Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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In India, air pollution is the third-highest cause of death among all health risks: report

News

• On an average, the life of a South Asian child born today will be shortened by 2 years and 6 months growing up in current high levels of air pollution,while the global life expectancy loss is 20 months.
• This when current exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollution contributed to over 1.2 million deaths in India in 2017,according to a new global study.

Findings

• The report said that worldwide, air pollution was responsible for more deaths than many better-known risk factors such as malnutrition, alcohol use, and physical inactivity.
• In India, air pollution is the third-highest cause of death among all health risks, ranking just above smoking; each year, more people globally die from air pollution related diseasethan from road traffic injuries or malaria.
• The study found that China and India together were responsible for over half of the total global attributable deaths, with each country witnessing over 1.2 million deaths from all air pollution in 2017. China has made initial progress, beginning to achieve air-pollution decline.
• Overall, long-term exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollution contributed to nearly 5 million deaths from stroke, diabetes, heart attack, lung cancer, and chronic lung disease in 2017.
• Out of these, 3 million deaths are directly attributed to PM2.5, half of which are from India and China together. The South Asian region Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan led the world as the most polluted, with over 1.5 million air-pollution related deaths according to the report.
• Worldwide, air pollution reduced life expectancy by an average of 20 months in 2017, a global impact rivaling that of smoking; this means a child born today will die 20 months sooner, on average, than would be expected without air pollution.
• The report also highlighted that nearly half of the world’s population a total of 3.6 billion people were exposed to household air pollution in 2017. Globally, there has been progress: the proportion of people cooking with solid fuels has declined as economies develop.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

U.S. State Department approves sale of 24 MH-60R copters worth $2.6 bn to India

News

• The United States Department of State has approved the sale of 24 MH-60R multi-mission helicopters to India under its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.
• The value of the potential is $2.6 billion, as per a statement released by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), the body that administers the FMS program. The principal contractor for the deal will be Lockheed Martin.

Beyond News

• The DSCA submitted its certification notifying Congress of the possible sale, kicking off a 30-day notification period. Congress is not required to approve or disapprove the potential sale. If it simply takes no action for the 30-day period, the sale moves forward.
• The proposed sale will provide India the capability to perform anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare missions along with the ability to perform secondary missions, including vertical replenishment, search and rescue, and communications relay. India will use the enhanced capability as a deterrent to regional threats and to strengthen its homeland defense.
• In the case of India and most other non-NATO countries, Congress must be notified for sale of Major Defense Equipment (MDE) of $14 million and above, defence articles and services of $50 million and above and design and construction services of $200 million and above.
• This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to strengthen the U.S.-Indian strategic relationship and to improve the security of a major defensive partner, which continues to be an important force for political stability, peace, and economic progress in the Indo-Pacific and South Asia region.
• India was granted the unique Major Defence Partner (MDP) designation in 2016 by the Obama administration a step towards India accessing U.S. military technology at a level on a par with those of the U.S.’s closest allies. India was then given Strategic Trade Authorisation-1 (STA-1) status by the U.S. in August last, the third Asian country after South Korea and Japan (and 37th country globally) to acquire it. This was to further facilitate the transfer of technology in the defence and space sectors.
• India also signed the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) agreement with the U.S., providing a legal basis for the U.S. to transfer secure communication equipment to India, increasing military equipment interoperability and real time data sharing.
• Once the process passes through the notification period without any hitches, the U.S. government will respond to India with a Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LoA). The LoA usually expires in 60 days (extendible), before which the purchaser, India in this case, needs to make an initial deposit, failing which the offer expires.

Indonesia to raise imports from India

News

• Indonesia is looking at increasing sugar, rice and bovine imports from India.

Beyond News

• India exported about 50,000 tonnes of rice last year. It is looking at importing more non-basmati rice from India.
• There was potential to import over one lakh tonnes a year.
• Negotiations are on between the two countries to increase imports.
• Total exports from Indonesia to India last year were to the tune of $13.72 billion and exports from India were to the tune of $5.01 billion.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Sun’s magnetic field stronger than thought

News

• The sun’s magnetic field is 10 times stronger than previously believed, finds a study which can potentially change understanding of the processes that happen in the sun’s immediate atmosphere.

Findings

• The study found that the sun’s corona extends millions of kilometres above the surface, measuring 14,00,000 kilometres across – 109 times larger than Earth – and 15,00,00,000 km from Earth.
• Everything that happens in the sun’s outer atmosphere is dominated by the magnetic field.
• This is the first time researchers have been able to measure accurately the magnetic field of the coronal loops, the building blocks of the sun’s magnetic corona, which such a level of accuracy.

India space debris may have doubled after Mission Shakti

News

• The amount of Indian space debris may have almost doubled in the aftermath of the Mission Shakti anti-satellite strike but this is still significantly less than the existing space debris generated by China, Russia and the United States.

Beyond News

• Data, notes only 80 pieces of “space debris” attributable to India in orbit.
• This, however, doesn’t include debris from MICROSAT-R, the DRDO satellite that was pulverised by India’s anti-satellite missile.
• NASA criticised India for the test, describing it as a “terrible, terrible” thing that had endangered the International Space Station (ISS) and led to the creation of nearly 400 pieces of orbital debris.
• Prior to the March 27 test, for India’s 80 pieces, there were 4,091 pieces of debris by the U.S., 4,025 by Russia and China’s 4,038.
• Orbital debris is tracked by a variety of ground-based radar and space stations. The speeds at which these objects between 1mm to 10 cm across hurtle through space travel makes them extremely dangerous, various studies have showed.
• International Space Station is among the most fortified space objects. It has debris shields deployed around the crewed modules, each composed of two metal sheets, separated by about 10 cm. The outer bumper shield exploits the impact energy to shatter the debris object, such that the inner back wall can withstand the resulting spray of smaller-sized fragments.
• Between the walls, fabric with the same functionality as in bullet-proof vests is deployed. This design enables the shield to buffer against debris objects up to 1 cm in size.
• The U.S. Space Surveillance system can calculate if an object will veer too close to the ISS and if need be the station can be moved out of the orbit of the offending projectile. By the end of 2012, the Station had performed more than 15 of these manoeuvres.

Hackers linked to Chinese intelligence may be behind ASUS computer attack

News

• The recent cyber-attack on ASUS computers may have been perpetrated by the same hacker group that had targeted Microsoft in 2017, an analytical report released by the Maharashtra Cyber department has revealed.

Beyond News

• The same group was also linked to the Chinese intelligence apparatus in a 2018 study.
• The attack, called Operation Shadow Hammer, had affected the ASUS live update facility, creating backdoors in ASUS computers through a malware embedded in the live updates.
• The State Cyber department had issued an advisory to ASUS users and had also made a tool by Kaspersky Labs available to deal with such threats.

Findings

• The report, said although the precise attribution is not available at the moment, Kaspersky Labs has linked the attack to the ShadowPad incident in 2017, which had targeted Microsoft computers through a similar mode.
• The perpetrators of the ShadowPad attack were identified as an advanced persistent threat (APT) group known as Barium APT.
• Barium is known to use Winnti backdoor, a trojan typically used by a Chinese APT of the same name, which creates backdoors in the infected devices so that they can be remotely taken over by miscreants.
• In 2017, the same group was alleged to have launched a sustained attack on Microsoft, specifically against its high-value devices located in Virginia, to steal sensitive information.
• The Maharashtra Cyber department’s report concluded that a machine infected in such an attack reaches out to “a command-and-control server to grab more software, and thus, such a device can be used to carry out malicious activities of any scale.”

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