Editorial 1 : Surprising ‘dark oxygen’ discovery could ensnarl deep-sea mining
Introduction
An unknown process is producing oxygen deep in the world’s oceans, where it is too dark for photosynthesis, scientists reported on July 22 in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Polymetallic nodules
- Polymetallic nodules are transporting electric charges that split water molecules around them, releasing oxygen.
- Polymetallic nodules are lumps of iron, manganese hydroxides, and rock partially submerged in many parts of the ocean floor.
- If their concentration exceeds 10 kg per square metre, mining them is considered to be economically feasible — and many countries are planning to do so as a new resource.
- Similarly, India is planning to apply for licences to explore for deep-sea minerals in the Pacific Ocean.
- India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences is also currently building a submersible vehicle that will look for and mine similar resources in the Indian Ocean as part of its ‘Deep Ocean Mission’.
The study
- The oxygen discovery raises questions about how deep-sea mining to extract polymetallic nodules will affect marine ecosystems.
- The scientists behind the study, from Germany, the U.K., and the U.S., were studying the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a part of the ocean floor off Mexico’s west coast.
- Covering an area larger than India, the Zone is considered to have the world’s highest concentration of polymetallic nodules, including 6 billion tonnes of manganese and more than 200 million tonnes each of copper and nickel.
- When the scientists were conducting experiments at a depth of 4 km, they noticed the oxygen concentration in some places rapidly increased instead of decreasing.
- This underwater region is called the abyssal zone. It receives too little sunlight for photosynthesis to be feasible.
- Instead, life-forms here get oxygen from water carried in by a global circulation called the ‘Great Conveyor Belt’.
- Still, the amount of oxygen is low and without any local production, the device should have measured the oxygen levels dropping as small animals consumed it.
- But the scientists found the opposite: it increased, sometimes tripling in just two days.
What is the source?
- When they measured the physical characteristics of the nodules, they found their surfaces to have a voltage of up to 0.95 V.
- Splitting one water molecule requires 1.5 V, but the researchers have suspected the voltage could build up if many nodules are close together, like the cells of a battery.
- Oxygen sources are valuable because they allow life to survive. But as the lab experiment indicated, the nodules could only produce oxygen as long as they could muster a sufficient voltage. The nodules’ own energy source is also not clear.
What is deep-sea mining?
- Given the quantity of polymetallic nodules on the ocean floor, deep-sea mining is expected to be a major marine resource extraction activity in the coming decades.
- The International Seabed Authority has established 15-year contracts with at least 22 contractors — including the Government of India — to look for polymetallic nodules, polymetallic sulphides, and cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts in the deep seabed.
- China alone is expected to mine 17% of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone.
- The new finding raises the possibility of such mining damaging ecosystems that require ‘dark oxygen’ to survive.
- Experts have found deep-sea mining itself could be harmful to the marine environment, ‘dark oxygen’ or not.
The affect on deep-sea mining
- The same study also reported significantly lower heterogeneity diversity in disturbed areas and added that if the results of this experiment can be extrapolated to the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, the impacts of polymetallic nodule mining there may be greater than expected, and could potentially lead to an irreversible loss of some ecosystem functions.
- In November 2023, Nature reported based on a paper published then that deep-sea mining for minerals could harm deep-sea jellyfish, according to the first study of mining impacts on animals living in the water column.
Conclusion
Scientists also know less about ecosystems in the abyssal zone than they do about many of those aboveground, which means the models scientists use to predict their fate and their role in global climate processes could be unreliable. ‘Dark oxygen’ adds to these challenges. If deep-sea mining doesn’t find sustainable ways to respond to them, it may be rendered altogether infeasible.
Editorial 2 : On reservations and the OBC creamy layer
Context
The allotment of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) to Puja Khedkar as an Other Backward Class (OBC) Non-Creamy Layer (NCL) candidate coupled with multiple disabilities has raised issues surrounding the creamy layer in OBC reservation.
What is the history of reservation?
- Articles 15 and 16 guarantee equality to all citizens in any policy of the government and public employment respectively.
- In order to achieve social justice, they also enable special provisions for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes or OBC, Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST).
- Reservations for SC and ST are fixed at 15% and 7.5% respectively, in jobs, educational institutions and public sector undertakings (PSU) at the central level.
- It was in 1990, when V. P. Singh was Prime Minister, that 27% reservation for OBC was implemented in central government employment based on Mandal Commission (1980) recommendations.
- Subsequently in 2005, reservation was enabled for OBC, SC and ST in educational institutions including private institutions.
- In 2019, 10% reservation was enabled for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) among the unreserved category.
What is the creamy layer?
- The 27% reservation for OBC was upheld by the Supreme Court in the Indra Sawhney case (1992). It opined that caste is a determinant of class in the Indian context.
- However, in order to uphold the basic structure of equality, it fixed a cap of 50% for reservation unless there are exceptional circumstances.
- The court also provided for exclusion of creamy layer from OBC.
- The criteria for identifying a person as part of the creamy layer is based on the recommendations of the Justice Ram Nandan Prasad Committee (1993).
- It is determined by the position/income of an applicant’s parents alone.
- The criteria for belonging to creamy layer is parental income, excluding income from salary and agricultural income, being more than ₹8 lakh in each year in the last three consecutive financial years.
- Further, the following categories of applicants are also considered as belonging to creamy layer :
- (a) parents, either of whom entered government service (centre or State) as Group A/Class I officer or parents, both of whom entered as Group B/Class II officers or father, who was recruited in Group B/Class II post and promoted to Group A/Class I before 40 years of age;
- (b) either of the parents employed in a managerial position in PSUs;
- (c) either of the parents holding constitutional posts.
What are the issues?
- The recent controversy has raised issues surrounding the inadequacies in the process.
- There are allegations that some applicants manage to obtain NCL or EWS certificate through dubious means.
- The same may also be true with respect to disability certificates in order to take benefit of the 4% of seats reserved for persons with disabilities in central government jobs.
- There are also allegations of applicants and their parents adopting strategies to get around the creamy layer exclusion like gifting of assets, taking premature retirement etc., since the applicant’s or his/her spouse’s income is not considered for such exclusion.
- Another contentious issue relates to concentration of reservation benefits.
- The Rohini Commission, that was set up for providing recommendation on sub-categorisation among OBC castes, has estimated that 97% of reserved jobs and seats in educational institutions have been garnered by just around 25% of the OBC castes/sub-castes at the central level.
- Close to 1,000 of around 2,600 communities under the OBC category had zero representation in jobs and educational institutes.
- It is pertinent to note that as per government replies in Parliament, 40-50% of seats reserved for OBC, SC and ST in the central government remain unfilled.
Way forward
- The foremost requirement is to plug the loopholes in the issue of NCL, EWS and disability certificates.
- There must be thorough scrutiny to ensure that only eligible applicants obtain these benefits.
- The vacancies for reserved communities should be filled without backlogs.
- Sub-categorisation of reservation may be essential to address the under representation or non-representation of various communities.
- Similarly, creamy layer exclusion in SC and ST category, at least for children of Group I/Class A government officials may be considered.
- Nevertheless, a discussion should begin on these aspects with all stakeholders to implement them.
- This would ensure that benefits of reservation reach the more marginalised among underprivileged in successive generations.
