India-Kenya Ties

• Following a joint reconnaissance of the coastal region close to the Lamu Archipelago by the warships of both nations, India recently handed over 100 nautical charts to Kenya.
• The survey was carried out in India by the National Hydrography Office of the Indian Navy.

About Kenya:

• Kenya is a country in Eastern Africa.
• Nairobi is Kenya's largest and capital city, whereas Mombasa, on the country's coast, served as the nation's first capital and oldest city.
• Kenya is bordered to the northwest by South Sudan, to the north by Ethiopia, to the east by Somalia, to the west by Uganda, to the south by Tanzania, and to the southeast by the Indian Ocean.
• Indians and people of Indian origin, descendants of workers the British imported to build the Uganda Railway, make up a sizable portion of the population of Kenya.
• Kenya and India collaborate often on international fora such as the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Commonwealth of Nations, G-77 and G-15, and the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation.
• People have traveled and traded across Kenya for ages because of its location between the Indian Ocean and Lake Victoria in Africa and the Middle East.
• As a result, there are now numerous different ethnic groups and languages.
• According to scientists, the original human birthplace may have been in Northern Kenya and Tanzania.
• In Kenya's Turkana Basin, researchers recovered the remains of one of the earliest human forebears yet discovered.
• The Omo-Turkana basin, which spans four nations—Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, and Uganda—includes Lake Turkana, the biggest desert lake on earth.
• The headquarters of UN-Habitat is located at the United Nations Office in Nairobi, Kenya.

India-Kenya relations:

• Historical ties between India and Kenya are based on the well-documented trade in spices.
• It is a crucial player in deciding the geopolitics of the Western Indian Ocean in addition to being India's maritime neighbor.
• Kenya is an active member of the African Union, which has a long-standing relationship with India.
• In 2017, the Kenyan government designated people of Indian heritage as the 44th tribe in the nation.
• In addition, 14 Kenyan employees have taken courses at the National Institute of Hydrography in Goa as part of the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) program to date.
• Kenya's new cancer hospital will be funded by India.
• India will provide drugs to Kenyan AIDS sufferers.
• Kenya would receive a 60 million dollar concessional credit from India for a power transmission project.
• Agreement between India and Kenya on working together to develop and manage National Housing Policy.
• Both parties will cooperate on all issues pertaining to housing and human settlements utilizing a variety of techniques, such as staff training, personnel exchanges, exhibitions, conferences, and seminars.
• The partnership between the two countries will center on scaling up slum prevention and improvement programs based on each country's expertise and execution methodology.
• A memorandum of understanding for agricultural cooperation
• A $100 million Line of Credit (LoC) for Kenya's agricultural mechanization was also announced by India.

About The Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC)Programme:

• ITEC is the leading capacity-building platform of the Ministry Of External Affairs, Government of India.

• ITEC, established in 1964, is one of the first institutionalised programmes for establishing international capacity. It has taught more than 200,000 officials from more than 160 nations in the civilian and defense sectors.
• Each year, EC provides more than 400 courses at more than 100 prestigious institutions in India, providing almost 10,000 fully-funded possibilities for in-person training options.

Surveillance Balloon

• Tensions between the United States and China were raised after a high-altitude balloon from China invaded American airspace.

• A Chinese surveillance balloon that had been seen over US airspace for a few days was shot down by the US.

About surveillance or spy balloon:

• Military uses for spy balloons were already common. Balloons were employed to provide a bird's eye perspective of the battlefield during the French Revolutionary Wars in the late 18th century, with evidence of their employment at the Battle of Fleurus in 1794.

• Prior to the Great War, big-picture reconnaissance was mostly conducted by balloons, which gave a perspective on enemy positions and movements that was inconceivable from the ground.
• Spy balloons can observe from lower altitudes than satellites, which can only observe from higher altitudes.
• The US military began investigating the use of high-altitude espionage balloons after World War II, which resulted in a massive series of operations known as Project Genet.
• This kind of low-cost, stealthy, and difficult-to-reach balloon has been utilized for surveillance during wars like the American Civil War.
• When the US launched hundreds of balloons to gather intelligence on the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War, the method gained widespread use during World War I.
• Many nations still deploy surveillance balloons, though their use has decreased as unmanned drones and satellites have become more common.

How relevant are high-altitude balloons today?

• High-altitude balloons still have a significant role to play in the military, despite the fact that satellites, better plane, and drone technologies have diminished their use.

• High-altitude balloons are less expensive, simpler to launch, and easier to manage than satellites, which can cost millions of dollars to build and launch.
• Even though they cannot be directly steered, balloons can be generally directed to a desired area by altering altitude to capture different wind currents.
• Furthermore, spy balloons have the benefit of being able to float around at lower altitudes, unlike satellites, which are at much higher altitudes and travel at great speeds, allowing better image quality and more time to gather intelligence in a specific area.

Why do Governments employ surveillance balloons for?

• Monitoring at a Closer Range: In the age of satellites, surveillance balloons, which are often sophisticated balloons outfitted with cutting-edge, downward-pointing imaging equipment, provide monitoring at a Closer Range.

• Image clarity: Compared to the lowest orbiting satellites, the lower-flying balloons, which hover at an altitude similar to that of commercial aircraft, can often capture crisper photographs.
• Due to their further orbit, satellites that spin in unison with the Earth continuously record images that are fuzzier.
• Intercepting Communications: In addition to "collecting electronic signals," surveillance balloons may also be able to intercept communications.

What other surveillance methods are there?

• Electronic surveillance: This includes listening in on phone calls, intercepting communication signals, and keeping an eye on emails and other digital correspondence.

• HUMINT (human intelligence): Recruiting people having access to sensitive information, such as diplomatic workers, military personnel, or government officials, is one of the key elements employed in surveillance.
• Internet espionage: It is a type of cyber-attack that uses stolen intellectual property or sensitive, confidential data to gain an advantage over rival businesses or governmental organizations.
• Satellite imagery: Information about foreign nations is occasionally gathered using satellites.

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