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The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has instructed a dozen government institutes and scientific organisations not to interact with the media or share data on social media regarding ground subsidence at Joshimath in Uttarakhand, saying their “interpretation of the situation” is “creating confusion not only among affected residents but also among citizens of the country”.
A preliminary report released Friday by the Indian Space Research Organisation’s National Remote Sensing Centre, showing a “rapid subsidence” event in parts of Joshimath, was taken down from the NRSC website.
According to the preliminary report, while “slow subsidence” up to 8.9 cm within Joshimath town was recorded over a period of 7 months since April 2022, Cartosat-2S satellite data acquired by ISRO recorded “rapid subsidence” of around 5 cm in just 12 days since December 27.
On Saturday, NRSC officials were not available for comment on why the report had been taken down. An email sent to the ISRO spokesperson did not elicit a response.
But Uttarakhand cabinet minister Dhan Singh Rawat told The Sunday Express that there was panic in Joshimath over the ISRO report, so he spoke to the ISRO director and asked him to remove the report.
There was this thing on the website that there is land subsidence, and that created a lot of panic here (in Joshimath). NDMA letter was issued after the Uttarakhand government told the agency that any report regarding Joshimath should first get approval from the Centre or the state government.
The NDMA office memorandum prohibiting interaction with the media or sharing of data on social media regarding Joshimath was issued.
China Bhutan agree to move forward on roadmap for their boundary talks (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Fifteen months after they signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on a three-step roadmap to expedite their boundary negotiations, China and Bhutan have announced that a “positive consensus” has been reached to “simultaneously push forward the implementation of all steps” of the roadmap.
The three-step roadmap has still not been made public. Talks between China and Bhutan since 1984 have largely been on contested areas in Bhutan’s west including Doklam and in the north along their 477-km-long border.
In 2020, China laid claim to the Sakteng wildlife sanctuary in Bhutan’s east near the border with Arunachal Pradesh. In the mid-1990s, China had proposed a territorial swap, seeking Doklam and other enclaves in Bhutan’s west in exchange for areas in the north. The two countries do not have diplomatic ties.
Doklam is near India’s Siliguri corridor and was the site of a long standoff between Indian and Chinese troops in 2017.
Any development in the China-Bhutan boundary negotiations will be keenly watched by India. Earlier this week, Army chief General Manoj Pande said the Army is closely watching the situation in Doklam and monitoring Chinese activities there.
India will monitor any move to take forward the China-Bhutan talks. It views Chinese presence near Doklam as a major security concern close to the strategic Siliguri corridor. China has also staked claim to a wildlife sanctuary in Bhutan near the border with Arunachal.
The two sides agreed to simultaneously push forward the implementation of all the steps of the Three-Step Roadmap, adding that the two sides also agreed to increase the frequency of the EGMs and to “keep contact through diplomatic channels on holding the 25th Round of China-Bhutan Boundary talks as soon as possible at mutually convenient dates.
The Chinese delegation at the Kunming EGM talks was led by Hong Liang, Director-General of the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, while the Bhutanese delegation was led by Dasho Letho Tobdhen Tangbi, Secretary of the International Boundaries of Bhutan.
World
Sweden uncovers Europe’s largest deposit of minerals for green vehicles (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Swedish state-owned mining company, LKAB, on January 12 announced that it has discovered more than one million tonnes of rare earth oxides in the northern area of the country. This is the largest known deposit in Europe.
Currently, no rare earths are mined in Europe and it mostly imports them from other regions. According to a report in the BBC, 98 per cent of rare earths used by the European Union were sent by China.
Electrification, the EU’s self-sufficiency and independence from Russia and China will begin in the mine. The discovery can also prove to be a significant turning point not just for the EU but also for other western countries as they have been trying to reduce their reliance on China for the import of these rare earth elements and other key industrial supplies, especially since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
Rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a set of 17 chemical elements in the periodic table — the 15 lanthanides, plus scandium and yttrium, which tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanides, and have similar chemical properties.
The 17 rare earths are cerium (Ce), dysprosium (Dy), erbium (Er), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), holmium (Ho), lanthanum (La), lutetium (Lu), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), scandium (Sc), terbium (Tb), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), and yttrium (Y).
Despite their classification, most of these elements are not really “rare”. One of the rare earths, promethium, is radioactive.
These elements are important in technologies of consumer electronics, computers and networks, communications, clean energy, advanced transportation, healthcare, environmental mitigation, and national defence, among others.
Scandium is used in televisions and fluorescent lamps, and yttrium is used in drugs to treat rheumatoid arthritis and cancer.
Rare earth elements are used in space shuttle components, jet engine turbines, and drones. Cerium, the most abundant rare earth element, is essential to NASA’s Space Shuttle Programme.
In recent years, rare earths have become even more important because there has been an increase in demand for green energy.
Elements like neodymium and dysprosium, which are used in wind turbine motors, are sought-after more than ever as wind mills across the world continue to grow.
Moreover, the push for switching from internal combustion cars to electric vehicles has also led to a rise in demand for rare earth magnets — made from neodymium, boron, and iron — and batteries.
Against the backdrop of the fraught relations between China and other western countries, the new discovery of a deposit of rare earth elements in Sweden has come as a relief for the latter.