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IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

Experts from National Institute of Oceanography complete translocation of corals

Source: Indian Express

News

• The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has said that experts from the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) completed the task of translocating the corals at Haji Ali and Worli to new locations.

Translocation of corals

• The civic body had started the translocation of 18 colonies of corals coming in way of the Coastal Road project.
• NIO experts will submit a completion report in the next few days, with details of the exact areas where the corals have been moved.
• While the corals from Worli have been moved just outside the project area, the corals at Haji Ali have been translocated at Navy Nagar, Colaba. For the next one year, BMC officials and NIO experts will visit the new locations once a month to check the corals.
• NIO had identified six coral species at Worli and Haji Ali: two species of the Rhizangiidae family (Oulangia and one unidentified species) with 18 colonies documented across 0.251 sqm in Worli and another species (Dendrophylliidae family) along with Rhizangiidae across 0.11 sqm area at Haji Ali.
• The species documented are hard corals and are visible during the low tide.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

Webinar and Expo with Indonesia on Indian Defence Industry Global Outreach for Collaborative Partnerships

Source: PIB india

News

• A webinar between India and Indonesia was held yesterday with the theme “Indian Defence Industry Global Outreach for Collaborative Partnerships: Webinar and Expo India Indonesia Defence Cooperation”.
• It was organized under the aegis of Department of Defence Production, Ministry of Defence through SIDM.

Boost defence exports

• This webinar was part of the series which are being organized with friendly foreign countries in order to boost defence exports and achieve defence export target of $5 billion in the next five years.
• Key officials from both sides participated in the webinar and spoke about need to leverage opportunities for modernizing armed forces and in indigenization of the defence industry.

China signs off on BRICS counter-terror strategy, no mention of border stand-off

Source: Economic Times

News

• China signed off on the BRICS counter-terrorism strategy that called upon on all countries to take steps to prevent the use of their territories for terrorist activities against other countries or their own citizens.

Counter-terrorism

• Russia was the key drafting country as the host and chair of BRICS this year, China also signed off on the declaration which talked about “respect for territorial integrity” of Syria, Libya, Iraq and in the context of the UN.
• The BRICS counter-terrorism strategy, issued, said the member countries “calls upon all nations to take appropriate measures to prevent the use of their territories for terrorist bases or the perpetration or organization of terrorist acts intended to be committed against other States or their citizens”.
• It also stressed on the need for “all States to refrain from organizing, instigating, facilitating, participating in, financing, encouraging or tolerating terrorist activities and to take appropriate practical measures to ensure that their territories are not used for terrorist bases or preparation or organization of terrorist acts intended to be committed against other States or their citizens”.
• The BRICS declaration countries also underlined the cross-border movement of terrorists.
• BRICS countries recognize that acts, methods and practices of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations are activities aimed at the destruction of human rights, fundamental freedoms and democracy, threatening territorial integrity, security of States, and that the international community should take the necessary steps to enhance cooperation to prevent and combat terrorism, including cross-border movement of terrorists.
• The declaration also flagged the issue of territorial integrity in the context of the UN, Syria, Iraq and Libya.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

India’s AI supercomputer Param Siddhi 63rd among top 500 most powerful non-distributed computer systems in the world

Source: PIB india

News

• Param Siddhi, the high performance computing-artificial intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer established under National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) at C-DAC has achieved global ranking of 63 in TOP 500 most powerful non-distributed computer systems in the world released.

HPC-AI

• The AI system will strengthen application development of packages in areas such as advanced materials, computational chemistry & astrophysics, and several packages being developed under the mission on platform for drug design and preventive health care system, flood forecasting package for flood prone metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Patna and Guwahati.
• This will accelerate R&D in war against COVID-19 through faster simulations, medical imaging, genome sequencing and forecasting and is a boon for Indian masses and for start-Ups and MSMEs in particular.
• It is a boon for application developers and will help testing of weather forecasting packages by NCMRWF & IITM, geo-exploration packages for oil and gas recovery; packages for aero-design studies; computational physics and mathematical applications and even online courses for education.
• Param Siddhi Supercomputer is built on theNVIDIA DGX SuperPOD reference architecture networking along with C-DAC’s indigenously developed HPC-AI engine, software frameworks and cloud platform and will help deep learning, visual computing, virtual reality, accelerated computing, as well as graphics virtualization.
• Mihir have made it to the TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. The system ranked 63rd and 146^th.
• ‘Mihir’ is a 2.8 Petaflop supercomputer which has been operational at the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (NCMRWF), Noida. It is one of the powerful systems owned by the Ministry of Earth Sciences and has helped improve India’s forecasting skills.

The list comprised 212 systems of China followed by the US (113) and Japan (34). However, USA maintained its performance-wise domination, offering a total of 668.7 Petaflops, seconded by Japan (593.7 Petaflops) and China (593.7 Petaflops).

Building blocks of life could form before stars using ‘dark chemistry’

Source: Indian Express

News

• Scientists have found in new research that at least one of the building blocks of life can form in the harsh environment of interstellar space away from stars and planets.

Findings

• As per the results, an amino acid that is crucial for any form of life can form in dense interstellar clouds. It was earlier thought to be formed only in irradiation from stars.
• This process can happen without energetic irradiation and the process has been named “dark chemistry”.
• The amino acid Glycine has been detected in our neighbouring planet Venus and a meteorite. It has also been detected in comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
• The international team studied the samples of the comet brought back to Earth via the Stardust mission.
• Glycine can be formed on the surface of icy dust grains without any UV radiation.

Indian Army sets up habitat facilities for troops deployed in eastern Ladakh amid China row

Source: Indian Express

News

• As the border standoff with China in eastern Ladakh shows no signs of immediate resolution, the Indian Army has created modern habitats with all required facilities for thousands of troops deployed in the high-altitude region which is under the grip of harsh winter.

Modern habitats

• The habitats have been provided with proper heating facilities as the region receives up to 40 feet of snow after November every year while temperatures fall up to minus 40 degree Celsius in the winter months.
• Nearly 50,000 troops of the Indian Army are currently deployed in a high state of combat readiness in various mountainous locations in eastern Ladakh in sub-zero conditions as multiple rounds of talks between India and China have not yielded any concrete outcome to resolve the military standoff that erupted.
• China has also deployed an equal number of troops, according to officials.
• The armies of India and China have held eight rounds of Corps Commander-level talks so far but no breakthrough has been achieved yet to resolve the standoff.
• A joint statement issued after the talks said both sides agreed to maintain dialogue and communication through military and diplomatic channels, and take forward the discussions for the settlement of outstanding issues.
• Following the sixth round of military talks, the two sides had announced a slew of decisions including not to send more troops to the frontline, refrain from unilaterally changing the situation on the ground and avoid taking any actions that may further complicate matters.
• The pact included measures like quick disengagement of troops, avoiding action that could escalate tensions, adherence to all agreements and protocols on border management and steps to restore peace along the Line of Actual Control(LAC).

 ‘Baseless, fake’: Indian Army on reports that China used ‘microwave weapons’ in Ladakh

Source: Financial Express

News

• The Indian Army dismissed reports that China had used ‘microwave weapons’ in eastern Ladakh, where Indian and Chinese soldiers are locked in a border standoff for the last six months.

Microwave weapons

• Microwave weapons are electromagnetic weapons and are called so because they have a similar effect like an oven.
• The weapon works by heating the water molecules under the skin, in the same way as the kitchen appliance, to painful temperatures, forcing people out of the area.
• The weapon, also used for crowd control, can be used to target up to 0.6 miles away.