Author: Explains

ARCTIC

India initiated its Arctic Research Program in 2007 with thrust on climate change in the circumpolar north. The major objectives of the Indian Research in Arctic Region are as follows:

To study the hypothesized tele-connections between the Arctic climate and the Indian monsoon by analyzing the sediment and ice core records from the Arctic glaciers and the Arctic Ocean.
To characterize sea ice in Arctic using satellite data to estimate the effect of global warming in the northern polar region.
To conduct research on the dynamics and mass budget of Arctic glaciers focusing on the effect of glaciers on sea-level change.
To carry out a comprehensive assessment of the flora and fauna of the Artic vis-àvis their response to anthropogenic activities. In addition, it is proposed to undertake a comparative study of the life forms from both the Polar Regions.

 

Research Stations in the Arctic

Himadri – India launched its first scientific expedition to the Arctic Ocean in 2007 and opened a research base named “Himadri” at the International Arctic Research Base at Ny-Alesund, Svalbard, Norway in July 2008 for carrying out studies in disciplines like Glaciology, Atmospheric Sciences & Biological Sciences.

 

ANTARCTIC

Many countries have set up research stations in Antarctica to study the climate, weather, geology, and wildlife of this unique region.

The Indian Antarctic Program is a multi-institutional program under the control of the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. It was initiated in 1981 with the first Indian expedition to Antarctica. Under the program, atmospheric, biological, earth, chemical, and medical sciences are studied.

Indian Research Stations in Antarctica

S No.	Station	Description
1	Dakshin Gangotri(1981)	1. India’s first research station in Antarctica. 2. Currently being used as a supply base and transit camp
2	Maitri(1989)	1. Located on the Schirmacher Oasis and has been conducting experiments in geology, geography and medicine 2. A freshwater lake was built around Maitri- Lake Priyadarshini
3	Bharati(2015)	1. Located beside Larsemann Hills and conducts oceanographic research.

 

Antarctic Treaty System

• The Antarctic Treaty and related agreements, collectively known as the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), regulate international relations with respect to Antarctica, Earth’s only continent without a native human population.
• The treaty entered into force in 1961 and currently has 53 parties.
• The treaty sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve, establishes freedom of scientific investigation and bans military activity on the continent.
• India officially acceded to the Antarctic Treaty System in 1983.

Accomplishments of Indian scientific community in Antarctica

1. Identification of a number of new species of bacteria from the cold habitats of Antarctica- 30 out of 240 new species discovered so far have been by Indian scientists.
2. Identification of new genes from the bacteria as genes required for the survival of bacteria at low temperature.
3. Identification of a number of lipases and proteases active at low temperatures and useful for the biotechnology industry.
4. Preparation of comprehensive geological and geomorphological maps of the Schirmacher Oasis.
5. Studies of cold adaptability of human beings in the harsh environment of Antarctica which have provided significant baseline data for use in similar studies on India’s armed forces serving in the Himalaya.

 

Himansh

A centre has been established as a part of Indian government’s initiative to study and quantify the Himalayan glacier responses towards climate change.

Significance of HIMANSH

• Help researchers to quantify the glacier melting and its relation to changing climate.

• For undertaking surveys using Terrestrial Laser Scanners (TLS) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV).

• Help indigitizing the glacier motion and snow cover variations with utmost precision.

• Some of the glacier that are already being studied under this project include Bada Shigri, Samudra Tapu,
Sutri Dhaka, Batal, Gepang Gath and Kunzam.

 

Polymetallic manganese nodules (PMN)
These are small potato-sized (from millimetres to tens of centimetres in diameter) lumps of material precipitated from seawater and sediment pore water at slow rates over millions of years and occur mainly on the deep-seafloor.
They contain approximately 24% manganese, compared to 35 to 55% manganese in land ore bodies, so they do not offer solid economics as a manganese source, but they also contain iron (14%), copper (>1%), nickel(>1%), and cobalt (0.25%).

 

Polymetallic sulphides (PMS)
PMS are formed by precipitation of metals leached by hydrothermal fluid as it interacts with the cooler ambient seawater at or beneath the seafloor at hydrothermal vent sites.
PMS are typically composed of iron pyrite but contain varying proportions of pyrrhotite, pyrite/marcasite, sphalerite/wurtzite, chalcopyrite, bornite, isocubanite, and galena.

Copper and zinc are the most likely metals to be recovered, but some deposits exhibit significant gold (0–20ppm) and silver (0–1200 ppm) grades as well.
Submarine massive polymetallic sulphide bodies are principally found along the earth’s major tectonic belts.

 

Cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts
Cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts occur at shallower depths of <400 to about > 5000 meters in areas of significant volcanic activity.
The crusts grow on hard-rock substrates of volcanic origin by the precipitation of metals dissolved in seawater in areas of seamounts, ridges, plateaus and where prevailing currents prevent deposition of unconsolidated sediments and occupy large areas on top of these topography highs.
In many cases, the deposits occur within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the countries.
Similar in general composition to the polymetallic nodules, cobalt crusts are attracting investment in exploration for higher cobalt percentage (up to 2%), platinum (0.0001%) and Rare Earth Elements (REE) besides Nickel and Manganese.

 

 

Issues 

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/coverage/mining/mining-at-deep-sea-46049

 

Efforts by India

Polymetallic Nodules Programme(PNP)

• The programme is oriented towards exploration and development of technologies for harnessing of nodules from the Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) allocated to India.
• It has 4 components viz. Survey & Exploration, Environmental Impact Assessment, Technology Development (Mining), and Technology Development (Metallurgy).
• India is presently having an area of 75,000 square km, located about 1600 km away from her southern tip
• India has entered into a 15-year contract with the International Seabed Authority in the year 2002 for pursuing developmental activities for polymetallic nodules in the Indian Ocean
• India’s exclusive rights to explore polymetallic nodules from seabed in Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) have been extended by five years.

Contract with International Seabed Authority

India’s exclusive rights to explore polymetallic nodules from seabed in Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB) have been extended by five years by International Seabed Authority.

Importance

1. India’s exclusive rights for exploration of Polymetallic Nodules in the allotted area in the Central Indian Ocean Basin will continue and would open new opportunities for resources of commercial and strategic value.

2. India is entirely dependent on imports to meet its requirements of cobalt, which is the most strategic of the three metals (cobalt, copper and nickel). As for copper and nickel, India is in a precarious position.

Economic significance

 Empowerment of coastal communities and attaining greater social and economic inclusion by providing Employment opportunities, skill-sets and capacities.

 Providing a boost to coastal and national economies and development of blue economy.

 Promoting entrepreneurship in new areas of economic activity and new development in electronics industry.

Strategic advantages

 Presently, China is controlling more than 95% of rare earth metals. This move will nullify the increasing influence of China.

 It will strengthen the bilateral relationship of India with Japan, Germany and South Korea.

1. Five Generations of Computers

Generation	Period	Technology Used
First	1940-1956	Vacuum Tubes
Second	1956-1963	Transistors
Third	1964-1971	Integrated Circuits(IC)
Fourth	1972-2010	Microprocessors
Fifth	2010-present	Artificial Intelligence

2. Bytes

• The number of instructions or the amount of data a computer can store in its memory is measured in bytes.

3. Internet

• It is a worldwide system of computer networks – a network of networks in which users at any one computer can get information from any other computer(if they have permission).

How does the Internet work?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_LPdttKXPc

Administration of Internet

• Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers(ICANN), a US non-profit organization administers the allocation of domain names and IP addresses.
• Internet Society(ISOC) is responsible for developing internet technical standards.

4. Supercomputers

• A computer or an array of computers that act as one collective machine capable of processing enormous amounts of data.
• They work at very high speeds and perform complex jobs such as nuclear research or forecasting weather patterns.
• It channels all its power into executing a few programs as fast as possible rather than executing many programs concurrently.
• It uses parallel processing instead of the serial processing in the case of an ordinary computer

Supercomputers in India

S No.	Name	Site
1	SahasraT	Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
2	Aaditya	Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune
3	TIFR-Cray XC30	Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai
4	HP Apollo 6000	Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
5	PARAM Yuva-2	Centre for Development of Advanced Computing(C-DAC), Pune
6	PARAM ISHAN	Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati

Supercomputers of the World

5. Quantum Computing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVv5OAR4Nik

• Quantum computing studies computation systems that make direct use of quantum-mechanical phenomena to perform operations on data.
• Classical computers encode information in bits. Each bit can take the value of 1 or 0. These 1s and 0s act as on/off switches that ultimately drive computer functions. Quantum computers, on the other hand, are based on qubits, which operate according to two key principles of quantum physics: superposition and entanglement.
• Superposition means that each qubit can represent both a 1 and a 0 at the same time.
• Entanglement means that qubits in a superposition can be correlated with each other i.e. the state of one (whether it is a 1 or a 0) can depend on the state of another.

6. Types of Cybercrimes

 

7. Cloud Computing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYGQcmZUTaw

• It is an Internet-based computing solution where shared resources are provided like electricity distributed on the electrical grid
• Computers in the cloud are configured to work together and the various applications use the collective computing power as if they are running on a single system.

 

IT PROJECTS IN INDIA

1. National Supercomputer Mission(NSM)

• The Mission envisages empowering our national academic and R&D institutions spread over the country by installing a vast supercomputing grid comprising a cluster of more than 70 high-performance computing facilities
• The Mission would be implemented and steered jointly by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) at an estimated cost of Rs.4500 crore over a period of seven years.

Objectives

• To make India one of the world leaders in Supercomputing and to enhance India’s capability in solving grand challenge problems of national and global relevance
• To empower our scientists and researchers with state-of-the-art supercomputing facilities and enable them to carry out cutting-edge research in their respective domains
• To minimize redundancies and duplication of efforts, and optimize investments in supercomputing
• To attain global competitiveness and ensure self-reliance in the strategic area of supercomputing technology

Application areas

• Climate Modelling
• Weather Prediction
• Aerospace Engineering
• Computational Biology
• Molecular Dynamics
• Atomic Energy Simulations
• National Security/ Defence Applications
• Seismic Analysis
• Disaster Simulations and Management
• Computational Chemistry
• Computational Material Science and Nanomaterials
• Discoveries beyond Earth (Astrophysics)
• Large Complex Systems Simulations and Cyber Physical Systems
• Big Data Analytics
• Finance
• Information repositories/ Government Information Systems

2. National e-Governance Plan

• An initiative of the Government of India to make all Government services available to the citizens of India via electronic media
• It was formulated by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) and Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DAR&PG) to reduce government costs and allow citizen access to government services through Common Service Centres (CSC).
• It comprises of 27 Mission Mode Projects(MMP) and 10 program support components.

3. e-Kranti/National e-Governance Plan 2.0

• It is an important pillar of the Digital India programme.
• The vision of e-Kranti is “Transforming e-Governance for Transforming Governance”.
• The Mission of e-Kranti is to ensure a Government wide transformation by delivering all Government services electronically to citizens through integrated and interoperable systems via multiple modes, while ensuring efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs.

4. National Knowledge Network(NKN)

• It aims to bridge the gap between rural education, urban education, and International education by interconnecting all universities, government as well as private institutions of higher learning and research with a high-speed data communication network in the country.

Note4Students 

Question already asked in Mains. Could be asked again.

Watch this video if you want to understand the essence of Blockchain in a very non-technical way.

 

The more technical explanations are as follows –

Image Source

What is Blockchain Technology?

1. It is a decentralized digital ledger that records transactions on thousands of computers globally in such a way that the registered transactions cannot be altered retrospectively.
2. It is a secured way of conducting online transactions and its use removes the characteristic of infinite reproducibility from a digital asset.
3. In the case of cross-border remittances, its use enables instant transfer of money as against the current system that takes about a week for the same.

Application

1. It is the technology behind crypto-currencies, for example, Bitcoins.
2. *Each block comprises of a hash pointer that acts as a link to a previous block. Along with those it comprises of a timestamp and transaction data.
3. *Blockchains are resistant technologies to modification of the data.

What is Bitcoin? 

1. It is an electronic or digital currency that works on a peer-to-peer basis. It is decentralized and has no central authority controlling it.
2. Bitcoins can be sent digitally to anyone who has a bitcoin address anywhere in the globe. One person could have multiple addresses for different purposes – personal, business and the like.
3. A bitcoin is not printed currency but is a non-repudiable record of every transaction that it has been through. All this is part of a huge ledger called the blockchain.
4. Bitcoins are available in bitcoin exchanges. They can be purchased from other users. A bitcoin is generated when an entity, i.e. a person or a business, uses software power to solve a mathematical puzzle that makes the blockchain more secure. The difficulty level of solving the problem is high enough to ensure that it takes time to do it.

Advantage Associated with Bitcoin

 

Problems

1. Limitation of 21 M bitcoin currency that will last till 2040
2. It is possible to launder money and buy illegal products. Since Bitcoins can be spent on the Internet without the use of a bank account, they offer a convenient system for anonymous purchases.
3. Money laundering
4. No regulation
5. Possibility of  Hacking
6. Degree of acceptance – Many people are still unaware of Bitcoin.
7. Ongoing development – Bitcoin software is still in beta with many incomplete features in active development.
8. Volatility – The total value of bitcoins in circulation and the number of businesses using Bitcoin are still very small compared to what they could be. Therefore, relatively small events, trades, or business activities can significantly affect the price.

Question:

Q.) What do you understand by bitcoin’s ‘hard fork’? Is ‘hard fork’ a good development? Examine.

Note4Students

One of the most important topics both from the point of view of prelims and mains.

India envisages A Three Stage Programme based on the optimum utilisation of the indigenous limited uranium and abundant thorium resources.  It was formulated by Dr. Homi Bhabha in the 1950s to secure the country’s long term energy independence.

STAGE 1 » Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor

STAGE 2 » Fast Breeder Reactor

STAGE 3 » Breeder Reactor

Why the 3 stages?

Although we have around 25% of the world’s thorium reserves, it itself is not a fissile material. It needs to undergo transmutation to U-233 in a reactor fuelled by other fissile material.

The sequential 3-stage programme is based on a closed fuel cycle, where the spent fuel of one stage is reprocessed to produce fuel for the next stage.

The diagram below should explain that.

 

STAGE 1: PRESSURIZED HEAVY WATER REACTORS(PHWR)

• Natural Uranium is used as a fuel and heavy water as a coolant and moderator
• The 0.7% U-235 undergoes fission to release energy. As the remaining 99% U-238 is not fissionable, it undergoes transmutation and forms Plutonium-239(Pu-239).

Working of the reactor –

• The heat is removed from the reactor by water flowing in a closed pressurised loop
• The heat is transferred to a second water loop through a heat exchanger.
• The second loop is kept at a low pressure allowing the water to boil and create steam, that is used to turn the turbine-generator
• Then the steam is condensed into water and returned to the heat exchanger

VVER – Reactors 

Two Russian-built VVER-1000 reactors have been in commercial operation in Kudankulam, southern India, since 2014 and 2017 respectively.

 

STAGE 2: FAST BREEDER REACTORS(FBR)

• The reactor is fuelled by a mixed oxide of U-238 and Pu-239 which have been recovered by reprocessing the spent fuel in the first stage
• Pu-239 undergoes fission producing energy and more Pu-239 through the transmutation of U-238.

Working of the reactor – 

• Why fast? The neutrons are not slowed down. There is no need of a moderator
• Why breeder? More fissionable material(Plutonium) will be present after the reaction than what was present before the reaction. It breeds fissile material.
• In FBR, the fission chain reaction is sustained by fast moving neutrons.
• India and Russia are the only two countries that are constructing commercial scale breeder reactors.
• Solves 5 problems — safety, competitiveness, shortage of fuel, reprocessing and refabricating the used nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. Enforcing non-proliferation of fission materials and weapon technologies

MBIR Project

The multipurpose fast reactor project, known by the Russian acronym MBIR, is coming up at the International Research Centre in Dimitrovgrad located in the Ulyanovsk region in Russia.
It is a fast reactor project follows the closed fuel cycle.
Transitioning to closed fuel cycle which is based on fast neutron reactors can solve five essential problems:
safety, competitiveness, shortage of fuel, reprocessing and refabricating the used nuclear fuel and radioactive waste.
It also addresses the non-proliferation of fission materials and weapon technologies.

The main purpose of the MBIR is to conduct large no. of reactor studies of Generation-4 nuclear systems.
MBIR’s design includes three independent loops that can be used to test different coolants like gas, lead, molten salt and others.

 

STAGE 3: THORIUM BASED REACTORS

• It is based on the Thorium Uranium-233 Cycle.
• Naturally occurring Thorium-232 is not a fissile material. It needs to be converted to a fissile material, U-233, by transmutation in a FBR
• In the second stage, once sufficient Pu-239 is built up, Thorium-232 is introduced as a blanket material to be converted to Uranium-233.

KAMINI (Kalpakkam Mini reactor) in Kalpakkam is the world’s only thorium-based experimental reactor.  It achieved criticality on 1996. Designed and built jointly by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), it produces 30 KW[3] of thermal energy at full power.

 

Sites with Nuclear Power Plants

 

• As of 2017, India has 22 nuclear reactors in operation in 7 nuclear power plants with an installed capacity of 6780 MWe.
• With a total capacity of 1400 MWe, Tarapur is the largest nuclear power station in India
• Kundankulam Nuclear Power Station started its commercial operation in March 2017

 

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Department of Atomic Energy(DAE) 

• It is under the direct charge of the Prime Minister.
• Engaged in the development of nuclear power technology and applications of radiation technology.

Atomic Energy Commission(AEC)

• It is the governing body of the DAE.
• It organises and promotes atomic research and train atomic researcher in the country.
• It is the main policy making body.

International News

International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor(ITER)

• It is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering mega project which will be the world’s largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment
• What is Plasma Physics? It is the study of charged particles and fluids with interacting with self-consistent electric and magnetic fields
• It is being built next to the Cadarache facility in Southern France
• India is a part of ITER.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jMGpio5d7E

International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA)

• It seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and inhibit its use for any nuclear purpose, including nuclear weapons.
• HQ located in Vienna, Austria.
• India is a member of the IAEA.

Convention on Supplementary Compensation(CSC)

• It seeks to establish a uniform global regime for compensation to victims in the unlikely event of a nuclear accident.
• India has ratified the convention.