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Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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New Delhi appoints new envoys for Israel, South Africa, Bhutan, Maldives

News

  • In a major reshuffle of ambassadorial appointments, the Ministry of External Affairs has decided on sending new Ambassadors to Israel, Mexico, South Africa, Argentina, New Zealand and Vietnam.

Beyond News

  • More than 20 ambassadorial and key consulate positions are expected to come up for change, although some of the postings are yet to be announced and the timing of the moves will depend on documents or “agreements” being cleared by host countries.
  • There will also be two significant changes in the neighbourhood coinciding with new governments being elected in Bhutan and the Maldives.

U.S. discusses potential missile defence cooperation with India

News

  • The Trump administration has discussed a potential missile defence cooperation with India as part of its effort to deepen the bilateral strategic partnership, the Pentagon has said, asserting that New Delhi is a “key element” in America’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

Beyond News

  • The Pentagon’s announcement in the 81-page ‘Missile Defense Review’ report released by President Donald Trump gains significance in view of India placing a $5 billion order to purchase S-400 air defense system from Russia, for which the US has publicly expressed its displeasure.
  • The report, which identifies missile development projects by Russia and China as major threats to the U.S., did not give any further details about its potential missile defense cooperation with India.
  • The U.S. has shown reluctance to offer its missile defense system to India.
  • As part of its Indo-Pacific strategy, the Trump administration now seems to be more than inclined to let India procure its missile defense system with talks between the two countries having already started.
  • The Missile Defense Review report said that the cornerstone of U.S.’ security and diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific region is its strong bilateral alliances with Japan, South Korea and Australia, and emerging security relationships with others such as India.
  • Japan and South Korea are working with the U.S. to build missile defense systems that are increasingly interoperable with American defences and increasingly capable against regional offensive missile threats and coercion.
  • This cooperation includes bilateral missile defense training exercises with the US.
  • Australia participates in a trilateral discussion on missile defense with the U.S. and Japan. The U.S. and Australia meet annually to discuss bilateral missile defense cooperation. New areas of focus include joint examination of the challenges posed by advanced missile threats.

H-1B visa holders prone to abuse: U.S. think tank

News

  • A U.S. think tank has claimed that H-1B workers are “underpaid, vulnerable to abuse” and frequently placed in “poor working conditions”.

Beyond News

  • In a report, the South Asia Center of the Atlantic Council also sought safeguards like higher wages, fair working conditions and greater employment rights for those working under the visa programme.
  • The H-1B visa, popular among Indian IT professionals, is a non-immigrant visa that allows U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.
  • The report comes days after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would soon come out with reforms that would give H-1B visa holders certainty to stay in America and an easy pathway to citizenship.
  • The think tank report has been authored by Ron Hira from Howard University and Bharat Gopalaswamy, head, South Asia Center of the Atlantic Council.

Mizoram bans import of pigs to prevent swine disease

 News

  • The Mizoram government has banned import of pigs and piglets to prevent outbreak of a disease that has cost the lives of thousands of swines in the State.

Beyond News

  • The State government has instructed deputy commissioners of all eight districts to issue prohibitory orders banning the import of pigs and piglets from other countries.
  • The porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome has cost the lives of over 10,000 swines in Mizoram since 2013 and it is believed that it happened due to import of pigs from Myanmar where the disease was known to be prevalent.
  • The symptoms of disease include reproductive failure, pneumonia and increased susceptibility to secondary bacterial infection, the sources said.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Saturn’s rings are younger than thought

News

  • Saturn’s rings are one of our solar system’s magnificent sights, but may be a relatively recent addition, according to data obtained from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft before the robotic explorer’s 2017 death plunge into the giant gas planet.

Findings

  • Scientists said that a calculation of the mass of the rings based on gravitational measurements of the planet collected by Cassini indicated they formed between 100 million and 10 million years ago in roughly the final 2% of Saturn’s current age.
  • The findings challenge the notion favoured by some astronomers that the rings developed soon after Saturn formed about 4.5 billion years ago along with the other planets, including the earth.
  • The ring mass turned out to be 45% lower than previous estimates based on 1980s data from NASA’s Voyager spacecraft. Lower mass indicates a younger age.
  • Scientists suspect the rings formed perhaps when a large icy comet or moon ventured too close to Saturn and was shattered by gravitational forces or moons collided in orbit. Scientists hope that they can, in the future, get samples of ring material to find the precise date of origin.

India ranks third in research on artificial intelligence

News

  • India ranks third in the world in terms of high quality research publications in artificial intelligence (AI) but is at a significant distance from world leader China, according to an analysis by research agency Itihaasa.

Beyond News

  • The agency computed the number of ‘citable documents’ the number of research publications in peer-reviewed journals in the field of AI between 2013-2017 as listed out by Scimago, a compendium that tracks trends in scientific research publications.
  • India, while third in the world with 12,135 documents, trailed behind China with 37, 918 documents and the United States with 32,421 documents.
  • However, when parsed by another metric ‘citations’ or the number of times an article is referenced India ranked only fifth and trailed the United Kingdom, Canada, the U.S. and China.
  • Given India’s traditional strength in information technology and AI said to pose a transformation in industry and academic circles, the report was an attempt at mapping the state of AI-based research in India.
  • There were only about 50 to 75 principal researchers in the AI-space in India and they were tended to collaborate with each other. The Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institutes of Information Technology were among the key centres for AI research.
  • Healthcare, financial services, monsoon forecasting, retail and education were the key fields likely to benefit from AI and the field was “unlikely to lead” to a destruction of jobs a key global concern regarding the field.
  • India’s national think-tank, the NITI Ayog, last June released a discussion paper on the transformative potential of AI in India that said the country could add $1 trillion to its economy through integrating AI into its economy.

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