10 July 2023

• Space: India signed the Artemis Accords during PM's US state visit, becoming the 27th signatory.
• Trade: The WTO's appellate body remains paralysed since 2019. India played a key role in efforts to revive it.
• Agriculture: Delhi High Court upheld the revocation of PepsiCo's plant variety protection for a potato variety, reinforcing farmers' rights under the 2001 Act.
• Peace: The Global Peace Index 2023 ranked India at 126th among 163 countries.
• Security: Cluster munitions and their civilian harm remain a live debate; the US, India, Russia, and China are not signatories to the cluster munitions convention.

GS area: International Relations, Science and Technology

India became the 27th country to sign the Artemis Accords during PM Modi's state visit to the United States.

• What the Accords are: A set of 13 non-binding bilateral principles linked to the US Artemis programme, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface. The Accords are not a treaty under international law.
• Scope: Commits signatories to peaceful space exploration, transparent operations, interoperability of space systems, deconfliction of activities, and responsible space resource extraction.
• India's gain: The signing could accelerate ISRO's human spaceflight capability through NASA collaboration. India may secure a seat on the Gateway lunar orbital station and participate in ISRO-NASA joint missions.
• LUPEX mission: India and Japan are collaborating on the Lunar Polar Exploration mission to study water ice at the lunar south pole, with a 2026-28 launch timeframe.
• Strategic angle: The Accords are seen as a US-led governance alternative to the Outer Space Treaty (1967) framework, given China and Russia are not signatories.

Static linkage: Space cooperation, India-US relations, international space law.

GS area: International Relations, Economy

The WTO's appellate body has been paralysed since December 2019 because the United States has blocked appointment of new members, citing concerns about judicial overreach.

• Function: The appellate body is the two-stage dispute settlement body's second tier. It reviews panel rulings on points of law.
• US objection: The US argues the appellate body began creating binding precedents that exceeded its mandate, encroaching on members' sovereignty.
• Impact: Without a functional appellate body, losing parties can file an appeal into a void, effectively killing dispute resolution. This has weakened accountability for trade violations.
• Indian role: India played an important role in negotiating a face-saving framework at the Geneva ministerial conference in June 2022, targeting resurrection by 2024.
• WTO context: Established in 1995 under the Marrakesh Agreement, the WTO replaced the GATT as the framework for multilateral trade rules.

Static linkage: International trade, multilateral institutions, India's trade diplomacy.

GS area: Economy, Agriculture, Intellectual Property

The Delhi High Court upheld the revocation of PepsiCo's plant variety protection (PVP) registration for FL 2027, a high dry-matter potato variety used for Lay's chips.

• Protection and Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights (PPV&FR) Act, 2001: Creates a sui generis system for protecting plant varieties while recognising farmers' rights.
• Three-tier rights framework:
  • Breeders: Exclusive rights to produce, sell, and distribute registered varieties.
  • Researchers: Can use registered varieties for experiments and breeding.
  • Farmers: Can register varieties they have developed or conserved. Can also freely save and use seeds, including from protected varieties, for farming.
• DUS criteria: Distinctiveness, Uniformity, and Stability. These are the three criteria a variety must meet for registration.
• PPVFRA revocation: The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Authority (PPVFRA) had revoked PepsiCo's registration in 2021 for lack of novelty. The HC upheld this.
• Contract farmer impact: About 14,000 contract farmers who grew FL 2027 for PepsiCo were affected by the legal uncertainty.

Static linkage: Intellectual property, agriculture, farmer rights.

GS area: Environment, Health

The WHO revised downward its air quality guideline for nitrogen dioxide, reducing the annual mean limit from 40 micrograms per cubic metre to 10 micrograms per cubic metre.

• Sources of NO2: Combustion from road transport (especially diesel vehicles), power plants, and industrial processes.
• Health effects: Respiratory disease, cardiovascular mortality, childhood asthma, and bronchitis. The newly revised limit reflects a lower safe threshold.
• Secondary pollutant role: NO2 contributes to smog formation, acid rain, and the depletion of stratospheric ozone through photochemical reactions.

Static linkage: Air pollution, environmental health, public health standards.

GS area: Security, International Relations

The cluster munitions debate gained attention after the US announced it would supply cluster bombs to Ukraine.

• Convention on Cluster Munitions (2008): Prohibits the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of cluster munitions. The convention entered into force in 2010.
• Non-signatories: The US, Russia, China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Ukraine, and most NATO members have not ratified the convention.
• How cluster munitions work: A single munition disperses explosive submunitions (bomblets) over a wide area. Unexploded submunitions act like landmines for decades.
• Civilian harm: A significant proportion of cluster munition victims are children who pick up unexploded bomblets.

Static linkage: International humanitarian law, arms control, India's defence posture.

• Marine heatwaves: Defined as seawater temperatures exceeding the 90th percentile for five or more consecutive days. The northern Bay of Bengal experienced an intense heatwave in July 2023, causing extreme rainfall in northwest India and threatening coral in the Sundarbans.
• GST Network (GSTN): Brought under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), enabling the Enforcement Directorate to access GST data for fraud investigations. GSTN is a non-profit entity providing IT infrastructure for GST compliance.
• Variable Rate Reverse Repo (VRRR) auctions: The RBI used VRRR auctions to absorb excess liquidity from the banking system after month-end government spending and the return of 2,000-rupee denomination notes.
• Indonesia: The world's largest nickel reserve and producer. Nickel demand is being driven by EV battery manufacturing. Mining in Indonesia raises environmental and indigenous displacement concerns. India's primary nickel resources are in Odisha (93 per cent of national reserves).