Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Baggage tags equipped with radio-frequency identification (RFID) will soon be available at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, marking a first of its kind for the country.

What is RFID? 

• Radio Frequency Identification is a wireless tracking system that consists of tags and readers.
• Radio waves are used to communicate information/identity of objects or people.
• The tags can carry encrypted information, serial numbers and short descriptions.

Types – Passive and Active RFID tags:

• Active RFIDs use their own power source, mostly batteries.
• Passive RFIDs are activated through the reader using the electromagnetic energy it transmits.

How do they work?

RFID tags use an integrated circuit and an antenna to communicate with a reader using radio waves at several different frequencies – low frequency (LF), high frequency (HF), and ultra-high frequency (UHF).

• The message sent back by the tag in form of radio waves is translated into data and analysed by the host computer system.
• Unlike Barcodes, RFIDs do not require direct line of sight to identify objects.

What is a Barcode?

• A barcode is a printed series of parallel bars or lines of varying width used for entering data into a computer system.
• The bars are black on a white background and vary in width and quantity depending on the application.
• The bars represent the binary digits zero and one, which represent the digits zero to nine processed by a digital computer.
• These barcodes are scanned using special optical scanners known as barcode readers.
• The majority of these codes use only two different widths of bars, however some use four.
• One of the most well-known examples of a barcode is the QR code.

Differences between RFID and Barcode:

1. RFID uses radio waves to communicate that do not require line of sight in order to obtain the data; barcodes use light to read the black-and-white pattern printed on the sticky tag.
2. An RFID tag can communicate with a powered reader even when the tag is not powered.
3. When printed on paper or sticky labels, barcodes are more susceptible to wear and breakage, which can affect their readability. RFID tags are more durable than barcodes.
4. In contrast to barcode scanners, RFID scanners can process dozens of tags in a single second.
5. Barcodes are simple and easy to copy or counterfeit, whereas RFID is more complicated and difficult to replicate or counterfeit.
6. RFID tags are expensive compared to barcodes.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

India is likely to face an uphill battle if it goes ahead with its first sovereign green bond sale as it aims to issue the securities in rupees, putting off most overseas investors.

What’s the issue?

The timing might not be ideal for India though, especially for a rupee issuance.

• The currency has slumped more than 4% this year amid concern the Reserve Bank of India is behind the curve in tackling inflation, with elevated crude oil prices adding to pressures on the net importer.

What is a Green Bond ? 

A green bond is a type of fixed-income instrument that is specifically earmarked to raise money for climate and environmental projects.

These bonds are typically asset-linked and backed by the issuing entity’s balance sheet, so they usually carry the same credit rating as their issuers’ other debt obligations.​

• Green bonds may come with tax incentives to enhance their attractiveness to investors.
• The World Bank is a major issuer of green bonds.

How Does a Green Bond Work?

Green bonds work just like any other corporate or government bond.

• Borrowers issue these securities in order to secure financing for projects that will have a positive environmental impact, such as ecosystem restoration or reducing pollution.
• Investors who purchase these bonds can expect to make as the bond matures.
• In addition, there are often tax benefits for investing in green bonds.

Green Bonds Vs Blue Bonds:

Blue bonds are sustainability bonds to finance projects that protect the ocean and related ecosystems.

• This can include projects to support sustainable fisheries, protection of coral reefs and other fragile ecosystems, or reducing pollution and acidification.
• All blue bonds are green bonds, but not all green bonds are blue bonds.

Green Bonds Vs Climate Bonds:

“Green bonds” and “climate bonds” are sometimes used interchangeably, but some authorities use the latter term specifically for projects focusing on reducing carbon emissions or alleviating the effects of climate change.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The Supreme Court has directed that every protected forest, national park and wildlife sanctuary across the country should have a mandatory eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) of a minimum one km starting from their demarcated boundaries.

What’s the issue?

• The judgment came on a petition instituted for the protection of forest lands in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu.
• Subsequently, the scope of that writ petition was enlarged by the court so as to protect such natural resources throughout the country.

Directions by the Court:

• In case any national park or protected forest already has a buffer zone extending beyond one km, that would prevail.
• In case the question of the extent of buffer zone was pending a statutory decision, then the court’s direction to maintain the one-km safety zone would be applicable until a final decision is arrived at under the law.
• Mining within the national parks and wildlife sanctuaries shall not be permitted.
• The Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Home Secretaries of States responsible for the compliance of the judgment.

About Eco-Sensitive Zones:

1. Eco-Sensitive Zones (ESZs) or Ecologically Fragile Areas (EFAs) are areas notified by the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change around Protected Areas, National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries.
2. The purpose of declaring ESZs is to create some kind of “shock absorbers” to the protected areas by regulating and managing the activities around such areas.
3. They also act as a transition zone from areas of high protection to areas involving lesser protection.
4. The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 does not mention the word “Eco-Sensitive Zones”.
5. An ESZ could go up to 10 kilometres around a protected area as provided in the Wildlife Conservation Strategy, 2002.
6. Moreover, in the case where sensitive corridors, connectivity and ecologically important patches, crucial for landscape linkage, are beyond 10 km width, these should be included in the ESZs.

Significance of ESZ:

The purpose of declaring ESZs around national parks, forests and sanctuaries is to create some kind of a “shock absorber” for the protected areas.

• These zones would act as a transition zone from areas of high protection to those involving lesser protection.

Need of the hour:

The nation’s natural resources have been for years ravaged by mining and other activities.

• Hence, the government should not confine its role to that of a “facilitator” of economic activities for the “immediate upliftment of the fortunes of the State”.
• It has to act as a trustee for the benefit of the general public in relation to the natural resources so that sustainable development could be achieved in the long term.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and India’s public service broadcaster Prasar Bharati are exploring the feasibility of a technology that allows to broadcast video and other forms of multimedia content directly to mobile phones, without needing an active internet connection.

• The technology, called ‘direct-to-mobile’ (D2M) broadcasting, promises to improve consumption of broadband and utilisation of spectrum.

What is direct-to-mobile broadcasting?

• The technology is based on the convergence of broadband and broadcast, using which mobile phones can receive terrestrial digital TV.
• It would be similar to how people listen to FM radio on their phones, where a receiver within the phone can tap into radio frequencies.
• Using D2M, multimedia content can also be beamed to phones directly.
• The idea behind the technology is that it can possibly be used to directly broadcast content related to citizen-centric information and can be further used to counter fake news, issue emergency alerts and offer assistance in disaster management, among other things.
• It can be used to broadcast live news, sports etc. on mobile phones.
• More so, the content should stream without any buffering whatsoever while not consuming any internet data.

What could be the consumer and business impact of this?

For consumers

• A technology like this would mean that they would be able to access multimedia content from Video on Demand (VoD) or Over The Top (OTT) content platforms without having to exhaust their mobile data, at a nominal rate.
• The technology will also allow people from rural areas, with limited or no internet access, to watch video content.

For businesses

• One of the key benefits of the technology is that it can enable telecom service providers to offload video traffic from their mobile network onto the broadcast network, thus helping them to decongest valuable mobile spectrum.
• This will also improve usage of mobile spectrum and free up bandwidth which will help reduce call drops, increase data speeds etc

What is the government doing to facilitate D2M technology?

• The DoT has set up a committee to study the feasibility of a spectrum band for offering broadcast services directly to users’ smartphones
• Band 526-582 MHz is envisaged to work in coordination with both mobile and broadcast services. DoT has set up a committee to study this band
• Public service broadcaster Prasar Bharati had last year announced collaboration with IIT Kanpur to test the feasibility of the technology.

Possible challenges to the technology’s rollout?

• Technology is still at a nascent stage
• Bringing key stakeholders like mobile operators onboard will be the “biggest challenge” in launching D2M technology on a wide scale
• A mass roll out of the technology will entail changes in infrastructure and some regulatory changes

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

31st May is observed as ‘World No Tobacco Day’ every year to spread awareness around the deadly effects of tobacco consumption.

• The Member States of the World Health Organization created World No Tobacco Day in 1987 to draw global attention to the tobacco epidemic and the preventable death and disease it causes.
• In 1988, Resolution WHO 42.19 was passed, calling for the celebration of World No Tobacco Day, every year on 31 May.
• Theme for 2022: “Tobacco: Threat to our environment.” This drive aims to create awareness among the public on the detrimental impact of tobacco cultivation, production, distribution, and waste on the environment, besides human health.
• The WHO has selected Jharkhand for the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) Award-2022.

Impact of tobacco on environment:

• About 3.5 million hectares of land are cleared for growing tobacco each year.
• It causes deforestation mainly in the developing nations.
• Tobacco cultivation results in soil degradation, making it infertile to support the growth of other crops or vegetation.
• Tobacco contributes 84 megatons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year.
• Around twenty-two billion litres of water is consumed in the production of cigarettes every year.
• Tobacco is a very nutrient-hungry crop, and it depletes soil nutrients more rapidly.

Tobacco cultivation in India:

It is one of the important cash crops.

• Today, India is the second-largest crop producer in the world after China.
• Around 760 million kg of Tobacco is grown in India on about 40 lakh hectares of land.
• The sector provides jobs to millions of people and contributes as much as Rs.22,737 crore as excise duty and Rs.5,969 crore in foreign exchange to the national treasury.

Impact on health:

• It is estimated that about 29% of the adult Indian population consumes Tobacco. Most commonly, it is consumed as Smokeless Tobacco Products like khaini, gutkha, and zarda.
• The smokeless forms pose high risks of oral and oesophageal cancer.
• Their consumption by pregnant women can also lead to stillbirth and low birth weight in infants.
• People addicted to smoking are at very high risk of uterine cervix, and bone marrow cancers.
• Tobacco kills more people than tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and malaria combined worldwide.
• Tobacco farmers are prone to suffer from a work-related ailment known as “Green Tobacco Sickness” (GTS), which is caused mainly by nicotine absorption via the skin.

Efforts by Government in this regard:

• The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act 2003 (COTPA 2003): This Act includes the prohibition of smoking in public places, advertisement of cigarettes and other tobacco products, sale of cigarettes or other tobacco products to anyone below the age of 18 years, and prohibition of selling areas like schools, colleges, etc.
• To make India addiction-free, the Government has launched programmes like National Tobacco Control Programme and Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan.
• Crop diversification programme: Farmers are encouraged to replace tobacco crops with less water-consuming alternatives to conserve water and soil.

yllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The world’s largest plant has recently been discovered off the West Coast of Australia: a seagrass 180 km in length.

• The ribbon weed, or Posidonia australis, has been discovered in Shark Bay by a group of researchers
• These researchers have also found that the plant is 4,500 years old, is sterile, has double the number of chromosomes than other similar plants, and has managed to survive the volatile atmosphere of the shallow Shark Bay.

Plant’s Size

• The ribbon weed covers an area of 20,000 hectares. The next on the podium, the second largest plant, is the clonal colony of a quaking Aspen tree in Utah, which covers 43.6 hectares. The largest tree in India, the Great Banyan in Howrah’s Botanical Garden, covers 1.41 hectares.
• The existence of the seagrass was known, that it is one single plant was not.
• Researchers sampled seagrass shoots from across Shark Bay’s variable environments and generated a ‘fingerprint’ using 18,000 genetic markers – the result was sampled seagrass shoots from across Shark Bay’s variable environments and generated a ‘fingerprint’ using 18,000 genetic markers – just one plant has expanded over 180km in Shark Bay, making it the largest known plant on earth.

How did it grow, and survive for, so long?

• Sometime in the Harappan era, a plant took root in the Shark Bay. Then it kept spreading through its rhizomes
• Ribbon weed rhizomes can usually grow to around 35cm per year, which is how the scientists arrived at its lifespan of 4,5000 years.
• The researchers found that the ribbon weed cannot spread its seeds, something that helps plants overcome environmental threats.
• The ribbon weed has managed to survive environmental threats – a part of the reason may be that it is a polyploid – instead of taking half-half genome from both parents, it took 100 per cent
• This ribbon weed has twice the number of chromosomes other plants of the same variety have.
• Polyploid plants often reside in places with extreme environmental conditions, are often sterile, but can continue to grow if left undisturbed, and this giant seagrass has done just that

Seagrass

• These are flowering plants that grow submerged in shallow marine waters like bays and lagoons.
• These have tiny flowers and strap-like or oval leaves.
• Sea grasses evolved from terrestrial plants that colonised the ocean 70-100 million years ago
• Like terrestrial plants, seagrasses also require sunlight for photosynthesis from which these manufacture their own food and release oxygen

Reproduction:

• Sexual Reproduction Method: The pollen from the flower of the male plant is transferred to the ovary of the female flower through this method.
• Asexual Reproduction Method: Seagrasses can also reproduce asexually by branching off at their rhizomes

Significance:

• Seagrasses are considered ‘Ecosystem Engineers’ as they are known for providing many ecosystem services and are also called ‘the lungs of the sea’ as they release oxygen into the water through photosynthesis.
• Sequesters up to 11% of the organic carbon buried in the ocean even though they occupy only 0.1% of the ocean floor and absorb 83 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere annually.
• Seagrasses can capture carbon from the atmosphere up to 35 times faster than tropical rainforests.
• Help maintain water quality by trapping fine sediments and suspended particles in the water column and increase water clarity.
• Filter nutrients released from land-based industries before they reach sensitive habitats like coral reefs.
• Prevent soil erosion as the extensive vertical and horizontal root systems of seagrasses stabilise the sea bottom.
• Provide food as well as habitat for fishes, octopuses, shrimp, blue crabs, oysters, etc.
• Endangered marine organisms like dugong (Sea Cow), green turtle, etc, graze directly on seagrass leaves.
• Protect juvenile and small adult fish from large predators and also protect worms, crabs, starfishes, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, etc, from strong currents.
• Provide ideal nursery sites for important commercial marine life like squids and cuttlefish.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Health ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) highly industrialised countries recently recognised antimicrobial resistance was a bigger threat to low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) even though fighting it was a shared responsibility.

Concerns associated:

• Nearly 700,000 people die of AMR every year.
• The toll can rise to as many as 10 million by 2050 and eat up 3.8 per cent of annual global gross domestic product (GDP).

Proposed plan by G7

• To establish new international integrated surveillance systems.
• Improve existing systems to monitor AMR and antibiotics use among humans, animals and plants and the effect on the environment.
• Enhance the scientific basis to inform risk assessments and identify opportunities for mitigation.
• To promote prudent and appropriate use of antimicrobials through 2023 by defining national measurable targets on AMR in line with domestic authorities, including antibiotic usage in human health.
• To prepare the upcoming report on infection prevention and control and present it at the World Health Summit in Berlin in October.

What is Antibiotic resistance?

It is the ability of a microorganism (like bacteria, viruses, and some parasites) to stop an antimicrobial (such as antibiotics, antivirals and antimalarials) from working against it. As a result, standard treatments become ineffective, infections persist and may spread to others.

Why is Antimicrobial resistance a silent threat of the future?

• Antibiotics have saved millions of lives till date. Unfortunately, they are now becoming ineffective as many infectious diseases have ceased to respond to antibiotics.
• Even though antimicrobial resistance is a natural process, the misuse of antibiotics in humans and animals is accelerating the process.
• A large number of infections such as tuberculosis, pneumonia and gonorrhea are becoming very difficult to treat since the antibiotics used for their treatment are becoming less effective.
• Globally, use of antibiotics in animals is expected to increase by 67% by 2030 from 2010 levels. The resistance to antibiotics in germs is a man-made disaster.
• Irresponsible use of antibiotics is rampant in human health, animal health, fisheries, and agriculture.
• Complex surgeries such as organ transplantation and cardiac bypass might become difficult to undertake because of untreatable infectious complications that may result post-surgery.

Measures Taken to Address AMR (India):

• National Programme on AMR containment: Launched in 2012.
• National Action Plan on AMR was launched in April 2017.
• AMR Surveillance and Research Network (AMRSN) was launched in 2013.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The 50th anniversary of the Stockholm conference is being observed.

About the Stockholm conference:

• The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm between June 5 to June 16, 1972.
• It was the first such worldwide convergence on planetary environment, with the theme ‘Only One Earth’.
• It resulted in the Stockholm Declaration which contained principles and an Action Plan containing recommendations for environmental policy.

The three dimensions of this conference were:

• Countries agreeing not to “harm each other’s environment or the areas beyond national jurisdiction”.
• An action plan to study the threat to Earth’s environment.
• Establishment of an international body called the UN Environment programme (UNEP) to bring in cooperation among countries.

Significance and outcomes of the Stockholm Conference:

• Until 1972, no country had an environment ministry.
• Norwegian delegates returned from the conference to set up a ministry for the environment.
• India set up its ministry of environment and forest in 1985.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 1

A 24-year-old Vadodara woman announced that she would marry herself in what she described as an “act of self-love”.

• The wedding, being seen as one of the first instances of self-marriage or sologamy in the country

What is sologamy or ‘self-marriage’?

• Sologamy is the act of marrying oneself in a public ceremony, also referred to as self-marriage or autogamy.
• While such a marriage has no legal sanction or status, the symbolic ceremony is used by many as an act to emphasize their self-love and independence.

When did the trend begin?

• It can be traced back to Linda Baker, a dental hygienist from the US, who married herself in 1993
• It is widely considered the first publicized act of self-marriage
• A sologamy divorce was also reported last year when a Brazilian model, announced she was ending her solo-marriage after just 90 days as she had fallen in love with someone else.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

India’s first liquid-mirror telescope- International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT) has now entered the commissioning phase and will start scientific observations some time in October this year.

About the International Liquid Mirror Telescope (ILMT):

It is located at an altitude of 2,450 metres on the Devasthal Observatory campus of the Aryabhata Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES) in Nainital district, an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

• It is the only liquid-mirror telescope operational anywhere in the world.
• It will also hold the unique tag of being the maiden liquid-telescope globally to be designed exclusively for astronomical purposes.
• This international telescope facility is the result of collaborative work between astronomers from Canada, Belgium and India.

Features of the Telescope:

• Unlike the conventional telescopes that can be steered to track specific stellar source objects, the ILMT will be stationary.
• It will basically carry out observations and imaging at the zenith, that is, of the overhead sky.
• This is a survey telescope having high potential for discovering newer objects.