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The month-long anti-encroachment drive in Jammu and Kashmir to retrieve government land has been halted following an intervention by the Union Home Ministry.
The J&K administration has been asked to issue notices and give proper hearing to residents before arriving with bulldozers.
A J&K administration official, however, denied that the drive had been halted, and said that “geo-tagging and geo-referencing” of the retrieved land was going on.
The official said the drive to recover public land was being done as per a 2020 order of the J&K High Court to scrap the Jammu and Kashmir State Land (Vesting Ownership to the Occupants) Act, popularly known as the Roshni Act.
The court, in an order on October 9, 2020, directed that details of “State land in unauthorised occupation” should be disclosed on the government’s website, along with the names of the beneficiaries under the Roshni Act.
States
U.S. Air Force’s B-1B Lancer lands at Aero India 2023 in Bengaluru (Page no. 4)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
United States Air Force (USAF) has added two more aircraft to its fleet at Aero India 2023. The second day of Aero India here saw the arrival of two supersonic heavy bombers — the B-1B Lancer.
B-1B Lancer, also known as ‘Bone’ (for B-one), carries the largest conventional payload of both guided and unguided weapons in the USAF, and is considered the backbone of America’s long-range bomber force.
The two B-1B Lancers arrived from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. This is the second time that the long-range, supersonic, heavy bomber is participating in Aero India.
During the last edition in 2021, one B-1B Lancer did a fly-by over the Air Force Station at Yelahanka after a 28-hour flight from the Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota.
The aircraft performed a fly-by on the inaugural day of Aero India 2021, escorted by an Indian Air Force Tejas fighter.
The US Consulate General said that the return of the long-range, supersonic, heavy bomber to India to participate in Aero India 2023 underscores the importance the United States places on the growing strategic partnership with India.
The B-1 offers flexible options to senior leaders and combatant commanders. Greater integration with our allies and partners throughout the region is a positive step towards greater interoperability.
The bombers made the journey from South Dakota to Guam, and then to India just to add another exciting dimension to Aero India 2023.
It’s a long mission to travel from the continental U.S. to the Indian Ocean, but it was worth being part of the biggest air show in the region, hosted by our major defense partner, India. The U.S. and India continue to deepen defense cooperation.
Editorial
Shaping a more disabled-friendly digital ecosystem (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Social Justice)
The estimation in Census 2011, that 2.21% of India’s population is disabled is a gross underestimation. According to the World Health Organization, about 16% of the global population is disabled.
If that figure is extrapolated to the Indian context, it would mean at least 192 million disabled people. While technology has enormous potential to level the playing field for the disabled, it can, at the same time, reinforce the barriers that the disabled otherwise face if it is not designed with their needs in mind.
Here is another point. India, it is reported, had 750 million Internet/smartphone users in 2020. Applying the 16% figure here, this works out to be roughly 120 million (12 crore) Internet/smartphone users with disabilities.
There is no denying the fact that our lives are increasingly being led digitally, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We use apps to order groceries, food, medicines, in dating, socialising, entertainment and education. Being blind ourselves, we know that there is a long way to go when it comes to making apps disabled friendly.
To provide evidence-based assessment of the problem and spur conversations and reforms, we co-authored (with like-minded colleagues) a report that evaluates the accessibility of 10 of the most widely used apps in India, across five sectors.
These sectors were chosen based on broad stakeholder consultation with people with disabilities, and the 10 apps, based on the amount of online traffic. The apps were Zomato, Swiggy, PayTM, PhonePe, Amazon, Flipkart, Uber, Ola, WhatsApp and Telegram.
We used the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (a set of globally recognised parameters to determine how disabled friendly an app or website is) to evaluate these apps. Based on the number of violations, we categorised the level of accessibility of the apps as “high”, “medium” and “low”.
Our report found that four out of the 10 apps ranked low, while five were in the medium category. The report was launched on January 13, by Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary, Department of Empowerment for Persons with Disabilities, Government of India.
We invited representatives of all 10 apps to attend our event. We think that it is no mere coincidence that the only app which sent a representative was the one ranked high in the index, i.e., WhatsApp.
This is a pointer to the need to work with intentionality in creating disabled-friendly infrastructure, either physical or digital.
Opinion
Ladakh, a fragile region, needs autonomy (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The normally peaceful residents of Ladakh are in agitation mode. They are set to gather in Delhi today to pursue their demand for special constitutional status, which would allow them to decide on a development path that safeguards the region’s fragile ecological and cultural heritage.
On January 26, one of Ladakh’s most respected educationists and inventors, Sonam Wangchuk, began a fast in the open in sub-zero temperatures.
He issued an appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to meet this demand. On January 31, Leh held perhaps its largest-ever demonstration with over 20,000 people.
Two weeks before this, the Leh Apex Body and the Kargil Democratic Alliance, two of Ladakh’s most powerful religious and political organisations, rejected a committee set up by the Central government to examine the status issue.
They said the committee’s mandate was vague and did not consider the specific demands made by them. Student groups and civil society groups too have ramped up their demand for constitutional safeguards.
After all, Ladakhis had been demanding UT status for many years, and when it was announced in 2019 by the Centre, there had been celebrations across the region.
Since 2019, the celebratory mood has considerably diminished. Many Ladakhis have realised that their real need of relatively free and autonomous functioning and substantial local employment generation is still a mirage.
For 1,000 years, Ladakh was an independent kingdom before being integrated into Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). The memory of this long history has not been erased, and it rankles that while it is no longer subject to J&K, Ladakh is now being ruled from New Delhi.
In 2019, the BJP government had announced that Ladakh would get special constitutional status providing it autonomy. Before the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (AHDC) election, Sixth Schedule status was promised to the region, similar to what is seen in some parts of north-east India.
This promise is yet to be fulfilled. The Home Minister has rebuffed senior Ladakhi politicians and activists who have approached him on this.
Explainer
Leveraging J&K’s lithium reserves (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 1, Natural Resources)
News of the discovery of “5.9 million tonnes inferred resources of lithium” in the Salal-Haimana area of Reasi district, Jammu & Kashmir, by the Geological Survey of India has been received as a game-changer in India’s impending transition to a green economy.
The term ‘inferred’ refers to the ‘preliminary exploration stage’, the second of a four-step process, according to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Exploration) Act 1957.
Lithium-ion batteries are used in wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles, all of which are crucial in a green economy.
A World Bank study suggests that the demand for critical metals such as lithium (Li) and cobalt is expected to rise by nearly 500% by 2050.
While “the global electric vehicle market is projected to reach $823.75 billion by 2030, registering a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.2% from 2021 to 2030,” India’s market is projected to register a CAGR of 23.76% by 2028. India is seeking to secure its critical mineral supplies and build self-sufficiency in this sector.
As India currently imports all of its Li from Australia and Argentina and 70% of its Li-ion cell requirement from China and Hong Kong, the lithium reserves in J&K could boost the domestic battery-manufacturing industry.
If the perceived size of the mineral reserves in J&K is borne out by further exploration, India could jump ahead of China vis-à-vis its Li stockpile.
The J&K reserves will also help advance the Indian government’s ambitious plan of “30% EV penetration in private cars, 70% for commercial vehicles, and 80% for two and three-wheelers by 2030 for the automobile industry.” They will strengthen India’s National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage as well.
Critical mineral dependencies constitute a major geostrategic concern in the transition to net-zero carbon energy systems. In the present scenario, as countries seek to avoid dependencies and vulnerabilities related to critical minerals, the latter are likely to be at least as important as oil and gas in the near future.
A high level of dependence on China for Li and other crucial metals and their derivatives are also perceived to be sources of energy security risks.
China currently controls 77% of the global lithium-ion battery manufacturing capacity and is home to six of the world’s 10 manufacturing companies.
As a result, the EU, the U.S., Canada, India, and other major economies have been trying to leverage alternative supplies that can challenge China’s geopolitical dominance in this area.