Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Adivasis seek special column for census

News:

• The pan-India campaign being spearheaded by a national-level coordination forum of various Adivasi organisations demanding introduction of a special column for enumerating the population of Adivasis across the country in the next census to be held in 2021, is gaining momentum in the Telangana’s tribal heartland of Bhadrachalam Agency.

Beyond  News

• Several Adivasi organisations based in Bhadrachalam Agency have launched conventional as well as social media campaigns to mobilise public support for the slew of programmes proposed by the national coordination forum of Adivasis (indigenous people) to give a fillip to the ongoing movement.
• Adivasi Samkshema Parishad (ASP), Gondwana Study Centre and several other organisations are in the forefront in garnering support for the ongoing national-level campaign.
• A special column should be incorporated in the census questionnaire to enumerate the population of Adivasis accurately and protect the distinctive identity of indigenous people across the country, said, coordinator of ASP and the founder of the Bhadrachalam-based Gondwana Study Centre.
• The move is imperative to establish the exact count of Adivasis spread in 15 States including Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and also foster the distinctive belief systems, identity and cultural heritage of Adivasis, he remarked.
• Adivasis worship nature and profess distinctive religious beliefs, he noted.
• A reliable demographic data is essential to effectively plan welfare schemes in proportionate to the population of Adivasis, coordinator of ASP and the founder of the Bhadrachalam said.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

India, Pakistan to take part in war games

News

• In a first, arch rivals India and Pakistan will be part of a multi-nation counter-terror exercise in Russia in September, which will also be joined by China and several other countries.

Beyond  News

• The military exercise will take place under the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a China-dominated security grouping which is increasingly seen as a counterweight to NATO.
• Officials said the military drill would be held in the Ural mountains of Russia, and almost all SCO member countries will be part of it.
• They said the main aim of the exercise, Peace Mission, will be to enhance counter-terror cooperation among the eight member countries.
• The officials said India’s participation in the exercise was confirmed by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during an SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting in Beijing last week.
• It will be for the first time since Independence that India and Pakistan will be part of a military exercise, though the armies of the two nations have worked together in U.N. peacekeeping missions, they said.
• The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan were admitted as observers of the grouping in 2005. Both the countries were admitted as full members of the bloc last year.
• India’s membership was strongly pushed by Russia, while Pakistan’s entry into the grouping was backed by China. With expansion of the grouping, SCO now represents over 40% of humanity and nearly 20% of the global GDP.
• India feels that as an SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region. It is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS), which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.
• India has been holding military exercise with China. The two countries are likely to resume their bilateral military exercise in September.

Gujarat in major push to revive waterbodies

News

• Amid acute water shortage, the Gujarat government is to launch a month-long campaign from May 1, the State’s Foundation Day, to revive waterbodies in the State.

Beyond  News

• Tasks such as deepening ponds, desilting reservoirs and check dams, cleaning and repairing Narmada canal networks, and implementing rainwater harvesting projects in urban areas will be undertaken under the Sujalam Sufalam Water Conservation Initiative, Chief Minister said .
• Development gets hampered due to water scarcity,he told reporters in Gandhinagar.
• The government has invited NGOs, public at large and corporates to join the efforts to revive and rejuvenate waterbodies and water sources ahead of the monsoon.
• They call for public participation through manpower, machinery and money.

District Collectors will coordinate the projects and reimburse funds to participants, Chief Minister said.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

All about asteroids

Asteroids

• Asteroids are space rocks that orbit the sun. They are too small to be called planets and hence they are also called minor planets.
• About 4.6 billion years ago, our solar system began when a big cloud of gas and dust collapsed. When this happened, most of the material fell to the centre of the cloud and formed the sun. Asteroids are rocky leftover from the formation of the solar system.
• They were formed from small pieces of rock and metal.

Size and Shape

• Asteroids come in different shapes and sizes. They can be irregularly-shaped or near-spherical. They are often filled with crates.
• The size could be as large as 530 km in diameter and as small as pebbles. The mass of all the asteroids combined is less than that of Earth’s moon, according to NASA. More than 150 asteroids are known to have a moon or two.
• Most of the asteroids are found orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter, which is the main asteroid belt. Some asteroids, called trojans, share an orbit with a larger planet or moon, but do not collide with it. There are Jupiter, Mars and Neptune trojans. An Earth trojan was also discovered by NASA in 2011.
• Near-Earth asteroids are those that have orbits close to our planet. As of June 2016, 14,464 near-Earth asteroids are known to exist.

Asteroid and meteor

• Both asteroids and meteors are space rocks. Sometimes, one asteroid may collide with another and break into small pieces. These pieces are called meteoroids.
• When a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it vapourises and turns into a meteor. You can witness a meteor as a streak of light in the sky. People refer to such meteors as shooting stars. But they are not stars. .
• And if a meteoroid enters the atmosphere and falls to the surface of the Earth without vapourising, it is called a meteorite.

Australia pledges half-a-billion dollars to restore Great Barrier Reef

News

• Australia pledged half-a-billion dollars to restore and protect the Great Barrier Reef in what it said would be a game-changer for the embattled natural wonder.

Beyond  News

• The World Heritage-listed site, which attracts millions of tourists, is reeling from significant bouts of coral bleaching due to warming sea temperatures linked to climate change.
• The reef is also under threat from the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish, which has proliferated due to pollution and agricultural runoff.
• Prime Minister said more than 500 million Australian dollars (USD 400 million) will go towards improving water quality, tackling predators, and expanding restoration efforts.
• Prime Minister said it was the largest ever single investment to protect the reef, secure its viability and the 64,000 jobs that rely on the reef.
• The reef is a critical national asset, contributing 6.4 billion dollars a year to the Australian economy.
• Canberra insists it is taking strong action to address the global threat of climate change, having set an ambitious target to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.
• Turnbull said part of the money will be used to mitigate the impacts of climate change, but gave no details.
• The bulk of the new funding just over 200 million dollars  was earmarked to improve water quality by changing farming practices and adopting new technologies and land management.
• A study said some 30 per cent of the reef’s coral perished, the first of an unprecedented two successive years of coral bleaching along the 2,300-kilometre reef.

Number of tiger cubs in Sariska National Park rises to 14

News

• The number of tiger cubs in the Sariska National Park in Rajasthan’s Alwar district has risen to 14 with the birth of two cubs, an official said.

Beyond  News

• A tigress named ST-14 has given birth to two cubs, which were first spotted last night in cameras. The cubs are two-months-old.
• The news has come as a respite for authorities of the Sariska National Park after death of ST-11 and ST-5, which went missing in the recent past.
• The park is now home to eight tigresses, four tigers and two cubs, officials said.

‘Brahmos will breach mach 7 barrier in next decade’

News

• Brahmos, the fastest missile in the world co-developed by India and Russia, will be breaching the mach 7 barrier to be a ‘hypersonic’ system in the next decade, a top official said.

Beyond  News

• Chief executive and managing director of the joint venture company Brahmos Aerospace said the missile, which currently travels at mach 2.8 or 2.8 times the speed of sound, will touch mach 3.5 soon and mach 5 in three years.
• The current engine will have to be “tinkered” to achieve mach 5 and will have to be replaced to achieve hypersonic speed, he said.
• The intent is to come out with a missile that will be able to deliver to the next-generation warfare.
• Indian institutions, including the DRDO, IITs and Indian Institute of Science, are working on technologies which will help it achieve the goals, Russian institutes are also into similar work.
• He said the company, which has a majority 55% holding by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the remaining with Russia, has an order book of over ₹30,000 crore at present.
• Over the years, the basic missile system has been modified in a such a way that it can be fitted on various platforms, including ships, submarines, the Sukhoi-30 aircraft as well as land, for launch, he said.
• He claimed at present the missile system is 5-7 years ahead of the nearest competition from a development perspective.
• Today, this is the fastest cruise missile in the world. nobody including the U.S. has such a missile system, he said.

State’s official website ‘exploited’ by hackers

News:

• The official website of the Andhra Pradesh government is found having numerous webpages and backlinks or hyperlinks that were reportedly planted by hackers by exploiting the site’s vulnerability.

Beyond  News

• The AP State Portal acts as a directory to all the services, departments and other information.
• After online reports of the website “selling” a generic pill, it has been found that there are over 396 webpages mimicking online pharmacies of foreign countries.
• A search for the word “pill” on the website would reveal all the pages.
• The website, which is built on the WordPress platform, is vulnerable to attacks and might have been hacked long ago, said ethical hacking expert and CEO of Indian Servers who checked it. He rules out the possibility of mismanagement by the developers.
• Hackers check for vulnerable websites and place their pages in them. Though the pages look like dummies, they will have backlinks that would redirect to select websites for which they plan to gain SEO score.
• The hackers could intrude into the server and other sites hosted on the server in the same method.
• Explaining how backlinks help hackers, he said,Having backlink of a particular website in a quality and popular website automatically improves the SEO score of the former.

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