BCIM, CMEC
Category: International
- India’s decision to skip the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) may have led to the exclusion of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor from the list of projects covered by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) umbrella.
- South Asia is covered by three major undertakings — the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC); the Nepal-China Trans-Himalayan Multi-dimensional Connectivity Network, including Nepal-China cross-border railway; and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
- The 2,800-km BCIM corridor proposes to link Kunming in China’s Yunnan province with Kolkata, passing though nodes such as Mandalay in Myanmar and Dhaka in Bangladesh before heading to Kolkata.
- Last September, the BRI had got a highoctane boost when Myanmar inked an agreement with China to establish the CMEC. The 1,700-km corridor provides China yet another node to access the Indian Ocean.
- The CMEC will run from Yunnan Province of China to Mandalay in Central Myanmar. From there it will head towards Yangon, before terminating at the Kyaukpyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in the Bay of Bengal.
Electronics Imports
Category: Economy
- India’s electronics imports touched a record $55.6 billion in FY19, against $51.5 billion a year before.
- It remained the largest driver of its trade deficit after oil.
- Electronics exports jumped as much as 39 per cent to a record $8.9 billion last fiscal, against 12.3 per cent in the previous year.
- Telecom instruments made up for a third of overall electronics imports, the highest.
- Between April 2018 and February 2019, exports of telecom instruments jumped a massive 129 per cent year-on-year to $2.4 billion — the highest since FY1- and emerged as the largest segment within the electronics exports category.
Cyberex
Category: Defence & security
- India may still be far away from establishing a desperately-needed military cyber command but is now taking some steps to prepare for battles in the virtual world.
- The Indian armed forces will conduct a major cyber exercise or ‘Cyberex’ this week, which will include scenarios connected to cyber attacks on critical Indian infrastructure like strategic networks and power grids.
- Cyberex is the first such major joint exercise of the Army, IAF and Navy, under the aegis of integrated defence staff.
- The others involved in the twoday exercise are National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), National Informatics Centre (NIC), and Computer Security Resource Centre (CSRC).
- Cyberex and other such endeavours are required to prepare for challenges in the fifth dimension of warfare after the first four “real” battlefields of land, air, sea and space.
- operations, is coming up under a two-star general.The DCA, led by a naval officer, will involve an upgrade of the existing Defence Information Assurance and Research Agency.
