GS PAPER: II

NATO funding and its Article 5

Why in the news?

• Recently Former US President Donald Trump raised a storm of criticism from the White House and top Western officials for suggesting he would not defend NATO allies who failed to spend enough on defence and would even encourage Russia to attack them.

What did Trump say about NATO?

• As US president from 2017-21, Trump often lambasted NATO and members such as Germany, accusing them of not paying enough for their own defence and relying on Washington to protect them.
• He openly questioned the collective defence principle.
• Other US administrations have also accused Europeans of not spending enough on defence, but in less strident terms.

NATO’s funding mechanism

• Trump has often accused other NATO members of not paying their dues, giving the impression that the alliance is like a club with membership fees.
• But NATO operates differently. It has some common funds, to which all members contribute. But the vast bulk of its strength comes from members’ own national defence spending – to maintain forces and buy arms that can also be used by NATO.
• However, NATO members have committed to spending at least 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) every year on defence – and most of them did not meet that goal last year.

NATO members who meet the defence spending target

• According to NATO estimates from July last year, 11 members were expected to meet the 2% target in 2023. Those members were Poland, the United States, Greece, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Latvia, Britain and Slovakia.
• Germany, Europe’s economic heavyweight, was estimated at 1.57%. But German officials have said they expect to meet the 2% target this year, partly thanks to a special 100-billion-euro fund established in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
• The lowest spenders as a share of national GDP were Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg, according to the NATO figures.
• NATO is expected to release updated figures in the coming days that will show more allies meeting the 2% target, according to people familiar with the data.

NATO’s Article 5

• In Article 5 of the founding treaty, NATO members declared that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America “shall be considered an attack against them all”.
• They agreed they would “assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force”.
• However, Article 5 stops short of a commitment to an automatic military response to help an ally under attack. That means the strength of Article 5 depends on clear statements from political leaders that it will be backed up by action.
• This is one reason Trump’s comments caused such a furore, particularly as they came at a time of heightened alarm in NATO about Russia’s intentions, following its invasion of Ukraine.

GS PAPER – III

Minimum support prices

Why in the news?

• The farmers who broke through police barricades and braved tear gas on their way to Delhi ,is for the enactment of a law to guarantee minimum support prices (MSP) for all crops, as per the formula recommended by the Dr M S Swaminathan Commission.
• This comes at a time when a committee appointed by the central government in July 2022 continues to deliberate on ways to make MSP more “effective and transparent”.

Purpose of panel

• On November 19, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the government had decided to withdraw the (now repealed) three farm laws — the Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.
• A committee will be constituted to decide on matters like promotion of zero budget farming, i.e. natural farming, scientifically change the crop pattern keeping in mind the changing requirements of the country, and make MSP more effective and transparent.

Mandate of panel

• The ministry’s July 18, 2022 notification said the committee’s “subject matter” has three points: MSP, natural farming, and crop diversification.
• On the MSP, the committee has been asked for suggestions to make available MSP to farmers of the country by making the system more effective and transparent.
• The panel is also supposed to make recommendations to strengthen the Agricultural Marketing System as per the changing requirements of the country to ensure higher value to the farmers through remunerative prices of their produce by taking advantage of the domestic and export opportunities.
• The committee was also asked for suggestions on the practicality to give more autonomy to Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) and measures to make it more scientific.

GS PAPER – III

High-altitude pseudo-satellite vehicles

Why in news?

• The Bengaluru-based National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) successfully flew a prototype of a new-generation unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is being seen as a huge technology breakthrough. It was no ordinary UAV.
• This one can fly at great heights; about 20 km from ground, runs entirely on solar power, and can remain in the air for months on end. Such UAVs belong to a class of flying objects called HAPS, or high-altitude pseudo-satellite vehicles, or HALE that is high-altitude long-endurance vehicles.
• The primary utility of HAPS vehicles is in the field of surveillance and monitoring, but there are other situations, like disaster management, wherein it can be very useful.
• HAPS technology is still under development.
  • Several countries, and companies, have developed and flown such vehicles with encouraging success, but none has mastered the technology yet.
  • The world record for a vehicle of this class is held by the Airbus-manufactured Zephyr, which flew continuously for 64 days in August 2022 before crashing.

Need for such UAVs

• The kind of jobs that HAPS are meant to do are currently done by UAVs and satellites, but both have certain limitations.
• The normal UAVs, or drones as they are commonly called, are mostly battery-powered and cannot remain in the air beyond a few hours.
• Continuous monitoring is not something these can do very effectively. In addition, they fly at relatively low levels, because of which their vision is restricted to small areas.
• Satellites can observe much larger areas, but the ones in low-earth orbits are continuously moving with respect to Earth. They cannot be constantly keeping an eye on the target area.
• Geostationary satellites, located at a height of about 36,000 km above the ground, can keep a constant gaze over one area. But these are fairly expensive, and once deployed, cannot be repurposed or reoriented.
• HAPS are meant to overcome all these shortcomings, and do more.
• These stratospheric vehicles (flying about 20 km above the ground) are designed to loiter over a region.
• By standards of flying objects, and in comparison to UAVs for example, they move really slow, at just about 80-100 km per hour.
• That kind of slow speed 20 km above the ground means that objects on the ground pretty much don’t move for it. 

Challenges of HAPS

• But developing an autonomous flying machine fuelled entirely by solar power and capable of remaining in the air for months faces major technological hurdles. That is the reason why, despite decades of work, a full-fledged HAPS vehicle has still eluded engineers. It is only now, with advanced technologies in solar cells, batteries and composite materials, that this vehicle looks possible in the near future.
• The primary challenge is to generate enough solar power to keep the aircraft flying, the payloads operating, and the batteries charging.
• The batteries need to be enough to continue the operations through the night. Then there are design-related challenges. The aircraft needs to be extremely lightweight to minimise the power requirement, but it also has to be stable.
• This is one of the reasons why this aircraft is meant to fly in the stratosphere. The region between 17 and 23 km above the earth’s surface is climatologically conducive for their flight.
• The wind speed is very low and ideal for light-weight aircraft to remain stable. It helps that this height, much above the region in which civilian aircraft fly, is favourable for observation and surveillance activities.
• But temperatures at that height can drop to -50 degree Celsius or lower. Electronics need to be kept warmer, and that is an additional burden on power resources.
• Also, air density is just about 7 per cent of what it is at sea level. That creates acute complications for the aircraft, for example in producing lift and thrust.
• Because of limitations of space and weight, solar cells and batteries need to have very high efficiencies.
• For example, Venkatakrishnan said they were looking at battery cells with an energy density of 500 watt-hour/kg. Energy density is a measure of the amount of energy stored in a battery in proportion to its weight.

India and the HAPS

• For India, HAPS is another technology area where it is entering the race at a relatively early stage.
• In the last few years, there has been great emphasis on promoting research in emerging technologies, so that the country is not dependent on others for critical technologies of the future.
• Joining technology development at an early stage also results in capacity building, early adoption of technologies, control over patents, business opportunities and spin-off technologies.

GS PAPER – II

Abu Dhabi’s first Hindu temple

Why in news?

• Scheduled to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ,the UAE temple is among 1,200 such temples built and managed by the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha.

What is taken from India?

• Holy water from Ganga and Yamuna, pink sandstone from Rajasthan, furniture made of wooden trunks used to transport stones from India.
• The first Hindu stone temple in Abu Dhabi is an architectural marvel made with contributions from different parts of the country. The temple is set to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who will lead a dedication ceremony.
• The two sides of the temple, holy water flows from Ganga and Yamuna, which was brought from India in huge containers.

About temple:

• Temple is an amphitheatre in the shape of a ghat has been built on the side where the water from Ganga flows.
• The idea was to make it resemble the ghat of Varanasi where the visitors can sit, meditate and get transported mentally to ghats back in India.
• When visitors walk in, they will see two streams of water that symbolically represent the Ganga and Yamuna rivers in India.
• A beam of light to represent the river Saraswati will be directed from the temple structure to form ‘Triveni’ Sangam,” said Vishal Patel, a lead volunteer at the iconic temple.
• The temple has been built by the BAPS Swaminarayanon a 27-acre site in Abu Mureikhah, near Al Rahba off the Dubai-Abu Dhabi Sheikh Zayed Highway.
• The temple’s facade features exquisite marble carvings set against a sandstone backdrop, crafted from more than 25,000 pieces of stone by skilled artisans from Rajasthan and Gujarat.
• A substantial number of pink sandstones were transported from northern Rajasthan to Abu Dhabi for the temple.

About the prime minister visit?

• Prime Minister Modi will be in the UAE on a two-day visit beginning today.
• This is his seventh visit to the UAE since 2015 and his third in the last eight months.
• During the visit, Modi will hold bilateral meetings with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
• The two leaders are expected to discuss ways to further deepen, expand and strengthen the strategic partnership between the countries and exchange views on regional and international issues of mutual interest.
• The Prime Minister will later on Tuesday address the Indian diaspora at Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi.
• The UAE has at least 3.5 million Indians who are part of the Indian workforce in the Gulf.

What happened in first day of meeting?

• India and the UAE concluded a bilateral investment agreement and also signed a framework agreement on the India-Middle East Economic Corridor (IMEC) during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to the UAE. 
• Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), Intergovernmental Framework Agreement on the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor and MoUs linking payment systems has taken place.