UPSC Essentials | Key terms of past week with MCQs

What is a stapled visa?

— A stapled visa is simply an unstamped piece of paper that is attached by a pin or staples to a page of the passport and can be torn off or detached at will. This is different from a regular visa that is affixed to the passport by the issuing authority and stamped.

— China has made it a practice to issue stapled visas to Indian nationals from Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. It says the visas are valid documents, but the Government of India has consistently refused to accept this position.

— On Thursday (July 27), Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the issual of stapled visas was “unacceptable and we have lodged our strong protest with the Chinese side, reiterating our consistent position on the matter”.

— Bagchi said India’s “long-standing and consistent position is that there should be no discrimination or differential treatment based on domicile or ethnicity in the visa regime for Indian citizens holding valid India passports”, and that “India reserves the right to suitably respond to such actions”.

Why does China do this?

— Passports, visas, and other kinds of immigration controls reiterate the idea of a nation-state and its sovereignty which is inalienable and inviolable. A passport is the certificate of its holder’s identity and citizenship. Since nation-states reserve the right to control and regulate who enters or leaves their borders, a passport and visa entitle their holders to travel freely and under legal protection across international borders.

— China disputes India’s unequivocal and internationally accepted sovereignty over Arunachal Pradesh. It challenges the legal status of the McMahon Line, the boundary between Tibet and British India that was agreed at the Convention Between Great Britain, China, and Tibet at the Simla Convention of 1914. It is this disagreement that lies at the heart of Chinese claims over the position of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), and its repeated transgressions into Indian territory.

— China claims some 90,000 sq km of Arunachal Pradesh as its territory. It calls the area “Zangnan” in the Chinese language and makes repeated references to “South Tibet”. Chinese maps show Arunachal Pradesh as part of China, and sometimes parenthetically refer to it as “so-called Arunachal Pradesh”.

— China makes periodic efforts to underline this unilateral claim to Indian territory, and to undermine the sovereignty of India over parts of Indian territory. As part of these efforts, it issues lists of Chinese names for places in Arunachal Pradesh — it has issued three such lists in 2017, 2021, and in April this year — and takes steps such as issuing stapled visas.

Since when has this practice gone on?

— In his book ‘After Tiananmen: The Rise of China’, India’s former foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale noted that state-run Chinese media began to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “South Tibet” from 2005 onward.

“They (the Chinese) signalled their intention by refusing to give a visa to an Indian government official who was serving in Arunachal Pradesh in late 2006. Subsequently, they started the practice of issuing ‘stapled’ visas – the visa was not affixed to the passport but was given on a separate piece of paper stapled to the passport – to all Indian citizens from Arunachal Pradesh (as well as Jammu and Kashmir),” Gokhale wrote.

* The stapled visas for Jammu and Kashmir residents appear to have started around 2008-09, media reports have noted. In 2013, The New York Times published an account of a Kashmiri man who claimed he had been issued a stapled visa by the Chinese embassy in New Delhi and had been stopped at the airport in September 2009.

* In 2010, the Chinese refused a visa to Northern Army Commander Lt Gen B S Jaswal to attend an official meeting on the ground that he serves in “sensitive” Jammu and Kashmir.

* In 2011, ahead of a scheduled meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and China’s President Hu Jintao, media reports quoted Chinese foreign ministry official Hong Lie as saying China was “ready to work with India to have friendly consultation and properly handle” issues such as the one related to the stapled visas.

* Also in 2011, the junior External Affairs Minister E Ahamed told Rajya Sabha that the Indian government was “aware” that “despite strong protest by the Indian Government, the Chinese Embassy in India has again issued stapled visas to the people of Jammu and Kashmir”, and that “one officer of Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWF) along with a noted weightlifter were not allowed to board the flight to Beijing because of the stapled visas issued by the Chinese Embassy in the capital”.

— Ahamed said that the “Government’s position that there should be no discrimination against visa applicants of Indian nationality on grounds of domicile and ethnicity has been clearly conveyed to the Chinese Government on several occasions, including during the recent visit to India by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in December 2010”. This same position was reiterated by the MEA on Thursday as well.

— Ahamed also informed Parliament that an advisory had been issued on November 12, 2009, “cautioning Indian citizens that Chinese paper visas stapled to the passport are not considered valid for travel out of the country”.

* Even so, five karatekas from Arunachal Pradesh seeking to participate in the Asian Karate Championships in Quanzhou in July 2011 were issued stapled visas.

* In 2013, two young women archers from Arunachal Pradesh, Maselo Mihu and Sorang Yumi, who were to take part in the Youth World Archery Championship in Wuxi, were stopped at the airport after they were issued stapled visas by the Chinese.

* In 2016, Bamang Tago, the manager of the Indian badminton team, said he did not get a Chinese visa to travel to Fuzhou for the China Super Series Premier tournament because he was from Arunachal Pradesh.

(Source: What is a stapled visa, and why does China issue these to Indians from Arunachal and J&K?)

Point to ponder: The one million visa plan is an India-specific effort, to further strengthen the people-to-people ties between US and India. Why is it important step in India US relationship?

1. MCQ:

With respect to International Relations, consider the following statements:

1. China disputes India’s unequivocal and internationally accepted sovereignty over Arunachal Pradesh and it challenges the legal status of the McMahon Line, the boundary between Tibet and British India that was agreed at the Convention Between Great Britain, China, and Tibet at the Simla Convention of 1914. 

2. Passports, visas, and other kinds of immigration controls reiterate the idea of a nation-state and its sovereignty which is inalienable and inviolable. 

Which of the above statements is/are correct?

(a) Only 1

(b) Only 2

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Project Tiger

WHY IN NEWS?

— July 29 is celebrated world over as the International Tiger Day in a bid to raise awareness on various issues surrounding tiger conservation. It was first instituted in 2010 at the Tiger Summit in St Petersburg, Russia when the 13 tiger range countries came together to create Tx2, the global goal to double the number of wild tigers by the year 2022.

New WMO report

WHY IN NEWS?

— According to a new report, released on Thursday (July 27), by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Asia is the world’s most disaster-prone region and it experienced 81 weather, climate and water-related disasters in 2022. These events directly affected more than 50 million people with about 5,000 getting killed and economic damage worth $ 36 billion, the report added.

— Although, in 2021, the continent had been affected by around 100 natural disasters, the extent of these hazards was more prominent in 2022 — the number of people and facilities affected, and economic damage have increased.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

— The report has come out the same week as a super typhoon hit China after pummelling Taiwan and the northern Philippines, causing the death of at least 25 people. Just days ago, China also experienced its highest-ever temperature, 52 degree Celsius, on record on July 18.

— Many other regions were hit by severe floods and extreme monsoon rainfalls. Pakistan is the most notable example – it received 60 per cent of normal total monsoon rainfall within just three weeks of the start of the 2022 monsoon season, and the heavy rains resulted in urban and flash floods, landslides, and glacial lake outburst floods across the country. More than 33 million people were affected, over 1,730 people died and almost eight million people were displaced, according to the report.

— In India, heavy rainfalls “lasting from May to September triggered multiple landslides and river overflows and floods, resulting in casualties and damage,” it added. In total, this flooding resulted in over 2,000 deaths and affected 1.3 million people — the disaster event caused the highest number of casualties of any disaster event in 2022 in India.

— The report also said economic loss due to disasters relating to floods exceeded the average for the 2002–2021 period. Pakistan incurred a loss of over $ 15 billion, followed by China, over $ 5 billion, and India, over $ 4.2 billion.

— Another extreme weather event that became a mainstay in Asia last year was heat waves. The report noted that India and Pakistan experienced “abnormally warm conditions” in the pre-monsoon season (March–May), the report mentioned. China, Hong Kong and Japan also saw the mercury rising to record high levels in 2022.

— The occurrence of such incidents doesn’t come as a surprise to scientists and experts. According to the 2023 annual report from the American Meteorological Society (AMS), climate change is making the weather around the world get more extreme with more frequent floods, heat waves and droughts.

— Speaking to NPR, Stephanie Herring, one of the authors of that report and a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said: “Extreme heat events are more extreme than ever… Research is showing they’re likely to become the new normal in the not so distant future.”

— The WMO report also noted that the rise in frequency and severity of extreme weather events has particularly impacted the agriculture sector in Asia. “For climate-related disasters such as floods, droughts, and tropical storms, more than 25 per cent of all damage and losses is associated with the agriculture sector,” it added.

— Apart from natural disasters, climate change has exacerbated glaciers melting in Asia due to high temperatures and dry conditions. Four glaciers in the High Mountain Asia region, centred on the Tibetan Plateau, have recorded significant mass losses, with an accelerating trend since the mid-1990s. “At the same time, these four glaciers show an overall weaker cumulative mass loss than the average for the global reference glaciers during the period 1980–2022,” the report said.

— Even the sea surface temperatures in Asia are getting warmer than ever before. The report pointed out that in the north-western Arabian Sea, the Philippine Sea and the seas east of Japan, the warming rates have exceeded 0.5 degree Celsius per decade since the 1980s. It is about three times faster than the global average surface ocean warming rate.

(Source: New WMO report says climate change impacts have increased in Asia – What are the key takeaways)

Point to ponder: The illogical ‘anthropocene’ is a social and political construct, so is ‘corporatocene’ or its possible synonyms. What does this statement mean?

4. MCQ:

Which one of the following statements best describes the term ‘Social Cost of Carbon’? It is a measure, in monetary value, of the (UPSC CSE 2020):

(a) long-term damage done by a tonne of CO2, emissions in a given year

(b) requirement of fossil fuels for a country to provide goods and services to its citizens, based on the burning of those fuels

(c) efforts put in by a climate refugee to adapt to live in a new place

(d) contribution of an individual person to the carbon footprint on the planet Earth

Tail strikes

WHY IN NEWS?

— The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has fined IndiGo a sum of Rs 30 lakhs and issued a show cause notice to the airline, following a special audit concerning frequent tail strike incidents.

— The special audit uncovered “certain systemic deficiencies” in IndiGo’s documentation pertaining to “operations/training procedures and engineering procedures”, a DGCA release said.

— The audit was commissioned after IndiGo witnessed four tail strike incidents on its A321 aircraft within a span of six months this year, with the latest being during a landing at the Ahmedabad airport on June 15.

— Tail strikes can cause significant damage to the aircraft, with major repairs needed to restore the plane’s structural integrity. Even in cases where the damage is not major or immediately obvious, thorough inspections are carried out before the aircraft is declared fit to fly again.

What causes tail strikes?

— While modern aircraft are fitted with a whole gamut of systems to aid pilots in flying aircraft and reduce the probability of human error, most tail strikes can be attributed to mistakes made by pilots.

— Simply put, tail strikes occur when the pitch attitude of the aircraft (more on that, in a moment) – while taking off or landing – is steep enough for the tail of the craft to hit the ground. Aircraft, depending on their size, have different “tail strike margins” – the longer the aircraft, more prone it is to a tail strike as the rear of the plane juts out further behind the rear undercarriage.

Aircraft’s attitude

— An aircraft in flight is free to rotate in three dimensions: yaw, nose left or right about an axis running up and down; roll, rotation about an axis running from nose to tail; and pitch, nose up or down about an axis running from wing to wing. Look at the animation below for more clarity. These are collectively known as an aircraft’s attitude.

— Tail strikes are most impacted by the aircraft’s pitching motion. A positive pitching motion raises the nose of the aircraft and lowers the tail. Tail strikes are caused by such a motion being executed improperly during take off and landing.

Tail strikes during take offs

There are a few different reasons why tail strikes occur during take off.

• Incorrect takeoff speeds
• Poor rotation technique
• Incorrect centre of gravity, or mistrimmed stabiliser

Tail strikes during landing

— Tail strikes during landing are more common, and generally also cause more damage. This is because, during landing, if the tail strikes the ground before the landing gear, it absorbs a majority of the energy of the impact of the aircraft with the ground. Such tail strikes are caused by unstable approaches.

— A stable approach is one where the aircraft approaches the runway at the right speed and with the correct glide ratio – the distance of forward travel divided by the altitude lost in that distance. Unstable approaches can cause tail strikes due to a few different reasons.

• Too low an approach speed
• Too high or too low of a landing flare
• Incorrect handling during crosswinds

How to prevent tail strikes?

— Modern aircraft also have sophisticated software which detect the tail clearance and adjust control accordingly. For instance, Primary Flight Computers (PFCs) of the Boeing 787s monitor the tail clearance at all times – below a certain threshold, the aircraft automatically adjusts the controls without direct input from the pilot.

— However, the most critical component to avoid tail strikes remain pilots themselves. Proper training of pilots and rigorous implementation of correct flight procedures are the single most important factor to avoid tailstrikes. All the common reasons for tail strikes described above can be mitigated by pilots, whether it be in their preflight preparations or inflight handling of the aircraft.

(Source: Tail strikes– What are they, why are they caused? by Arjun Sengupta)

Point to ponder: 

5. MCQ:

Yaw, roll and pitch refer to:

(a) Aircraft fuselage

(b) Go-Around

(c) Air speed indicators

(d) Aircraft’s attitude

ANSWERS TO MCQs: 1 (c), 2 (c), 3 (d), 4 (a), 5 (d)

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