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Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Laziness led to extinction of Homo erectus

News

Laziness, paired with an inability to adapt to a changing climate, may have wiped out the Homo erectus, an extinct species of primitive humans, a study has found.

Beyond News

  • An archaeological excavation of ancient human populations in the Arabian Peninsula during the Early Stone Age, found that Homo erectus used ‘least-effort strategies’ for tool making and collecting resources.
  • This was evident in the way the species made their stone tools and collected resources.
  • To make their stone tools they would use whatever rocks they could find lying around their camp, which were mostly of comparatively low quality to what later stone tool makers used.
  • At the site they looked at there was a big rocky outcrop of quality stone just a short distance away up a small hill. But rather than walk up the hill they would just use whatever bits had rolled down and were lying at the bottom.
  • This is in contrast to the stone tool makers of later periods, including early Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, who were climbing mountains to find good quality stone and transporting it over long distances.

Goa to digitise all historical records

News

  • Goa’s archives, considered to be one of the oldest in Asia, will now be digitised under the Centre’s ‘Smart City Mission’.

Beyond News

  • The archives a collection of lakhs of historical documents and records providing information about the coastal state and its people  are presently housed in a Portuguese-era building in the state capital Panaji.
  • People fear for the safety of these records due to the dilapidated condition of the building, Sardesai said.
  • Also, photo-copying these ancient inscriptions and descriptions is considered a retrograde practice that should be replaced by digitization.
  • A proposal has been mooted to take up digitisation of archives under the Panaji Smart City Mission, an initiative of the Union government.
  • The government has given an in-principle nod to the proposal.
  • Goa has several records in its archives dating back to the time when the state was under the Portuguese rule.
  • The state was liberated from the 450-year-old colonial rule in 1961.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

Creamy layer cannot be applied to deny quota benefits in promotions to SC/ST govt employees, Centre tells SC

News

  • The Centre told the Supreme Court that the creamy layer concept cannot be applied to deny benefits of quota in promotions to government employees of SC/ST community as the stigma of caste and backwardness is still attached to them.

Beyond News

  • Attorney General told a five-judge Constitution Bench that there is no judgment which says that affluent people of the SC/ST community can be denied quota benefits by applying creamy layer concept.
  • Attorney General was responding to a question whether the creamy layer concept can be applied to exclude persons who have come up to ensure that the backward among the SC/ST communities can reap the benefits of quota.
  • The top law officer said that even if some people of the community have come up, the stigma of caste and backwardness is still attached to them.
  • Attorney General also said that the question of excluding certain class of SC/ST has to be decided by the President and the Parliament, and this exercise is not open to judiciary.
  • He termed the discriminatory caste system as a misfortune of the country.
  • Advancing of arguments is still continuing.
  • Earlier on August 3, the apex court had asked the Centre as to why States have not come forward with any quantifiable data to decide the inadequacy of representation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in government services even 12 years after its verdict on the ‘creamy layer’.
  • The apex court on July 11 refused to pass any interim order against its 2006 verdict and said that a five-judge Bench would first see whether it needs to be examined by a seven-judge Bench or not.
  • The M. Nagaraj verdict of 2006 had held that the ‘creamy layer’ concept cannot be applied to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for promotions in government jobs, like two earlier verdicts of 1992 Indra Sawhney and others versus Union of India (popularly called Mandal Commission verdict) and 2005 E V Chinnaiah versus State of Andhra Pradesh which had dealt with creamy layer in Other Backward Classes category.
  • It had reiterated that the ceiling-limit of 50%, the concept of the creamy layer and the compelling reasons like backwardness, inadequacy of representation and overall administrative efficiency were all constitutional requirements, without which the structure of equality of opportunity in Article 16 would collapse.

India, China Armies meet in Ladakh

News

  • Amid continuing transgression by China at Demchok in eastern Ladakh, the Armies of India and China held a ceremonial Border Personal Meeting to mark India’s Independence Day.

Beyond News

  • The meeting was held at Chushul-Moldo and Daulat Beg Oldie. The Indian delegations were led by Brigadier V.K. Purohit and Colonel Anil Kumar Sharma, and the Chinese delegations by Senior Colonel Wang Jun Xian and Lieutenant Colonel Li Ming Ju.
  • However, not far from the venues, a stand-off has been going on in Demchok since early July when Chinese troops intruded 300 metres into Indian territory and pitched tents.
  • Official sources said a group of Chinese soldiers entered the area, in the garb of nomads, and pitched five tents. However, four tents were removed within days, after India opened discussions between border commanders under the existing mechanisms.
  • One tent is still there, and the discussions are continuing, an official source said. The incident comes a year after the 73-days stand-off at the Doklam trijunction.
  • Transgressions are common along the unsettled Line of Actual Control.
  • The two countries have instituted several mechanisms to resolve such issues.
  • However, according to government figures, the number of transgressions by the People’s Liberation Army into Indian territory has gone up from 272 in 2016 to 426 in 2017.

Police App reunites lost child with family

News

  • A six-year-old boy, missing for the past two years, was reunited with his family after he was identified by Telangana Police’s newly launched facial recognition application.

Beyond News

  • Officials said a missing report was filed in Meerpet Police Station of Rachkonda Commossionarate and the boy was staying in Kutumbam Children Home in Dundigal since December 2017 till the authorities found him.
  • Sub-Inspector used the facial recognition application developed by Intelligence Department and linked the child in shelter home with the missing report.
  • They are also in the process of getting the database of all missing children across the country with an aim to trace them, officials said.
  • The special drive is being carried out to register all the children in shelter homes to trace out the missing children across the State.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

With human space flight, India to push frontiers

News

  • Gaganyaan, the human space flight Programme green-flagged and set for 2022 by Prime Minister, is highly doable, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation said soon after it was announced.

Beyond News

  • R. Lalithambika, a specialist in advanced launcher technologies, will helm the project as Director of the Human Space Flight Project.
  • The mission is estimated at ₹9000 crore. Most of the critical technologies and hardware required for the project are ready or have been demonstrated by its centres. ISRO would now stitch them up into a complete project and present a comprehensive project report to get a formal approval of the government.
  • They will now speed up the paper work and submit a project report for formal approval. They may immediately need around ₹ 2,000 crore for enhancing infrastructure and technologies at two or three centres and we will be asking for this amount.
  • When it achieves the mission, India would be the fourth nation to circle Earth after the Soviets, the Americans and the Chinese. In 1984, India’s first astronaut Wing Commander (retd.) Rakesh Sharma orbited Earth as part of a Soviet mission.
  • ISRO revealed the first germ of an HSP in November 2004 and got incremental funds for supporting projects over the next few years. It could not go ahead mainly because the GSLV MarkIII vehicle was not ready until last year. ISRO has also met most of its regular needs.
  • The most critical elements of the human mission are the Environment Control and Life Support Systems that make the crew capsule liveable and the flight safe for the astronauts. Food and hygiene are other aspects. These technologies are getting ready while space suits are being developed at ISRO.
  • Facilities are being added or upgraded at a few centres that work on the HSP. The spacecraft will be monitored 24/7 from the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Centre in Peenya. A new dedicated control centre for HSP would be set up at ISTRAC. It must be tracked globally through ISRO stations or of other countries.
  • The launchpad at the Sriharikota spaceport, the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, would be enhanced for the human mission. The Space Applications Centre which makes electronic devices and instruments for ISRO missions will also get refurbished.
  • While formal agreements are not yet in place, ISRO will collaborate with the Indian Air Force and its Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Bengaluru, to train astronauts. Various defence labs will be tapped for crew support systems.
  • Much of the work related to ramping up of infrastructure and supply of hardware would be outsourced to industry in a major way and academia would be involved.

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