The Hindu Editorial Analysis

THE HINDU (EDITORIAL) Competition Preparations Notes

 While continuing and increasing the share of funding in basic research, the government should encourage and incentivise

the private sector to invest substantially in applied research.

Advantage China

 Unlike India, China has many more labs with the best of scientific infrastructure; each with more number of skilled human resources
trained in regimental work culture and trained to practise rigorous documentation.

 Chinese students and scientists outnumber Indians nearly 5:1 in most American universities in the life sciences/biology-related
disciplines.

 A booming economy and a higher science budget coupled with a flexible hiring system have made Chinese universities and research
labs attract many overseas Chinese scientists.

Initiatives taken by the Indian Government

The government has been supporting biotech entrepreneurs.

 Initiatives through the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) of the Department of Biotechnology to support the
innovation ecosystems have resulted in an impressive outcome.

 For example, the funding has helped startup companies make nearly 50 biotechnology-related products that are in the market today.
Moving beyond this, however, will require a different strategy and understanding of the mature biotech-led innovation and economy
ecosystems.

What can the Govt do going forward?

 Our government needs to make the process of hiring in our universities and national labs simpler and flexible, not necessarily provide
more salary, to attract the bright overseas Indian scientists.

 The government has been encouraging and promoting entrepreneurship, but the culture of institutions and scientists to be
entrepreneurial will take time. This will require a flexible policy in the institutes to allow scientists incubate startup
companies in their labs while retaining their positions

 Second, the government should let scientists from research institutions and universities take unpaid leave to join the
industry for a fixed period.

 Similarly, the government should relax rules to appoint researchers from industry in faculty positions with the freedom
to teach, participate, and take students.

 This academia-industry linkage will do the much-required communication and understanding of the problems at both ends.
 Without a sustained effort in encouraging and promoting science-driven innovation in our academic institutions, and a robust

academia-industry collaboration, biotechnology-led innovation will not aid the nation’s economic growth.

Conclusion

 Discoveries in biotechnology may help us solve some of the pressing societal issues of our time: cleaning our rivers, producing life-
saving drugs, feeding our growing population with nutritious food and helping us clean the air we breathe. Therefore, it will be a
mistake to look at the biotechnology sector through the lens of employment generation only.

 The need for the use of artificial intelligence-based tools and applications of big data in biology will leverage India’s strength in IT and
move biotech innovations faster to the marketplace.

 Till then, India needs to do things patiently and work on the right side of the ethical and regulatory boundaries.

THE HINDU (EDITORIAL) Competition Preparations Notes

THE HINDU EDITORIAL (English) (27th September 2019)

Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Childhoods lost in a troubled paradise

Context

 This article speaks about incidents of Illegal detention, violence and torture in the valley region of Jammu and Kashmir and how this
has led to mental trauma in the children and stress in Adults.

Stats

 Between 1990 and 2005, a total of 46 schools were occupied by the armed forces
 In 2018, the Jammu & Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) found through Right to Information applications that hundreds of

children had been detained under the PSA between 1990 and 2013.

A look at reports

 A report by economist Jean Dreze has chilling details of illegal detention and torture of boys.

 A recent report by the Indian Federation of Indian Women and other organisations gave a first-hand account of the haunting
spectre of mothers standing at their doorsteps in the desperate hope of their children’s return, not knowing where they are.

These disappearances are in clear breach of the Supreme Court’s directions in the D.K.
Basu case

 The court, in this case, said that the next of kin have to be informed of every such arrest and the reasons thereof.

 The police officer carrying out the arrest shall prepare a memo of arrest at the time of arrest and such memo shall be attested by at
least one witness, who may be either a member of the family of the arrestee or a respectable person of the locality from where the
arrest is made.

 It shall also be counter signed by the arrestee and shall contain the time and date of arrest.

Kashmir’s children have become Pawns in a political game

 A report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights found that children in Kashmir, many of whose ages were wrongly recorded,
were being detained and mistreated for several days in police lock-up, without any charge, mostly under the Public Safety Act
(PSA)

 In many of these cases, the police/magistrates had no procedure to verify the age of the detainees and minors were kept
in custody along with adult criminals and released only after judicial intervention. About 80% of these detentions were held illegal
by courts.

Such unlawful detentions leaves a lifelong impact on children, perpetuating a cycle of trauma, fear and bitterness.

Such treatment of children is undoubtedly in violation of multiple laws and conventions.

 To begin with, all of them violate Article 14(4) of the International Convention on Civil & Political rights which states that “all
proceedings against juveniles shall take into account their age and the desirability of promoting their rehabilitation.”

THE HINDU (EDITORIAL) Competition Preparations Notes

 The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by India, provides that the arrest/detention of a child shall be in

conformity with the law and used only as a last resort and for the shortest appropriate period.

 The guidelines of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights clearly state that a blanket characterization of adolescent
boys as security threats during civil unrest should be avoided and authorities should investigate and take action against personnel
involved in arbitrary detentions, mistreatment or torture of children.

Various court rulings against detention of Juvenile’s

 In 2003, the Madras High Court in Prabhakaran v. State of Tamil Nadu held that the Juvenile Justice Act is a comprehensive law
and overrides preventive detention laws enacted for national security.

 Earlier, in 1982, the Supreme Court had in the Jaya Mala case condemned the preventive detention of a student and observed that
young people, even if their acts are misguided, cannot be punished with a sledgehammer.

However, none of these laws and directives seem to be followed in Kashmir.

How it harms Children?

 Parents are too scared to send their children to school, lest they be picked up by authorities or get caught in a crossfire. This leads to
lack of Education.

 Children in Kashmir grow up caged and under the shadow of a gun. As the parents of many of them go missing, they are also forced to
assume the responsibility of caregivers for their siblings.

 The strain on social structures due to the loss of family environment, safe spaces and education and health facilities severely
traumatises many of them and snatches their childhood away.

Conclusion

 No curbs on democratic rights on the promise of development can justify inhumane treatment of children.
 The civil society needs to speak out for the children of Kashmir or we will also be complicit in the ‘aggravated crime’ by the state

apparatus.
 The preventive arrests should be stopped lest the children of Kashmir go missing forever.

THE HINDU (EDITORIAL) Competition Preparations Notes

THE HINDU EDITORIAL (English) (28th September 2019)

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. OIC remarks on Article 370

Context

 The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) asked India to “rescind” its actions in Kashmir and abide by the relevant UN Security
Council resolutions following New Delhi’s decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s special status.

 The foreign ministers of the OIC Contact Group on Kashmir discussed the Indian government’s decision to revoke Article 370 in
Jammu and Kashmir and the state’s bifurcation into two Union Territories during a meeting on the sidelines of the 74th session of UN
General Assembly.

Does it have any impact on India?

 From the mid-1990s, when this Contact Group was formed, it has issued several statements on behalf of Pakistan. Countries like Saudi
Arabia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Niger have issued statements criticizing the government’s actions.

 But the organisation which boasts of a membership of 57 countries has marginal influence in world Affairs.
 It is also extremely doubtful if the statement issued by the Contact Group reflects faithfully the national positions of the

individual member states.
 The United Arab Emirates, for instance, conferred the Order of Zayed, its highest civilian award on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, more

than a week after New Delhi’s moves on Article 370, and declared that Kashmir was India’s internal matter.
 The OIC’s record of conflict resolution when it comes to issues between OIC member states is poor
In practical terms, its pointless attempts to meddle in Kashmir, including by appointing a so-called special envoy on Jammu and Kashmir, have
amounted to nothing.

Way Forward

 The organisation constituted on religious lines, but seeking to fulfil geopolitical interests, needs reforms from within. It could begin
by asking Pakistan to change its state policy on terrorism.

 The OIC would do a lot better if it did something useful to better the lot of its members or mediate between warring Saudi Arabia
and Yemen

 New Delhi at the same time must also demonstrate to the world that its new Kashmir policy is in the larger interest of all Kashmiris.

THE HINDU (EDITORIAL) Competition Preparations Notes

THE HINDU EDITORIAL (English) (29th September 2019)

Category: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

1. Quantum Supremacy

Context

Tech websites and theoretical computer-science outlets were aflame earlier this week after a story in the U.K.-based Financial Times said
Google had claimed to have achieved ‘quantum supremacy’.

What are quantum computers?

 Quantum computers work differently from the classical computers. They exploit the principles of quantum mechanics which allows
them to tackle computational problems that may be tough for the classical computer as the size of the numbers and number of inputs
involved grows bigger.

How quantum computers work?

 Conventional computers process information in ‘bits’ or 1s and 0s, following classical physics under which our computers can process a
‘1’ or a ‘0’ at a time whereas Quantum computers compute in ‘qubits’ (or quantum bits). They exploit the properties of quantum
mechanics, the science that governs how matter behaves on the atomic scale.

 In this scheme of things, processors can be a 1 and a 0 simultaneously, a state called quantum superposition. While this accelerates the
speed of computation, a machine with less than a 100 qubits can solve problems with a lot of data that are even theoretically beyond
the capabilities of the most powerful supercomputers.

 Because of quantum superposition, a quantum computer, if it works to plan can mimic several classical computers working in parallel.

Background:

 The ideas governing quantum computers have been around since the 1990s but actual machines have been around since 2011, most
notably built by Canadian company D-Wave Systems.

 The world’s most powerful supercomputer today can juggle 148,000 trillion operations in a second and requires about 9000 IBM CPUs
connected in a particular combination to achieve this feat.

Benefits of quantum computers

 They can process huge amounts of data quickly. For example, to scan a database of a million social media profiles and had to look
for a particular individual, a classical computer would perform million steps.while a quantum computer would only perform one
thousand steps instead of a million. That translates into reduced processors and reduced energy.

 Several encryption systems used in banking and security applications are premised on computers being unable to handle
mathematical problems that are computationally demanding beyond a limit. Quantum computers, in theory, can surpass those limits.

What has Google achieved?

Quantum supremacy refers to quantum computers being able to solve a problem that a classical computer cannot. In the research paper,
Google used a 53-qubit processor to generate a sequence of millions of numbers. Though these numbers appeared randomly generated, they
conform to an algorithm generated by Google. A classical supercomputer checked some of these values and they were correct. Google’s
quantum computer, named Sycamore, claimed ‘supremacy’ because it reportedly did the task in 200 seconds that would have apparently taken
a supercomputer 10,000 years to complete.

THE HINDU (EDITORIAL) Competition Preparations Notes

Is India working on quantum computing?

 There are no quantum computers in India yet.

 In 2018, the Department of Science & Technology unveiled a programme called Quantum-Enabled Science & Technology (QuEST) and
committed to investing ₹80 crore over the next three years to accelerate research.

 The ostensible plan is to have a quantum computer built in India within the next decade. Phase-1 of the problem involves hiring
research experts and establishing teams with the know-how to physically build such systems.

THE HINDU (EDITORIAL) Competition Preparations Notes

THE HINDU EDITORIAL (English) (30th September 2019)

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Two Asian powers and an island – On India Sri Lanka Relations

The Editorial talks about China’s influence in Sri Lanka and the need for India to strengthen its ties with the island nation.

Context:

 Sri Lanka recently opened the Lotus Tower (Nelum Kuluna) in Colombo for public, which is considered to be the latest symbol of Sri
Lanka-China ties.

 Though the tower is still under construction, the Sri Lankan government has opened it for the public.

Lotus Tower project:

 It is the tallest tower in the South Asian region.
 China’s Exim Bank in 2012 had agreed to lend 80% of the total investment of $104.3 million in the Lotus Tower, with the rest to be

met by Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC).
 China has funded 80% of the project cost under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Background:

 It is ironical that much of the Lotus Tower project’s execution took place under a regime which came into office at a time when there
was a “strong anti-China mood”.

 Soon after Mr. Sirisena became the President in 2015, work on the Colombo Port City came to a grinding halt.
 There was also uncertainty over the fate of the Hambantota port, the development of which was originally offered to India in 2005.

 India is said to have examined Hambantota purely from the point of view of economics, overlooking the strategic angle.)

 However, Colombo-Beijing ties have stood the test of time.

What are India’s concerns?

 China has been able to resolve all the controversies over the projects with Sri Lanka.
 The Port City’s execution by China is underway without any major hitch. When it becomes a reality, it will stand beside the Colombo

port, which serves as a major transshipment hub for India.
 A Chinese company has got Hambantota on lease for 99 years along with associated land of 15,000 acres.
 Sri Lanka is a member-country of the Belt and Road Initiative.
 Despite argument by some international experts that economic ties with China are driving Sri Lanka into a “debt trap”, the bilateral

relationship on the economic front is only becoming stronger.
 According to the 2018 annual report of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, imports from China accounted for 18.5%, just a little less than the

19% from India.
 India cannot claim to have accomplished much despite its “neighbourhood first” policy since May 2014.

THE HINDU (EDITORIAL) Competition Preparations Notes

 Apart from a joint venture deal with Japan and Sri Lanka to develop the East Container Terminal at the Colombo Port,

India cannot boast of having taken up any major infrastructure project in Sri Lanka.

 Not much is known about the status of a project to renovate the Kankesanthurai harbour in the Northern Province, for
which India provided over $45 million in early 2018.

 There seems to be little progress in India’s proposals to develop the Palaly airport and acquire a controlling stake in
the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport.

 In addition, the Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement, an improved version of the existing bilateral Free Trade
Agreement, has been shelved.

 In recent years, only a couple of social sector projects being carried out using grants of the Indian government — building 60,000
homes for Tamils of the civil war-torn Northern and Eastern Provinces and the provision of ambulance services all over the
island — have gathered momentum.

 In July 2019, an agreement was signed to upgrade a key railway segment, connecting the north and the south, at $91 million.

 Despite these deep ties, it is true that India and Sri Lanka have seen some unpleasantness in bilateral relations in contemporary times.

 The anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983 dragged India into the Sri Lankan Tamil question.
 Events such as the withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in March 1990 and the assassination of former Prime

Minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991 made New Delhi adopt a “hands-off approach” towards Colombo till the final phase of the
civil war.
 There have been accusations against Indian government of having played a role in the LTTE’s defeat.

Way forward:

 Given its potential and willingness to do more in development cooperation, India cannot remain satisfied with such a modest track
record.

 China-funded infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka may look great, but India-Sri Lanka ties are deeper and more complex.

 As PM Modi said, “In good times and bad, India has been and will always be the first responder for Sri Lanka.”

 India’s assistance during the 2004 tsunami and Mr. Modi’s visit to Colombo (the first foreign dignitary to do so) in the aftermath of the
Easter Sunday attacks show India’s sincerity of approach.

 With all their shortcomings, the Rajiv Gandhi-Jayawardene Accord of 1987 and the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan
Constitution, envisaging devolution of powers for provinces, still provide a solid framework to address the ethnic question.

 Apart from a political settlement, the Northern and Eastern provinces, which account for less than 10% of Sri Lanka’s GDP, require
economic development as there are signs of the youth there getting distracted from the pursuit of greener pastures.

 The Indian government is willing to take steps in this direction and must work to secure proper response from the Tamil political
leadership.

 India must not only strive to get expeditious approvals for all the pending infrastructure projects but also contribute to a holistic
development of Sri Lanka’s youth.

 It will also be worth making one more attempt to encourage the voluntary repatriation of nearly 95,000 refugees who live in Tamil
Nadu back to Sri Lanka.

 As a step towards this direction, the authorities should resume ferry services between Talaimannar and Rameswaram at the
earliest.

A benign and comprehensive approach, backed by the sincerity of purpose, will not only earn India greater respect of Sri Lankans, but also send
a message to other international players about the strength of its ties with Sri Lanka.