Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Burial urn of Megalithic era unearthed

News

A huge burial urn dating back to the Megalithic era that was unearthed while clearing a private road to a house at Hydermettu, near Nedumkandam in Kerala, recently is believed to be one of the major findings that would shed light on life in the pre-historic era on the western side of the Western Ghats.

Beyond News

• The urn is said to be the largest one unearthed from the region so far. It is 3-ft wide at its mouth and its shape is a variant of other ones explorated in the district.
• Moreover, there are art works on it a pointer to the cultural awareness of a society that belonged to the pre-historic period.
• A large number of burial urns have been unearthed from Ramakkalmedu, Mundieruma and Puzhpakandam nearby in the recent past.
• The importance is that the findings in the hinterland of the erstwhile Muziris port is valuable evidence of a culturally-oriented society. The new finding is on the hill area bordering Tamil Nadu and believed to be linked to a settled life there. Burial urns, dolmen and hero stones are spread over a large area on the western side of the Western Ghats.

Report sees climate risk from rise in Indian AC units

News

• By 2022, India is expected to have a fourth of the world’s air conditioning units, and the risks to climate from this could be immense, according to a report.

Findings

• The refrigerants used for cooling are the major contributors to global warming, and if left unchecked, they could cause global temperatures to rise by 0.5 degrees Celsius.
• In 2016, India was a signatory to a compact of 107 countries to “substantially phase” out a potent greenhouse gas, called hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), by 2045 and move to prevent a potential 0.5 C rise in global temperature by 2050.
• HFCs are a family of gases that are largely used in refrigerants at home and in car air-conditioners. However, they substantially worsen global warming. India, China, the United States and Europe have committed themselves to reducing the use of HFC by 85% by 2045.
• Under a business-as-usual growth trajectory, about 4.5 billion room air-conditioners are estimated to be installed by 2050 a nearly four-fold jump from today’s installed base, with emerging economies observing a five-fold increase.

Groundwater depletion alarming in northwest, central India

News

• With 230 billion metre cube of groundwater drawn out each year for irrigating agriculture lands in India, many parts of the country are experiencing rapid depletion of groundwater.
• The total estimated groundwater depletion in India is in the range of 122–199 billion metre cube.

Findings

• The Indo-Gangetic Plain, northwestern, central and western parts of India account for most intensive groundwater-based irrigation. And among these regions, western India and the Indo-Gangetic Plain have more than 90% of the area irrigated using groundwater.
• Based on Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) data of nearly 5,900 wells which have long-term data (1996–2016), a team of researchers found that a majority of districts in India experienced significant depletion in groundwater storage. The satellite data confirms the well data.
• While districts with significant decrease in groundwater are located in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, northwest, and central (Maharashtra) regions, a few districts in Punjab show substantial decline in groundwater table. With depletion occurring at a rate of 91 cm per year, Punjab has been witnessing a steep decline in groundwater table since 1996.
• The study found that groundwater recharge has declined between 1996 and 2016 in northwest and northcentral India due a reduction in low-intensity rainfall. Low-intensity rainfall during the monsoon is responsible for groundwater recharge in northwest and northcentral India.
• The study also found that carbon dioxide emission from pumping groundwater and release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the soil when groundwater is depleted is less than 2-7% of the total carbon dioxide emissions in India.
• More than 500 tensiometers to visually monitor soil moisture conditions in rice fields and irrigate the crops only when required were used in five districts in Punjab. Irrigation based on information provided by the tensiometers helped farmers in the five districts save 10–36% groundwater.
• Using groundwater to irrigate the field only when necessary led to a reduction in electricity consumption and greenhouse emissions.
• The tensiometer is 2–3 feet long and has a ceramic cup containing numerous tiny pores at the bottom. It is inserted up to 8 inches into the soil, which is beyond the root zone of rice. The water inside the tensiometer reaches equilibrium with soil moisture, and rises or falls depending on the amount of moisture in the soil.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

India, Singapore begin sea drills

News:

• The 25th edition of the India-Singapore bilateral naval exercise, SIMBEX, has begun at the tri-services command in Port Blair.

Beyond News

• The exercise, which kicked off the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, will conclude on November 21.
• Started as basic Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) exercises in 1994, today these exercises have graduated to complex maritime combat drills, including missile and torpedo firings, and shore-based intensive professional exchanges.
• Seven ships from the Indian Navy and five ships from the Singapore Navy along with an Archer class submarine and a Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle will take part in the exercise.
• Maritime patrol aircraft of both countries, P8I of Indian Navy and Fokker F50 from Singapore, will also take part.
• The number of missiles and torpedo firings being undertaken are in fact unprecedented and perhaps the largest the Indian Navy has undertaken with any foreign Navy till date.
• The two countries have vastly expanded their military cooperation in recent years under India’s Act East policy. Late last year, the two countries signed a naval agreement which has a provision for mutual logistical support and gives India access to the Changi naval base.
• India and Singapore are working on a trilateral exercise with an Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) country, likely Thailand, and eventually plan to scale it up to a multilateral format.

India’s first multi-modal terminal on inland waterways inaugurated in Varanasi

News

• Prime Minister inaugurated India’s first multi-modal terminal on the Ganga River in his parliamentary constituency and received the country’s first container cargo transported on inland waterways from Kolkata.

Beyond News

• This is the first of the four multi-modal terminals being constructed on the National Waterway-1 (river Ganga) as part of the World Bank-aided Jal Marg Vikas project of the Inland Waterways Authority of India.
• The total estimated cost of the project is ₹5,369.18 crore, which will be equally shared between the Government of India and the World Bank.
• The Centre’s Jal Marg Vikas Project aims at developing the stretch of the river between Varanasi and Haldia for navigation of large vessels weighing up to 1,500 tonnes to 2,000 tonnes.
• Its objective is to promote inland waterways as a cheap and environment-friendly means of transportation, especially for cargo movement. The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) is the project implementing agency.
• The project entails construction of three multi-modal terminals (Varanasi, Sahibganj and Haldia), two inter-modal terminals, five roll-on-roll-off (Ro-Ro) terminal pairs, new navigation lock at Farakka in West Bengal, assured depth dredging, integrated vessel repair and maintenance facility, differential global positioning system (DGPS), river information system (RIS), river training.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

World’s largest brain-like supercomputer switched on for first time

News

• The world’s largest supercomputer designed to work in the same way as the human brain has been switched on for the first time.

Beyond News

• The newly formed million-processor-core Spiking Neural Network Architecture (SpiNNaker) machine is capable of completing more than 200 million million actions per second, with each of its chips having 100 million transistors.
• To reach this point it has taken 15 million in funding, 20 years in conception and over 10 years in construction, with the initial build starting way back in 2006, according to a statement.
• Biological neurons are basic brain cells present in the nervous system that communicate primarily by emitting ‘spikes’ of pure electro-chemical energy.
• Neuromorphic computing uses large scale computer systems containing electronic circuits to mimic these spikes in a machine.
• SpiNNaker is unique because, unlike traditional computers, it does not communicate by sending large amounts of information from point A to B via a standard network.
• Instead it mimics the massively parallel communication architecture of the brain, sending billions of small amounts of information simultaneously to thousands of different destinations.
• One of the fundamental uses for the supercomputer is to help neuroscientists better understand how our own brain works. It does this by running extremely large scale real-time simulations which simply aren’t possible on other machines.
• This includes an 80,000 neuron model of a segment of the cortex, the outer layer of the brain that receives and processes information from the senses.
• It also has simulated a region of the brain called the Basal Ganglia – an area affected in Parkinson’s disease, meaning it has massive potential for neurological breakthroughs in science such as pharmaceutical testing.
• The power of SpiNNaker has even recently been harnessed to control a robot, the SpOmnibot. This robot uses the SpiNNaker system to interpret real-time visual information and navigate towards certain objects while ignoring others.

AIIMS-led team develops sensitive tests for pulmonary, pleural TB

News

• A highly sensitive diagnostic test for pulmonary TB and pleural TB has been developed by a multi-institutional team led by Jaya Sivaswami Tyagi from the Department of Biotechnology at AIIMS.

Beyond News

• The diagnostic test makes use of a DNA aptamer (a small single-stranded DNA molecule that binds to a specific target molecule) that shows high binding affinity to a TB antigen. Sputum samples were used for diagnosing pulmonary TB while pleural fluid was used for diagnosing pleural TB.
• The sensitivity of the diagnostic test for pulmonary TB and pleural TB was 94% and 93%, respectively. Specificity was 100% for pulmonary TB and 98% for pleural TB.
• The laboratory-based aptamer test for diagnosing pulmonary TB takes about five hours to turn in the results while the portable, rapid test takes just 30 minutes.
• At 92.3% and 91.2%, the sensitivity and specificity of the portable test is a bit inferior compared with the lab-based test.
• In the case of pleural TB, the aptamer-based lab diagnosis was far superior to even Xpert. While the sensitivity was about 22% with Xpert, it was about 93% with aptamer.
• The sensitivity of the lab-based and portable aptamer-based test for pulmonary TB is far superior compared with smear microscopy, X-ray and even ELISA.
• In the case of the lab-based diagnosis, the sputum sample is immobilised on a plate and the aptamer is added. If the sample is positive for pulmonary TB then it will contain the HspX antigen and the aptamer binds to it. An enzyme (horseradish peroxidise) that binds to the aptamer (through biotin-streptavidin affinity) is then added followed by a substrate.
• Relying on HspX antigen to diagnose pleural TB in a lab setting was found be effective and highly sensitive (93%).
• To make the pulmonary TB diagnosis portable, the researchers bound the aptamer to an electrode coated with gold nanoparticles.

The electrode is already immobilised with the aptamer, so only the liquefied sputum has to be added and the reaction is instantaneous.

Fake currency network intact

News:

• Two years after demonetisation, the fake currency notes seized so far are not of a high quality, a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has found.

Findings

• The network of same fake currency operators was still intact as two years ago, that pushed fake notes from the Bangladesh border. But there was not much evidence to link it to Pakistan yet. A reason cited by the government for scrapping Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes in 2016 was to wipe out fake notes.
• India had accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of printing high-quality fake notes and channelling it into India. Agencies suspected that certain security features of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes were compromised as the supplier of raw currency notes, ink and silver thread was same for India and Pakistan.
• The NIA and the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the anti-crime and anti-terror unit of Bangladesh, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in 2015, to share intelligence on fake notes and other terrorist modules in real time.
• The NIA registered at least 13 cases related to the seizure of fake currency in the past two years, but could not invoke the provisions under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, (UAPA) because of the inferior quality of the fakes seized.
• According to an NIA official, the agency passed on information to the local police in many cases, which led to the arrests. The police book the accused under Sections 489B and 489C (possession of forged or counterfeit currency notes, punishable by life imprisonment) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which is then taken over by the NIA.

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