Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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China and U.S. fire first salvos in a long haul trade war.

News:

China joined the trade war with the United States, by announcing it was ready for a long campaign after authorities in Washington declared a 25 % additional levy on Chinese products worth $ 34 billion.

Beyond News:

• The Chinese have retaliated in equal measure, opening the possibility of tit-for-tat tariff escalation, which could disrupt existing  international network of supply chains, and slow down the global
  economy, which was yet to fully recover from the 2008 recession.
• The Chinese retaliation followed immediately after the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) issued a note that stated that any goods that entered the country or were pulled out of warehouses after Eastern Time, would face the new tariff regime.
  The latest set of levies target 818 Chinese product lines in industries such as aerospace, information and communications technology, robotics, industrial machinery, new materials and automobiles, USTR list released earlier had stated.

In mid-June the Chinese commerce ministry had declared that 545 types of U.S. products of equal value, including soyabeans, automobiles and seafood, would face an additional tariff of 25 %.

• Analysts say that the US is targeting the Made-in-China 2025 project an initiative that can make Beijing a market leader in sunrise hi-technology areas, including robotics, semiconductors, electric
  vehicles, drones and products powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
• By restricting its market for hi-end products, the U.S. hopes that this would deter its companies, with cutting edge technology, from investing in China. The U.S. has earlier charged Beijing of forcing  American companies to part with their intellectual property, which can be funneled into the Made-in-China 2025 project, as a precondition for doing business in China.

The new U.S. market restrictions are likely to have a downstream impact in other countries, as China-based export firms outsource parts and sub-assemblies from other world locations.

Govt. deploys 800 IAS officers for village outreach.

News:

A battalion of Central government IAS officers has been drafted to ensure on the ground implementation as the Centre races to saturate 117 “aspirational districts” with seven flagship social welfare schemes by Independence Day.

Beyond News:

• At least 800 Deputy Secretaries, Under-Secretaries and Director-level officers, drawn from Ministries as diverse as Defence and Urban Affairs, have been assigned about 75 villages to visit, as part of the Extended Gram Swaraj Abhiyan (EGSA) from June 1 to August 15.
• In total, 49,178 villages  most with a majority SC/ST population  are being targeted.
• Over the two-and-a-half month period, these Central officials are being absorbed into EGSA duty for at least 15 working days.
• In each village, the Central team convenes a meeting of villagers and beneficiaries along with a State government or district official, a lead bank representative and local officials from the agencies
  responsible for enrolling people into the schemes.
• The teams can also directly input the day’s progress into a data system.
• Senior Ministry officials also make direct daily calls to a section of District Collectors to monitor progress, while third-party observers for each district mostly from NGOs or academia  have been drafted in to do random checks of villages and report back to the Ministry.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Alternative cereals can save water.

News:

If Indian farmers were to switch from growing rice and wheat to ‘alternative cereals,’ such as maize, sorghum, and millet, it could reduce the demand for irrigation water by 33%.

Beyond News:

• This could also improve nutritional availability to consumers, according to an analysis by researchers.
• For their analysis, the scientists considered water as well as cereal-production data from 1996-2009. Because actual water consumption data was not available, they used a proxy — Crop Water Requirement (CWR), which is the product of the water required by a crop and the harvested area  to calculate water consumption in every district in this period.
• In this time, cereal production grew by 230%. Although the combined production of alternative cereals was larger than that of wheat in the 1960s, their relative contribution to the cereal supply has steadily dwindled.
• Yet, alternative cereals disproportionately account for the supply of protein, iron, and zinc among kharif crops. At the same time, total CWR demand for Indian cereal production increased from 482 to 632 km per year during the study period.
• The nub was that rice is the least water-efficient cereal when it came to producing nutrients, and was the main driver in increasing irrigation stresses.
• Replacing rice with maize, finger millet, pearl millet, or sorghum could save irrigation and improving production of nutrients such as iron by 27% and zinc by 13% . 
• In some districts, however, the shift in cereals translated into a reduction in calorie content.
• This week India announced a 50% hike, or RS 200 per quintal, in the minimum support price for paddy  the key kharif crop  along with several other crops. Though hikes were also announced for alternative cereals, some of which were included in the analysis, the government doesn’t procure these crops like it does rice and wheat. It mainly uses these procured cereals to meet obligations under the Food Security Act.
• For those eligible, India is mandated to provide 5 kg of foodgrains per person per month at subsidised prices of RS 3/2/1 per kg for rice/wheat/coarse grains.

Portable system to issue rail tickets.

News:

A low-cost Portable Unreserved Ticketing System (P-UTS) has been developed by Southern Railway to eliminate printed card tickets and issue unreserved tickets at the 5,000-odd halt stations in the railway network, other remote locations, and at melas and large congregations.

Beyond News:

• The P-UTS consists of a thin client, monitor, keyboard and a thermal printer, meeting the specifications of the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), which handles the passenger and ticketing system of Indian Railways.
• These components are housed in a compact box of 20 x 16 x 6.5 that weigh 9 kg.
• The P-UTS unit can be charged with the required amount from the serving railway station and UTS tickets issued up to that amount.
• Pre-loaded with ticket image, the unit prints the railway ticket on getting the command. The P-UTS can work independently for three days at a stretch.
• An extended counter of the UTS at a remote location that can be used without any network connectivity, the P-UTS can be synchronised with the UTS server at the serving station after the value is exhausted.
• After successful in-house trials, Southern Railway forwarded the P-UTS for the approval of the Railway Board and to define it as a regular UTS terminal.
• Once the nod is obtained, the software and required applications will be uploaded by CRIS and the P-UTS will be put on trial in 10 halt stations.
• The P-UTS has been developed as Railways are closing down printing presses under it and phasing out card tickets. The P-UTS can issue UTS tickets from any non-networked location.

Hominins walked like modern humans, climbed like apes.

News:

Our early hominin ancestors, including their toddlers, could stand on two feet and walk upright, but also had several ape-like foot characteristics that could have aided in climbing trees.

Beyond News:

• The team discovered that hominin toddlers possessed many of the structures necessary to walk on two legs that have been found in adult specimens, but also retained a convexity of the medial cuneiform  a bone important for joint movement, such as that involved in climbing
  into adulthood.
• The findings, are based on a rare tiny foot fossil, about the size of a human thumb, of a nearly 3.32 million-year-old skeleton of a young female hominin ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis, discovered in 2002 in the Dikika region of Ethiopia.
• This is the most complete foot of an ancient juvenile ever discovered.
• This evidence of increased mobility of the toe is an ape-like pattern that is suggestive of a selective advantage of this trait and which offers new insights into the evolution of bipedality.
• These findings are critical for understanding the dietary and ecological adaptation of these species and are consistent with our previous research on other parts of the skeleton especially, the shoulder blade.

NASA solar probe gets unique heat shield.

News:

 NASA’s Parker Solar Probe  aiming to get the closest ever to the sun has got its “revolutionary” heat shield permanently attached to the spacecraft.

Beyond News:

• The shield will help the spacecraft remain safe as it collects data about the inner workings of the corona.
• The shield, with a diameter of 2.4 metres, protects instruments within its umbra, the shadow it casts on the spacecraft.
• At Parker Solar Probe’s closest approach to the sun, temperatures on the heat shield will reach nearly 1,371 degrees Celsius, but the spacecraft and its instruments will be kept at a temperature of about 30 degrees Celsius.
• The heat shield is made of two panels of superheated carbon composite sandwiching a lightweight 11.5 cm thick carbon foam core.
• The sun-facing side of the shield is also sprayed with a specially formulated white coating to reflect as much of the sun’s energy away from the spacecraft.
• Because Parker Solar Probe travels very fast  6,92,018 km per hour at its closest approach to the Sun, the shield and spacecraft have to be light to achieve orbit.
• The heat shield itself weighs only about 72.5 kg, as its foam core is 97% air.

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