Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Buddha’s teachings shine in golden manuscript

News

• A trove of more than 600 pages of rare Tibetan manuscripts with his teachings written in gold letters has been restored at a 100-year-old monastery in Alubari in West Bengal’s Darjeeling district.

Beyond News

• Restoration of the gold-inlaid manuscripts in two volumes at the Mak Dhog Monastery started earlier this year.
• Manuscripts contain the ancient Tibetan text called Gyetongba, which contains teachings of Buddhism. The manuscripts are in the Tibetan script Sambhota, named after its inventor.
• While the Association could restore the damage suffered by the monastery in the 2011 Sikkim Earthquake, external help was required to restore the manuscripts, which are centuries older than the monastery itself.
• The restoration work is being done by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).
• Experts who worked on the restoration said that while one volume contained 322 pages, the other had 296 pages. They fumigated using anti-fungal chemicals, stitched and used adhesives on the frayed pages.
• Both the volumes are similar and a few pages are missing from the 296-page volume. Each volume contains 8,000 verses.
• Manuscripts brought to Darjeeling from Helambu in Nepal in the early 18th century. When the monastery was built in 1914 to foster peace, the manuscripts were kept there.
• Gyetongbais as important to Tibetans as the Gita is to Hindus.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

India protests Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan order

News

• India summoned the Pakistan’s Deputy High Commissioner to protest Islamabad’s order to integrate the region of Gilgit-Baltistan into the federal structure of the country. 

Beyond News

• An official press release from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the region belongs to India and that Pakistan’s action has no legal support.
• It was clearly conveyed that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir which also includes the so-called ‘Gilgit-Baltistan’ areas is an integral part of India by virtue of its accession in 1947. Any action to alter the status of any part of the territory under forcible and illegal occupation of Pakistan has no legal basis whatsoever, and is completely unacceptable, the official press release said. 
• India’s response came in the backdrop of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s speech to the Joint Session of the Gilgit-Baltistan Council and Legislative Assembly .
• The executive order from Prime Minister Abbasi intends to begin legislative, judicial and administrative measures to integrate Gilgit-Baltistan with the rest of the federal structure of Pakistan. Mr Abbasi’s announcement has sparked several protests in the region. 
• As per the previous arrangement, Pakistan’s National Assembly received representation from five provinces Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
• This excluded the Gilgit-Baltistan region which remained on the Pakistani side following the war of 1947 and was governed directly from Islamabad. Following the declaration by Mr. Abbasi, the status of Gilgit-Baltistan is expected to change.
• The idea of granting provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan gained momentum since work on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) passing through the region, demanded greater coordination between the local and central-level leaders. 
• India, which opposes the CPEC for reasons related to sovereignty, reiterated its territorial claims over Gilgit-Baltistan and said Mr. Abbasi’s executive order to alter the status of the region will be against the position of the Indian Parliament which in 1994 passed a resolution in support of India’s claims over the undivided Jammu and Kashmir.
• India’s sharp response coincided with the Afghan government’s rejection of the Pakistan National Assembly’s merger of FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the weekend.

Attappady soon to be sandalwood reserve

News

• In the face of a recent spurt in sandalwood smuggling in eastern Attappady in Kerala state, the Forest Department has expedited the process to declare it as the second protected sandalwood reserve, after Marayur in Idukki.

Beyond News

• Though sandalwood trees can be seen in over 9,000 hectares of the region, the reserve will comprise 1,600 hectares where the trees grow thickly.
• Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, who visited Attappady recently, had discussed the modalities of the reserve with senior department officials.
• As per the initial plan, the 1,600 hectares would be divided into blocks of 60 acres each. Deputy range officers would be deputed for each block for coordinating protective measures.
• Trained tribal youths would be deployed on daily wages to protect the trees. Electric fencing would be erected, at a cost Rs. 35 lakh, for about 100 km to prevent movement of wild animals into the reserve apart from preventing smuggling.
• Range officers would lead mobile squads to prevent smuggling. A dog squad of the Forest Department with special training in sandalwood protection would be deployed soon.
• In the past one year, the region, that accounts for over 60% of natural regeneration of sandalwood trees in the State, has witnessed 63 cases of smuggling.
• In the past four years, the number of sandalwood smuggling cases reported from the region was 343. Officials say most cases go unreported because of staff shortage.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Mars rocks may show signs of earlier life

News

• Iron-rich rocks which formed in lake beds  are the best place to seek fossil evidence of life on Mars from billions of years ago, researchers say.

Beyond News

• It is believed that Mars supported primitive life forms around four billion years ago and the new study could aid the search for traces of tiny creatures known as microbes  on the Red Planet.
• The study said that, sedimentary rocks made of compacted mud or clay are the most likely to contain fossils.
• These rocks are rich in iron and a mineral called silica, which helps preserve fossils.
• They formed during the Noachian and Hesperian Periods of Martian history between three and four billion years ago. At that time, the planet’s surface was abundant in water, which could have supported life.
• The rocks are much better preserved than those of the same age on Earth.
• This is because Mars is not subject to plate tectonics the movement of huge rocky slabs that form the crust of some planets which over time can destroy rocks and fossils inside them.

Asteroid caused earth to heat up

News

• The Chicxulub asteroid which caused the extinction of dinosaurs  drove a long-lasting era of global warming when it smashed into Earth 65 million years ago, with a rapid temperature increase of 5 degree Celsius that endured for roughly 100,000 years, a study has found.

Beyond News

• The monumental event is a rare case where Earth’s systems were perturbed at a rate greater than what’s occurring now from human activity. It provides valuable insights into what may happen from sudden, extreme environmental changes.
• The after-effects of the Chicxulub impact remain debated, with some scientists advocating that soot within the atmosphere blocked out the Sun to drive global cooling. Others suggest that carbon released from the Earth’s crust into the atmosphere upon the asteroid’s impact, as well as carbon from wildfires, had a warming effect.
• Researchers, analysed a robust collection of remains of fish teeth, scales and bone from a site in Tunisia.
• Based on their analysis, researchers propose that global temperatures increased by about 5 degree Celsius and did not cool to previous values for roughly 100,000 years after the impact.

Cyber security, research lab opened

News

• A walk-in cyber security and research lab (WiCSER), the first of its kind in the country in Tamil Nadu, was inaugurated here by Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government, at the Society for Electronic Transactions and Security (SETS), a research and development organisation focussing on cyber security.

Beyond News

• The WiCSER lab has been established as a prime initiative by SETS to demonstrate ingenious security products or solutions, state-of-the-art initiatives and research advancements in cyber security at a single place to various organisations and academia.
• The lab is equipped with advanced test beds for evaluating information security products and solutions pertaining to network security, hardware security and cryptology.
• It demonstrates various advanced attacks in a simulated environment and displays real time solutions to defend them.

An air cleaner with potential

News

• A team of scientists led by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, has developed a nanocomposite material that can selectively convert environmental carbon monoxide into less toxic carbon dioxide.

Beyond News

• Carbon monoxide (CO) is a major air pollutant that poses a serious threat to health.
• The new composite material is made of graphene and an alloy of platinum and palladium in the form of nanoparticles.
• In the project, graphene was used as a substrate and then “decorated” with alloy nanoparticles made of platinum and palladium.
• The novel catalytic structure was then used for selective oxidation of CO into CO2. The use of a metal particle of certain orientation which absorbs or interacts with CO at lower energy helped the conversion.
• The catalytic behaviour of the nanocomposite was studied using different morphologies for the oxidation of CO. The conversion rate varied along with the flow rate of CO as well as temperature, showing full conversion at temperatures ranging from 75° to 125°.
• The new material could find potential use in chemical industries as well as environmental cleaning, the researchers said.

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