Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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India-built houses handed over to Sri Lanka estate workers

News

• As many as 155 houses, build as part of India’s ongoing housing project in Sri Lanka, were handed over to estate workers in Hatton, located in the Central Province.
• The effort is part of India’s pledge to help construct 63,000 houses in Sri Lanka including 46,000 homes built in the war-hit north and east with a grant of $350 million, the largest Indian grant assistance project in any country abroad.

Beyond News

• The houses have come up at a cost of about LKR 10 lakh each (roughly ₹4 lakh).
• Of the 14,000 houses coming up in the hill country with Indian aid, 1,000 have been completed, 3,000 are under construction and work on the remaining are expected to commence soon, officials said.
• The newly-constructed houses will enable families of estate workers to move out of the cramped, colonial-era line rooms, into individual units
• Thousands of Malayaha Tamils, whose ancestors the British brought down from South India to the plantations in Central and Southern Sri Lanka, continue to toil in the tea estates, under rather exploitative conditions.
• The workers help Sri Lanka earn crucial foreign exchange, but their own housing, sanitation, education and health needs remain largely neglected. They are currently campaigning for a basic wage of LKR 1,000 (roughly ₹ 400). After several rounds of negotiations, their employers recently agreed to pay them LKR 800.

Pakistan sets up ‘Crisis Management Cell’ amid simmering Indo-Pak tension

News

• Pakistan has set up a “Crisis Management Cell” in the wake of heightened Indo-Pak tensions following one of the worst terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad terror group that killed 40 CRPF soldiers, according to a media report.

Beyond News

• The cell will keep all stakeholders updated over border situation and diplomatic contacts.
• The cell, set up in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will remain operational throughout the week without any break, Mr. Faisal said.
• Days after the Pulwama attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said security forces have been given free hand to avenge the dastardly act.

EU, Germany join calls for Pak. to act on terror

News

• Calling on Pakistan to take “clear and sustainable” actions against terror groups including those who have taken responsibility for the Pulwama attack, the European Union joined a number of international entities attempting to defuse tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad over the weekend.

Beyond News

• The statements shared a sharp tone in telling Pakistan to act against the Jaish-e Mohammad, Lashkar-e Taiba and other banned groups, something welcomed by MEA officials.
• Earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump had confirmed that the Washington is “talking” to both India and Pakistan on the issue.
• Saudi deputy Foreign Minister Adel-Al Jubeir, who accompanied Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman to the region last week, had also said their objective was “to de-escalate tensions between the two countries”.

PM Modi inaugurates National War Memorial in New Delhi

News

• Prime Minister inaugurated the country’s National War Memorial (NWM) adjoining the iconic India Gate complex in the heart of the capital, nearly 60 years after it was mooted to honour the fallen soldiers after Independence.

Beyond News

• Spread over an area of approximately 40 acres, the memorial comprises four concentric circles, namely- the ‘Amar Chakra, the Veerta Chakra, the ‘Tyag Chakra’ and the ‘Rakshak Chakra’ with names of 25,942 soldiers inscribed in golden letters on granite tablets.
• It also includes a central obelisk, an eternal flame and six bronze murals depicting famous battles fought by the Indian Army, Air Force and Navy in a covered gallery (Veerta Chakra).
• Post-Independence, more than 25,000 soldiers have laid their lives in our national interest, defending the sovereignty and integrity of the nation, she said.
• It also commemorates the soldiers who participated and made supreme sacrifice in the UN Peace Keeping Missions, during Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Operations, counter-insurgency operations and Low Intensity Capital Operation (LICO), the minister said.
• The sanction for the project was issued on December 18, 2015 and actual work on it started in February 2018.
• In the complex, 16 walls have been constructed in the Tyag Chakra for paying homage to the 25,942 battle casualties and their names have been inscribed on granite tablets arranged in a circular pattern, symbolizing the ancient Indian war formation ‘Chakravyuh’
• The outermost circle – the Rakshak Chakra comprises of rows of more than 600 trees with each tree representing many soldiers who guard the territorial integrity of the nation round the clock.
• The memorial complex also comprises graphic panels and stone murals. Busts of the 21 awardees of Param Veer Chakra have been installed at Param Yoddha Sthal which includes three living awardees Sub Maj (Hony Capt) Bana Singh (Retd), Sub Major Yogendra Singh Yadav and Sub Sanjay Kumar.
• The India Gate itself is a war memorial built during the British Raj as the All India War Memorial Arch to honour the soldiers who died in the First World War (1914-1918) and the Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919). The landmark has the names of soldiers inscribed on its surface.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Japan probe lands on distant asteroid

News

• A Japanese probe sent to collect samples from an asteroid 300 million km away for clues about the origin of life and the solar system landed successfully .

Beyond News

• Hayabusa2 touched down briefly on the Ryugu asteroid, fired a bullet into the surface to puff up dust for collection and blasted back to its holding position.
• The asteroid is thought to contain relatively large amounts of organic matter and water from some 4.6 billion years ago when the solar system was born.
• During a later mission, Hayabusa2 will eventually fire an “impactor” to blast out material from underneath Ryugu’s surface, allowing the collection of “fresh” materials unexposed to millennia of wind and radiation.
• Scientists hope those samples may provide answers to some fundamental questions about life and the universe, including whether elements from space helped give rise to life on Earth.

Moon could be a chemical factory for water: NASA

News

• NASA scientists have simulated a chemical process through which ingredients for water could be made on surface of the Moon making it a chemical factory, an advance that could aid in the goal of sending humans to establish a permanent presence there.

Findings

• The team from the U.S. space agency used a computer programme to simulate the chemistry that unfolds when the solar wind pelts the Moon’s surface.
• When a stream of charged particles known as the solar wind careens onto the Moon’s surface at 450 km per second, it enriches the Moon’s surface in ingredients that could make water.
• As the Sun streams protons to the Moon, those particles interact with electrons in the lunar surface, making hydrogen (H) atoms, the scientists found.
• These atoms then migrate through the surface and latch onto the abundant oxygen (O) atoms bound in the silica (SiO2) and other oxygen bearing molecules that make up the lunar soil or regolith.
• Together, hydrogen and oxygen make the molecule hydroxyl (OH), a component of water, or H2O.

Ghost nets, plastics pose threat to seabirds

News

• The unprecedented August 2018 flood in Kerala has washed out a huge amount of plastics from the land and rivers into the ocean, threatening marine life and underwater ecosystem.
• Now, scientists have come across evidence that migratory birds are also victims of the plastic discards.

Findings

• Scientists documented the serious implications of plastics on seabirds visiting Kerala in this season, recorded the case of a Lesser Black-backed Gull or Heuglin’s Gull (Larus fuscus heuglini) with a plastic bottle ring caught in its beak. The species is a winter visitor to Kerala and was seen at Ponnani.
• The ring had pierced the bird’s beak and formed a ring around its eyes, obstructing its vision during flight. The ring could have got tangled on the bird’s beak while it was feeding on fish from the sea or picking worms from the beach.
• Heuglin’s Gull breeds in the tundra of northern Russia and migrate south to southwest Asia, including India during winter.
• Scientists feel that nylon fishing nets thrown back into the ocean (often referred to as ghost nets) or carried out to the sea during the flood could also pose a serious hazard for marine life.
• A Lesser Crested Tern (Thalasseus bengalensis), a winter visitor to Kerala and found at Thottappally in Alappuzha, was documented with a discarded gill net wrapped around its beak, limbs and wings.
• The sight of seabirds ingesting plastics is on the increase in Kerala, especially during the period from November to February when migratory species visit the State.
• Similarly, discarded fishing gear, including nylon nets and cut lines with hooks, often becomes lethal for seabirds.

In a first, IAF commissions aerial surveillance

News

• The Indian Air Force (IAF) has commissioned the development of an aerial surveillance system for monitoring suspicious moments under dense foliage cover along the international border and some parts within the country.
• This hyper spectral imagery programme, a first for the country, seeks to locate and identify suspicious movements and is expected to be operational in the next two years.

Beyond News

• What the programme would mean is that the data gathered from aerial sources would be processed within minutes, and researchers would be able to tell security forces on the ground of “unwanted” human presence in the area, their numbers and locations, among other inputs.
• The IAF is spending ₹13 crore for the programme in which human resources from premier research and education institutions across the country are being put together, and has roped in a senior researcher and lead technologist of Indian origin from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as the chief technologist for the programme.
• The IAF, which had tracked the work of Houston-based senior scientist Kumar Krishen’s work for nearly three years, finally roped him in after he quit NASA in September 2018.
• This is a unique patent application, which will help detect or identify the presence of a human below trees, dense foliage, shrubs or inside a structure, whether it is day or night.
• It can detect human presence from air even if there a cloud cover, dense fog or snow cover.
• Data/images will be captured through optical and infra red sensors to be most likely mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle and processed through deep learning algorithms.

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