27th June 2025 (3 Topics)
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27th June 2025
Editorials
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The United States announced the rescission of its Framework for AI Diffusion, a set of export controls for Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology announced earlier this year. The framework was considered counterproductive to AI technology development and diplomatic relations.
Challenges relating to the framework:
- Detering adversaries: Under the proposed framework, countries such as China and Russia were embargoed, trusted allies were favoured, and others restricted in their access to advanced AI technology.
- Impact on U.S. Allies: The framework set a concerning precedent for technology cooperation with the U.S., particularly for its allies. It signalled U.S. willingness to dictate how other nations manage their technological affairs, incentivising them to hedge against U.S. actions.
- Treating AI as military technology: The framework would treat AI, a civilian technology with military applications, as if it were a military technology with civilian uses. Unlike nuclear technology, AI innovation is inherently civilian in its origins and international in scope.
The possible replacement of the framework:
- Continuation of restrictive policies: Despite the revocation of the AI Diffusion Framework, the current U.S. administration continues to prioritise limiting Chinese access to AI chips, maintaining a strategic focus on controlling AI technology diffusion.
- Expansion of export controls: In March 2025, the U.S. expanded existing export controls, adding several companies to its entity list (blacklist) to further restrict their access to AI chips and related technologies.
- Strengthened enforcement guidelines: The administration has introduced new guidelines to enhance the enforcement of export controls, ensuring stricter compliance and oversight to prevent unauthorised access to AI chips.
Implications of U.S. AI chip control measures:
- Privacy and surveillance concerns: New U.S. measures, such as on-chip monitoring and location tracking, raise significant concerns about ownership, privacy, and surveillance, potentially undermining user trust and autonomy.
- Impact on legitimate use: While malicious actors might be sufficiently motivated to circumvent these controls, legitimate and beneficial use by others could be inadvertently discouraged. Such developments undermine user autonomy and lead to trust deficits.
- Push for alternatives to the U.S. ecosystem: Both adversaries and allies may feel compelled to reduce dependence on the U.S. AI ecosystem, investing in alternative technologies to safeguard their strategic interests.
Practice Question:
Q. Examine how the U.S.'s continued efforts to restrict Artificial Intelligence (AI) chip access, through measures like export controls and on-chip monitoring, impact the AI ecosystem as well as India's strategic interests.
Editorials
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The vaccine coverage globally, between 1980 and 2023, doubled for six diseases, including measles, polio and tuberculosis. Further, at 75% globally, there has been a sharp fall in the number of zero-dose children. However, according to The Lancet report, India still had the second largest number of zero-dose children, and is among the eight countries with over 50% of the nearly 16 million zero-dose children globally.
India’s vaccination landscape:
- Zero-dose children in India: Despite increased immunisation coverage over the decades, in 2023 India had 1.44 million zero-dose children. These are those who have not received even the first dose of the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTP) vaccine.
- Linkages to high birth rates: Most of the zero-dose children globally are in countries that are conflict-affected or with limited resources for vaccination programmes; however, India has neither of these two problems, and zero-dose children can be linked to the prevalence of high birth rates.
- Impact of COVID-19 on vaccination: Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of zero-dose children was 1.4 million in 2019; however, this swelled to 2.7 million in 2021 and then dropped to 1.1 million in 2022 before increasing to 1.44 million in 2023.
Regional and demographic challenges:
- Geographic distribution: As in the 2021 study, a large percentage of zero-dose children are in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat. There is also a relatively high proportion of them in Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.
- Socio-demographic disparities: Over the years, the difference in zero-dose children based on gender, caste, and rural-urban status has reduced substantially. However, prevalence remains high among the poor, mothers with low education, Scheduled Tribes and Muslims.
- Barriers to immunisation: Vaccine hesitancy among Muslim households with newborn children and challenges in reaching migrants create barriers to access to immunisation.
Policy and future directions:
- India’s immunisation efforts: A study in 2021 found that India had sharply reduced the percentage of zero-dose children, from 33.4% in 1992 to 10.1% in 2016.
- Aligning with global goals: India has much work to do to align with the WHO’s Immunisation Agenda 2030 (IA2030) for halving zero-dose children.
- Strategies for Improvement: Focus is needed to immunise children in hard-to-reach tribal areas, urban slums where there is a huge migrant population, and in reducing vaccine hesitancy among Muslim households with newborn children.
Practice Question:
Q. Despite significant global progress in vaccination coverage, India continues to face challenges with a high number of zero-dose children. Analyse the factors contributing to the issue and evaluate the effectiveness of India's immunisation programs.
Editorials
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Context
The cessation of Israel-Iran hostilities, announced by United States President Donald Trump, sets the stage for the denouement of the horror drama that began on October 7, 2023, with Hamas launching its Operation Toofan al-Aqsa.
Military Outcomes and Regional Shifts:
- Israel's military victories: Over the past 21 months, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), backed by the U.S., has scored a set of spectacular though pyrrhic military victories. In Gaza, the IDF has decimated Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, considered the world’s most formidable non-state actor, has been neutered with its leadership in disarray and its arsenal gone.
- Collapse of the regional adversaries: Syria’s al-Assad regime has been replaced by a weak Islamist government that poses no threat to Israel. Yemen’s al-Houthis did manage to disrupt maritime traffic and lob missiles at Israel, but have been cowed down by the disproportionate IDF and U.S. military responses.
- Iran’s strategic setback: After 12 days of high-intensity aerial exchanges, Israel and the US claimed to have “obliterated” the nuclear option that Iran pursued for over two decades. Tehran has also suffered strategic losses due to targeted assassinations of its top military personnel and nuclear scientists.
Iran's Political and Strategic Future:
- Challenges for Iran’s future: The future course of Iran would be the biggest challenge for two reasons: First, as the most populous country in the region, it is intrinsically important. Second, as Israel’s most implacable foe, it has been the region’s biggest disruptor and political determinant.
- Challenge of regime stability: While the victors may have publicly avowed their disinterest in regime change in Tehran, an unrepentant Mullah regime would signify their “unfinished agenda”.
- Prospects for a pro-West regime: The necessity of keeping Tehran in check on its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) ambitions by continued sanctions and strict and intrusive supervision would preoccupy the U.S., Israel and the pro-West regimes in this region. However, this could create an unsteady political dynamic similar to Iraq during 1991-2003.
The Israel-Palestine Conundrum:
- Gaza's humanitarian crisis: The just-concluded war with Iran would allow the IDF to refocus on the Gaza situation, where mass starvation competes with the high death toll of civilians every day due to Israeli fire.
- Israel’s post-war challenges: The end of the war would finally allow Israeli society greater normalcy; however, the economic and social costs of the war may haunt Israel for a long time. Israel’s post-war recovery and political reset towards moderation would be pivotal for the expansion of the Abraham Accords.
- Pathways to regional peace: After this apocalyptic conflict, the West Asian region yearns for peace and stability. If the three main actors, viz., Iran, Israel and the U.S., avoid triumphalism and transit instead to moderation and nation-building, this aspiration can be realised.
Practice Question:
Q. Analyse the geopolitical shifts in West Asia following Israel’s military victories over Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. How do these developments impact India’s strategic interests in West Asia?
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