India, U.S. to share defence facilities
India and the U.S. signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) that will give the militaries of both countries access to each other’s facilities for supplies and repairs.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter said in a joint statement that the pact “will facilitate additional opportunities for practical engagement and exchange.” While it is an enabling agreement, LEMOA does not make logistical support automatic or obligatory for either party.
The agreement does not involve allowing military bases either. Each case will require individual clearance. The services or supplies accessed will be on a reimbursable basis. The agreement has been a controversial one, and two previous governments – led by A.B. Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh – did not sign it though it has been on the table since 2002.
The agreement, which comes after more than a decade of negotiations, puts an automatic approvals process in place for the two militaries to share each other’s bases for various operations. These include port visits, joint exercises, joint training, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts; other uses are to be discussed on a case-by-case basis. The agreement will aid the sort of operations India has undertaken to rescue stranded Indians in conflict zones. Further, as the Indian military continues to expand its role to aid in disaster relief, as it did during the 2004 tsunami, it will benefit from easier access to America’s network of military bases around the world.
Two examples of the LEMOA’s utility:
(1) A U.S. carrier battle group steams from the Persian Gulf to the western Pacific through the Straits of Malacca. Along the way, Indian Navy ships operating off Kochi are authorised by the Government of India to conduct a previously unprogrammed passing exercise with the U.S. flotilla. During the exercise, the U.S. vessels offload fuel and supplies from their Indian counterparts. Instead of having to pay in cash for the victuals, India simply maintains a ledger balance for the transactions, which is cleared in one go at the end of the fiscal year.
(2) Similarly, an Indian naval vessel suffers a maintenance problem while visiting the U.S. for an exercise. The repairs are done at an American port. The LEMOA will permit the costs of the repairs to be defrayed against any comparable debts the U.S. may owe India for supplies and services received in other circumstances through a simple “balancing of the books” at the end of the fiscal year.
The LEMOA is one of the four ‘foundational agreements’ that the United States enters into with its defence partners. With this, India has signed two of the four.
After the first one in 2002 — the General Security Of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) — the governments led by BJP’s A.B. Vajpayee and the Congress’s Manmohan Singh were wary of signing the other three amid concerns that these may lock India into an uncomfortably close embrace with the U.S. The Communications and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) for Geospatial Intelligence are the two pending ones.
Water table rises in Ganga basin but so does salinity
The gravest threat to groundwater in India isn’t over-exploitation, but arsenic and salt contamination. This is the conclusion of a new study, “Groundwater quality and depletion in the Indo-Gangetic Basin mapped from in situ observations.” As per the study, the unsustainable levels of groundwater extraction are largely limited to urban agglomerations in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
However, nearly 23 per cent of the 300 BCM (billion cubic metre) is extremely saline and about 40 per cent contaminated by arsenic, says the study. In recent years, several reports have warned of alarming groundwater depletion in northwest India and Pakistan based on satellite imagery from the Gravity Recovery and Satellite Experiment (GRACE) that has minutely tracked how gravity varies across the earth since 2002.
The researchers sought to assess groundwater-level variations, groundwater quality and groundwater storage within the top 200 m of the Indo-Gangetic aquifer. Canals built in the 19th and 20th centuries significantly influenced groundwater trends, the study says as water accumulated at the origins of the canal tended to “leak out,” leading to high recharge and sometimes floods.
Moreover, geological variations determine how much groundwater is available in a region. Groundwater trends were highly variable across India and could change year on year. Even one year of drought can substantially alter groundwater availability.
According to a review of India’s water resources by the government in December 2015, India has a usable resource of 1,123 BCM/year of which surface water and groundwater is 690 BCM/year and 433 BCM/year respectively. Setting aside 35 BCM for natural discharge, the net annual ground water availability for the entire country is 398 BCM.