Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Warren Hastings
Mains level: Read the attached story
Donald Trump’s impeachment trial started in the US Senate. A precedent being discussed is that of the Warren Hastings case — the famous failed attempt by the British Parliament to impeach India’s first governor-general.
Warren Hastings
- Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of Bengal (and the first de facto Governor-General of India), is considered among the most significant colonial administrators to have ruled India.
- First as the governor of Bengal (1772-1774) and then as Governor-General (1774-1785), Hastings strengthened British rule in India and made profound changes in administration.
- Hastings’s conduct while in office was called into question after he returned to Britain in 1785, most prominently by Edmund Burke, the noted British parliamentarian and philosopher.
What was his impeachment case?
- In 1786, impeachment proceedings were initiated against Hastings, probing his alleged mismanagement, mistreatment of natives, and personal corruption while in India.
- William Pitt, the then British Prime Minister, first defended Hastings, but then joined the chorus against him.
- Hastings’s argued that ‘Western’ standards of legality could not be applied in the East.
- But Burke insisted that under the Law of Nature, people in India were entitled to the same protection as those in Britain.
- In 1795, however, the House of Lords acquitted Hastings, and the impeachment failed.
- Burke warned that such a verdict would live in “perpetual infamy”, and the trial gave rise to a wider debate on the role of the East India Company in India.
Back2Basics
Warren Hastings and his major works
From 1772, Warren Hastings served as Governor-General of Fort Williams and the regulating act was passed after his arrival.
Important events under his rule :
- Hastings abolished the Dual System that had been established by Robert Clive. In the Dual System, the company had Diwani rights (rights to collect revenue) and the Nizam or Indian chiefs had the administrative authority.
- The judicial powers of the Zamindars were abolished. Civil and criminal courts were established. Two appellate courts were established at Calcutta, one for civil (Sadar Diwani Adalat) and one for criminal (Sadar Nizamat Adalat) cases.
- Hastings abolished the system of dastaks which were misused by company officials and traders earlier.
- He implemented several reforms in all walks of administration. The Regulating Act 1773 and Pitts India Act, 1784 were important acts passed during his tenure.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Coronavirus, Pneumonia
Mains level: Underlying threats and India's preparedness against the virus
Chinese scientists have confirmed can spread between human beings.
Corona Virus
- Corona viruses are large family of viruses, which cause illnesses to people and also circulate in animals including camels, cats and bats.
- They cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
- 2019-nCoV is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans.
- Much remains to be understood about the new coronavirus, which was first identified in China earlier this month.
- Not enough is known about 2019-nCoV to draw definitive conclusions about how it is transmitted, clinical features of disease, or the extent to which it has spread. The source also remains unknown.
Why is it called the Wuhan Virus?
- The first cases emerged in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province.
- On December 31 last year, authorities confirmed that a large number of patients with unexplained pneumonia were admitted in hospitals in the city.
Symptoms of infection
- According to the WHO, common signs include fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Serious infections can lead to pneumonia, kidney failure, and death.
- Although human-to-human transmission has now been confirmed, the WHO says animals are the outbreak’s likely primary source. It is not known yet which animals are responsible.
- To prevent the spread of all respiratory infections, the WHO in general asks people to cover their mouths and noses when coughing or sneezing, and to frequently wash their hands.
- Direct contact with farm or wild animals should be avoided — similar outbreaks in the past, like the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) emerged from markets where people were in contact with live animals.
Why is there concern around the world?
- People see a similarity with the SARS outbreak that infected over 8,000 people and killed around 775 in more than 35 countries worldwide in 2002-03.
- SARS too, was caused by a mystery coronavirus, and started in China.
- The source of the virus remained unknown for 15 years, until Chinese scientists in 2017 traced it back to a colony of horseshoe bats living in remote cave in Yunnan province.
- The virus was carried by civet cats which are sold in markets in China.
- Fears that SARS could reappear and memories of China misleading the rest of the world on the extent and seriousness of the outbreak have not gone away.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Xenobot
Mains level: Utility of stem cells in bio-robotics
Scientists in the US have created the world’s first “living machines” — tiny robots built from the cells of the African clawed frog that can move around on their own.
Xenobot
- Scientists have developed living robots from frogs stem cells.
- They have named this millimetre-wide robots “xenobots” — after the species of aquatic frog found across sub-Saharan Africa from Nigeria and Sudan to South Africa, Xenopus laevis.
- Scientists have repurposed living cells scraped from frog embryos and assembled them into entirely new life-forms.
- The xenobots can move toward a target, perhaps pick up a payload (like a medicine that needs to be carried to a specific place inside a patient) — and heal themselves after being cut.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Irrawaddy Dolphins
Mains level: Not Much
146 Irrawaddy dolphins were recently sighted in Chilika Lake of Odisha. The lake has highest single lagoon population of the aquatic mammal in the world.
Irrawaddy Dolphins
- IUCN Status: Endangered
- Scientific Name: Orcaella brevirostris
- Habitats: Lakes, Rivers, Estuaries, and Coasts
- The Irrawaddy dolphin is a euryhaline species of oceanic dolphin found in discontinuous subpopulations near sea coasts and in estuaries and rivers in parts of the Bay of Bengal and Southeast Asia.
- They are also found in coastal areas in South and Southeast Asia, and in three rivers: the Ayeyarwady (Myanmar), the Mahakam (Indonesian Borneo) and the Mekong.
- The total population of these aquatic mammals in the world is estimated to be less than 7,500.
- Of these, more than 6,000 Irrawaddy dolphins have been reported from Bangladesh, while the dolphin distribution in Chilika is considered to be the highest single lagoon population.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: TCEPF, TRAI
Mains level: Telecom regulation in India
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has informed that telecom service providers will need to deposit all unclaimed money of consumers, including excess charges and security deposit, in the Telecommunication Consumers Education and Protection Fund (TCEPF).
Telecommunication Consumers Education and Protection Fund (TCEPF)
- The TCEPF Regulations, 2007 have been amended to provide the basic framework for depositing unclaimed money of consumers by service providers, maintenance of the TCEPF and other related aspects.
- Any unclaimed / unrefundable amount belonging to consumers in the TCEP fund will be utilized for the welfare measures of the consumers.
- With this amendment, service providers will deposit any unclaimed consumer money of any form such as excess charges, security deposit, plan charges of failed activations, or any amount belonging to a consumer, which service providers are unable to refund to consumers.
Why such move?
- The TRAI observed that there is a need to bring clarity among service providers in depositing money which they are unable to refund to the consumers.
- While some service providers were depositing money only on account of excess billing revealed in the audit, others were depositing unclaimed money such as security deposits and plan charges of failed activations.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Yada Yada
Mains level: NA
A new virus detected in Australian mosquitoes has been provisionally named the Yada Yada virus (YYV).
Yada Yada
- It is an alphavirus, a group of viruses that the researchers described as small, single-stranded positive-sense RNA viruses.
- It includes species important to human and animal health, such as Chikungunya virus and Eastern equine encephalitis virus.
- They are transmitted primarily by mosquitoes and (are) pathogenic in their vertebrate hosts.
- Unlike some other alphaviruses, Yada Yada does not pose a threat to human beings.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: GSAT-30 and its applications
Mains level: Not Much
India’s first satellite of 2020, the GSAT-30 was successfully launched. The launch vehicle Ariane 5 VA-251 lifted off from Kourou Launch Base, French Guiana.
GSAT-30
- GSAT-30 derives its heritage from ISRO’s earlier INSAT/GSAT satellite series and will replace INSAT-4A in
- In the days ahead, orbit-raising manoeuvres will be performed to place the satellite in Geostationary Orbit (36,000 km above the equator) by using its onboard propulsion
- During the final stages of its orbit raising operations, the two solar arrays and the antenna reflectors of GSAT-30 will be
- Following this, the satellite will be put in its final orbital . The satellite will be operational after the successful completion of all in-orbit tests.
Utility of the satellite
- GSAT-30 will provide DTH Television Services, connectivity to VSATs for ATM, Stock-exchange, Television unlinking and Teleport Services, Digital Satellite News Gathering (DSNG) and e-governance applications.
- The satellite will also be used for bulk data transfer for a host of an emerging telecommunication
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Exercise ‘Sahyog-Kaijin’
Mains level: NA
Exercise ‘Sahyog-Kaijin’
- Indian and Japanese coast guards participated in a joint exercise ‘Sahyog-Kaijin’ on January 16.
- The aim behind ‘Sahyog-Kaijin’ is to strengthen the bond between the two countries.
- One ship of the Japanese Coast Guard and four ships and an aircraft of the Indian Coast Guard participated in the joint exercise.
- The drill is a five-day event.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Taal Volcano
Mains level: Volcanism and its impact
In the Philippines, a volcano called Taal on the island of Luzon; 50 km from Manila has recently erupted.
Taal Volcano
- Taal is classified as a “complex” volcano. Taal has 47 craters and four maars (a broad shallow crater).
- It is situated at the boundaries of two tectonic plates — the Philippines Sea Plate and the Eurasian plate — it is particularly susceptible to earthquakes and volcanism.
- A complex volcano, also called a compound volcano, is defined as one that consists of a complex of two or more vents, or a volcano that has an associated volcanic dome, either in its crater or on its flanks.
- Examples include Vesuvius, besides Taal.
- The Taal volcano does not rise from the ground as a distinct, singular dome but consists of multiple stratovolcanoes (volcanoes susceptible to explosive eruptions), conical hills and craters of all shapes and sizes.
Threats posed
- Taal’s closeness to Manila puts lives at stake. Manila is a few tens of kilometres away with a population of over 10 million.
- The volcano is currently at alert level 4, which means that a “hazardous eruption” could be imminent within a few hours to a few days.
- Hazardous eruptions are characterised by intense unrest, continuing seismic swarms and low-frequency earthquakes.
Earlier records of eruption
- Taal has erupted more than 30 times in the last few centuries. Its last eruption was on October 3, 1977.
- An eruption in 1965 was considered particularly catastrophic, marked by the falling of rock fragments and ashfall.
- Before that, there was a “very violent” eruption in 1911 from the main crater. The 1911 eruption lasted for three days, while one in 1754 lasted for seven months.
- Because it is a complex volcano with various features, the kinds of eruption too have been varied. An eruption can send lava flowing through the ground, or cause a threat through ash in the air.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Artemis Mission
Mains level: Manned mission on Moon
NASA wants to send the first woman and the next man to the Moon by the year 2024, which it plans on doing through the Artemis lunar exploration program. An Indian American astronaut named Raja Chari is set to accompany the crew in this mission.
Artemis Mission
- In 2011, NASA began the ARTEMIS (Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence, and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun) mission using a pair of repurposed spacecraft and in 2012 the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft studied the Moon’s gravity.
- For the program, NASA’s new rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS) will send astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft a quarter of a million miles away from Earth to the lunar orbit.
- The astronauts going for the Artemis program will wear newly designed spacesuits, called Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or xEMU.
- These spacesuits feature advanced mobility and communications and interchangeable parts that can be configured for spacewalks in microgravity or on a planetary surface.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Major species found in Kaziranga NP
Mains level: NA
Kaziranga, home of the world’s most one-horned rhinos, has 96 species of wetland birds — one of the highest for wildlife preserves in India.
Kaziranga National Park
- It is a protected area in the northeast state of Assam.
- Spread across the floodplains of the Brahmaputra River, its forests, wetlands and grasslands are home to tigers, elephants and the world’s largest population of Indian one-horned rhinoceroses.
- Much of the focus of conservation efforts in Kaziranga are focused on the ‘big four’ species— rhino, elephant, Royal Bengal tiger and Asiatic water buffalo.
- The 2018 census had yielded 2,413 rhinos and approximately 1,100 elephants.
- The tiger census of 2014 said Kaziranga had an estimated 103 tigers, the third highest population of the striped cat in India after Jim Corbett National Park (215) in Uttarakhand and Bandipur National Park (120) in Karnataka.
- Kaziranga is also home to nine of the 14 species of primates found in the Indian subcontinent.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Kolkata Port
Mains level: Ports in India
PM Modi has renamed the Kolkata Port Trust after Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, at an event to mark its 150th anniversary.
History of Kolkata’s port
- In the early 16th century, the Portuguese first used the present location of the port to anchor their ships, since they found the upper reaches of the Hooghly river beyond Kolkata, unsafe for navigation.
- Job Charnock, an employee and administrator of the East India Company, is believed to have founded a trading post at the site in 1690.
- Since the area was situated on the river with jungle on three sides, it was considered safe from enemy invasion.
- After the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833, this port was used to ship lakhs of Indians as ‘indentured labourers’ to far-flung territories throughout the Empire.
- During World War II, the port was bombed by Japanese forces.
Its administration
- As Kolkata grew in size and importance, merchants in the city demanded the setting up of a port trust in 1863.
- The colonial government formed a River Trust in 1866, but it soon failed, and administration was again taken up by the government.
- Finally, in 1870, the Calcutta Port Act (Act V of 1870) was passed, creating the offices of Calcutta Port Commissioners.
- In 1869 and 1870, eight jetties were built on the Strand. A wet dock was set up at Khidirpur in 1892. The Khidirpur Dock II was completed in 1902.
- As cargo traffic at the port grew, so did the requirement of more kerosene, leading to the building of a petroleum wharf at Budge Budge in 1896.
- In 1925, the Garden Reach jetty was added to accommodate greater cargo traffic. A new dock, named King George’s Dock, was commissioned in 1928 (it was renamed Netaji Subhash Dock in 1973).
- In 1975, the Commissioners of the port ceased to control it after the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963, came into force.
Significance
- After Independence, the Kolkata Port lost its preeminent position in cargo traffic to ports at Mumbai, Kandla, Chennai, and Visakhapatnam.
- The Kolkata port is the only riverine port on R. Hooghly in the country, situated 203 km from the sea.
- The Farakka Barrage, built in 1975, reduced some of the port’s woes as Ganga waters were diverted into the Bhagirathi-Hooghly system.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Swami Vivekananda
Mains level: Swami Vivekananda and his philosophy
January 12 is the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, the famous spiritual leader and intellectual from the late 19th century. In his honour, the government of India in 1984 declared his birthday as National Youth Day.
Swami Vivekananda early life
- Vivekananda was born in Kolkata on January 12, 1863, as Narendra Nath Datta.
- From an early age, he nurtured an interest in Western philosophy, history, and theology, and went on to meet the religious leader Ramakrishna Paramhansa, who later became his Guru.
- He remained devoted to Ramakrishna until the latter’s death in 1886.
- In 1893, he took the name ‘Vivekananda’ after Maharaja Ajit Singh of the Khetri State requested him to do so, changing from ‘Sachidananda’ that he used before.
- After Ramakrishna’s death, Vivekananda toured across India, and set after educating the masses about ways to improve their economic condition as well as imparting spiritual knowledge.
The Chicago address
- Vivekananda is especially remembered around the world for his speech at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893.
- The speech covered topics including universal acceptance, tolerance and religion, and got him a standing ovation.
- He began delivering lectures at various places in the US and UK, and became popular as the ‘messenger of Indian wisdom to the Western world’.
Return to India
- After coming back to India, he formed the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897 “to set in motion a machinery which will bring noblest ideas to the doorstep of even the poorest and the meanest.”
- In 1899, he established the Belur Math, which became his permanent abode.
His legacy
- Through his speeches and lectures, Vivekananda worked to disseminate his religious thought.
- He preached ‘neo-Vedanta’, an interpretation of Hinduism through a Western lens, and believed in combining spirituality with material progress.
- ‘Raja Yoga’, ‘Jnana Yoga’, ‘Karma Yoga’ are some of the books he wrote.
- An important religious reformer in India, Swami Vivekananda is known to have introduced the Hindu philosophies of Yoga and Vedanta to the West.
- Subhas Chandra Bose had called Vivekananda the “maker of modern India.”
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IUCN , Red List, Chinese paddlefish
Mains level: IUCN mechanism of listing
One of the largest freshwater species, Chinese paddlefish has been declared extinct.
Chinese paddlefish
- The Chinese paddlefish (Psephurus gladius) was an iconic species, measuring up to 7 m in length, dating back from 200 million years ago, and therefore swimming the rivers when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.
- Its ancestral home was the Yangtze River.
- It was once common in the Yangtze, before overfishing and habitat fragmentation — including dam building — caused its population to dwindle from the 1970s onwards.
- Between 1981 and 2003, there were just around 210 sightings of the fish. The researchers estimate that it became functionally extinct by 1993, and extinct sometime between 2005-2010.
How did the study determine that it has gone extinct?
- Chinese researchers made this conclusion based on the Red List criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
- The Red List has several categories for extinction, or for how endangered a species is.
- For example, “extinct in the wild” means a species survives only in a captive environment while “locally extinct” means a species has ceased to exist in a particular area but may exist in other areas.
- Then there is “functionally extinct”, which means the species continues to exist but it has too few members to enable to reproduce meaningfully enough to ensure survival.
- To be “globally extinct”, it means a species has no surviving member anywhere. Such a conclusion is reached when there is no reasonable doubt left that its last member has died.
How does extinction status matters for conservation?
- Declaring a species extinct is an elaborate process.
- It involves a series of exhaustive surveys, which need to be taken at appropriate times, throughout the species’ historic range and over a time-frame that is appropriate to the species’ life cycle and form.
- When these surveys fail to record the existence of any individuals belonging to that species, a species may be presumed to be extinct.
- Once declared extinct, a species is not eligible for protective measures and conservation funding; therefore, the declaration has significant consequences.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Coronavirus, Pneumonia
Mains level: NA
A new virus has been identified by Chinese researchers which is responsible for a new pneumonia-like illness.
Coronavirus
- Coronaviruses are a specific family of viruses, with some of them causing less-severe damage, such as the common cold, and others causing respiratory and intestinal diseases.
- A coronavirus has many “regularly arranged” protrusions on its surface, because of which the entire virus particle looks like an emperor’s crown, hence the name “coronavirus”.
- Apart from human beings, coronaviruses can affect mammals including pigs, cattle, cats, dogs, martens, camels, hedgehogs and some birds.
- So far, there are four known disease-causing coronaviruses, among which the best known are the SARS coronavirus and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus, both of which can cause severe respiratory diseases.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Goldilocks Zone
Mains level: Not Much
NASA has reported the discovery of an Earth-size planet, named TOI 700 d, orbiting its star in the “habitable zone”.
Goldilocks Zone
- A habitable zone, also called the “Goldilocks zone”, is the area around a star where it is not too hot and not too cold for liquid water to exist on the surface of surrounding planets.
- Our Earth is in the Sun’s Goldilocks zone. If Earth were where the dwarf planet Pluto is, all its water would freeze; on the other hand, if Earth were where Mercury is, all its water would boil off.
- Life on Earth started in water, and water is a necessary ingredient for life as we know it.
- So, when scientists search for the possibility of alien life, any rocky exoplanet in the habitable zone of its star is an exciting find.
TOI 700 d
- The newest such planet was found by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission, which it launched in 2018.
- The star, TOI 700, is an “M dwarf” located just over 100 light-years away in the southern constellation Dorado, is roughly 40% of our Sun’s mass and size, and has about half its surface temperature.
- The find was confirmed by the Spitzer Space Telescope, which sharpened the measurements that TESS had made, such as orbital period and size.
- TOI 700 d measures 20% larger than Earth. It orbits its star once every 37 days and receives an amount of energy that is equivalent to 86% of the energy that the Sun provides to Earth.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: HSRA
Mains level: HSRA and its revolutionary activities
The Uttar Pradesh cabinet has approved a proposal for a zoological garden spread across 121 acres in Gorakhpur, to be named after the freedom fighter and revolutionary Ashfaqullah Khan.
Ashfaqullah Khan
- Khan was a freedom fighter who, along with Ram Prasad Bismil, was sentenced to death for the Kakori train robbery, commonly referred to as the Kakori conspiracy of 1925.
- He was born on October 22, 1900, in Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
- He grew up at a time when Mahatma Gandhi had launched the non-cooperation movement and urged Indians not to pay taxes to the government or co-operate with the British.
Moved by NCM withdrawal
- Within about 1.5 years of the movement’s launch, in February 1922, the Chauri Chaura incident took place in Gorakhpur — a large number of non-cooperation protestors clashed with the police and set the police station on fire, killing roughly 22 policemen.
- Opposed to violence, Gandhi called off the movement.
- The youth of the country were greatly disappointed and disillusioned with this. Khan was one among these youths.
- Subsequently, he joined the revolutionaries and became acquainted with Bismil.
Ashfaqullah Khan and the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association
- In the mid-1920s, Khan and Bismil went on to found the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), with the aim of winning freedom for the country through an armed revolution.
- HSRA published its manifesto titled “The Revolutionary” in 1925.
- It held that the immediate object of the revolutionary party in the domain of politics is to establish a federal Republic of United State of India by an organized and armed revolution.
- The final constitution of this Republic shall be framed and declared at a time when the representatives of India shall have the power to carry out their decision.
- But the basic principles of this Republic will be universal suffrage and abolition of all system which make the exploitation of man by man possible, e.g. the railways, the mines and other industries such as the manufacture of steel and ships all these shall be nationalised.
The Kakori Conspiracy
- In August 1925, an armed robbery took place on board the Kakori Express, going from Shahjahanpur to Lucknow, carrying money that had been collected at various railway stations and was to be deposited in Lucknow.
- In this planned robbery, carried out to fund the activities of the HSRA, Bismil, Khan and over 10 other revolutionaries stopped the train and fled with the cash they found in it.
- Within a month of the robbery, many members of the HSRA were arrested.
- In September 1926, Bismil was arrested however Khan was on the run and was later arrested.
- The trial for the case went on for about 1.5 years. It ended in April 1927, with Bismil, Khan, Rajendra Lahiri and Roshan Singh sentenced to death, and the others given life sentences.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Epiphany Festival
Mains level: NA
The Epiphany festival was celebrated in parts of India, such as Goa and Kerala. In Goa, the celebration is known by its Portuguese name ‘Festa dos Reis’, and in parts of Kerala by its Syriac name ‘Denha’.
Epiphany or Three Kings’ Day
- Epiphany is among the three oldest and major festival days in Christianity, the two others being Christmas and Easter.
- It is celebrated on January 6 by a number of Christian sects, including Roman Catholics, and on January 19 by some Eastern Orthodox churches.
- In the West, the duration between December 25 and January 6 is known as the Twelve Days of Christmas.
- Epiphany is a feast day, or a day of commemoration, which in Christianity marks the visit of the Magi (meaning the Three Wise Men or Three Kings) to the Infant Jesus (Christ from his nativity until age 12).
- According to Christian belief, the Magi — Balthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar (or Casper), the kings of Arabia, Persia, and India, respectively — followed a miraculous guiding star to Bethlehem to paid homage to the Infant Jesus.
- The day also commemorates the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River.
Celebrations in India
- In Goa, the Magi or Three Kings are called ‘Reis Magos’ in Portuguese.
- The Reis Magos fort, and church, in Bardez, and the Three Kings Chapel in Cansaulim, get their name from the belief.
- Communities in Bardez, Chandor, Cansaulim, Arossim, and Cuelim are known to celebrate Epiphany.
- In Kerala, at the St. Mary’s Orthodox Syrian Cathedral in Piravom, ‘Denha’ is an important annual celebration, in which a big congregation takes part.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Nankana Sahib
Mains level: Significance of Nankana Sahib in Sikhism
Recently tension mounted in Pakistan after few goons vandalized the Nankana Sahib Gurdwara.
Nankana Sahib
- Nankana Sahib is a city of 80,000 in Pakistan’s Punjab province, where Gurdwara Janam Asthan (also called Nankana Sahib Gurdwara) is located.
- The shrine is built over the site where Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, was believed to be born in 1469.
- It was constructed by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, after he visited Nankana Sahib in 1818-19 while returning from the Battle of Multan.
- It is 75 kms to the west of Lahore, and is the capital of Nankana Sahib district.
- The city was previously known as Talwandi, and was founded by Rai Bhoi, a wealthy landlord.
- Rai Bhoi’s grandson, Rai Bular Bhatti, renamed the town ‘Nankana Sahib’ in honour of the Guru. ‘Sahib’ is an Arabic-origin epithet of respect.
Historical significance
- During British rule, the Gurdwara Janam Asthan was the site of a violent episode when in 1921, over 130 Akali Sikhs were killed after they were attacked by the Mahant of the shrine.
- The incident is regarded as one of the key milestones in the Gurdwara Reform Movement, which led to the passing of the Sikh Gurdwara Act in 1925 that ended the Mahant control of Gurdwaras.
- In 2014, Pakistan had a memorial for the massacre built.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Drosophila
Mains level: Not Much
Pune is set to host the fifth edition of the Asia Pacific Drosophila Research Conference (APDRC5) is being organised in the country for the first time by the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER).
Drosophila
- Drosophila is a genus of two-winged flies commonly known as fruit flies that are used in evolutionary and developmental studies.
- It is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called “small fruit flies” or pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species to linger around overripe or rotting fruit.
- It is one of the most widely-used and preferred model organisms in biological research across the world for the last 100 years.
- Several discoveries in biology have been made using this. Its genome is entirely sequenced and there is enormous information available about its biochemistry, physiology and behaviour.
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