India gets surveillance satellite

About the Mission:

• As many as 28 small satellites of international customers were also put in space as secondary riders.
• Space-based electronic intelligence or ELINT from the 436-kg spacecraft will add teeth to situational awareness of the Armed Forces as it will provide location and information of hostile radars placed at the borders; this will be another dimension to current land or aircraft-based ELINT.
• ISRO, which is said to have built the satellite body for the DRDO payload, merely said the spacecraft would measure the electromagnetic spectrum.
•  ISRO Chairman K. Sivan announced, Today PSLV-C45 has successfully injected the ISRO-made EMISAT in a 748-km orbit as well as 28 customer satellites in a 504-km orbit as sought by the customers.
• Its two solar arrays were deployed automatically. The ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network at Bengaluru assumed control of the satellite
•  In the coming days, the satellite will be brought to its final operational configuration.
• A new PSLV team executed the mission as the previous programme head R. Hutton has moved to headquarters in Bengaluru as the director of the Human Space Flight Centre.

Multi-orbit Mission:

• The multi-orbit mission totally lasted three hours and released all 29 spacecraft in nearly the first two hours. Overall, three sets of payloads were let out at three different orbits in space.
• About 17 minutes after takeoff, EMISAT was ejected first at an orbit 749 km away from Earth.
• The small ‘cube’ satellites, belonging to four countries and together weighing 220 kg, were released after about 40 minutes at a lower orbit of 504 km.
• To get the lower orbit, the fourth stage of the rocket or PS4 had to be restarted twice.

New Technologies:

• ISRO has started reusing PS4 as an innovated, low-cost, space-friendly test bed for its own microgravity experiments and those of others. It has been gradually putting additional support systems also on every new PS4; the power generating solar panels are new this time.
• This is the third such mission and carries an ISRO test on Automatic Identification System (AIS) related to tracking ships on sea.
• AMSAT or the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, India, has sent a payload called the Automatic Packet Repeating System.
• This is expected to help amateur radio operators to get improved locational accuracy in their tracking and monitoring.
• The third one, the Advanced Retarding Potential Analyser for Ionospheric Studies has been sent up by ISRO’s university, the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology.

China, U.S. lock horns over Masood Azhar

Chinese Opposition:

• Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang asserted that the UN 1267 committee should be the sole forum where Azhar’s listing should be discussed.
• After the application of designation was proposed at the (1267) committee, China has been in close communication and coordination with various parties.
• The friction between China and the U.S. sharpened after Washington, along with France and the United Kingdom, piloted a resolution in the 1267 committee for listing Azhar, following the February attack in Pulwama in which more than 40 CRPF personnel were killed.
• China placed a “technical hold” on the listing despite Pakistan-based JeM, which Azhar heads, taking responsibility for the attack. Following China’s move in the 1267 committee, the U.S. sponsored a resolution in the Security Council seeking Azhar’s ban.
• We believe that in the current circumstances, forcing a resolution at the Security Council not a constructive move and is setting a bad example,Mr. Geng observed.
• The Chinese foreign ministry pointed out that the U.S. was failing in its bid to muster majority support in the UNSC, and urged Washington to return to the 1267 committee to resolve the issue.

Draft Resolution:

• Chinese hope various parties will meet each other halfway and continue to properly solve the issues under the 1267 UN committee framework.
• Last Friday, the UN Security Council members exchanged views on the U.S.-proposed draft resolution and the majority believes that efforts should be made under the framework of 1267 committee and solve the issue through dialogue and consultations
• The spokesperson stressed that the majority of the UNSC “are not in favour of forcing a draft resolution.”
• China has emphasised that the purpose of its “technical hold” is to allow more discussion on the issue in order to achieve a consensus-based settlement.
• The spokesperson pointed out that the Washington’s stance “will only complicate the issue and is not conducive to peace and stability in South Asia.”
• Last week, China had slammed remarks by U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who had accused the country of “shameful hypocrisy.”
• With China’s alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and the designation of Azhar as the subtext, Mr. Pompeo said that, “China abuses more than a million Muslims at home, but on the other it protects violent Islamic terrorist groups from sanctions at the UN.”
• Beijing had dismissed allegations that it was sheltering terrorists by placing a “technical hold” on listing Masood Azhar.

Japan’s new era of Naruhito will be Reiwa

New Emperor:

• Emperor Akihito is stepping down on April 30, in the first abdication in 200 years, bringing his era of “Heisei” to an end.  The new era takes effect May 1.
• Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would explain the meaning of the name later at a news conference.
• It is believed to be the first time the era name, or “gengo” has been taken from a Japanese document, a break from more than 1,300 years of using Chinese classics.
• The new era’s name was kept strictly secret ahead of Monday’s announcement.
• Mr. Abe said earlier that he hoped the name would lead to a new era brimming with hope.
• The announcement allows only a month ahead of the switch for government, businesses and other sectors to adjust to the change that still affects many parts of Japan’s society, even though the system is not compulsory and the emperor has no political power under Japan’s post-war constitution.

Departure from the past:

• Under the 1979 era name law, Mr. Abe appointed a panel of experts on classical Chinese and Japanese literature to nominate two to five names for top officials to choose from. The names had to meet strict criteria, being easy to read and write but not commonly or previously used for an era name.
• There had been speculation that Mr. Abe’s ultra-conservative government, often hawkish on China matters, would choose the name from a Japanese document, breaking with the tradition of using Chinese classics as references.
• While a growing number of Japanese prefer the Western calendar over the Japanese system in a highly digitalized and globalized society, the era name is still widely used in government and business documents. Elders often use it to identify their generations.

Last Era:

• Discussing and guessing new era names in advance is not considered a taboo this time because Akihito is abdicating. Era name change is also a time for many Japanese to reflect on the outgoing and incoming decades.
• Emperor Akihito’s era of “Heisei,” which means “achieving peace,” was the first without a war in Japan’s modern history, but is also remembered as lost years of economic deflation and natural disasters.
• Era name changes are creating businesses for both the outgoing and the incoming. Anything dubbed “last of Heisei” attracts Akihito fans, while others are waiting to submit marriage certificates or filing other official registration until the new era starts.
• Analysts say the era change that expands the “golden week” holidays to 10 days on May 1 could buoy tourism and other recreational spending.

AUSINDEX

Background:

• Building on a long history of cooperation – including the shared experiences in the trenches of World War I in Gallipoli and along the Western Front – Australia and India have a positive defence relationship, underpinned by the 2006 Memorandum of Defence Cooperation and 2009 Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation. 
• However, post the 2014 bilateral FSC the cooperation on defence and security matters between the two countries has gained significant momentum thus, witnessing conscious and focussed enhancements.

Hghlights:

• The aim of the exercise is, “To strengthen and enhance mutual cooperation and interoperability between the IN and RAN, providing opportunities for interaction and exchange of professional views between the personnel of the two navies”.
• A sign of strengthening of bilateral and defence cooperation between the two countries as envisaged in the Framework for Security Cooperation (FSC) announced by the Australian and Indian Prime Ministers in 2014.
• The maiden edition of the exercise was held in September 2015 at Visakhapatnam. Australia hosted the second edition of the exercise off Freemantle in June 2017, wherein ships of the Eastern Fleet of the Indian Navy (IN) exercised with Royal Australian Navy (RAN) ships and submarines.
• The complexity of the biennial maritime exercise over the past four years has steadily increased.  The third edition would involve exercises in all three dimensions with focus on ASW. The number of units being fielded by both navies in the bilateral exercise is the highest till date. 
• The increased scale of participation signifies the importance attached to the exercise by both countries while the enhanced complexity is indicative of the interoperability between the two navies. 
• Overall, the exercise underscores India’s vision of SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and shared objectives of the two countries towards ensuring good order in the maritime domain and solidarity with friendly and harmonious countries.