- Scientists have developed a Covid-19 vaccine that could offer protection against not only existing and future strains of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
- The vaccine costs $1 a dose. It uses the plasmid of E-coli bacteria to produce the vaccine.
- A plasmid is a small, extrachromosomal DNA molecule within a cell that is physically separated from chromosomal DNA and can replicate independently.
- They are most commonly found as small circular, double-stranded DNA molecules in bacteria; however, plasmids are sometimes present in archaea and eukaryotic organisms.
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Fifth session of Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs (CCSCH)established under Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) inaugurated virtually on 20th April with a series of virtual sessions.
- The session will see nearly 300 experts from 50 countries taking part in the deliberations.
About CCSCH:
- Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs was formed in 2013 with support of more than a hundred countries with India as the host country and Spices Board India as the Secretariat for organising the sessions of the committee.
- The objective was to develop and expand worldwide standards for spices and culinary herbs, and to consult with other international organisations in the standards development process.
- Since its inception, the Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs has been successful in developing harmonised global Codex standards for spices and herbs.
- In its past four sessions, the committee developed and finalized standards for four spices, viz. dried or dehydrated forms of black/white/green pepper, cumin, thyme, and garlic.
About CAC:
- The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) is an intergovernmental body.
- Set up in 1963.
- It was established jointly by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), within the framework of the Joint Food Standards Programme to protect the health of consumers and ensure fair practices in the food trade.
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The Supreme Court recently asked the Centre to respond to allegations made in a Public Interest Litigation with respect to 3 crore ration cards being cancelled in the country because of the insistence on Aadhaar linkage and biometric authentication.
Key Points
About Aadhar Card:
- Aadhar Card is basically a biographic and biometric data of Indian citizens that includes name, date of birth, gender, address, a photograph, and ten fingerprint and two iris scans.
- It includes a unique 12-digit Aadhaar number.
- The Aadhar Card is a residential proof and not a citizenship card.
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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) constituted a committee to evaluate the role of asset reconstruction companies (ARCs) in stressed debt resolution and review their business model.
About the committee:
- It is a six-member committee that will be headed by Sudarshan Sen, former executive director, Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Mandate:
- To review the existing legal and regulatory framework and recommend measures to improve the efficacy of ARCs.
- It will also review their role in stressed asset resolution under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), and suggest means to improve liquidity and trading of security receipts.
- It has also been asked to review the business models of ARCs.
- The committee will submit its report within three months from the date of its first meeting.
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The Delhi High Court issued an order directing the Centre to take a decision on framing rules to confer protection for exotic animals that are currently not under the purview of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
Key highlights:
- The court’s order came in response to a petition filed by animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India about the status of a male hippopotamus rescued from the Asiad Circus in Uttar Pradesh.
- The court directed that the hippo be permanently kept in a spacious facility in Jamnagar, Gujarat.
- The hippo was in the company of a rescued female hippopotamus and was receiving expert veterinary care.
- The facility met the Central Zoo Authority’s Guidelines on Minimum Dimensions of Enclosures for Housing Exotic Animals of Different Species and recommended that the facility be allowed to provide the hippopotamus with lifelong care.
About Hippopotamus:
- Hippopotamus is a large, mostly herbivorous, semiaquatic mammal and ungulate native to sub-Saharan Africa.
- It is one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus.
- After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third-largest type of land mammal and the heaviest extant artiodactyl.
- Despite their physical resemblance to pigs and other terrestrial even-toed ungulates, the closest living relatives of the Hippopotamidae are cetaceans from which they diverged about 55 million years ago.
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Recently, India and Germany signed Cities combating plastic entering the marine environment’.
The agreement was signed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and the respective ministry of Germany.
Key Points:
- The project envisaged under the contours of the Joint Declaration of Intent regarding cooperation in the field of ‘Prevention of Marine Litter’ signed between Republic of India and Federal Republic of Germany in 2019.
- It aims to prevent plastic entering the marine environment.
- Focus will be on three cities namely Kanpur, Kochi and Port Blair.
- Total time for the project is 3.5 years.
About Marine Litter:
According to UN Environment, marine litter is any persistent, manufactured or processed solid material discarded, disposed of or abandoned in the marine and coastal environment.
Sources:
- Items that have been made or used by people and deliberately discarded into the sea or rivers or on beaches.
- indirectly brought to the sea by rivers, sewage, storm water or winds.
- accidentally lost, including material lost at sea in bad weather (fishing gear, cargo)
- deliberately left by people on beaches and shores.
Impacts:
- Marine litter threatens ecosystems and adversely affects fishery and tourism industries around the globe.
- Affects public health with increased concerns about micro-plastic and risk of particles entering the food chain.
Suggestions
- Port reception facilities
- Creating a garbage management system
- Sewage treatment plants designed to capture plastic litter.
- Strict enforcement of norms preventing human led plastic waste discharge into aquatic and marine environments.
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The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has cleared a rail project in the Western Ghats spread across Goa and Karnataka, which can endanger its wildlife.
About the project:
- The project is the doubling the track of Hospet-Hubballi-Londa-Vasco Da Gama railway line by the Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd (RVNL).
- It involves doubling of the 353-kilometre-long railway track in Karnataka and Goa passing through the Western Ghats.
Western Ghats:
- The Western Ghats mountain range runs along the western side of India.
- The Ghats are older than the Himalayas.
- The range is known as Sahyadri in Maharashtra and Karnataka.
- It runs, about 1600 km, North to South, along the western edge of the Deccan Plateau.
- It originates near the border of Gujarat and Maharashtra, and runs through the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, finally ending at Kanyakumari.
- These hills form the catchment area for complex riverine drainage systems that drain almost 40% of India.
- Height:
- The average elevation is about 1,200 m.
- Anaimudi (2695 m), is the highest peak of the Western Ghats, situated in Eravikulam National Park, Kerala.
- Rocks found:
- Basalt is the predominant rock found in the hills reaching a thickness of 3 km.
- Other rocks: Granite gneiss, metamorphic gneisses with detached occurrences of crystalline limestone, iron ore, dolerites and anorthosites.
- Major gaps in the range:
- Goa Gap between the Maharashtra and Karnataka sections.
- Palghat Gap on the Tamil Nadu and Kerala border between Nilgiri Hills and Anaimalai Hills.
- Recognitions:
- It is one of the eight hottest hotspots of biological diversity in the world.
- In 2012, thirty-nine places in the Western Ghats region have been declared as World Heritage Sites by the UNESCO.
- Flora and Fauna:
- There are at least 139 mammal species.
- It includes the critically endangered Malabar large-spotted civet and the endangered lion-tailed macaque.
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India has invoked the peace clause at the World Trade Organization (WTO), for the second time, for exceeding the 10 per cent ceiling on support it offered its rice farmers.
- India had earlier invoked the clause for 2018-19, when it became the first country to do so.
- India informed the WTO that the value of its rice production in 2019-20 was $46.07 billion while it gave subsidies worth $6.31 billion, or 13.7 per cent as against the permitted 10 per cent.
What is Peace Clause?
- The peace clause protects India’s food procurement programmes against action from WTO members in case the subsidy ceilings – 10 per cent of the value of food production in the case of India and other developing countries – are breached.
What does India told to WTO?
- India’s breach of commitment for rice arises from support provided in pursuance of public stockholding programmes for food security purposeswhich were in existence as on the date of the Bali Ministerial Decision on Public Stockholding for Food Security Purposes.
- India said that under its public stockholding programmes for food security purposes, rice, wheat, coarse cereals and pulses, among others, are acquired and released in order to meet the domestic food security needs of the country’s poor and vulnerable population, and “not to impede commercial trade or food security of others. For these reasons only the breach of the de minimis limits for rice is covered by the peace clause.
Government does not undertake exports on a commercial basis from public stockholdings. Additionally, open market sales of food grains from public stockholding are made provided the buyer gives an undertaking of not exporting from such purchase.
- The peace clause can’t be challenged and because of this flexibility, distribution of food grains to the poor can be done for free which is crucial during the pandemic.
- India ensures food security through the minimum support price (MSP) programme, and Public Distribution System and National Food Security Act, 2013.
Subsidies of WTO:
- In WTO terminology, subsidies in general are identified by “boxes” which are given the colours of traffic lights: green (permitted), amber (slow down — i.e. need to be reduced), red (forbidden).
- In agriculture, things are, as usual, more complicated.
- The Agriculture Agreement has no red box.
- Domestic support exceeding the reduction commitment levels in the amber box is prohibited
- There is a blue box for subsidies that are tied to programmes that limit production.
- There are also exemptions for developing countries (sometimes called an “S&D box” or “development box”, including provisions in Article 6.2 of the Agreement).
Amber Box:
- Nearly all domestic support measures considered to distort production and trade (with some exceptions) fall into the amber box, which is defined in Article 6 of the Agriculture Agreement as all domestic supports except those in the blue and green boxes.
- These include measures to support prices, or subsidies directly related to production quantities.
- These supports are subject to limits: “de minimis” minimal supports are allowed (generally 5% of agricultural production for developed countries, 10% for developing countries); 32 WTO members that had larger subsidies than the de minimis levels at the beginning of the post-Uruguay Round reform period are committed to reduce these subsidies.
- The reduction commitments are expressed in terms of a “Total Aggregate Measurement of Support”.
Blue Box:
- This is the “amber box with conditions” — conditions designed to reduce distortion.
- Any support that would normally be in the amber box, is placed in the blue box if the support also requires farmers to limit production (details set out in Paragraph 5 of Article 6 of the Agriculture Agreement).
- At present there are no limits on spending on blue box subsidies.
Green box:
- The green box is defined in Annex 2 of the Agriculture Agreement.
- In order to qualify, green box subsidies must not distort trade, or at most cause minimal distortion.
- They have to be government-funded (not by charging consumers higher prices) and must not involve price support.
- They tend to be programmes that are not targeted at particular products, and include direct income supports for farmers that are not related to current production levels or prices. They also include environmental protection and regional development programmes.
- Green box” subsidies are therefore allowed without limits, provided they comply with the policy-specific criteria set out in Annex 2.
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India’s antiquated animal cruelty law may finally get some teeth after around sixty years after its enactment.
What are the amendments?
- The Centre’s Animal Husbandry department has suggested adding to the 1960 legislation a stringent new section that addresses the killing of animals and “gruesome cruelty” towards them.
- This section calls for imprisonment of up to five years and steep penalties that may go up to Rs 75,000.
- The department has also proposed amending the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act to hike the penalty for first-time offenders from the paltry “minimum of Rs 10 to maximum of Rs 50” to “not less than Rs 750 extended up to Rs 3,750 per animal”.
- The Union Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying set the ball rolling for the amendment of the legislation with Joint Commissioner (AH) Dr S K Dutta inviting suggestions from stakeholders at a webinar.
Its proposed new section, meanwhile, has the following provisions—
- 11 (A): Gruesome cruelty or life-threatening cruelty against animals, for which the penalty is Rs 50,000 per animal or the cost of the animal as determined by a jurisdictional veterinarian. This carries imprisonment of one year which may extend to three years or both.
- 11 (B): Killing of an animal for which the penalty is Rs 75,000 per animal or three times the cost of the animal as determined by the jurisdictional veterinarian, whichever is more, with imprisonment of three years which may extend to five years or both.
- 11 (C): Exceptions (exemption to section 11 (B) killing of an animal): i) accident ii) in defence of self or property (iii) by an act of god or war (iv) any other unforeseen circumstance outside the control of any person in general.
Steps taken for welfare of animals in India:
- The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960 recognises that animals can suffer physically and mentally, and is applicable to ‘all living creatures’.
- The Constitution also enshrines the principle of ahimsa and mandates to all citizens of India to ‘have compassion for living creatures’.
- The Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) is the central body responsible for animal welfare in the country.
- The National Institute for Animal Welfare created in 1999, has the broad mandate to improve animal welfare through research, education and public outreach.
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To provide relief to stressed companies, the Finance Ministry expanded the scope of a government-guaranteed credit facility to healthcare and stressed sector companies that have loan dues for up to 60 days (or SMA-1 accounts),as against 30 days earlier (SMA-0).
Key highlights:
- This has been expected to provide partial relief to stressed firms facing fresh uncertainty and business risks due to fresh lockdowns and restrictions being imposed by states.
- SMA-1 borrowers in the healthcare sector and 26 other high stress sectorsare now eligible under ECLGS 2.0.
- Companies from hospitality, travel & tourism, and leisure & sportingsectors are expected to benefit from the relaxation in the scheme.
- Accounts that are classified as non-performing assets or where overdueshave crossed 60 days (SMA-II) are not eligible.
- Companies that had loan dues up to 30 days (Special Mention Accounts or SMA-0) as on February 29, 2020, were being provided additional credit of 20 per cent outstanding under the scheme, which will now be given to SMA-1 accounts as well.
- The government has recently extended the ECLGS till June 2021, as against March 31, 2021 earlier.
About the ECLGS scheme:
- The Finance Ministry unveiled a Rs. 20 Lakh Crore comprehensive package, known as the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS), in view of the economic distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- This package is in aid of MSME sector, addressing working capital needs, operational liabilities and restart business impacted due the COVID-19 crisis.
- Borrowers with up to Rs. 25 Crore outstanding as on Feb 29, 2020 and up to Rs. 100 Crore annual turnover for FY 2020 are eligible for this scheme.
- Business Enterprises, MSMEs constituted as Proprietorship, Partnership, registered company, trusts and Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) shall also be eligible.
- Borrower accounts which had NPA or SMA-2 status as on Feb 29, 2020 shall not be eligible under the scheme.
- 20% of the total outstanding credit of borrowers can be sanctioned as a loan under the Guaranteed Emergency Credit Line (GECL), for those who having a loan as on Feb 29, 2020.
Special Mention Accounts:
- SMAs are those assets/accounts that shows symptoms of bad asset qualityin the first 90 days itself or before it being identified as NPA.
- The classification of Special Mention Accounts (SMA) was introduced by the RBI in 2014, to identify those accounts that has the potential to become an NPA/Stressed Asset.
- Logic of such a classification is because some accounts may turn NPA soon.
- An early identification will help to tackle the problem better.
- There are four types of Special Mention Accounts – SMA-NF, SMA 0, SMA1 and SMA 2.
- The Special Mention Accounts are usually categorized in terms of duration.
- For example, in the case of SMA -1, the overdue period is between 31 to 60 days.
- On the other hand, an overdue between 61 to 90 days will make an asset SMA -2.
- But some ‘Special Mention’ assets are identified on the basis of other factors that reflect sickness/irregularities in the account (SMA -NF).
- In the case of SMA -NF, non-financial indications about stress of an asset is considered.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Whitest paint and its composition
Mains level: NA
Engineers in the US have created what they are calling the whitest paint yet.
What is the whitest paint?
- The researchers created an ultra-white paint pushing the limits of how white paint can be.
- This older formulation was made of calcium carbonate, while the new one is made up of barium sulphate, which makes it more white.
- The newer paint is whiter and keeps the surface areas it is painted on cooler than the formulation before this could.
- If this new paint was used to cover a roof area of 1,000 square feet, it may be able to get a cooling power of 10 kilowatts.
- Most ovens use up about 2.3 kilowatts to run for an hour and a 3 ton 12 Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER) air conditioner uses up about 3 kilowatts to run for an hour.
The researchers have claimed that this paint may be the closest equivalent to the blackest black paint called “Vantablack” which is able to absorb up to 99.9 per cent of visible light.
What determines if a colour absorbs or reflects light?
- To understand how this works one needs to note that whenever an object is seen by the eye, it is either because of sunlight or the artificial light in the room.
- This light is made up of seven different colours (Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red or VIBGYOR).
- Specifically, light is made up of wavelengths of different colours.
- If an individual is looking at a sofa that is green, this is because the fabric or material it is made up of is able to absorb all the colours except green.
- This means that the molecules of the fabric reflect the green coloured wavelengths, which is what the eye sees.
- Therefore, the colour of any object or thing is determined by the wavelength the molecules are not able to absorb.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Rainbow is produced when sunlight falls on drops of rain. Which of the following physical phenomena are responsible for this?
- Dispersion
- Refraction
- Internal reflection
Select the correct answer using the codes given below:
a) 1 and 2 only
b) 2 and 3 only
c) 1 and 3 only
d) 1, 2 and 3
What determines which wavelength of light will be reflected and absorbed?
- This is dependent on how electrons are arranged in an atom (the building block of life, an atom is made up of electrons, protons and neutrons.
- These three particles make up everything in the known universe from mountains, planets, humans to pizza and cake).
- In contrast, if an object is black, it is because it has absorbed all the wavelengths and therefore no light is reflected from them.
- This is the reason that darker objects, as a result absorbing all wavelengths tend to heat up faster (during absorption the light energy is converted into heat energy).
So, what makes the paint so white?
There are two features:
- One is the paint’s high concentration of a chemical compound called barium sulfate, which is also used to make photo paper and cosmetics white.
- The second feature is that the team has used different sized particles of this chemical compound, which means different sizes scatter different amounts of light.
In this way, the varying size of particles of the compound makes sure that the paint can scatter more of the light spectrum from the sun.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Cynodonts
Mains level: NA
The Tiki Formation in Madhya Pradesh, a treasure trove of vertebrate fossils, has now yielded a new species and two genera of cynodonts, small rat-like animals that lived about 220 million years ago.
Tiki Formation
- The Tiki Formation is a Late Triassic geologic formation in Madhya Pradesh.
- Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation, although none have yet been referred to a specific genus.
- Phytosaur remains attributable to the genus Volcanosuchus have also been found in the Tiki Formation.
- The genera Tikiodon, Tikitherium and Tikisuchus and species Rewaconodon tikiensis, Hyperodapedon tikiensis and Parvodus tikiensis have been named after the Tiki Formation.
Findings of the new study
- The fossil teeth were studied for size, crown shape, structure of the cusps and compared with previously reported cynodonts.
- Cynodonts are important in evolutionary studies as this group ultimately gave rise to the present-day mammals.
- By studying their molar and premolar teeth, we see how they slowly evolved and modified.
- Their crown shape shows that these animals are actually intermediate forms that are very near to the mammalian line of evolution.
- Cynodonts and living mammals both belong to a group of egg-laying vertebrates (amniotes) called synapsids.
- The close relationship of cynodonts with living mammals is seen in their bones.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Azhdarchid pterosaurs
Mains level: Not Much
Azhdarchid pterosaurs, the giant reptiles that flew in the skies nearly 65 million years ago, had necks longer than that of a giraffe (i.e. more than 6fts).
What are pterosaurs?
- Pterosaurs are reptiles that are close cousins of dinosaurs, the first animals after insects to evolve powered flight.
- Some pterosaurs were as large as an F-16 fighter jet, while others were as small as a paper aeroplane.
- Pterosaurs went extinct about 65-66 million years ago (end of the Cretaceous period) and while they did not leave any of their descendants behind.
- One reason for this is that few pterosaurs lived in places where fossils tend to form, because of which their bones are preserved poorly.
Revise the geological timescale from your NCERT textbook.
Azhdarchid pterosaurs
- They are one type of pterosaur and one of the distinguishing characteristics about them is how big they were, especially their long necks.
- Some of these pterosaurs were the largest animals to have flown in the sky, with wingspans greater than 30 feet.
- The name azhdarchid, as per a blog on Scientific American comes from Azhdarcho, a Central Asian form named by Russian ornithologist and palaeontologist in 1984.
What have the researchers found?
- Researchers involved in this study were curious about how the reptile’s long neck functioned and how it was able to support the pterosaur’s body, allowing them to capture and eat heavy prey animals.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Chief Election Commissioner
Mains level: Not Much
The President has appointed Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra to take over as Chief Election Commissioner.
Chief Election Commissioner
- The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of India heads the Election Commission of India.
- The ECI is a body constitutionally empowered to conduct free and fair elections to the national and state legislatures and of President and Vice-President.
- This power of the Election Commission of India is derived from Article 324 of the Constitution of India.
- CEC of India is usually a member of the Indian Civil Service and mostly (not necessarily) from the Indian Administrative Service.
His/ Her Removal
- It is very difficult to remove the authority of the Chief Election Commissioner once appointed by the president.
- The two-thirds of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha need to present and vote against him for disorderly conduct or improper actions.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NLS1 Galaxy
Mains level: Black holes and gravitation waves
Astronomers have discovered a new active galaxy identified as the farthest gamma-ray emitting galaxy that has so far been stumbled upon. This active galaxy called the Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxy.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Recently, scientists observed the merger of giant ‘blackholes’ billions of light-years away from the Earth. What is the significance of this observation?
(a) ‘Higgs boson particles’ were detected.
(b) ‘Gravitational waves’ were detected.
(c) Possibility of inter-galactic space travel through ‘wormhole’ was confirmed.
(d) It enabled scientists to understand ‘singularity’.
NLS1 Galaxy
- Indian scientists have studied around 25,000 luminous Active galactic nuclei (AGN) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).
- They identified it as a gamma-ray emitting NLS1 galaxy, which is a rare entity in space.
- It is about 31 billion light-years away, opens up avenues to explore more such gamma-ray emitting galaxies that wait to meet us.
What makes it intriguing?
- Ever since 1929, when Edwin Hubble discovered that the Universe is expanding, it has been known that most other galaxies are moving away from us.
- Light from these galaxies is shifted to longer (and this means redder) wavelengths – in other words, it is red-shifted.
- Scientists have been trying to trace such red-shifted galaxies to understand the early Universe.
- Powerful relativistic jets, or sources of particles in the Universe travelling nearly at speed to light, are usually produced by AGN powered by large black holes and hosted in a giant elliptical galaxy.
Why NLS1 is unique?
- NLS1s are a unique class of AGN that are powered by the black hole of low mass and hosted in a spiral galaxy.
- As of today, gamma-ray emission has been detected in about a dozen NLS1 galaxies, which are a separate class of AGN identified four decades ago.
- All of them are at redshifts lesser than one, and no method was present to date to find NLS1 at redshifts larger than one.
- This discovery opens up a new way to find gamma-ray emitting NLS1 galaxies in the early Universe.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Monkeydactyl
Mains level: Evolution of natural history
Researchers have described a pterosaur species with opposable thumbs, which could likely be the earliest-known instance of the limb.
Monkeydactyl
- The pterosaur species were reptiles, close cousins of dinosaurs and the first animals after insects to evolve powered flight.
- They evolved into various species; while some were as large as an F-16 fighter jet, others were as small as paper aeroplanes.
- The new pterosaur fossil was discovered in the Tiaojishan Formation of Liaoning, China, and is thought to be 160 million years old.
- It has now been described by an international team of researchers from China, Brazil, the UK, Denmark and Japan, and has been named Kunpengopterus antipollicatus, also dubbed “Monkeydactyl”.
What has the team found?
- “Antipollicatus” in ancient Greek means “opposite thumbs”, and it was attached to the name because the researchers’ findings could be the first discovery of a pterosaur with an opposed thumb.
- Researchers suggested that K. antipollicatus could have used its hand for grasping, which is likely an adaptation for arboreal life.
What makes it special?
- Opposability of the thumb enables the species to “simultaneously flex, abduct and medially rotate the thumb” in a way that one is able to bring the tip of the thumb to touch the tips of the other fingers.
- Along with humans, some ancient monkeys and apes also had opposable thumbs. Humans, however, have a relatively long and distally placed thumb, and larger thumb muscles.
- This means that humans’ tip-to-tip precision grip when holding smaller objects is superior to non-human primates.
- This is the reason that humans are able to hold a pen, unscrew an earring stopper, or put a thread through a needle hole.
- The grasping hands of primates developed as a result of their life in the trees — an opposable thumb made it easier for the common ancestor of all primates to cling on to tree branches.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Some species of plants are insectivorous. Why?
(a) Their growth in shady and dark places does not allow them to undertake sufficient photosynthesis and thus they depend on insects for nutrition
(b) They are adapted to grow in nitrogen deficient soils and thus depend on insects for sufficient nitrogenous nutrition
(c) They cannot synthesize certain vitamins themselves and depend on the insects digested by them
(d) They have remained in that particular stage of evolution as living fossils, a link between autotrophs and heterotrophs
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Jyotiba Phule
Mains level: Social reformers in India
The Prime Minister has paid tribute to the great social reformer, thinker, philosopher and writer Mahatma Jyotiba Phule on his birth anniversary.
Mahatma Phule
- Jotirao Govindrao Phule was an Indian social activist, thinker, anti-caste social reformer and writer from Maharashtra.
- His work extended to many fields, including the eradication of untouchability and the caste system and for his efforts in educating women and exploited caste people.
- He and his wife, Savitribai Phule, were pioneers of women’s education in India. Phule started his first school for girls in 1848 in Pune at Tatyasaheb Bhide’s residence or Bhidewada.
- He, along with his followers, formed the Satyashodhak Samaj (Society of Truth Seekers) to attain equal rights for people from exploited castes.
- People from all religions and castes could become a part of this association which worked for the upliftment of the oppressed classes.
- Phule is regarded as an important figure in the social reform movement in Maharashtra. He was bestowed with an honorific Mahātmā title by Maharashtrian social activist Vithalrao Krishnaji Vandekar in 1888.
His social work
Phule’s social activism included many fields, including the eradication of untouchability and the caste system, education of women and the Dalits, and welfare of downtrodden women.
- Education
- In 1848, aged 21, Phule visited a girls’ school in Ahmadnagar, run by Christian missionaries.
- He realized that exploited castes and women were at a disadvantage in Indian society, and also that education of these sections was vital to their emancipation
- Phule first taught reading and writing to his wife, Savitribai, and then the couple started the first indigenously run school for girls in Pune.
- The conservative upper caste society of Pune didn’t approve of his work. But many Indians and Europeans helped him generously.
- Women’s welfare
- Phule watched how untouchables were not permitted to pollute anyone with their shadows and that they had to attach a broom to their backs to wipe the path on which they had travelled.
- He saw young widows shaving their heads, refraining from any sort of joy in their life. He saw how untouchable women had been forced to dance naked.
- He made the decision to educate women by witnessing all these social evils that encouraged inequality.
- He championed widow remarriage and started a home for dominant caste pregnant widows to give birth in a safe and secure place in 1863.
- His orphanage was established in an attempt to reduce the rate of infanticide.
- Along with his longtime friend Sadashiv Ballal Govande and Savitribai, he started an infanticide prevention centre.
- Phule tried to eliminate the stigma of social untouchability surrounding the exploited castes by opening his house and the use of his water-well to the members of the exploited castes.
- Views on religion and caste
- Phule recast Aryan invasion theory, proposing that the Aryan conquerors of India, were in fact barbaric suppressors of the indigenous people.
- He believed that they had instituted the caste system as a framework for subjugation and social division that ensured the pre-eminence of their Brahmin successors.
- He saw the subsequent Muslim conquests of the Indian subcontinent as more of the same sort of thing, being a repressive alien regime.
- But he considered the British to be relatively enlightened and not supportive of the varnashrama dharma system instigated and then perpetuated by those previous invaders.
- In his book, Gulamgiri, he thanked Christian missionaries and the British colonists for making the exploited castes realise that they are worthy of all human rights.
- His critique of the caste system began with an attack on the Vedas, the most fundamental texts of Hindus. He considered them to be a form of false consciousness.
- He is credited with introducing the Marathi word ‘Dalit’ (broken, crushed) as a descriptor for those people who were outside the traditional varna system.
- He advocated making primary education compulsory in villages. He also asked for special incentives to get more lower-caste people in high schools and colleges.
Satyashodhak Samaj
- On 24 September 1873, Phule formed Satyashodhak Samaj to focus on the rights of depressed groups such as women, the Shudra, and the Dalit.
- Through this the samaj opposed idolatry and denounced the caste system.
- Satyashodhak Samaj campaigned for the spread of rational thinking and rejected the need for priests.
- Phule established Satyashodhak Samaj with the ideals of human well-being, happiness, unity, equality, and easy religious principles and rituals.
- A Pune-based newspaper, Deenbandhu, provided the voice for the views of the Samaj.
- The membership of the samaj included Muslims, Brahmins and government officials. Phule’s own Mali caste provided the leading members and financial supporters for the organization.
Published works
- Tritiya Ratna, 1855
- Manav Mahammand (Muhammad) (Abhang)
- Gulamgiri, 1873
- Sarvajanik Satya Dharma Poostak, April 1889
- Sarvajanic Satya Dharmapustak, 1891
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Thwaites Glacier
Mains level: Glacial melting and sea level rise
The melting of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier – also called the “Doomsday Glacier”– has long been a cause of concern because of its high potential of speeding up the global sea-level rise happening due to climate change.
Thwaites Glacier
- Called the Thwaites Glacier, it is 120 km wide at its broadest, fast-moving, and melting fast over the years.
- Because of its size (1.9 lakh square km), it contains enough water to raise the world sea level by more than half a meter.
- Studies have found the amount of ice flowing out of it has nearly doubled over the past 30 years.
- Thwaites’s melting already contributes 4% to global sea-level rise each year. It is estimated that it would collapse into the sea in 200-900 years.
- Thwaites is important for Antarctica as it slows the ice behind it from freely flowing into the ocean. Because of the risk it faces — and poses — Thwaites is often called the Doomsday Glacier.
What have previous studies said?
- A 2019 study by New York University had discovered a fast-growing cavity in the glacier. Then last year, researchers detected warm water at a vital point below the glacier.
- The study reported water at just two degrees above freezing point at Thwaites’s “grounding zone” or “grounding line”.
- The grounding line is the place below a glacier at which the ice transitions between resting fully on bedrock and floating on the ocean as an ice shelf.
- The location of the line is a pointer to the rate of retreat of a glacier.
- When glaciers melt and lose weight, they float off the land where they used to be situated. When this happens, the grounding line retreats.
- That exposes more of a glacier’s underside to seawater, increasing the melting rate resulting in the glacier speeding up, stretching out, and thinning, causing the grounding line to retreat ever further.
What has the new study revealed?
- The recent Gothenburg study used an uncrewed submarine to go under the Thwaites glacier front to make observations.
- The submersible called “Ran” measured among other things the strength, temperature, salinity and oxygen content of the ocean currents that go under the glacier.
- There is a deep connection to the east through which deepwater flows from Pine Island Bay, a connection that was previously thought to be blocked by an underwater ridge.
Why this is a cause of worry?
- The warm water is approaching the pinning points of the glacier from all sides, impacting these locations where the ice is connected to the seabed and where the ice sheet finds stability.
- This has the potential to make things worse for Thwaites, whose ice shelf is already retreating.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Gangetic and Indus Dolphin
Mains level: Not Much
Detailed analysis of South Asian river dolphins has revealed that the Indus and Ganges River dolphins are not one, but two separate species.
About Gangetic Dolphin
- The Gangetic river system is home to a vast variety of aquatic life, including the Gangetic dolphin (Platanista gangetica).
- It is one of five species of river dolphin found around the world.
- It is found mainly in the Indian subcontinent, particularly in Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna and Karnaphuli-Sangu river systems.
- An adult dolphin could weigh between 70 kg and 90 kg. The breeding season of the Gangetic dolphin extends from January to June.
- They feed on several species of fishes, invertebrates etc.
Indus Dolphin is the divergent specie
- Currently, they are classified as two subspecies under Platanista gangetica. The study estimates that Indus and Ganges river dolphins may have diverged around 550,000 years ago.
- The international team studied body growth, skull morphology, tooth counts, colouration and genetic makeup and published the findings last month in Marine Mammal Science.
Conservation status
- The Indus and Ganges River dolphins are both classified as ‘Endangered’ species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
- It is the national aquatic animal and had been granted non-human personhood status by the government in 2017.
- It is also protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act (1972).
- Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary (VGDS) in Bihar is India’s only sanctuary for the Gangetic dolphin.
- It has been categorised as endangered on the Red List of Threatened Species by the IUCN
- Physical barriers such as dams and barrages created across the river, the declining river flows reduced the gene flow to a great extent making the species vulnerable.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Opium cultivation
The Central government has decided to rope in the private sector to commence production of concentrated poppy straw from India’s opium crop.
What is the move?
- The move aims to boost the yield of alkaloids, used for medical purposes and exported to several countries.
- Among the few countries permitted to cultivate the opium poppy crop for export and extraction of alkaloids, India currently only extracts alkaloids from opium gum at facilities controlled by the Revenue Department.
- This entails farmers extracting gum by manually lancing the opium pods and selling the gum to government factories.
- The Ministry has now decided to switch to new technologies after trial cultivation reports submitted last year by two private firms showed higher extraction of alkaloids using the concentrated poppy straw (CPS).
Opium Poppy
- The milky fluid that seeps from cuts in the unripe poppy seed pod has, since ancient times, been scraped off and air-dried to produce what is known as opium.
- The seedpod is first incised with a multi-bladed tool.
- This lets the opium “gum” ooze out.
- The semi-dried “gum” is harvested with a curved spatula and then dried in open wooden boxes.
- The dried opium resin is placed in bags or rolled into balls for sale.
Why such a move?
- India’s opium crop acreage has been steadily declining over the years.
- The CPS extraction method is expected to help cut the occasional dependence on imports of products like codeine (extracted from opium) for medical uses.
Amendments to NDPS Act
- Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are the three traditionally opium-growing States, where poppy crop cultivation is allowed based on licences issued annually by the Central Bureau of Narcotics.
- While roping in private players in producing CPS and extracting alkaloids from it is likely to require amendments to the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.
- The Revenue Department has decided to appoint a consultant to help frame the bidding parameters and concession agreements for the same.
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