GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

During the 4th India-France annual defence dialogue, both countries discusses defence industrial cooperation with a focus on ‘Make in India’ and to strengthen maritime cooperation and increase the scope and complexity of bilateral exercises.

Key-points discussed

• Minister level: Defence Ministers of both India and France
• The defence industrial cooperation with a focus on ‘Make in India’ was given emphasis.
• Future collaborations and potential co-production opportunities were discussed.
• The Ministers agreed that the technical groups from both countries should meet early next year and take the key cooperation issues forward.
• A wide range of bilateral, regional, and defence industrial cooperation issues were discussed during the dialogue.
• The agenda for cooperation in Indo-pacific was also discussed between the parties.
• Ministers reviewed the ongoing military-to-military cooperation, which has increased substantially in recent years.

Assessing India-France Bilateral Relations:

• France was one of the first countries with which India signed a “strategic partnership” after the end of the Cold War, in January 1998.
• France was one of the very few countries to support India’s decision to test nuclear weapons in 1998.
• Defence Cooperation:
  • Both countries have a defence dialogue at the Ministerial level.
  • The three services have regular defence exercises; viz.
    • Exercise Shakti (Army)
    • Exercise Varuna (Navy)
    • Exercise Garuda (Air Force)
• Recently, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has inducted French Rafale multi-role combat aircraft.
• There is an Agreement regarding the Provision of Reciprocal Logistics Support.
  • This agreement aims to help to facilitate the replenishment of fuel, rations, spares, and berthing and maintenance for the other nations’ warships, military aircraft, and troops during routine port calls, as well as during Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR).

Indian Ocean, the Common Shared Interest:

• France needs to protect its colonial territorial possessions like Reunion Island and the Indian Ocean being the zone of influence for India.
• Counter Terrorism: France backed India’s proposal for a global conference on terrorism. Both countries also support organizing a new “No Money for Terror” - an International Conference on Fighting Terrorist Financing.
• France Backing India: France also continues to steadfastly back India on Kashmir while its relations with Pakistan have plummeted in the recent past and China has become an object of suspicion.

Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA):

• IORA is a dynamic inter-governmental organization aimed at strengthening regional cooperation and sustainable development within the Indian Ocean region through its 23 Member States and 10 Dialogue Partners.
• It is a regional forum, tripartite in nature, bringing together representatives of Government, Business, and Academia, for promoting cooperation and closer interaction among them.
• It is based on the principles of Open Regionalism for strengthening Economic Cooperation, particularly in Trade Facilitation and Investment, Promotion as well as Social Development of the region.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has added that “the right to freedom of religion does not include a fundamental right to convert people to a particular religion”.

• In an affidavit filed by the Government which was asked by the Supreme Court in its last hearing on forced conversions have mentioned that;
• No fundamental right to convert another person to one’s own religion.
• Freedom of religion is not guaranteed in respect of one religion only but covers all religions alike.
• The Supreme Court also expressed grave concern over alleged religious conversions by use of force, allurement, and deception.

Need for Anti-Conversion Laws:

• No Right to Proselytize: The Constitution confers on each individual the fundamental right to profess, practice, and propagate his religion.
  • The individual right to freedom of conscience and religion cannot be extended to construe a collective right to proselytize.

• The right to religious freedom belongs equally to the person converting and the individual seeking to be converted.
• Fraudulent Marriages: In the recent past, several instances have come to notice whereby people marry persons of other religions by either misrepresentation or concealment of their own religion and after getting married they force such other person to convert to their own religion.
• To address issues like;
  • Threats of forceful conversion.
  • The problem of Inducement or allurement.
  • Religious conversion is not a Fundamental Right.
• Vulnerable Groups: Tribals, adolescents, women, and unaware people especially in Rural areas

Right to Freedom of religion in India:

• The Indian Constitution allows individuals the freedom to live by their religious beliefs and practices as they interpret these.
• In keeping with this idea of religious freedom for all, India also adopted a strategy of separating the power of religion and the power of the State
• Constitutional Provisions:
• Article 25: Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice, and propagation of religion
• Article 26: Freedom to manage religious affairs
• Article 27: Freedom to pay taxes for the promotion of any particular religion
• Article 28: Freedom to attend religious instruction or worship in certain educational institutions.

Supreme Court Judgements on Marriage and Conversion:

• Hadiya Judgement 2017:
  • Matters of dress and of food, of ideas and ideologies, of love and partnership, are within the central aspects of identity.
  • Neither the State nor the law can dictate a choice of partners or limit the free ability of every person to decide on these matters.
  • The principle that the right to marry a person of one’s choice is integral to Article 21.
• The Supreme Court of India, in both the Lily Thomas and Sarla Mudgal cases, has confirmed that religious conversions carried out without a bona fide belief and for the sole purpose of deriving some legal benefits do not hold water.
• Salamat Ansari-PriyankaKharwar case of Allahabad High Court 2020: The right to choose a partner or live with a person of choice was part of a citizen’s fundamental right to life and liberty (Article 21).
• Puttaswamy or ‘privacy’ Judgment 2017: Autonomy of the individual was the ability to make decisions in vital matters of concern to life.

In an effort to boost international air traffic, the civil aviation ministry has allowed Indian airlines to take wide-body planes on wet leases for up to one year.

• The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) released the Aircraft Leasing Manual in 2013, which was revised in 2017 to prescribe policy and guidelines regarding the management of an aircraft lease.

  What is Wet leasing? Wet leasing means taking the plane along with the operating crew and engineers, while dry leasing refers to taking only the aircraft on rent. The technical term for wet leasing is ACMI which stands for aircraft, crew, maintenance, and insurance. It aims to ensure that regulatory obligations are met and that operational safety is not compromised by the conditions of the lease.

Types of leases available:

• Aircraft leasing options range from obtaining a wet lease, a dry lease, or a damp lease.
• In a wet lease, the essential ACMI (Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance, and Insurance) are also leased along with the aircraft.
• A dry lease does not include crew, maintenance, or insurance.
• Finally, in a damp lease, the aircraft is leased along with the maintenance and insurance, but the aircraft crew is not leased.

Role of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA):

• The aircraft register in India is maintained by the DGCA.
• This register contains details in relation to the aircraft such as the type of aircraft, the year of manufacture, the full name and address of the owner or lessor, and the full name and address of the operator or lessee.
• The DGCA issues the certificate of registration for the aircraft.

Duration of lease:

• Earlier the duration of the lease was 6 months which has been extended to 1 year.
• Operations of an aircraft on wet lease are more difficult for the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to monitor, hence it is considered to remain for a definite period only.

Why do airlines prefer to lease aircraft?

• Airlines and aircraft operators prefer leasing planes in order to avoid the massive lump sum payments that buying them would entail, and to quickly increase capacity, perhaps temporarily, on certain routes or sectors.

Why Government has extended the limit now?

• The relaxation will be available to all Indian carriers and will be granted based on the international destinations they wish to operate to.
• Wet leasing will allow airlines to fly more routes and rounds and Wide-body planes can accommodate more passengers, thereby boosting revenue.

Recently, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) approved the environmental release of genetically engineered (GE) mustard (DMH-11 hybrid) in India which has drawn criticism for damaging the Environment and Ecology and does not follow adequate approval provisions.

GM Mustard Crop:

• The hybrid mustard DMH-11 has been produced which contains two alien genes isolated from a soil bacterium called Bacillus ‘amyloliquefaciens’.
• The first gene (‘barnase’) codes for a protein that impairs pollen production and renders the plant into which it is incorporated male-sterile.

• This plant is then crossed with a fertile parental line containing, in turn, the second ‘barstar’ gene that blocks the action of the barnase gene.
• The resultant F1 progeny is both high-yielding and also capable of producing seed/ grain.
• This system was used to develop DMH-11 by crossing a popular Indian mustard variety ‘Varuna’ (the barnase line) with an East European ‘Early Heera-2’ mutant (barstar).

Concerns associated:

• The presence of a third ‘bar’ gene, makes GM mustard plants tolerant to the spraying of glufosinate ammonium, a chemical used for killing weeds. This will cause displacement of manual labor engaged in weeding by promoting the use of chemical herbicides.
• The deployment of herbicide-resistant or HT crops has been accompanied by deleterious outcomes in several places including the US, Australia, and Canada as well as Argentina.
• The most well-established harmful consequence has been the spread of herbicide-resistant weeds across large tracts of agricultural land, which can spell disaster for the normal crop.
• The GM mustard can threaten the population of honey bees as the Mustard flowers are a source of nectar for honey bees and many other pollinator insects.

Loopholes in governance:

• The potentially harmful long-term ecological and economic consequences of releasing DMH-11 have not received sufficient consideration.
• Second, details of the mandatory trials to ensure food and environmental safety which is a prerequisite before environmental release have not been made public.
• Finally, a detailed long-term assessment of the potential social and economic benefits of using DMH-11, vis-à-vis its potential drawbacks, remains to be made.
• It is not enough for GEAC to merely refer it for chemical registration since the (Central Insecticide Board and Registration Committee) CIB&RC is not the competent body for recommending approval of GM crops.
• GEAC assumes that farmers will use DMH-11 without adding herbicide even though they know that it carries a gene for herbicide resistance.
  • It ignores the known fact that there have been numerous recent reports in the Indian media of the illegal use of unapproved herbicide-resistant crops, which has been brought to the notice of the government.
    
    
    
    

The setting up of 5G airwave infrastructure has raised concerns about safe airline operations due to interference that these signals could cause.

Concerns around 5G interference with flight operations:

• Likely interference of 5G C-Band spectrum with aircraft radio altimeters. These altimeters as well as a part of the 5G telecom services operate in the mid-C-Band frequency range.
  • A radio altimeter is an instrument that provides direct height-above-terrain information to various aircraft systems. For all airborne vehicles, an aircraft, spacecraft, or even a missile- an altimeter is crucial to gauge the altitude and the distance covered
  • For aircraft operations, the use of altimeters in 5G C-Band ensures highly precise measurements of the plane’s altitude.
    
    
• The C-Band presents a sweet spot for rolling out 5G services, ensuring coverage as well as high bandwidth, resulting in faster internet speeds.
• The concern is that the signal emitted by the 5G’s C-Band will interfere with the signals the altimeter receives about the plane’s altitude, which could impact operations during low-visibility landings or landings in bad weather.

Department of Telecommunications (DoT) operational guidelines:

• Setting up 5G establishments a bit further away from airports.
• Lowering the power of 5G signals.
• Airline companies will be required to upgrade altimeters.

Has this been an issue globally?

• The deployment of 5G by AT&T and Verizon, in the US, has triggered concern among airlines as the telecom companies are very close to the frequencies used by onboard instruments such as radar altimeters, which operate in the 4.2-4.4 GHz range.
• US aviation authorities have reported about 85 cases of 5G waves impacting flight operations.
• Air India had to cancel some of its flights to the US.
• This has resulted in a delay in the rollout of 5G services in the C-Band near airports.

Concerns from other industries:

• The guard band between the 5G telecom and broadcast services narrowing sharply.
• Broadcasters have cited multiple incidents of “disruptions” amid concerns over possible interference.
• There is a possibility of potential outages once full-scale 5G services are launched across the country.

• iNCOVACC (BBV154) an intranasal vaccine against coronavirus received approval from Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) under Restricted Use in Emergency Situation.
  
  
  

Details:

• iNCOVACC has been specifically formulated to allow intranasal delivery through nasal drops
• Product development and clinical trials were funded in part by the Government of India.
• The iNCOVACC has got approval for Restricted Use in Emergency Situations for all adults in India, for heterologous booster doses.

Heterologous booster vaccine: In heterologous boosting, a person is injected with a different vaccine from that was used for the primary dose.

About iNCOVACC:

• Developed by: The vaccine was developed by Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL) in partnership with Washington University, St Louis.
• Working: It is a recombinant replication-deficient adenovirus vectored vaccine with a prefusion stabilized spike protein.
  • It uses a modified chimpanzee adenovirus which cannot replicate in the body to carry Covid spike protein to induce immunity.
  • It triggers a response in the blood (B-cells: IgG and T-cells) by producing antibodies or seeking out and destroying the infected cells.
  • It also triggers the B cells that reside around mucosal tissues to make another type of antibody, called IgA. It plays a large role in destroying airway pathogens.
• Usage: This vaccine will be used for primary immunization against COVID-19 in the 18+ age group for restricted use in emergency situations.
• Storage: iNCOVACC is stable at 2-8°C for easy storage and distribution.

Intranasal Administration

• For intranasal administration, the vaccine is sprayed into the nostrils and inhaled nasally.
  • An intranasal vaccine stimulates a broad immune response thus, neutralizing IgG, mucosal IgA, and T-cell responses.
  • Immune responses at the site of infection (in the nasal mucosa) are essential for blocking both infection and transmission of COVID-19.
• According to experts, an intranasal vaccine can fight against the virus even before it tries to cross the body’s protective barrier.

Drawbacks of Nasal Vaccine

• There is very little evidence to back the effectiveness of the nasal route of delivery.
• A nasal Vaccine in the case of polio has caused disease after the weakened virus in the product got mutated.
• Despite theoretical advantages, the intranasal approach to vaccination is largely unproven.
• The concept has been tested quite extensively in animals, but on humans.

Benefits of iNCOVACC:

• Likely to block both infection and transmission of COVID-19
• Non-invasive and needle-free
• Easy to administer as it does not require trained healthcare workers
• Eliminates needle-associated risks (injuries and infections)
• High compliance- ideally suits children and adults
• Scalable manufacturing- able to meet global demand.