and ensured a quick trial. Due to legal tangles and the diplomatic fallout, the marines managed to obtain orders to leave the country.

• Diplomatic hurdle: the national investigation agency invoked the suppression of unlawful acts against safety of maritime navigation and fixed platforms on continental shelf act, 2002. This caused a diplomatic furore as it provides for the death penalty.
  • The eu threatened to impose trade sanctions. Ultimately, it took time for these charges to be dropped.
• Legal jurisdiction issue:the supreme court ruled that only the centre, and not kerala, can prosecute the marines after parallel legal action by center and state governments.

• Bad precedence: calling the verdict an invasion into the rights and dignity of fishers, fishermen associations say this will set a bad precedent since the shooting happened on the fringes of the territorial waters.

A lesson is that such incidents should be dealt with a combination of legally sustainable steps and diplomatic efforts to find early resolution. A possible way out was to have agreed to italy’s offer of compensation and a trial in its own jurisdiction — the very thing that came out of the un tribunal’s ruling.

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/closure-compensation-the-hindu-editorial-on-the-closure-of-the-italian-marines-case/article34834554.ece

Question:

Syllabus: General studies paper 3 (science and technology)

Context:

Historically, technology competition has been a main aspect of geopolitics. In this day and age, it can be increasingly reflected in geopolitical battles between the us and china. One such technological competition can be easily witnessed in the field of artificial intelligence (ai).

Advantages of Artificial Intelligence:

• Self-driving cars:  ai algorithms are one of the primary components that facilitate self-driving cars to make sense of their surroundings, taking in feeds from cameras installed around the vehicle and detecting objects like roads, traffic signs, other cars, and people.
• Digital assistants and smart speakers: siri, alexa, cortana, and google assistant utilise artificial intelligence to convert spoken words to text and map the text to certain commands. Ai assists digital assistants to make sense of various nuances in spoken language and synthesize human-like voices.
• Translation: for several decades, translating text between various languages was a pain point for computers. But deep learning created a revolution in services such as google translate. But to be precise, ai still has a long way to go before it perfects human language, but so far, the advances are outstanding.
• Facial recognition: facial recognition is one of the most prominent applications of artificial intelligence. It has different uses, including unlocking your phone, paying with your face, and detecting intruders in your home.

Medicine:

• In the medical field also, we will find the wide application of ai. Doctors assess the patients and their health risks with the help of artificial machine intelligence. It educates them about the side effects of various medicines.
• Medical professionals are often trained with artificial surgery simulators. It finds a huge application in detecting and monitoring neurological disorders as it can simulate the brain functions.
• Robotics is often used in helping mental health patients to come out of depression and remain active.
• A popular application of artificial intelligence is radiosurgery. Radiosurgery is used in operating tumours and this can actually help in the operation without damaging the surrounding tissues.

Agriculture sector:

• Ai can be utilised to predict advisories for sowing, pest control, input control which enable increased income and giving stability for the agricultural community. Image classification tools in addition to remote and locally sensed data can bring a revolutionary change in – utilisation and efficiency of farm machinery, weed removal, early disease identification, harvesting, and grading.

Business sector:

• In order to take care of highly repetitive tasks – robotic automation is applied which perform faster, effortlessly and tirelessly than humans.
• Moreover, machine learning algorithms are being integrated into analytics and crm (customer relationship management) platforms to provide better customer service. Chatbots being used in the websites to provide instant service to customers.
• Automation of job positions has also become a discussion point among academics and it consultancies like gartner and forrester.

Education sector:

• Artificial intelligence can make certain educational processes automated like grading, rewarding marks, etc. Thus giving educators more time.
• Furthermore, it can analyse students and adapt to their requirements so as to help them work at their own pace.
• Ai can change where and how students learn, perhaps even replacing a few teachers.

Financial sector:

• Ai is applied to personal finance applications and could compile personal data and give financial advice. In fact, nowadays software trades more than humans in wall street.
• Detection of financial fraud uses artificial intelligence in a smart card-based system.

Legal sector:

• Automation can result in a faster resolution of pending cases by minimising the time taken while analyzing cases = better use of time and more efficient legal & judicial processes.

  manufacturing sector:

• Robots have been utilised for manufacturing since a long time now but more advanced exponential technologies have emerged like additive manufacturing (3d printing) which with the support of ai can revolutionize the whole manufacturing supply chain ecosystem.

intelligent robots:

• Robots can do the tasks given by a human with the help of sensors to detect physical data from the real world like light, heat, temperature, movement, sound, bump, and pressure. Furthermore, they have effective processors, multiple sensors and enormous memory, to showcase intelligence. Also, they can learn from their errors and hence can adapt to the new environment.

gaming:

• Ai has a significant role in strategic games like chess, poker, tic-tac-toe, etc., where the machine can think of a huge number of possible positions according to heuristic rule (a set of rules intended to increase the probability of solving some problem).

Cyber security:

• In the 20th conference on e-governance in india it was discussed that ai has the capability to strengthen cyber security ecosystem in india and should be explored further.

Smart cities and infrastructure:

• Ai is used to monitor patronage and accordingly control associated systems such as pavement lighting, park maintenance, and other operational conditions = lead to cost savings + improving safety and accessibility.

Space sector:

• Intelligent robots are fed with information and are sent to explore space. Since they are machines with metal bodies, they are more resistant and have a higher ability to endure the space and hostile atmosphere. Because they are created in such a way that they cannot be modified or get disfigured or broken down in a hostile environment.

Mining sector:

• Artificial intelligence and the science of robotics can be put to use in mining and other fuel exploration processes. Not only that, these complex machines can be used for exploring the ocean floor and hence overcome the human limitations.

Defence sector:

• Artificial intelligence (ai) based tools would aid the defence forces constructively in areas such as decision support, sensor data analysis, predictive maintenance, situational awareness, accurate data extraction, security, etc.  These tools will assist defence personnel in better operations, maintenance, and logistics support.

Peril associated with artificial intelligence:

• Promoting prejudices and inequalities: it shouldn’t be forgotten that ai systems are created by humans, who can be biased and judgemental. Thus, ai can promote prejudices and inequalities, if initial training of the ai algorithms is biased.
  • For example, it can lead to ai facial recognition and surveillance technology to discriminate against people of color and minorities.
• Comprising privacy: ai systems learn by analyzing huge volumes of data and they keep adapting through continuous modelling of interaction data and user-feedback.
  • Thus, with the increasing use of ai, the right to privacy can be under threat due to unauthorized access to one’s activity data.
• Disproportionate power and control: technology giants are investing heavily in regard to artificial intelligence, both at the scientific/engineering and also at the commercial and product development level.
  • These big players have an unmatched advantage when compared to any ambitious competitor out there which is a symptom of data-oligarchic society.
• Technological unemployment: ai companies are building intelligent machines that perform tasks typically carried out by low-income workers.
  • For example self-service kiosks to replace cashiers, fruit-picking robots to replace field workers, etc.
  • Moreover, the day is not far when many desk jobs will also be edged out by ai, such as accountants, financial traders, and middle managers.

Way forward:

• International cooperation: given that various governments have only recently established ai policies, and in some cases are still formulating them, international cooperation is still very much a work in progress. In the setting of standards at the multilateral level.
• Building resilient supply chains: beyond talent, additional challenges like, securing the necessary infrastructure; ensuring resilient supply chains, alignment on standards, governance, ensuring critical minerals and other raw materials required for the development of the necessary physical infrastructure, needs to be addressed.
• Right steps taken: ai technological revolution brings great opportunities for prosperity and growth — but it has to be ensured that the technology will be applied and used in the right direction.
  • In this regard, some steps are already being taken in different parts of the world, like explainable ai (xai) and the european union’s gdpr — general data protection regulation).

Conclusion:

The critical decisions made in the near future could have transformative effects for international cooperation on ai, which, in turn, could decisively shape the contours of what some have described as the fourth industrial revolution.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/the-promise-and-perils-of-ai-partnerships-101623837070390.html

Question-as the world seeks to leverage the promises of artificial intelligence, they should also confront similar challenges when it comes to the development and deployment of it. Discuss.

Why in news ?

China has launched the Long March 2F rocket transporting the Shenzhou-12 or Divine Vessel.

About:

• Shenzhou-12 is a manned mission. It is the third of the 11 missions that needed to complete China’s first Permanent space station, named Tiangong Space Station. Among these missions, four will be manned missions.
• Working:
  • Shenzhou-12 is made up of three sections—an orbiter module, a return module and a propelling module.
  • It will carry three astronauts to the orbiting Tianhe core module. The astronauts will test the module’s technologies, including its life-support system.
  • Moreover, the men will also be monitored for how they fare in space physically and psychologically for an extended period of time.
• Significance: Shenzhou-12 is China’sseventh manned mission to space and the first during the construction of China’s space station.
  • It is also the first in nearly five years after China’s manned mission in 2016.

Why in news ?

The Union Government has approved a plan for Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) Corporatisation.

About Ordnance Factory Board(OFB):

• Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) is an umbrella body of 41 Ordnance Factories.
• Origin: In 1775, British authorities accepted the establishment of the Board of Ordnance in Fort William, Kolkata. This marked the official beginning of the Army Ordnance in India.
• Nodal Ministry: It is currently a subordinate office of the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
• Mandate: It provides a major chunk of the weapon, ammunition, and supplies for Indian armed forces, paramilitary forces, and police forces.
• Headquarters: Kolkata, West Bengal