27.1.15
Padma awards
BJP veteran and former deputy prime minister L K Advani, Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal, Bollywood icons Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan and leader of Ismaili sect of Muslims Karim Al Hussaini Aga Khan have been awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian honour after the Bharat Ratna. The Padma Bhushan awardees include Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates, who have donated billions towards healthcare in India.
The honours list includes Jagadguru Ramanandacharya Srinivasan of Tulsi Peeth, Shivakumara Swami of Siddaganga Mutt in Tumkur, Swami Satyamitranand Giri who founded Bharat Mata Mandir in Haridwar and Portugal-based yoga guru Jagat Guru Arta Suyananda Maha Raja. The list of “spiritual gurus“ would have been longer but for the refusal of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Ramdev. Of the 104 Padma award winners announced on Republic Day eve, nine were conferred the Padma Vibhushan, 20 were named for Padma Bhushan and 75 for Padma Shri.
The list includes 17 women, with the highlight being the presence of four women among the total six awardees in the sports category. Also, in a record of sorts, there are 17 awardees in the category of foreigners, NRIs and PIOs.
In the latter bracket, for Padma Bhushan, are Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Japanese associate Saichiro Misumi, whom PM Modi had met in Tokyo last year, and US-based Sanskrit scholar David Frawley, who is also known as Vamadeva.
The Padma Vibhushan awardees include Dr Veerjendra Heggade of Karnataka (for social work), Prof Malur Ramasamy Srinivasan of Tamil Nadu (science & engineering) and legal luminary K K Venugopal (public affairs).
The Padma Bhushan list features former Solicitor General Harish Salve, constitutional expert Subhash C Kashyap and former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami. Assamese film maker Jahnu Barua, journalists Rajat Sharma and Swapan Dasgupta, Hindustani classical vocalist Pandit Gokulotsavji Maharaj, Carnatic vocalist Sudha Ragunathan, wrestling coach Satpal and geologist Kharag Singh Valdiya have also been conferred the country’s third highest civilian award. Indian-origin mathematician Manjul Bhargava, too, is on the list.
The sports category features four women including badminton player P V Sindhu, cricketer Mithali Raj, hockey player Saba Anjum and the first female amputee to climb Mt Everest Arunima Singh. Wresting coach Satpal and hockey team captain Sardara Singh are the only two male Padma awardees in the sports category.
The Padma winners for science medicine are computer scientist Vijay Bhatkar, cardiologist Ashok Seth, pulmonary medicine specialist Randeep Guleria, Dr Ambrish Mithal of Medanta (all Padma Bhushan); and DRDO’s Dr N Prabhakar and Dr Prahlada.
Among the 75 Padma Shri winners are late spiritual head of the Bohra Muslims Syedna Mohammad Burhanuddin, economist and Niti Aayog member Bibek Debroy, cartoonist Pran (posthumous), filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, music composer Ravindra Jain, ad man Prasoon Joshi, former NCERT chairman J S Rajput, T V Mohandas Pai, chairman of Manipal Global Education, and Gujarati columnist Tarak Mehta.
Among the foreigners awarded the Padma Shri are Chinese Indologist Huang Baosheng, French scientist Jacques Blamont, French novelist Jean-Claude Carriere, professor of Tamil language at University of California, Berkeley, George L Hart, and German Indologist Annette Schmiedchen.
The NRIs PIOs in the Padma Shri category are Indian-American economist Nandrajan “Raj” Chetty, vocalist Tripti Mukherjee; and Dr Dattatreyudu Nori, Dr Raghu Rama Pillarisetti and Dr Saumitra Rawat in the field of medicine.
India-US defence tie ups announced
Renewing their expansive defence framework for another 10 years, India and the US have decided to kick off joint manufacturing of four relatively modest military products and explore the development of two more high-end technologies.
The two nations agreed to step up joint combat exercises, maritime security endeavours, intelligence-sharing mechanisms, military exchanges and the like through the framework, which has the key new element of Defence Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) to bolster India's fledgling defence industrial base.
The DTTI will be launched with four aptly called “pathfinder projects“ since India wants to first ascertain how these “not-so-complex technologies“ actually materialize on the ground. The Indian defence establishment, after all, is yet to fully shed its long-standing inhibitions about the US being a reliable long-term supplier of top-notch technologies. The four products to be co-produced are the next-generation Raven unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), “roll-on, roll-off“ intelligence-gathering and reconnaissance modules for C-130J Super Hercules aircraft, mobile electric hybrid power sources and “uniform integrated protection ensemble increment-2 (chemical, biological warfare protection gear for soldiers)“.
The Raven, for instance, is not an advanced spy or combat drone. A hand launched mini drone, it is used by soldiers in the battlefield to keep tabs on enemy formations within a range of 10 km. The two sides, however, plan to extend its range to 18 km and flying endurance to six hours from the existing four hours. Similarly , the 12 C-130Js acquired by India from the US for over $2 billion since 2007 did not have the requisite surveillance modules that they will now get.
Both Obama and Modi promised the DTTI would take the bilateral defence cooperation to a new level altogether with “additional joint projects in the near future“. Towards this end, the decision to set up working groups to explore development of aircraft carrier technologies and jet engines is crucial.
India has miserably flopped to develop the Kaveri engine for its indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft, which is going to be powered by American GE engines for the foreseeable future. As for aircraft carriers, India is currently constructing the 40,000-tonne INS Vikrant at Cochin Shipyard, as also planning a second, much larger one thereafter.
The two nations agreed to step up joint combat exercises, maritime security endeavours, intelligence-sharing mechanisms, military exchanges and the like through the framework, which has the key new element of Defence Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) to bolster India's fledgling defence industrial base.
The DTTI will be launched with four aptly called “pathfinder projects“ since India wants to first ascertain how these “not-so-complex technologies“ actually materialize on the ground. The Indian defence establishment, after all, is yet to fully shed its long-standing inhibitions about the US being a reliable long-term supplier of top-notch technologies. The four products to be co-produced are the next-generation Raven unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), “roll-on, roll-off“ intelligence-gathering and reconnaissance modules for C-130J Super Hercules aircraft, mobile electric hybrid power sources and “uniform integrated protection ensemble increment-2 (chemical, biological warfare protection gear for soldiers)“.
The Raven, for instance, is not an advanced spy or combat drone. A hand launched mini drone, it is used by soldiers in the battlefield to keep tabs on enemy formations within a range of 10 km. The two sides, however, plan to extend its range to 18 km and flying endurance to six hours from the existing four hours. Similarly , the 12 C-130Js acquired by India from the US for over $2 billion since 2007 did not have the requisite surveillance modules that they will now get.
Both Obama and Modi promised the DTTI would take the bilateral defence cooperation to a new level altogether with “additional joint projects in the near future“. Towards this end, the decision to set up working groups to explore development of aircraft carrier technologies and jet engines is crucial.
India has miserably flopped to develop the Kaveri engine for its indigenous Tejas light combat aircraft, which is going to be powered by American GE engines for the foreseeable future. As for aircraft carriers, India is currently constructing the 40,000-tonne INS Vikrant at Cochin Shipyard, as also planning a second, much larger one thereafter.
26.1.15
Modi, Obama make a N-breakthrough
PM Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama seemed set to elevate Indo-US ties to a new level with a remarkable breakthrough in India's moribund 2008 civil nuclear cooperation agreement with the US. The two clinched the agreement while taking a 30 minute stroll in the lawns of Hyderabad House after talks had failed to resolve the issue.
With Obama using his executive powers to roll back the condition that US authorities be allowed to monitor use of nuclear material purchased by India even from third countries, the two leaders successfully finalised the terms and conditions for operationalizing the civil nuclear deal.In his press statement, Modi said US and India shared a natural global partnership. Indian officials attributed the successful conclusion of nuclear talks to Obama's intervention as intrusive inspections by US authorities was the lone issue that was threatening to derail the contact group meeting last week in London. Officials said the two countries would follow the Canada template, which India had been seeking (as reported by this paper earlier), under which US authorities wouldn't insist on inspections over and above those by IAEA.
“I am pleased that six years after we signed our bilateral agreement, we are moving towards commercial cooperation, consistent with our law, our international legal obligations, and technical and commercial viability ,“ said Modi in a joint press interaction with Obama. A Democratic President and a BJP Prime Minister thus completed a process that had been begun by a Republican President (George W Bush) and a Congress Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh).
Obama also backed India's phased entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, Missile Technology Control Regime, Wassenaar Arrangement and the Australia Group to strengthen non-proliferation and export control regimes.
This development will not just stamp Modi's authority on foreign relations but also earn him political mileage at home.While the administrative arrangements were taken care of by the gesture from Obama, India's 2010 nuclear liability law too remained unscathed.
Describing Obama's visit as historic, foreign secretary Sujatha Singh reaffirmed that both the contentious sections -section 17 (b) which guarantees right of recourse against suppliers in the event of an accident and section 46 which exposed suppliers to tort claims and potentially unlimited liability--conformed to IA EA's Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC).
MEA joint secretary for disarmament Amandeep Gill said India remained committed to ratifying CSC. Today we achieved a breakthrough under standing on two issues that were holding up our ability to advance our civil nuclear cooperation and we are committed to moving towards full implementation,“ said Obama at the press interaction. “This is an important step that shows how we can work together to elevate our relationship.“
The administrative arrangements which the US sought in the London meeting of the contact group had turned into a real hurdle even though the meeting saw considerable progress over the liability issue. The US has agreed to India's proposal to build a risk-management insurance pool of Rs.1,500 crore to provide cover to suppliers who shunned the civil nuclear agreement because it made them liable to pay compensation in the event of a nuclear accident While General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC) and other national insurers are expected to contribute Rs.750 crore for the pool, the remaining half will be provided by the government.
The two countries were also seeking to address concerns over section 46 which leaves suppliers exposed to tort claims.
This section empowers ordinary citizens to file tort claims against suppliers, something which was seen by the US industry as opening US companies to potentially unlimited liability.
The development is likely to be touted as a major achievement by the Modi government as the two countries can now move to effect civil nuclear “within the framework of law“ and without having to dilute the liability law.
The civil nuclear cooperation with the US could never really take off in the past seven years because of differences over liability and administrative issues despite India having allotted sites to US companies in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.
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