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John Allen Chau
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 Leave them alone
• North Sentinel Island in the Andaman and Nicobar
Islands.

• The death of a young American man has led to

dangerous lines of debate.

• Some have called for the Sentinelese to be convicted

and punished and others have urged that they be
integrated into modern society.

• Having lived in isolation in an island in the Bay of

Bengal for thousands of years, the Sentinelese have
no immunity or resistance to even the commonest of
infections.
• Various degrees of protection are in place for
the indigenous people of A&N Islands, but it is
complete in the case of the Sentinelese.

• Their language is so far understood by no

other group and they have traditionally
guarded their island fiercely, attacking most
intruders with spears and arrows.

• Arrows were fired even at a government

aircraft that flew over the island after the
2004 Tsunami.

• According to the 2011 Census, their population

was just 15 — though anthropologists like T.N.
Pandit, who made contact with them in the
1960s, put the figure at 80-90.
 Ahead on malaria
• World Malaria Report 2018: World Health
Organisation.

• We can cut the number of new cases and deaths

globally by at least 40% by 2020, and to end the
epidemic by 2030.

• Sustained public health action can achieve good

results.
Most endemic states

• High levels of morbidity and death.

Recruiting accredited
social health workers

• Odisha is a good example to end malaria. Large-scale distribution

of insecticide-treated
bednets

• WHO report: sharp drop in Odisha. Encourage health-seeking

behaviour
• Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry: in
2017, malaria cases in Odisha at 3,52,140

• One issue that requires monitoring in India is

resistance to combination therapy using
artemisinin.

• Recent reports indicate that some patients in

West Bengal became resistant to the
treatment protocol used for the falciparum
parasite, which causes debilitating cerebral
malaria and leads to a high number of deaths.

• Given that emerging resistance to treatment

has been reported in Myanmar, among other
countries in this belt, there is a need for a
coordinated approach to rid southern Asia of
malaria.
 Ten years after the Mumbai attack
• Pakistan carried out one of the most heinous of terror
U.S.
attacks perpetrated anywhere in the world.
Madrid

London • In 1993, over 250 people were killed in Mumbai in a

series of coordinated bomb explosions attributed to
Dawood Ibrahim, reportedly as reprisal for the
demolition of the Babri Masjid.

• 2001 : attack on the Indian Parliament

• In July 2006: train bomb killed over 200 people

• Tactics of asymmetric warfare, and the practice of

violence.
• The tactics employed may vary, but the
objective is common, viz. achieving mass
casualties and widespread destruction.

• It is difficult to recall any recorded instance

in modern times where a state and its various
agencies were directly involved in carrying
out a terror attack of this nature.

• The involvement of the Pakistani Special

Forces in preparing the 10-member fidayeen
group was confirmed by one of the
conspirators, Abu Hamza, arrested subsequent
to the 26/11 terror attack.

• Seldom has a terrorist incident lasted this

length of time, since the Munich Olympics
massacre in 1972.
Streamlining security • In the wake of the terror attack, several steps
were initiated to streamline the security set-
up.

• Coastal security was given high priority, and it

is with the Navy/Coast Guard/marine police.

• A specialised agency to deal with terrorist

offences, the National Investigation Agency,
was set up and has been functioning from
January 2009.

• The National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) has

been constituted to create an appropriate
database of security related information.
• Four new operational hubs for the NSG have
been created to ensure rapid response to terror
attacks.

• The Multi Agency Centre, which functions

under the Intelligence Bureau, was further
strengthened and its activities expanded.

• The Navy constituted a Joint Operations

Centre to keep vigil over India’s extended
coastline.

• Terrorist have made the world less safe.

• Lone wolf attacks are most dangerous.

 Pursuing Lashkar-e-Taiba
• Let us consider how U.S. policy towards the Lashkar-
e-Taiba (LeT) has evolved over the last decade.

• The conventional wisdom is that the Afghanistan war

has compelled Washington to give more attention to
Afghanistan-focussed militants in Pakistan than to
the LeT and other India-oriented jihadists.

• Jason Blazakis, a top State Department

counterterrorism official between 2008 and 2018,
recently wrote of U.S. attempts to get the UN to
designate individual LeT members as terrorists. Such
efforts fell short, given China’s opposition.

• Early this year, however, the Financial Action Task

Force penalised Islamabad for failing to curb the
finances of the LeT-affiliated Jamaat-ud-Dawah.
• Additionally, China has signed on to BRICS and
Heart of Asia declarations condemning the LeT.

• True, such moves have done little to address

the fundamental problem: the LeT, its various
front organisations, and many of its top leaders
enjoy relative freedom in Pakistan, and
Pakistani legal action against the Mumbai
perpetrators remains limited.

• Recent bilateral deals have paved the way for

more intelligence sharing, arms sales, and
technology transfers.

• Rumours persist that America may soon

provide India with drone technologies.
 Along the new Silk Roads
• Paris Peace Forum commemorating the end of World
War I.

• Here, WB & IMF made the case for a more inclusive

multilateralism.
• They warned against the temptation of a divisive globalisation which
could only benefit the wealthiest.

• China’s BRI is building upon the same inclusive

project now led by a non-Western and non-
democratic superpower.

• The BRI is included in the Constitution of an officially

socialist China.
• CPEC is perhaps the most controversial
• The BRI indeed develops without any
dedicated law, nor is it a comprehensive trade
or economic partnership.

• The only legal texts one could refer to are to

be found in the network of foreign trade
agreements, bilateral investment treaties and
other international investment agreements
China is a party to.

• China is a party to numerous state-sponsored

business contracts between Chinese firms,
including state-owned companies, and foreign
business partners, public or private.

• This non-legal yet rather domineering proposal

is not a surprise.
• The institutional setting of the BRI is also
rather light.

• Joint committees are put in place and the

existing institutions mobilised
• Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
• Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

• Again, the BRI’s dispute resolution will be

predominantly on commercial disputes,
involving either projects or contractual
obligations.

• World trading system passing through a turmoil

and this is an opportunity for a concept like
BRI.
 Important News
• 6 ultras, soldier killed in Shopian
• VHP raises temple pitch in Ayodhya
• Pakistan invite: Punjab CM says no, Minister Sidhu yes
• Employee has right to resign, says Supreme Court
• An employee cannot be compelled to serve in case he is not willing “until and unless
there is some stipulation in the rules or in the terms of appointment or disciplinary
proceedings is pending or contemplated which is sought to be avoided by resigning
from the services.”
• RIMES terms Titli cyclone ‘rarest of rare’
• The Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (RIMES) for Africa and
Asia, a 45-nation international organisation on disaster warning, has termed ‘Titli’,
the severe cyclonic storm that devastated Odisha in October, as ‘rarest cyclone’.
• “More than 200 years of cyclone track history in the Odisha coast reveals that the Titli
cyclone is the rarest of rare in terms of its characteristics such as recurvature after
landfall and retaining its destructive potential after landfall and recurvature away
from the coastal areas for more than two days,” says RIMES in its latest report.
• RIMES is a UN-registered organisation
-
• HIV infected children likely to suffer cognitive impairment: study

• 106 judicial postings in a month

• Rajapaksa was only third choice: Sirisena
• EU leaders back May’s Brexit deal
• 30 dead in Uganda boat capsize
• 60 were feared dead after a party boat sank in Lake Victoria
• Amur falcon makes it to Somalia from Manipur
• Andaman & Nicobar Islands: home to a tenth of India’s fauna
species
 Vocabulary
• Reclusive

• Efficacious

• Dinghy

• Reconnoiter

• Anticipate

• Retrospect
Map based quiz
 Questions-
• International Centre for Settlement of Investment Dispute
(ICSID) is sponsored by which organization?

• The Jain philosophy holds that the world is created and

maintained by?
A. Universal law
B. Universal truth
C. Universal faith
D. Universal soul.
• Abhinaya Darpana, a famous treatise on dance is written by?
A. Bharata Muni
B. Nandikeshwara
C. Kalidasa
D. Bhasa
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