1. As part of UAV deal with U.S. firm, India is expected to develop some components locally

An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle developed by General Atomics is displayed during the International Paris Air Show on June 20. 

As part of the process to conclude the deal for procurement of 31 MQ-9B armed High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), the Defence Ministry is expected to issue the Letter of Request (LoR) to the U.S. by first week of July. This would initiate acquisition through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme of the U.S. government.Meanwhile, discussions continue to increase the indigenous content and sourcing as part of the deal, according to Ministry officials. The deal is expected to take a few months to be concluded.

“The current indigenous content proposed in the MQ-9B deal is 8% to 9% while India is hoping it can be increased up to 15% to 20%. Discussions are on and General Atomics is positive to it and the U.S. government has to agree to it,” a senior Defence Ministry official said.

Some of the components will be manufactured here which can be scaled up and some of the electronics, sensors and avionics can also be manufactured here, the official said adding discussions are continuing on it. General Atomics is also in talks with several Indian companies as part of the deal, officials said.

Assemble in India

The U.S.-India joint statement issued after the talks between U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the MQ-9Bs, which will be assembled in India, will enhance the Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities of India’s armed forces across domains.

“As part of this plan, General Atomics will also establish a comprehensive global Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility in India in support of India’s long-term goals to boost indigenous defence capabilities,” the statement said.

On June 15, days before Mr. Modi’s U.S. visit, the Defence Acquisition Council chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for the 31 MQ-9Bs — 15 for the Navy and eight each for the Army and the Air Force. As per process, once the LoR is sent to the U.S. Department of Defence, a Letter of Acceptance (LoA) will be issued followed by commercial negotiations with the company. The U.S. administration will have to notify the U.S. Congress of the potential sale, which is expected to be a formality. In the penultimate step, the deal has to be approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security after which the contract can be concluded.

According to its manufacturer General Atomics, the MQ-9B can provide roughly 80% of the capability of a large human-flown maritime patrol aircraft at about 20% of its cost per hour. This is the primary reason the Indian Navy is particularly keen on these UAVs as they will significantly enhance its ISR capabilities to monitor the wide expanse of the Indo-Pacific.

Dr. Vivek Lall, Chief Executive of General Atomics Global Corporation, said Mr. Modi and Mr. Biden have significantly enhanced the defence relationship between the two countries by announcing the decision to acquire MQ-9B for the Indian armed forces. “This is a breakthrough moment for India-U.S. strategic and defence partnership and General Atomics is pleased to be a major contributor in taking it to the next level,” he said in a comment to The Hindu.

Indian Navy already operates two MQ-9As on lease from General Atomics since November 2020. In November 2022, the two UAVs completed 10,000 flight hours during a period of two years, and covered over 14 million square miles of operating area, according to General Atomics.

At Aero India in February this year, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and General Atomics announced an understanding to formulate a comprehensive engine MRO programme to support HALE UAVs in the Indian market.

2. Experts optimistic on jet engine production

Experts say that the U.S. decision to transfer technology to India is a sign that it has accepted India’s strategic autonomy. File Photo

The General Electric-HAL tech transfer breakthrough for India depends on speed of negotiations, improving manufacturing competence in India; former envoy compare the current deal to the India-U.S. civil nuclear deal, adding that a lot of groundwork was done before the pact was finalised

The jet engine technology deal announced during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the U.S. bears some resemblance to the India-U.S. Civil Nuclear Deal in the manner it was pushed through by Washington and New Delhi. However, experts say it will probably fare better than the nuclear deal in producing an actual commercial deal between General Electric and Hindustan Aeronautical Ltd. (HAL) for the joint production of GE-F414 jet engines in India, given some of the preparatory moves taken, and the strong push by the U.S. administration to provide India technology currently only available to three other countries — Russia, the U.K. and France.

As a result, the jet engine deal could defeat some of the scepticism around previous big-ticket India-U.S. deals that did not result in a deal, like the NPCIL-Westinghouse MoU for six nuclear reactors in Andhra Pradesh first signed in 2009 and held up by Indian regulations, or the Petronet-Tellurian deal for investment in an LNG project in the U.S. signed in 2019, or even the previous round of negotiations between India and the U.S. over jet engine Transfer of Technology (ToT) that were held under the Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI) framework from 2012 to 2019 before being shelved over the U.S. export regulations.

According to former Ambassador Arun Singh, who has been a member of the National Security Advisory Board and is a Fellow at the Carnegie India think tank that works on India-U.S. technology issues, many steps had been taken prior to the GE-F414 announcement that makes this case different from the last round of talks and the nuclear deal.

A number of other agreements signed between India and the U.S. over the past decade, including the declaration of India as a “major defence partner” in 2016, the Strategic Trade Authorisation-1 (STA-1 Status) in 2018, the signing of four “foundational agreements” between the two militaries, have built trust between them. The launch of the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) between National Security Advisers (NSAs) and Strategic Trade Dialogue set up between the two governments would help resolve any issues that crop up, he added.

“Even over this jet engine deal, there was the usual bureaucratic questioning and scepticism. But a push came from the U.S. National Security Council [NSC], basically saying that the President [Biden] wants this done. So like in the case of the civil nuclear agreement that President Bush himself had to push through, this time it was Mr. Biden and the U.S. NSC saying that they want to take the relationship with India to a different level,” said Mr. Singh, who served as Ambassador to Washington (2015-16) and was the Deputy Chief of Mission there (2008-13) as well.

Former NSA Shiv Shankar Menon said that much will depend on how quickly GE and HAL are able to hammer out an agreement on manufacturing the jet engines.

“Most of the major technology transfer and manufacturing agreements listed in the [India-U.S.] joint statement are aspirational- whether it is the GE jet engine ToT or the Micron plan to set up a semiconductor plant in India. They still have to work out details. Apart from the U.S. regulatory framework another potential roadblock is ourcapability to absorb technology. For a partnership in joint manufacturing to be successful, both sides should be as competent,” said Mr. Menon, who as NSA (2010-14) and Foreign Secretary (2006-09) had worked on the nuclear deal as well as the original DTTI talks.

Mr. Singh said the facilitation of the jet engine deal was part of a larger “message” by the Biden administration to the U.S. establishment and to other countries that the U.S.-India relationship was headed towards more high-tech and tech-transfer deals.

“This will enthuse businesses, who are not involved in this sector to say, let’s look at high-level technology partnerships in other areas,” he said.

He added that the U.S.’s decision to offer ToT to India despite India’s contrary position on Russia and dependence on Russian hardware means that the U.S. “has come to accept” India’s strategic autonomy, and that a stronger India is in the U.S.’s interest as it can pose a deterrent to China. The next step in the jet engine deal negotiations will begin once the U.S. Congress notification is cleared, the experts said, which will come through in 30 days, so long as no objections are raised in the House.

3. Kuki-Zomi tribes take out ‘coffin march’ in Manipur; civil society groups stage protest in New Delhi

Fervent appeal: Civil society groups staging a protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi seeking peace in Manipur.Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

Nearly two months after ethnic clashes broke out between the dominant Meitei and the Kuki-Zomi tribal people in Manipur, tribal student outfits on Saturday held a silent “coffin march” in Churachandpur district of the State to honour those killed in the violence.

Thousands of protesters in the Kuki-Zomi-majority district marched about three km along the highway from the district hospital in the town to the Peace Ground in Tuibong, where the mini-Secretariat is housed.

Dressed in black, the protesters carried 100 empty black coffins, symbolic of the tribal people who were killed in the violence. Villagers lined the highway to pay their respects.

After reaching the temporary protest site near the mini-Secretariat, the coffins were laid down and the bereaved families placed wreaths.

A peace committee formed by Home Minister Amit Shah in May-end after his visit, failed immediately with the chosen members refusing to participate in the process.

So far, at least 100 people have been killed, hundreds more injured and tens of thousands displaced.

In Delhi, nearly 40 different civil society organisations, including bodies representing the Kuki-Zomi people of Manipur in the capital, held a demonstration at Jantar Mantar, insisting on the Centre’s authoritative intervention in Manipur.

While nearly a thousand people were present at Jantar Mantar, a representative of the Unao Women’s Tribal Forum of Delhi NCR alleged that the police prevented a lot of their people from showing up at the protest site.

The police denied having prevented anyone from attending the protest, with senior officers saying the presence of their personnel on the buses, if at all, was likely for “routine checking”.

The protesters submitted a memorandum to the Home Minister’s Office through the police. They demanded that the Judicial Commission, earlier announced by the Centre, probe all cases of violence comprehensively and fairly. They also called for strict action against all perpetrators of violence and sought that the compensation announced for victims be revised in light of the scale of loss faced by the people.

4. Kokrajhar feasts on mushroom, for health, wealth

Over 21,000 women are engaged in mushroom cultivation in Kokrajhar district of Assam. SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Child and maternal nutrition in the western Assam district gets a boost after many farmers started cultivating mushrooms and the State government included them in midday meals in varied forms as soups, biscuits, noodles

Nutrient-loaded mushrooms introduced into the midday meals in western Assam’s Kokrajhar district, as soups, biscuits, fortified noodles, or mixed with regular food, appear to have had a positive nutritional effect on children in schools. Mushrooms were one of the major ingredients introduced for children and mothers, in addition to vitamin and mineral supplementation.

Data provided by the district authorities revealed that the number of underweight (up to 6 years), wasted, and anaemic children in Kokrajhar district reduced by 56%, 55%, and 76% from 2021 to 2023.

The maternal mortality rate also decreased in the district by 72.37% to stand at 89.79 per lakh live births, less than half of Assam’s average of 205. Similarly, the infant mortality rate decreased by 30.56% to 15.97 per 1,000 live births (the State’s average is 36).

The results — riding on a team of Anganwadi workers, accredited social health activists (ASHA), and field workers of departments such as education, health, and horticulture — did not come overnight.

The seeds of the transformation were sown by Bodoland University’s Department of Biotechnology in 2012. Its experiments on making 23 species of mushrooms such as oyster, shitake, and cordyceps economically viable and affordable, made many farmers start cultivation in their backyards, some- times even under beds.

Big push

Its farming received a big push when the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) launched the Mushroom Mission in 2021, the year when the local administration had the primary product of Kokrajhar changed from Eri silk to mushroom under the Centre’s ‘one district one product’ (ODOP) initiative.

“Practically nothing was being done on Eri. Stakeholders voted for mushroom given its potential to engage the masses, its nutritional benefits, low input cost, and ease of handling by women,” Kokrajhar’s Deputy Commissioner Varnali Deka said. More than 21,500 mushroom cultivators, including members of 503 self-help groups, are women.

“The mission was aimed at ensuring livelihoods at home so that our youth, including girls, do not migrate for low-pay and hazardous jobs that hardly sustain their families,” BTC’s chief executive member Pramod Boro told said. “We saw a future in the ground-breaking work on mushrooms done by Bodoland University and there was no looking back.”

5. New ART regulations push up cost of treatment, limit conception opportunities

The Health Ministry had notified the Assisted Reproductive Technology Regulations (ART), 2023, which are aimed at providing donors and patients with better medical care and security earlier this year. But the new provisions have pushed up the already sky-high medical costs and are proving to be a challenge for treating doctors and couples wanting to have children through ART because of the restricted and limited resource availability in terms of donors, according to industry insiders.

New provisions

The new ART provisions impose restrictions on the number of times a donor, male or female, can donate (sperm/oocyte) in their lifetime, and specifies age limits for donors.

The provision states that an oocyte donor should be a person who have been married at least once in their lives and have at least one living child of her own (minimum three years of age). She can donate oocyte only once in her lifetime and not more than seven oocytes can be retrieved.

Also, an ART bank cannot supply gamete (reproductive cell) of a single donor to more than one commissioning couple (couple seeking services).

Additionally, parties seeking ART services will be required to provide insurance coverage in the favour of the oocyte donor (for any loss, damage, or death of the donor). A clinic is prohibited from offering to provide a child of pre-determined sex. Also checking for genetic diseases before the embryo implantation is needed.

While welcoming the safety measures and transparency the new provisions bring, Archna Dhawan Bajaj, gynaecologist, Nurture IVF, said that the restrictions significantly limit the opportunities for ART couples to find suitable donors.

Overall, the new ART laws are restricting the number of donation attempts. “They have the potential to increase costs and create challenges for couples relying on assisted reproductive techniques,” Dr. Bajaj said.

India, much like the rest of the world, is facing a dip in fertility rates and further limiting available donors is likely to bring in more challenges, experts say.

The provisions impose curbs on the number of times a person can donate sperm/oocyte

6. How prokaryotes led to eukaryotes

Speaking of science D. Balasubramanian

Organisms on planet earth are broadly divided into prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The former are unicellular, do not have any organelles such as mitochondria, and their DNA is not packaged into a nucleus.

Eukaryotes have mitochondria, their DNA is packaged into a nucleus, and most of them are complex, multicellular beings.

About 50 years ago, a subset of unicellular organisms, the Archaea, were shown to have a different line of descent as compared to bacteria. The two differ in the composition of their cell walls, and in the sequence of some of their genes. The term Archaea, was used because the first members of this domain were found living in extreme environments of very high temperatures or very high salt.

The endosymbionts

One group of archaea were shown to have proteins that closely resembled eukaryotic proteins. These organisms are found in a geological formation where geothermally heated water is forced out of a ridge in the Atlantic Ocean floor at a depth of 2400 meters below sea level.

Many other related members were later found in unusual ecosystems, and came to be collectively called the Asgard, which is the home of the Gods in Norse mythology.

The mitochondria, which are the energy-generating organelles of eukaryotic cells, and the photosynthesizing chloroplasts found in plant cells, have evolved from free-living bacteria.

The ancestor of mitochondria was a proteobacteria that was engulfed by an Asgard archaean organism. Descendants of this endosymbiotic union gave rise to animals, fungi and plants.

In plants, the Asgard-mitochondrial union was followed by the intake of a photosynthesizing cyanobacterium, which became the chloroplast.

A few years ago, we Indians had seen complicated mergers of public-sector banks, broughtin order to optimize their operations.

In a similar vein, establishing a workable symbiotic relationship between two independent life forms poses many challenges.

Plants do it differently

There was no need to retain two full sets of genes, so choices were made: for Information Technology (cell replication, etc.), archaean genes were retained; for operations and housekeeping (assembling proteins), bacterial genes were preferred.

Over time, most genes of the organelle were transferred to the nucleus, perhaps a more efficient arrangement.

The group of Rajan Sankaranarayanan at the CCMB has performed extensive studies on the reconfiguring of cellular processes in these endosymbiotic relationships. They compared animals and fungi with plants, where it is even more complicated as three gene sets were involved in the course of their evolution.

Proteins are made up of amino acids. Nature uses only left-handed amino acids; the right-handed ones can be poisonous. The mechanism for discriminating ‘good’ from ‘bad’ is different for Asgards and bacteria. The paper shows that animals and fungi work their way around this discrepancy by forcing the mitochondria to change. Plants segregate the two policing machineries in the cytoplasm and in mitochondria.