Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

A mysterious and intensely bright flash of light coming from halfway across the universe earlier this year had stunned astronomers worldwide. The source of the intense beam has now been identified — a supermassive black hole ripping apart a star, pointing directly at Earth.

Tidal Disruption Event (TDE)

• The jet of light was brighter than 1,000 trillion suns. 
• Scientists from multiple institutions, including India, helped trace the activity powered by the black hole, 8.5 billion light years away from Earth.
• The activity is called a tidal disruption event (TDE), which happens when a black hole shreds a nearby star as it feeds on it. 
• As this happens, the supermassive black hole spews a jet of particles moving close to the speed of light.
• This signal was detected in February 2022. Soon, astronomers turned multiple telescopes, scanning the light in various wavelengths: X-ray, ultraviolet, optical and radio bands. 

About Blackholes

• A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot escape.
• The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying.

Visibility:

• Because no light can get out, they are invisible.
• Space telescopes with special tools can help find black holes.
• The gasses swirling around actually help in getting their images.

Example: The supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy is called Sagittarius A.

• It has a mass equal to about 4 million suns and would fit inside a very large ball that could hold a few million Earths.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

According to the World Bank from 2030 onwards, more than 160 to 200 million people could be exposed to a lethal heat wave in India every year, and around 34 million Indians will face job losses due to heat stress-related productivity decline. By 2037, the demand for cooling is likely to be eight times more than current levels.

Key findings

• In this scenario, it is imperative for India to deploy alternative and innovative energy efficient technologies for keeping spaces cool.
• According to the report, “Climate Investment Opportunities in India’s Cooling Sector”, this could open an investment opportunity of $1.6 trillion by 2040 besides reducing greenhouse gas emissions significantly and creating 3.7 million jobs.
• With the demand for cooling shooting up, there will be a demand for a new air-conditioner every 15 seconds, the report said, leading to an expected rise of 435% in annual greenhouse gas emissions over the next two decades.
• There is a need to shift to a more energy-efficient pathway which could lead to a substantial reduction in expected CO2 levels.
• The report proposes a roadmap to support New Delhi’s India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) 2019, through new investments in three major sectors: building construction, cold chains and refrigerants.

Heat Waves

• According to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), a Heat wave occurs if the maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 40°C or more for Plains and at least 30°C or more for Hilly regions. There are other criteria as well:

Based on Departure from Normal Temperature

• Heat Wave: Departure from normal is 4.5°C to 6.4°C 
• Severe Heat Wave: Departure from normal is >6.4°C 

Based on Actual Maximum Temperature 

• Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥ 45°C 
• Severe Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥47°C 

Heat Wave is declared if above criteria are met in at least 2 stations in a Meteorological subdivision for at least two consecutive days.

Reasons behind the increasing frequency of Heat Waves

• Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The primary driver is rising greenhouse gas emissions and the consequent change in the entire climate system.
• Erratic Nature of Monsoon: Many experts have deduced that rising instances of unusually long dry phases during Monsoons mean that soil moisture drops to a remarkably low level. This reinforces the heat waves.
• Urbanization: The urban centres are full of concrete structures that enhance the occurrence of heat waves and create an urban heat island effect. 
• Demand for Air Conditioning: With a rise in temperature and an enhancement of per capita income of masses, a rise in installation and usage of air conditioners is witnessed in residential and commercial spaces.

Suggestive measures proposed in the report:

• The report proposes a road map to support New Delhi’s India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP), 2019, through new investments in three major sectors: building construction, cold chains and refrigerants.
• Adopting climate-responsive cooling techniques as a norm in both private and government-funded constructions can ensure that those at the bottom of the economic ladder are not disproportionately affected by rising temperatures.
• The report suggests that India’s affordable housing programme for the poor, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), can adopt such changes on scale.
• It proposed enacting a policy for “district cooling”, which could lead to the consumption of 20-30% less power than the most efficient conventional cooling solutions.
• Apart from this, guidelines for implementation of local and city-wide urban cooling measures such as cool-roofs should also be considered.

Question: Define heat wave. What are the reasons behind the rising number of heat waves in recent years? Suggest measures to tackle it.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Coming to the rescue of the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB), the Supreme Court  mooted the idea of launching ‘Project GIB’ on the lines of ‘Project Tiger’, which was started in 1973 to save the big cats, and sought the government’s view on the proposal.

About The Great Indian Bustard

• It is one of the heaviest flying birds (weighing up to 15kgs). 
• They inhabit dry grasslands and scrublands on the Indian subcontinent.

Conservation Status

• IUCN Red List: It is a Critically Endangered species with less than 150 birds left in the wild.
• CITES: Appendix I
• Wildlife (Protection) Act,1972: Schedule I

Habitat:

• It is endemic to the Indian subcontinent. It is found in Rajasthan (Desert National park), Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh in India and parts of Pakistan.

Characteristics

• Great Indian Bustards are tall birds with long legs and long necks; the tallest individuals may stand up to 1.2 metres (4 feet) high.
• Both the male and female are roughly the same size, with the largest individuals weighing 15 kg (33 pounds).
• Males and females are distinguished by the colour of their feathers.
• Food Habits: Great Indian Bustards are omnivores. They prey on various arthropods, worms, small mammals, and small reptiles.

Threats

• Death by collision with infrastructure, particularly power lines and wind turbines
• Depletion of grasslands
• Hunting
• Development of mines and human habitation in and around their habitats among others.

Conservation Initiatives:

Project Great Indian Bustard

• It was launched by Rajasthan Government with the objective of conservation of the remaining population of critically endangered Great Indian Bustard(Ardeotis nigriceps) locally called Godawan.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

• WWF-India has provided inputs in developing the ‘Guidelines for the State Action Plan for Resident Bustard Recovery Programme’.
• It has played an important role in raising awareness about the declining populations and highlighting the importance of implementing a focused bustard conservation programme at the national level.
• WWF-India, is undertaking initiatives towards conservation of GIB in and around Desert National Park.

Question: Discuss the efforts and steps taken by government to save tiger under Project Tiger.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that it would start using the term “mpox” for monkeypox, which has infected about 80,000 people in the first major outbreak of the viral disease outside Africa that began early this summer.

• The change of name, announced after a series of consultations with global experts, has been provoked by the racist connotations that “monkeypox” sometimes carries.
• Monkeypox, which was named in 1970 because the virus that causes the disease was first discovered in captive monkeys in 1958, does not have much to do with monkeys. 

Monkeypox

• Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease (a disease that is transmitted from infected animals to humans) that occurs primarily in tropical rainforest areas of Central and West Africa and is occasionally exported to other regions.
• Monkeypox belongs to the orthopoxvirus, which is a genus of viruses that also includes the variola virus which causes smallpox.

Symptoms

• It begins with a fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, and exhaustion. 
• It also causes the lymph nodes to swell (lymphadenopathy), which smallpox does not.

Source of Transmission: 

• Human-to-human transmission is very limited. However, transmission, when it occurs, can be through contact with bodily fluids, lesions on the skin or on internal mucosal surfaces, such as in the mouth or throat, respiratory droplets and contaminated objects.

Outbreaks

• The first case of monkeypox was reported in 1958 in monkeys and in humans in 1970 in the western Africa.
• Nigeria witnessed the biggest outbreak of the disease in 2017.
• Thereafter, the disease has been reported in many countries including the USA, Singapore, UK.

Incubation Period

• The incubation period (time from infection to symptoms) for monkeypox is usually 7-14 days but can range from 5-21 days.

Treatment

• There is no safe, proven treatment for monkeypox yet. The WHO recommends supportive treatment depending on the symptoms. Awareness is important for the prevention and control of the infection.

Difference from smallpox

• The main difference between symptoms of smallpox and monkeypox is that the latter causes lymph nodes to swell (lymphadenopathy) while smallpox does not.

Present Cases

• The majority of reported cases of monkeypox currently are in males, and most of these cases occur among males who identified themselves as gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM), in urban areas, and are clustered in social and sexual networks.

Question: What are the symptoms of monkeypox? How does it different from smallpox.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Commemorating the day one of the most significant space missions to Mars was launched, November 28 is marked as Red Planet Day. On this day in 1964, the United States launched the space probe Mariner 4 on a course towards Mars, which it flew past in July 1965, sending back pictures of the red planet.

• This was the first time that a spacecraft undertook the first flyby of the red planet, becoming the first-ever spacecraft to take close-up photographs of another planet.

About the Mars

• In the late 19th century, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli claimed to have observed linear patterns on the surface of the planet that he called canali. 
• This was mistranslated into English as canals, leading some to believe canals were built by intelligent beings on Mars an early instance of Mars being thought to have life, similar to Earth.

1964: Mariner 4

• After an eight-month voyage to Mars, the Mariner 4 helped humans see images showing lunar-type impact craters, some of them touched with frost. 
• A television camera onboard took 22 pictures, covering about 1% of the planet. These photos were transmitted to Earth in four days.

Viking missions of the 1970s and the 1980s

• The Viking missions in the mid-seventies carried out the first chemical analysis of Martian soil, as well as four biology experiments to detect biological activity.
• In the early 1980s, scientists hypothesised, based on mineralogic composition and rock texture, that certain meteorites might have a source region in Mars. 
• In 1984, a study showed that the isotopic composition of rare gases (Xenon, Krypton, Neon and Argon) matched the isotopic ratios of the Martian atmosphere measured by the Viking spacecraft. 
• This discovery provided a way for geochemists to study Martian samples – and provided a huge boost to our understanding of the geochemical evolution of Mars.

Odyssey, 2001 and water on Mars

• In 2001, the Gamma Ray Spectrometer on board the Mars Odyssey spacecraft detected a fascinating hydrogen signature that seemed to indicate the presence of water ice. 
• But there was ambiguity – this was because hydrogen can be part of many other compounds as well.
• NASA’s Phoenix landed on the Martian North Pole in May 2008, and survived for about 150 days. 
• The robotic arms of Phoenix scooped soil and ice from the surface, heated the material in eight ovens, and measured the composition of the gases with a mass spectrometer. 
• The Phoenix mission established conclusively that the initial discovery of hydrogen by Mars Odyssey in 2002 was indeed water ice.

Mars Missions

• NASA has a lander (Mars Insight), a rover (Curiosity), and three orbiters (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, MAVEN).
• India has an orbiter (Mangalyaan-1).
• The EU has 2 orbiters (Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter)
• China and UAE will have an orbiter each (Hope and Tianwen-1 respectively).
• The UAE mission will study the Martian atmosphere, and will seek to address the billion-dollar question of how and why Mars lost its atmosphere. 
• India’s Mars Orbiter Mission : A technology demonstration venture carried five scientific payloads (total 15 kg) collecting data on surface geology, morphology, atmospheric processes, surface temperature and atmospheric escape process.

Question: Discuss the evolution of Mars missions with special reference of Mars Orbiter Mission.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Mumbai has reported 11 fresh measles cases and one suspected death amid the outbreak of the viral infection in the city according to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

Measles

• Measles is a childhood infection caused by a virus. Once quite common, measles can now almost always be prevented with a vaccine.
• Also called rubella, measles spreads easily and can be serious and even fatal for small children.
• Measles is a highly contagious, serious disease caused by a virus.
• Measles is caused by a virus in the paramyxovirus family and it is normally passed through direct contact and through the air. The virus infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body. Measles is a human disease and is not known to occur in animals.

Signs and symptoms

• The first sign of measles is usually a high fever, which begins about 10 to 12 days after exposure to the virus, and lasts 4 to 7 days. 
• A runny nose, a cough, red and watery eyes, and small white spots inside the cheeks can develop in the initial stage. 
• After several days, a rash erupts, usually on the face and upper neck.
• Over about 3 days, the rash spreads, eventually reaching the hands and feet. 
• Most measles-related deaths are caused by complications associated with the disease. 
• Serious complications are more common in children under the age of 5, or adults over the age of 30. 
• The most serious complications include blindness, encephalitis (an infection that causes brain swelling), severe diarrhoea and related dehydration, ear infections, or severe respiratory infections such as pneumonia. 
• Severe measles is more likely among poorly nourished young children, especially those with insufficient vitamin A, or whose immune systems have been weakened by HIV/AIDS or other diseases.

Transmission

• Measles is one of the world’s most contagious diseases. It is spread by coughing and sneezing, close personal contact or direct contact with infected nasal or throat secretions.
• The virus remains active and contagious in the air or on infected surfaces for up to 2 hours. 
• It can be transmitted by an infected person from 4 days prior to the onset of the rash to 4 days after the rash erupts.
• Measles outbreaks can result in epidemics that cause many deaths, especially among young, malnourished children. 
• In countries where measles has been largely eliminated, cases imported from other countries remain an important source of infection.

Treatment

• No specific antiviral treatment exists for measles virus.
• Severe complications from measles can be reduced through supportive care that ensures good nutrition, adequate fluid intake and treatment of dehydration with WHO-recommended oral rehydration solution. 
• This solution replaces fluids and other essential elements that are lost through diarrhoea or vomiting. 
• Antibiotics should be prescribed to treat eye and ear infections, and pneumonia.
• All children diagnosed with measles should receive two doses of vitamin A supplements, given 24 hours apart. 
• This treatment restores low vitamin A levels during measles that occur even in well-nourished children and can help prevent eye damage and blindness.
• Vitamin A supplements have also been shown to reduce the number of measles deaths.
• WHO recommends immunization for all susceptible children and adults for whom measles vaccination is not contraindicated.
• Reaching all children with 2 doses of measles vaccine, either alone, or in a measles-rubella (MR), measles-mumps-rubella (MMR), or measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMRV) combination, should be the standard for all national immunization programmes.

Question: What are the symptoms of measles? List the steps for the prevention and treatment of this disease.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The government has shelled out Rs 9.53 crore of taxpayers’ money towards commission and printing costs of the Electoral Bonds (EBs) issued to fund political parties.

• The total amount collected by parties through EBs has gone up to Rs 10,791 crore from various anonymous donors in 22 phases since 2018 when the Electoral Bond Scheme was introduced. 
• As many as 93.67 per cent of EBs are in Rs 1 crore denomination.

Electoral Bond Scheme

• The electoral bonds are the non-interest-bearing financial instruments. 
• These Electoral bonds allow eligible donors to pay eligible political parties using banks as an intermediary. 
• The Electoral Bonds aim to ensure transparency in the funding of political parties.

Eligibility criteria for receiving and donating funds

Eligibility of Political Parties

• Only the political parties registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 are eligible to receive funds through Electoral Bonds.
• Further, these registered political parties also have to receive not less than 1% votes in the last Lok Sabha elections or the State Legislative Assembly to receive funds through electoral bonds.

Eligibility of Donors

• Any citizen of India or entities incorporated or established in India can purchase these Electoral Bonds.
• Citizens can buy electoral bonds either singly or jointly with other individuals.

Functioning of the Electoral Bond Scheme

• The State Bank of India (SBI) issues electoral bonds in the months of January, April, July, and October.
• The electoral bonds are available in denominations from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1 crore.
• The donors can buy electoral bonds and transfer them into the accounts of the political parties as a donation. The name of the donor is kept confidential.
• Political parties will create a specific account. This account will be verified by the ECI. The political parties will encash the electoral bonds only in this verified account.
• The bonds will remain valid for 15 days. Within that time, the political parties have to encash the electoral bond in the designated accounts.

Need for Electoral Bonds

• These bonds are aimed to reduce anonymous cash donations made to political parties. In the previous system, the political parties did not disclose the donor, the amount of donations received, etc. These anonymous donations led to the generation of black money in the economy.
• For example, Nearly 70% of the Rs.11,300 crore in political funding came from unknown sources.
• The Electoral bonds encourage political donations of clean money. According to the government, the bonds will encourage political donations from individuals, companies, HUF, religious groups, charities, etc. Since the amount is transferred through the bank, the identity of the donor can be captured by the issuing authority.

Criticism of Electoral Bonds

• Hindering Right to Know: Voters will not know which individual, company, or organisation has funded which party, and to what extent. Before the introduction of electoral bonds, political parties had to disclose details of all its donors, who have donated more than Rs 20,000.
• The change infringes the citizen’s ‘Right to Know’ and makes the political class even more unaccountable.
• Unauthorized Donations: In a situation where the contribution received through electoral bonds are not reported, it cannot be ascertained whether the political party has taken any donation in violation of provision under Section 29B of the RPA, 1951 which prohibits the political parties from taking donations from government companies and foreign sources.
• Leading to Crony-Capitalism: It could become a convenient channel for businesses to round-trip their cash parked in tax havens to political parties for a favour or advantage granted in return for something. Anonymous funding might lead to infusion of black money.
• Loopholes: Corporate Entities may not enjoy the benefit of transparency as they might have to disclose the amount donated to the Registrar of Companies; Electoral bonds eliminate the 7.5% cap on company donations which means even loss making companies can make unlimited donations etc.

Supreme Court’s Stance on Electoral Bonds:

• The Supreme Court (SC) agreed that the scheme protects the identity of purchasers of electoral bonds in a cloak of anonymity, but highlighted that such purchases happened only through regular banking channels.
• In 2019, the Supreme Court asked all the political parties to submit details of donations received through electoral bonds to the ECI. It also asked the Finance Ministry to reduce the window of purchasing electoral bonds from 10 days to five days.
• The Election Commission of India (ECI) also told the Supreme Court of India that while it was not against the Electoral Bonds Scheme, it did not approve of anonymous donations made to political parties.

Way-forward

• An alternative to electoral bonds is a National Electoral Fund to which all donors can contribute. The funds can be allocated to political parties in proportion to the votes they get. This will protect the identity of donors. Apart from that, it would also weed out black money from political funding.
• The best way to bring transparency in political funding is to put a complete ban on cash donations by individuals or companies to political parties. (At present Political parties can receive cash donation below Rs.2000)
• Further, India has to consider State funding of political parties. The Indrajit Gupta Committee on State Funding of Elections has supported partial state funding of recognised political parties.
• Further, the government have to amend the changes made in the Finance Act of 2017.

Question: What are the features of Electoral Bond Scheme and its challenges and also suggest alternative ways for funding political parties in India.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The police and forest officials in the Manipur’s Ukhrul town have been scanning “gambling dens” following reports of wild animals – dead or alive – being offered as prizes for raffle draws.

Betting for Exotic Meat in Manipur

• Wildlife activists said that there have been instances of people buying raffle draw tickets ranging from ₹100 to ₹500 to try their luck to win exotic meat.
• The larger or rarer the bird or animal or body part, the higher the price of the ticket.
• Apart from wild boars and deer, animals such as binturong (an arboreal mammal also known as bearcat), squirrels and flying foxes (bats) have been found to be on offer. 
• Different types of birds such as the grey-sided thrush and tragopans (often called horned pheasants) have also been spotted.

Binturong

• Binturong, (Arctictis binturong), also called bear cat or cat bear, catlike omnivore of the civet family (Viverridae), found in dense forests of Southeast Asia.
• Its range extends from Nepal, India, and Bhutan southward to the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java and eastward to Borneo.
• It has long shaggy hair, tufted ears, and a long, bushy, prehensile tail. The colour generally is black with a sprinkling of whitish hairs.
• The head and body measure about 60–95 cm (24–38 inches) and the tail an additional 55–90 cm (22–35 inches); weight ranges from about 9 to 14 kg (20 to 31 pounds).
• The binturong is principally nocturnal and crepuscular (that is, active during twilight).
• It is found most often among the trees, using its prehensile tail as an aid in climbing. It feeds mainly on fruit, such as figs, but it also takes eggs and small animals.
• In some areas binturongs are tamed and have been reported as being affectionate pets.
• Binturongs are classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Indian scientists receive international award on behalf of snow leopard conservation alliance.

The Spain-based BBVA Foundation Awards for Biodiversity Conservation seek to recognise and support the work done by conservationist organisations, institutions and agencies in carrying forward environmental conservation policies and projects

The Global Snow Leopard Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP) 

• GSLEP was created in 2013 when officials, politicians and conservationists arrived at a common conservation strategy enshrined in the Bishkek Declaration (2013) to cooperate in the conservation of this species and its habitat.
• The Global Snow Leopard Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP) at the headquarters of the BBVA Foundation in Madrid.
• The GSLEP Program’s secretariat is based in Bishkek, and is hosted by the Ministry of Natural Resources, Ecology and Technical Supervision of the Kyrgyz Republic.
• The GSLEP is a first-of-its-kind intergovernmental alliance for the conservation of the snow leopard and its unique ecosystem.
• It is led by the environment ministers of 12 countries in Asia that form the home range of the snow leopard. 
• These are Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The total range spans two million square kilometres.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

In the opening match of the FIFA World Cup 2022 between host Qatar and Ecuador, just three minutes’ of action had passed before the first goal of the tournament was ruled out for offside.

• One three-dimensional animation of the incident was displayed for a fleeting second or two before play restarted. 
• FIFA’s brand new Semi-Automated Offside Technology (SAOT) was responsible for the quick decision.

What is SAOT?

• There are two parts to the technology — a sensor inside the match ball (Adidas’s Al Rihla) that is held using suspension technology, and existing tracking tools that are part of the VAR system as we know.
• Kinexon, a German company that specialises in providing sensor networks and computing solutions, has designed a small in-ball device which gives precise positional data and also detects ball movement in a three-dimensional space. 
• Every time the ball is hit, data is sent in real time (at a whopping 500 frames per second) to a network of antennae installed around the playing field. 
• Additionally, there are 12 Hawk-Eye cameras set up around the turf that shadow both the ball and the players, with as many as 29 separate points in the human body tracked. 
• The coming together of the ball sensor and the Hawk-Eye cameras is in effect SAOT, which FIFA says allows for decisions that are highly accurate and quick. 
• These two data sets are run through artificial intelligence software which generates automated alerts about offsides to the match officials. 
• This replaces the manual effort taken in poring over replays for minutes on end.

How accurate is the SAOT data?

• The data transmission rate from the ball (500 frames per second or 500Hz) makes the process pretty accurate. 
• The time between two frames is two milliseconds (1/500), which is 10 times better than a standard 50Hz video that is commonly used in High Definition monitors. 
• Further, to synchronise the data from the ball sensor and Hawk-Eye, a Precision Time Protocol clock is used. 
• FIFA tested the whole technology at both the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup in Qatar and the 2021 FIFA Club World Cup in Abu Dhabi.

Question: Discuss the main feature of Semi-Automated Offside Technology (SAOT)?