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- April 2019
Index
Toppers Talk
Art & Culture
Polity
- Sexual Harassment Charges against Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi
- All You Need to know about Electoral Bonds
- Electoral Bonds controversy
- NaMo TV controversy
- General Elections 2019
- RBI Governor bats for a Permanent Status to Finance Commission
- PM Modi’s Mission Shakti Speech & Model Code of Conduct
- Sadhvi Pragya Thakur’s latest Controversy
- Rafale deal document controversy
- Should SC Judges be under RTI ambit?
- Supreme Court Judgement on Tainted Candidates
- VVPAT verification
Governance & Social Justice
- Candida Auris : Drug- resistant fungi
- Candida auris infection
- Healthcare System for India, Difference in USA & European healthcare model?
- Lateral Entry in Civil Services explained
- Model policy for Women in Police
- NIRF India Rankings 2019 declared
- Quality Assurance Scheme
- Sex on false promise of marriage is rape
- Survey 2019 Ambitions Beyond Growth report by UNESCAP
- World Health Statistics Overview 2019 report on Life Expectancy
- World Press Freedom Index 2019
- Supreme Court compensation order on Bilkis Bano case
- WHO guidelines on physical activity for children under 5 years of age
- Global Talent Competitive Index 2019
International Relations
- Algeria Political Crisis
- EU’s new Copyright Law, Will it change Web Worldwide?
- India Pakistan Kartarpur Corridor Talks
- India to Become NATO Ally?
- Japan Starts a New Era
- Julian Assange Arrested
- Sudan Political Crisis
- Trump designates Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran
- United Nations Has to Pay India $38 Million
- US labels Revolutionary Guard of Iran a terror organisation
- US Mexico border wall controversy
- Why is UAE Important for India?
- Why is Chile Important for India?
- India Pakistan Conflict De-escalation Mechanisms
- India suspends cross LoC trade with Pakistan
- What is Arab Spring 2.0?
- India to stop buying Oil from Iran
- Trump withdraws from UN arms treaty
Geography
Economy
- Asian Development Outlook 2019
- China’s growth after slowdown
- Foreign Investment in India
- India’s 20th Livestock Census
- India’s transition to Renewable Energy from conventional sources
- Indian Army Builds The Longest Bridge of India Over Indus In Leh
- India Energy Modelling Forum by NITI Aayog & USAID
- National Common Mobility Card launched
- Rise and fall of Private Airlines in India
- Rise in Global Crude Oil prices & weakening Rupee
- Slowdown in Industrial Growth & rising Inflation
- Supreme Court order on EPFO
- Supreme Court quashes RBI’s 12 February Circular on NPA
- What are Junk Bonds?
- What is Fixed Maturity Plans?
- What is GDP deflator? Is it more comprehensive compared to WPI and CPI?
- What is Trader’s Credit Card Scheme?
- What is Wholesale Price Index?
- 1st Bimonthly Monetary Policy review – April 2019
- National Rubber Policy 2019
- Sensex hits 7 months high, History & Functions of Bombay Stock Exchange
- Supreme Court orders RBI on RTI
- What is Dedollarisation?
- Asian Tea Alliance
- Pepsico vs Farmers Issue
Defence & Security
Disaster Management
Science & Technology
- Dhanush Artillery Guns
- Combat Casualty Drugs
- The Indian Museum of the Earth (TIME)
- EMISAT Satellite Launched
- Faster Adoption & Manufacturing of Hybrid & Electric
- First Ever Image of a Black Hole
- India to Buy MH60 Romeo Helicopters
- Nepal and Sri Lanka Launch Their First Satellites Raavana 1 & NepaliSat-1
- Nirbhay Missile Successfully Tested
- High Bacteriophages in Ganga River
- Army invokes Emergency Powers for Missile Deal
- Cell Based Meat
- INS Imphal Guided Missile Destroyer
Environment
- Draft Indian Forest Act 2019
- Gujarat Fishermen’s victory in US Supreme Court
- Humpback Mahseer Fish included in Critically Endangered list by IUCN
- India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP)
- Jammu & Kashmir Environment Issues
- Madras High Court order on Chennai Salem Highway
- Monkey declared Vermin in Himachal Pradesh
- Neelakurinji Flower under Severe Threat
- Solar eWaste
- Special Postal Stamp on Ice Stupas released
- State of Global Climate report 2018
- What is Green Finance Ecosystem?
- Wind turbines are impacting ecology in Western Ghats
- All about Wild Food Plants
Prelims bits
Spice of the Month

Relevance:
- GS 2 || International Relations || India & it’s Neighbors || Pakistan
Why in news?
- India’s recent experience in dealing with the recent post-Pulwama Indo-Pak stand-off should encourage the two sides to urgently put in place dedicated bilateral conflict de-escalation mechanisms.
Communication
- De-escalation: Talking to one’s adversary in the midst of a war, a limited war or even hostility is often viewed as undesirable in the public mind.
- However, the lesson from the long history of warfare and India’s own experience in dealing with past crises is that talking to one’s adversaries is a crucial requirement for de-escalation and for bringing the two sides back from the brink.
- Exit from tussle: Such talks are often done discreetly and soberly via the ‘back channel’, away from media attention and focussed on de-escalation, meeting the aims behind the war-talk and achieving an honourable exit from the tussle
- During the Kargil conflict, on the other hand, politically appointed interlocutors had conducted discreet discussions on de-escalatory measures between the two sides.
- This is also a lesson the two Cold War rivals had learnt, that they had to keep talking to each other through the worst years of their rivalry. .
Post Pulwama
- After the Pulwama terror strike both sides found themselves in the midst of a military encounter. This was followed by a military stand-off that followed the Indian Air Force strikes on Balakot, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
- Going by the information that is currently available in open sourcesthere were hardly any pre-existing/dedicated channels of communication between the two countries; the ones that were in place were not put to use; and very little bilateral conversation actually took place to de-escalate the crisis. That should be of great concern to us.
Communication breakdown
- No established mechanism: For the most part of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) -I and II governments, there was an established mechanism of backchannel conversations by special envoys appointed by the respective Prime Ministers. The current Bharatiya Janata Party-led government decided to discontinue that time-tested and useful practice.
- The conversation at the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) level, the highest military contact that currently exists between India and Pakistan and which has often played a de-escalatory role, was not activated during the crisis.
- Unlike previous years, since Pakistan did not have a National Security Adviser (NSA) or an equivalent official, there were no NSA-level talks either. The two High Commissioners, unsurprisingly but disturbingly, were called back to their home countries for consultations. If anything, it is during crisis periods that envoys should stay put in their respective High Commissions to find ways of defusing tensions and relaying messages and options back to their governments. Curiously, India and Pakistan chose to do the exact opposite.
Risks
- Serious conflict: In the absence of which the two nuclear-armed countries could potentially head towards an undesirable, inadvertent and unintended conflict with unpredictable outcomes.
- Outsourcing crisis management to third parties with differing agendas and motives: Understandably, India might have chosen not to communicate with Pakistan for doing so would have taken away the political utility of the ‘teaching Pakistan a lesson’ rhetoric.
- However, when the hostile parties do not talk to de-escalate, others tend to step in. February and early March witnessed a slew of efforts by third parties to ensure that India and Pakistan de-escalate from the nuclear brink. The Americans, Chinese, Russians, Saudis, Emiratis were all involved one way or another in defusing the tensions between the two countries.
Way forward
- One of the biggest takeaways from the February crisis is the need to reinstate/re-establish high-level backchannel contacts with interlocutors in Pakistan, whether Islamabad or Rawalpindi.
- This is a lesson from various India-Pakistan crises, be it the backchannel through the 1999 Kargil conflict and the 2001-2002 crisis, discreet negotiations between the two sides preceding the 2003 ceasefire agreement and the post-Mumbai escalation.
Mains question
- India’s recent experience in dealing with the recent post-Pulwama Indo-Pak stand-off should encourage the two sides to urgently put in place dedicated bilateral conflict de-escalation mechanisms. Critically examine.