THE ASSAM TRIBUNE ANALYSIS DATE – 10 MARCH 2021 For Preliminary and Mains examination As per new Pattern of APSC (Also useful for UPSC and other State level government examinations) Answers of MCQs of 9-03-2021 1. D Explanation: Bangladesh and India share a 4,096-kilometre-long (2,545 mi) international border, the fifth- longest land border in the world, including 262 km (163 mi) in Assam, 856 km (532 mi) in Tripura, 318 km (198 mi) in Mizoram, 443 km (275 mi) in Meghalaya, and 2,217 km (1,378 mi) in West Bengal. 2. C. West Bengal 3. C. Mizoram 4. A. Only 1 5. B. Exercise Pitch Black 2018, RAAF Base Darwin, Australia (24 Jul 18 – 18 Aug 18) Ex Pitch Black a biennial multi-national large force employment warfare exercise was hosted by Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) from 24 Jul 18 to 18 Aug 18 in Darwin, Australia. MCQs of 10-03-2021 Q1. Ease of Doing Business published by A. IBRD B. WEF C. WTO D. ILO Q2. Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report Published by A. World Bank B. WEF C. ILO D. UNDP Q3. Recently SAAW was in news. It is related to A. Education B. Defence C. Water Conservation D. Air and Water Pollution Q4. ‘Nishant’ is - A. Tank B. Infantry fighting vehicle C. Radars D. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Q5. The headquarter of DRDO is in - A. Bangalore B. Chennai C. Vishakhapattanam D. New Delhi CONTENTS 1. Seamless Indo-Bangla transport link can boost national income of both countries: WB report ( GS 2 – International Relations ) 2. Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly demands provincial status from Pakistan govt ( GS 2 – India and its neighbours ) 3. ISRO develops radar for joint earth observation satellite mission with NASA ( GS 3 – Science and Technology ) 4. DRDO develops AIP system for submarines ( GS 3 – Science and Technology ) 5. Modi, Hasina dedicate Maitri Setu to people of NE ( GS 3 – Infrastructure & Development ) EDITORIALS 1. Arsenic in water: Are we licensed to kill? ( GS 3 – Environment ) 2. Border row ( GS 5 – Border Issues ) 3. Decoding the new Wage Code ( GS 5 – Employment ) NEWS ARTICLES Seamless Indo-Bangla transport link can boost national income of both countries: WB report Seamless transport connectivity between India and Bangladesh has the potential to increase national income by as much as 17 per cent in Bangladesh and 8 per cent in India, a new World Bank report said. The World Bank report titled ‘Connecting to Thrive: Challenges and Opportunities of Transport Integration in Eastern South Asia’, released today analyses the Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal (BBIN) Motor Vehicles Agreement (MVA), compares it with international best practices and identifies its strengths as well as gaps for seamless regional connectivity. The report also discusses regional policy actions the countries can take to strengthen the MVA and proposes priorities for infrastructure investments that will help the countries maximise its benefits. Today, bilateral trade accounts for only about 10 per cent of Bangladesh’s trade and a mere 1 per cent of India’s trade. Whereas, in East Asian and Sub-Saharan African economies, intraregional trade accounts for 50 per cent and 22 per cent of total trade, respectively. In fact, it is about 15-20 per cent less expensive for a company in India to trade with a company in Brazil or Germany than with a company in Bangladesh, the report points out. High tariffs, para-tariffs, and non-tariff barriers also serve as major trade barriers. Simple average tariffs in Bangladesh and India are more than twice the world average. Previous analysis indicates that Bangladesh’s exports to India could increase by 182 per cent and India’s exports to Bangladesh by 126 per cent if the countries sign a free trade agreement. This analysis found that improving transport connectivity between the two countries could increase exports even further, yielding a 297 per cent increase in Bangladesh’s exports to India and a 172 per cent increase in India’s exports to Bangladesh. Weak transport integration makes the border between Bangladesh and India thick. Crossing the India-Bangladesh border at Petrapole-Benapole, the most important border post between the two countries, takes several days. In contrast, the time to cross borders handling similar volumes of traffic in other regions of the world, including East Africa, is less than six hours, the report highlights. At present, Indian trucks are not allowed to transit through Bangladesh. As a result, the North-east of India is particularly isolated with the rest of the country and is connected only through the 27- km-wide Siliguri corridor, also called the ‘Chicken’s Neck’. This leads to long and costly routes. Goods from Agartala, for example, travel 1,600 km through the Siliguri corridor to reach Kolkata Port instead of 450 km through Bangladesh. If the border were open to Indian trucks, goods from Agartala would have to travel just 200 km to the Chattogram Port in Bangladesh, and the transport costs to the port would be 80 per cent lower, the report estimates. According to the report, all districts in Bangladesh would benefit from integration, with the eastern districts enjoying larger gains in real income. States bordering Bangladesh such as Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Tripura in the North-east, and West Bengal on the west, and States further away from Bangladesh such as Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra would also gain huge economic benefits from seamless connectivity. However, unleashing the full potential of integration in the region requires strengthening the agreement signed in 2015. Countries need to address a number of challenges such as infrastructure deficits, particularly in designated border posts, harmonisation of regulations and customs procedures, the report says. Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly demands provincial status from Pakistan govt The Legislative Assembly of Gilgit-Baltistan on Tuesday unanimously adopted a joint resolution asking the federal Pakistan government to grant it provincial status and provide it with representation in Parliament and other constitutional bodies. The resolution was moved in the Legislative Assembly by Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Khalid Khurshid Khan, who represented the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. He was joined in tabling the resolution by Opposition leader Amjad Hussain from Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) representative Ghulam Muhammad, Majlis Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM) member Muhammad Kazim and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) leader Rehmat Khaliq. India has previously slammed Pakistan’s attempt to accord provincial status to the “so-called Gilgit-Baltistan”, saying it is intended to camouflage the “illegal” occupation of the region by Islamabad. The leaders of Gilgit-Baltistan on Tuesday demanded that the government of Pakistan give the region provisional provincial status and provide it with representation in Parliament and other constitutional bodies. The resolution stated that a bill to amend the Constitution of Pakistan to declare Gilgit-Baltistan a province of Pakistan should be passed by Parliament without causing any damage to the country’s stance on the Kashmir issue. “The demand for constitutional rights is a unanimous demand of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan, not that of an individual/party. The unity we’ve shown on this issue needs to be repeated again at a federal level,” Chief Minister Khan said. In December, Prime Minister Khan constituted a 12-member committee to make recommendations about changing the status of Gilgit-Baltistan. On November 1 last year, spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Anurag Srivastava said that India “firmly rejects” the attempt by Pakistan to bring material changes to a part of Indian territory which is under Islamabad's “illegal and forcible occupation” and asked it to immediately vacate such areas. He made the remarks in response to a media query about Pakistani Prime Minister Khan’s comments about his government’s decision to accord “provisional provincial status” to the Gilgit- Baltistan region. “I reiterate that the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the area of so- called ‘Gilgit-Baltistan’, are an integral part of India by virtue of the legal, complete and irrevocable accession of Jammu and Kashmir to the Union of India in 1947,” the MEA spokesperson said. He said the government of Pakistan has no locus standi on territories “illegally and forcibly” occupied by it and that the latest move will not be able to hide the “grave” human rights violations in these Pakistan-occupied territories. – PTI ISRO develops radar for joint earth observation satellite mission with NASA ISRO has completed development of a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) capable of producing extremely high-resolution images for a joint earth observation satellite mission with the US space agency NASA. NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) is a joint collaboration for a dual-frequency L and S-band SAR for earth observation. “NISAR will be the first satellite mission to use two different radar frequencies (L-band and S- band) to measure changes in our planet’s surface less than a centimetre across,” according to NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). NASA and Bengaluru-headquartered ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) signed a partnership on September 30, 2014, to collaborate on and launch NISAR. The mission is targeted to launch in early 2022 from ISRO’s Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh’s Nellore district, about 100 km north of Chennai. NASA is providing the mission’s L-band SAR, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder and payload data subsystem. ISRO is providing the spacecraft bus, the S-band radar, the launch vehicle and associated launch services for the mission, whose goal is to make global measurements of the causes and consequences of land surface changes using advanced radar imaging.