Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

Editorials are covered separately. HINDU NOTES are available free date wise| CLICK HERE

Researchers find Iron Age pits

News

• A team of researchers has found evidence throwing light on human settlements during the Iron Age at Vattakkadu,in Kerala state.

Beyond News

• The holes in round and square shape found in the laterite rock of a hill were proof enough to reveal the continuous presence of human life in the area in the iron age.
• Holes had apparently been dug using iron implements. These holes will help us understand the iron age life in a wider and better perspective.
• Other team members said the finding called for detailed studies, as the exact date of the holes needed to be established.
• Researchers said that the holes were believed to have been used for constructing houses. Historians of the view that poles were erected in such holes by the people of iron age.
• The findings have reference in the Tamil Sangham literature. This increases their significance manifold.
• Large burial pots had been recovered from neighbouring areas during recent explorations. Those burial pots helped us study society and life during the megalithic age.
• People living in nearby areas believed that the pits had been dug by their forefathers.

Seven cities reveal cost of floods caused by climate change

News

• Landmark report issued by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), states that without “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society,” our world will exceed 1.5°C much sooner than they think as early as a dozen years which will increase the likelihood of floods, heatwaves and droughts.

Findings

• As higher temperatures lead to sea level rise and more extreme rainfall, more and more people around the globe are experiencing catastrophic floods.
• Theylooked at seven locations around the globe that have already seen one of the consequences of global warming: flooding as a result of sea level rise and extreme precipitation.
• Aside from the lives lost and the immediate damages, every flood has a series of ripple effects on other costs like food prices, disruptions to local businesses and long-term damage to people’s livelihoods. Businesses lose a tourist season; farmers lose a planting season; students lose weeks of school.
• In August of 2018, heavy monsoon rains flooded most of Kerala, India, with more than 400 deaths and upwards of a million displaced citizens.
• In September of 2017, Hurricane Irma dumped torrential rains on Immokalee, Florida, where most of the USA’s winter tomatoes are grown.
• The stretch of Brazil’s coastline that runs between Rio de Janeiro and Brazil’s capital city of São Paulo is getting hit with torrential rains and sea level rise. In addition to the homes and beacheslost, many of the small businesses along the seafront have to rebuild every time a storm surge wipes them out.
• Around half a millionpeople leave Bangladesh every year in order to work abroad, mostly in Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Many of them are forced to migrate as a result of flooding in their native land.
• Katherine Fera and her husband had to move out of their house for 12 days after flash floods inundated their basement this past August.
• Research shows that the psychological stress of flooding can last long after the event itself: three years after their houses were flooded, almost half the people in this study still felt anxious whenever it rained.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

‘Japan keen on supplying defence equipment to India’.

News

• The Japanese government, in principle, has taken a decision to forge partnership with India to supply defence equipment, a senior official of Japan Maritime Self Defence Force said .

Beyond News

• A day after the nine-day Japan-India Maritime Exercise (JIMEX)-18, a joint exercise between the Indian and Japanese navies began, Rear Admiral, Commander, Escort Flotilla-4 (CCR-4) said that they wanted to explore the opportunities for supplyingamphibious planes to India.
• The JIMEX-2018 began with an aim of improving interoperability, strengthening understanding and learning the best practices of both the navies.
• The Sea Phase will comprise anti-submarine warfare exercises, visit, board, search and seizure drills, gun firing, cross deck helicopter operations and coordination operations in anti-submarine and anti-air threat scenarios .
• As part of the exercises, JS Kaga, an anti-Inzumo class helicopter carrier as large as an aircraft carrier and JS Inazu, a destroyer class ship with capability for anti-air, anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare arrived in the city, with a crew of 600 including 40 women.
• Indigenously designed and built three warships INS Satpura, INS Kadamatt and INS Shakti and several helicopters from Indian Navy are also participating. The crew participating from host country will be around 1,000.
• The JIMEX-2018 took off after a gap of five years, which is an indication of an upswing in the Indo-Japanese defence relationships and the determination of both the countries to work together closely to improve safety and security.
• Both the countries are also playing a key role in anti-piracy activity in the Gulf of Aden.

China to sell 48 armed drones to Pakistan

News

• China will sell 48 high-end armed drones to its “all-weather ally” Pakistanin what a military observer said will be the largest deal of its kind, official media here reported .

Beyond News

• Wing Loong II is a high-end reconnaissance, strike and multi-role endurance unmanned aerial system, capable of being fitted with air-to-surface weapons.
• It is roughly equivalent to the American MQ-9 Reaper drone.
• The drones will also be jointly manufactured by China and Pakistan.
• Last year, China reportedly sold to countries like the UAE and Egypt the Wing Loong II at an estimated $1 million per unit, reports said.
• China is the largest supplier of weapon system to the Pakistan Army. Both countries also jointly manufacture JF-Thunder a single engine multi-role combat aircraft.
• The Trump administration has agreed to sell sell 22 Sea Guardian drones to India.
• The country is reported to have received 10 advanced Heron drones from Israel as well.
• The Air Force academy aerobatics team announced that in the future, the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex Kamra and the Aviation Industry Corporation of China’s Chengdu Aircraft Industrial (Group) Company will jointly manufacture the drones.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Army sets its sight on the future

News

• The week-long biannual Army Commanders conference began in which the service is keen to finalise several radical measures to right size the force and optimise the ballooning revenue expenditure.

Beyond News

• As part of the conclave, commanders and directorates at Army Headquarters will deliberate on important studies that have been ordered to meet future operational challenges.
• There are four studies examining operational and optimisational issues of the Army and the headquarters as also human resources management aspects.
• The Army further stated that these studies aimed to improve the teeth-to-tail ratio, with the purpose of strengthening the structures within the Army, to make it combat-ready for the future.
• The four studies being carried out by separate study groups are for restructuring of Army headquarters and Army restructuring, which includes cutting down the strength, cadre review of officers and review of terms and conditions of Junior Commissioned Officers and Other Ranks.
• Several mid-reviews were undertaken by the Chief of the Army Staff, General Bipin Rawat, over the past few months and it will be debated threadbare at the highest level, the sources said.
• The aim is to finalise the broad roadmap of the restructuring in this conference and agree on a roadmap on rolling out the measures.
• The biggest concern for the Army is the mounting revenue expenditure and pensions, which leave very little for capital procurements.
• While some of the measures can be rolled out immediately as they are within the service, some need approval from the Defence 

Making water safe

News

• Scientists have created tiny spheres that can catch and destroy bisphenol A (BPA), a synthetic chemical used to make plastics that often contaminates water.

Beyond News

• BPA is commonly used to coat the insides of food cans, bottle tops and water supply lines. While BPA that seeps into food and drink is considered safe in low doses, prolonged exposure is suspected of affecting the health of children.
• The micron-sized spheres resemble tiny flower-like collections of titanium dioxide petals.
• The supple petals provide plenty of surface area for researchers to anchor cyclodextrin – a benign sugar-based molecule often used in food and drugs.
• It has a two-faced structure, with a hydrophobic (water-avoiding) cavity and a hydrophilic (water-attracting) outer surface.
• BPA is hydrophobic and naturally attracted to the cavity. Once trapped, reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by the spheres degrades BPA into harmless chemicals.
• This new material helps overcome two significant technological barriers for photocatalytic water treatment.

Lakes may be tapped for city’s needs

News:

• In an effort to identify new sources of water to supply the growing metropolis, Chennai Metrowater has started a feasibility study to assess the potential of nine water bodies and six abandoned quarries in the city’s periphery as drinking water sources.

Beyond News:

• A special team has been constituted to explore new sources to augment the city’s water supply. The team has started collecting samples for testing the quality of water on 45 parameters.
• A modular water treatment plant with a capacity to treat four million litres a day (mld) was set up to treat raw water and transport it to the existing network. The water agency had recently conducted a similar survey at Retteri lake to assess its quality.
• Metrowater officials said a proposal has been submitted to the State government to set up a treatment plant of 10 MLD capacity at a cost of nearly ₹8.8 crore to treat and transport water to the network at Kolathur.
• The aim is to decentralise treatment and transportation of water and use local sources.
• Besides studying the lakes for their available storage capacity and availability of land for onsite facilities, various aspects such as pollution due to release of domestic sewage and the feasibility of laying pipelines to connect to the existing network would also be looked at.

CLICK HERE TO SEE DATE WISE CURRENT AFFAIRS