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  • Nikaalo Prelims Spotlight || Important Social Religious Reform Movements and Mass Movements

    Dear Aspirants,

    This Spotlight is a part of our Mission Nikaalo Prelims-2023.

    You can check the broad timetable of Nikaalo Prelims here

    Session Details

    YouTube LIVE with Parth sir – 1 PM  – Prelims Spotlight Session

    Evening 04 PM  – Daily Mini Tests

    Join our Official telegram channel for Study material and Daily Sessions Here

    5th Apr 2023

    Important Social Religious Reform Movements and Mass Movements

     
     

    (1) Raja Rammohan Roy and Brahmo Samaj

    • Raja Rammohan Roy (1772-1833) is often called the the ‘father of Indian Renaissance’ and the maker of Modern India.
    • His writings: Gift to Monotheists (1809) and translated the Vedas and the five Upanishads into Bengali to prove his conviction that ancient Hindu texts support monotheism.
    • In 1814, he set up the Atmiya Sabha in Calcutta to propagate the monotheistic ideals of the Vedanta and to campaign against idolatry, caste rigidities, meaningless rituals and other social ills.
    • Strongly influenced by rationalist ideas, he declared that Vedanta is based on reason and that, if reason demanded it, even a departure from the scriptures is justified.
    • In his Precepts of Jesus (1820), he tried to separate the moral and philosophical message of the New Testament, which he praised, from its miracle stories.
    • Raja Rammohan Roy founded the Brahmo Sabha in August 1828; it was later renamed Brahmo Samaj.
    • The Samaj was committed to – “the worship and adoration of the Eternal, Unsearchable, Immutable Being who is the Author and Preserver of the Universe”.
    • Forms of worship: Prayers, meditation and readings of the Upanishads and complete absence of graven image, statue or sculpture, carving, painting, picture, portrait, etc.,
    • Long-term agenda of the Brahmo Samaj – to purify Hinduism and to preach monotheism—was based on the twin pillars of reason and the Vedas and Upanishads.
    • The Samaj also tried to incorporate teachings of other religions and kept its emphasis on human dignity, opposition to idolatry and criticism of social evils such as sati.
    • Roy’s progressive ideas met with strong opposition from orthodox elements like Raja Radhakant Deb who organised the Dharma Sabha to counter Brahmo Samaj propaganda.

    Truth and Virtue do not necessarily belong to wealth and Power and distinctions of big mansions.

    – Raja Rammohan Roy

    Features of Brahmo Samaj

    • it denounced polytheism and idol worship;
    • it discarded faith in divine avataras (incarnations);
    • it denied that any scripture could enjoy the status of ultimate authority transcending human reason and conscience;
    • it took no definite stand on the doctrine of karma and transmigration of soul and left it to individual Brahmos to believe either way;
    • it criticized the caste system. His ideas and activities were also aimed at political uplift of the masses through social reform and, to that extent, can be said to have had nationalist undertones.

    Raja Rammohan Roy’s Efforts at Social Reform

    • He was a determined crusader against the inhuman practice of sati. He started his anti-sati struggle in 1818 and he cited sacred texts to prove his contention.
    • His efforts were rewarded by the Government Regulation in 1829 which declared the practice of sati a crime.
    • He condemned the general subjugation of women. He attacked polygamy and the degraded state of widows and demanded the right of inheritance and property for women.
    • He supported David Hare’s efforts to found the Hindu College in 1817, while Roy’s English school taught mechanics and Voltaire’s philosophy.
    • In 1825, he established a Vedanta college where courses in both Indian learning and Western social and physical sciences were offered.
    • He also helped enrich the Bengali language by compiling a Bengali grammar book and evolving a modern elegant prose style.
    • Rammohan was a gifted linguist. He knew more than a dozen languages including Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, English, French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
    • Roy brought out journals in Bengali, Hindi, English, Persian to educate and inform the public and represent their grievances before the government.
    • Roy condemned oppressive practices of Bengali zamindars and demanded fixation of maximum rents, abolition of taxes on tax-free lands, judicial equality between Indians and Europeans and that trial be held by jury.
    • He called for a reduction of export duties on Indian goods abroad and abolition of the East India Company’s trading rights, the Indianisation of superior services and separation of the executive from the judiciary.
    • Roy had David Hare, Alexander Duff, Debendranath Tagore, P.K. Tagore, Chandrashekhar Deb and Tarachand Chakraborty as his associates.

    Keshab Chandra Sen and the Brahmo Samaj

    • Keshab Chandra Sen (1838-1884) was made the acharya by Debendranath Tagore in 1858.
    • He was instrumental in popularizing the movement, and branches of the Samaj were opened outside Bengal—in the United Provinces, Punjab, Bombay, Madras and other towns.
    • Debendranath did not Sen’s radical ideas, such as cosmopolitanisation of the Samaj’s meetings by inclusion of teachings from all religions and his strong views against the caste system even open support to inter-caste marriages. Keshab Chandra Sen was dismissed from the office of acharya in 1865.
    • Keshab and his followers founded the Brahmo Samaj of India in 1866, while Debendranath Tagore’s Samaj came to be known as the Adi Brahmo Samaj.
    • After 1878, the disgusted followers of Keshab set up a new organisation, the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj. The Sadharan Brahmo Samaj was started by Ananda Mohan Bose, Shibchandra Deb and Umesh Chandra Datta.
    • It reiterated the Brahmo doctrines of faith in a Supreme being, one God, the belief that no scripture or man is infallible, belief in the dictates of reason, truth and morality. A number of Brahmo centres were opened in Madras province.
    • In Punjab, the Dayal Singh Trust opened of Dayal Singh College at Lahore in 1910 to implant Brahmo ideas.

    (2) Prarthana Samaj

    • In 1867, Keshab Chandra Sen helped Atmaram Pandurang found the Prarthana Samaj in Bombay.
    • A precursor of the Prarthana Samaj was the Paramahansa Sabha, something like a secret society to spread liberal ideas and encourage the breakdown of caste and communal barriers.
    • Mahadeo Govind Ranade (1842-1901), joined the samaj in 1870. Other leaders of the samaj were G. Bhandarkar (1837- 1925) and N.G. Chandavarkar (1855-1923).
    • The Prarthana Sabha was very attached to the bhakti cult of Maharashtra.
    • Four-point social agenda

    (i) disapproval of caste system,

    (ii) women’s education,

    (iii) widow remarriage, and

    (iv) raising the age of marriage for both males and females.

    • Dhondo Keshav Karve and Ranade founded the Widow Remarriage Movement as well as Widows’ Home Association with the aim of providing education and training to widows.

    (3) Young Bengal Movement and Henry Vivian Derozio

    • A young Anglo-Indian, Henry Vivian Derozio (1809-31), who taught at the Hindu College, was the leader and inspirer of the progressive, radical, intellectual trend among the youth in Bengal trend.
    • Derozio inspired his pupils to think freely and rationally, question all authority, love liberty, equality and freedom, and oppose decadent customs and traditions.
    • The Derozians also supported women’s rights and education. Also, Derozio was perhaps the first nationalist poet of modern India.
    • Derozio was removed from the Hindu College in 1831 because of his radicalism.
    • Reason for limited success – the prevailing social conditions at that time, which were not ripe for the adoption of radical ideas and no support from any other social group or class.
    • The Derozians lacked any real link with the masses; for instance, they failed to take up the peasants’ cause.
    • Demands: induction of Indians in higher grades of services, protection of ryots from oppressive zamindars, better treatment to Indian labor abroad in British colonies, revision of the Company’s charter, freedom of press and trial by jury.
    • Surendranath Banerjea described the Derozians as ‘the pioneers of the modern civilization of Bengal, the conscript fathers of our race whose virtues will excite veneration and whose failings will be treated with gentlest consideration’.

    (4) Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar

    • Vidyasagar’s ideas were a happy blend of Indian and Western thought. He believed in high moral values, was a deep humanist and was generous to the poor.
    • In 1850, he became the principal of Sanskrit College and opened the Sanskrit College to non-Brahmins.
    • Vidyasagar started a movement in support of widow remarriage which resulted in legalization of widow remarriage. He was also a crusader against child marriage and polygamy.
    • He did much for the cause of women’s education. As government inspector of schools, he helped organize thirty five girls’ schools many of which he ran at his own expense.
    • As secretary of Bethune School (established in 1849, Calcutta), he was one of the pioneers of higher education for women in India.

    (5) Balshastri Jambhekar

    • Balshastri Jambhekar (1812-1846) was a pioneer of social reform through journalism in Bombay; he attacked brahminical orthodoxy and tried to reform popular Hinduism.
    • Newspaper: Darpan (1832).
    • Known as the father of Marathi journalism. In 1840, he started Digdarshan which published articles on scientific subjects as well as history.
    • Jambhekar founded the Bombay Native General Library and started the Native Improvement Society of which an offshoot was the Students Literary and Scientific Library.
    • He was the first professor of Hindi at the Elphinston College, besides being a director of the Colaba Observatory.

    (6) Paramahansa Mandali

    • Founded in 1849 in Maharashtra as a secret society that worked to reform Hindu religion and society in general.
    • Founders – Dadoba Pandurang, Mehtaji Durgaram and others
    • The ideology of the society was closely linked to that of the Manav Dharma Sabha. The founders of the mandali were primarily interested in breaking caste rules.

    (7) Satyashodhak Samaj and Jyotiba or Jyotirao Phule

    • Jyotiba Phule (1827-1890), born in Satara, Maharashtra, belonged to the mali (gardener) community and organised a powerful movement against upper caste domination and brahminical supremacy.
    • Phule founded the Satyashodhak Samaj (Truth Seekers’ Society) in 1873, with the leadership of the samaj coming from the backward classes, malis, telis, kunbis, saris and dhangars.
    • Aim: (i) social service, and (ii) spread of education among women and lower caste people.
    • Books: Sarvajanik Satyadharma and Gulamgiri
    • Phule used the symbol of Rajah Bali as opposed to the brahmins’ symbol of Rama. Phule aimed at the complete abolition of the caste system and socio-economic inequalities; he was against Sanskritic Hinduism.
    • He was a firm believer in gender equality, was a pioneer in women’s education; he with the help of his wife, Savitribai, opened a girls’ school at Poona; he was a pioneer of widow remarriage movement in Maharashtra and also opened a home for widows in 1854.
    • Phule was awarded the title ‘Mahatma’ for his social reform work.

    Lack of education lead to lack of wisdom,  which leads to lack of morals, which leads to lack of progress, which leads to lack of money, which leads to the oppression of the lower classes. See what state of the society one lack of education can cause!

    – Mahatma Jyotirao Phule

    (8) Gopalhari Deshmukh ‘Lokahitawadi’

    • Gopalhari Deshmukh (1823-1892) was a social reformer and rationalist from Maharashtra.
    • He wrote for a weekly Prabhakar under the pen name of Lokahitawadi on social reform issues.
    • He said, “If religion does not sanction social reform, then change religion.”
    • He started a weekly, Hitechhu, and also played a leading role in founding the periodicals, Gyan Prakash, Indu Prakash and Lokahitawadi.

    (9) Gopal Ganesh Agarkar

    • Gopal Ganesh Agarkar (1856-1895) was an educationist and social reformer from Maharashtra. He criticized the blind dependence on tradition and false glorification of the past.
    • He was also the first editor of Kesari, the journal started by Lokmanya Tilak.
    • Periodical: Sudharak, which spoke against untouchability and the caste system.

    (10) The Servants of India Society

    • Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915), a liberal leader of the Indian National Congress, founded the Servants of India Society in 1905 with the help of G. Ranade.
    • Aim: to train national missionaries for the service of India; to promote, by all constitutional means, the true interests of the Indian people; and to prepare a cadre of selfless workers who were to devote their lives to the cause of the country in a religious spirit.
    • In 1911, the Hitavada began to be published to project the views of the society. After Gokhale’s death (1915), Srinivasa Shastri took over as president.

    (11) Social Service League

    • Founder: Narayan Malhar Joshi (Bombay)
    • Aim: to secure for the masses better and reasonable conditions of life and work
    • Joshi also founded the All India Trade Union Congress (1920).

    (12) The Ramakrishna Movement and Swami Vivekananda

    • The teachings of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836- 1886) found many followers on the outskirts of Calcutta.
    • Objectives of the Ramakrishna movement:

    (i) to bring into existence a band of monks dedicated to a life of renunciation and practical spirituality, from among whom teachers and workers would be sent out to spread the universal message of Vedanta

    (ii) lay disciples to carry on preaching, philanthropic and charitable works, looking upon all men, women and children, irrespective of caste, creed or color, as veritable manifestations of the Divine.

    • Paramahamsa laid the foundations of the Ramakrishna Math as a nucleus to fulfill the first objective.
    • The second objective was taken up by Swami Vivekananda after Ramakrishna’s death when he founded the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897 (headquarters at Belur near Calcutta).
    • He used to say, ‘Service of man is the service of God.’

    Swami Vivekananda

    • Narendranath Datta (1862-1902), who later came to be known as Swami Vivekananda emerged as the preacher of neo-Hinduism.
    • Certain spiritual experiences of Ramakrishna, the teachings of the Upanishads and the Gita and the examples of the Buddha and Jesus are the basis of Vivekananda’s message to the world about human values.
    • Mission: to bridge the gulf between paramartha (service) and vyavahara (behaviour), and between spirituality and day-to-day life.
    • Vivekananda believed in the fundamental oneness of God and said, ‘For our own motherland a junction of the two great systems, Hinduism and Islam, is the only hope.’
    • He pointed out that the masses needed two kinds of knowledge – secular knowledge about how to work for their economic uplift and the spiritual knowledge to have faith in themselves and strengthen their moral sense.
    • At the Parliament of Religions held at Chicago in 1893, he envisaged a new culture for the whole world and called for a blend of the materialism of the West and the spiritualism of the East into a new harmony to produce happiness for mankind.
    • Vivekananda advocated the doctrine of service—the service of all beings.

    Forget not that the lower classes, the ignorant, the poor, the illiterate, the cobbler, the sweeper are thy flesh and blood, thy brothers.

    – Swami Vivekanand

    (13) Dayananda Saraswati and Arya Samaj

    • The Arya Samaj Movement, revivalist in form though not in content, was the result of a reaction to Western influences.
    • Its founder, Dayananda Saraswati or Mulshankar (1824-1883) has wandered as an ascetic for fifteen years in search of truth. The first Arya Samaj unit was formally set up by him at Bombay in 1875 and later the headquarters of the Samaj were established at Lahore.
    • Book: Satyarth Prakash (The True Exposition). He took inspiration from the Vedas and considered them to be ‘India’s Rock of Ages’, the infallible and the true original seed of Hinduism.
    • He gave the slogan “Back to the Vedas”. He criticised later Hindu scriptures such as the Puranas and the ignorant priests for perverting Hinduism.
    • Swami Dayananda once lamented the Hindu race as ‘the children of children’.
    • He strongly criticized the escapist Hindu belief in maya (illusion) and the aim of human life as a struggle to attain moksha (salvation).
    • Instead, he advocated that God, soul and matter (prakriti) were distinct and eternal entities and every individual had to work out his own salvation in the light of the eternal principles governing human conduct.
    • The Arya Samaj fixed the minimum marriageable age at twenty-five years for boys and sixteen years for girls.
    • The ten guiding principles of the Arya Samaj are – (i) God is the primary source of all true knowledge; (ii) God, as all-truth, all-knowledge, almighty, immortal, creator of Universe, is alone worthy of worship; (iii) the Vedas are the books of true knowledge; (iv) an Arya should always be ready to accept truth and abandon untruth; (v) dharma, that is, due consideration of right and wrong, should be the guiding principle of all actions; (vi) the principal aim of the Samaj is to promote world’s well-being in the material, spiritual and social sense; (vii) everybody should be treated with love and justice; (viii) ignorance is to be dispelled and knowledge increased; (ix) one’s own progress should depend on uplift of all others; (x) social well-being of mankind is to be placed above an individual’s well-being.
    • The Dayananda AngloVedic (D.A.V.) College was established in 1886 at Lahore. The work of the Swami was carried forward by Lala Hansraj, Pandit Gurudutt, Lala Lajpat Rai and Swami Shraddhanand.

    (14) Seva Sadan

    • A Parsi social reformer, Behramji M. Malabari (1853- 1912), founded the Seva Sadan in 1908 along with a friend, Diwan Dayaram Gidumal.
    • It was his efforts that led to the Age of Consent Act regulating the age of consent for females. Seva Sadan specialised in taking care of those women who were exploited and then discarded by society.

    (15) Dev Samaj

    • Founded in 1887 at Lahore by Shiv Narayan Agnihotri (1850- 1927).
    • Its teachings were compiled in a book, Deva Shastra. Agnihotri spoke against child marriage.

    (16) Dharma Sabha

    • Radhakant Deb founded this sabha in 1830. An orthodox society, it stood for the preservation of the status quo in socio-religious matters, opposing even the abolition of sati.

    (17) Bharat Dharma Mahamandala

    • Other organizations created to defend orthodox Hinduism were the Sanatana Dharma Sabha (1895), the Dharma Maha Parishad in South India, and Dharma Mahamandali in Bengal.
    • These organizations combined in 1902 to form the single organisation of Bharat Dharma Mahamandala, with headquarters at Varanasi.
    • This organization sought to introduce proper management of Hindu religious institutions, open Hindu educational institutions, etc. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya was a prominent figure in this

     (18) Radhaswami Movement

    • Tulsi Ram known as Shiv Dayal Saheb, founded this movement in 1861. The Radhaswamis believe in one supreme being, supremacy of the guru, a company of pious people (satsang), and a simple social life.

    (19) Sree Narayana Guru Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Movement

    • The SNDP movement was an example of a regional movement born out of conflict between the depressed classes and upper castes.
    • It was started by Sree Narayana Guru Swamy (1856- 1928) among the Ezhavas of Kerala. The Ezhavas were the single largest caste group in Kerala constituting 26 per cent of the total population.
    • Narayana Guru, took a stone from the Neyyar river and installed it as a Sivalinga at Aruvippuram on Sivaratri in 1888.
    • The movement (Aruvippuram movement) drew the famous poet Kumaran Asan as a disciple of Narayana Guru.
    • In 1889, the Aruvippuram Kshetra Yogam was formed. Thus the Aruvippuram Sree Narayana Guru Dharma Paripalana Yogam (in short SNDP) was registered in 1903 under the Indian Companies Act.
    • Sree Narayana Guru held all religions to be the same and condemned animal sacrifice besides speaking against divisiveness on the basis of caste, race or creed.
    • The SNDP Yogam took up several issues for the Ezhavas, such as (i) right of admission to public schools, (ii) recruitment to government services, (iii) access to roads and entry to temples, and (iv) political representation.
    • The movement as a whole brought transformative structural changes such as upward social mobility, shift in traditional distribution of power and a federation of ‘backward castes’ into a large conglomeration.

    (20) Vokkaliga Sangha

    • The Vokkaliga Sangha in Mysore launched an anti-brahmin movement in 1905.

    (21) Justice Movement

    • Started by – N. Mudaliar, T.M. Nair and P. Tyagaraja to secure jobs and representation for the non-Brahmins in the legislature.
    • In 1917, Madras Presidency Association was formed which demanded separate representation for the lower castes in the legislature.

    (22) Self-Respect Movement

    • This movement was started by V. Ramaswamy Naicker in the mid-1920s.
    • Aim: rejection of the brahminical religion and culture which Naicker felt was the prime instrument of exploitation of the lower castes

    (23) Temple Entry Movement

    • K. Madhavan, a prominent social reformer and editor of Deshabhimani, took up the issue of temple entry with the Travancore administration. Vaikom became a centre of agitation for temple entry.
    • In 1924, the Vaikom Satyagraha led by P. Kesava, was launched in Kerala demanding the throwing open of Hindu temples and roads to the untouchables. Gandhi undertook a tour of Kerala in support of the movement.
    • Again in 1931 when the Civil Disobedience Movement was suspended, temple entry movement was organized in Kerala.
    • On November 12, 1936, the Maharaja of Travancore issued proclamation throwing open all government-controlled temples to all Hindus.
    • A similar step was taken by the Rajagopalachari administration in Madras in 1938.

    (24) Indian Social Conference

    • Founded by – M.G. Ranade and Raghunath Rao
    • It could be called the social reform cell of the Indian National Congress.
    • The conference advocated inter-caste marriages, opposed polygamy and kulinism. It launched the ‘Pledge Movement’ to inspire people to take a pledge against child marriage.

    (25) Wahabi/Walliullah Movement

    • The teachings of Abdul Wahab of Arabia and the preaching of Shah Walliullah (1702-1763) inspired this essentially revivalist response to Western influences.
    • The degeneration which had set in among Indian Muslims called for a return to the true spirit of Islam.
    • Two-fold ideals of this movement:

    (i) desirability of harmony among the four schools of Muslim jurisprudence which had divided the Indian Muslims (he sought to integrate the best elements of the four schools);

    (ii) recognition of the role of individual conscience in religion where conflicting interpretations were derived from the Quran and the Hadis

    • The Wahabi Movement fizzled out in the face of British military might in the 1870s.

    (26) Titu Mir‘s Movement

    • Mir Nithar Ali, popularly known as Titu Mir, was a disciple of Sayyid Ahmed Barelvi, the founder of the Wahabi
    • Titu Mir adopted Wahabism and advocated the Sharia. He organised the Muslim peasants of Bengal against the landlords, who were mosly Hindu, and the British indigo planters.

    (27) Faraizi Movement

    • The movement, also called the Fara’idi Movement because of its emphasis on the Islamic pillars of faith, was founded by Haji Shariatullah in 1818.
    • The movement survived merely as a religious movement without political overtones after the death of Dudu Mian in 1862.

    (28) Ahmadiyya Movement

    • The Ahmadiyya forms a sect of Islam which originated from India.
    • Founded by – Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in 1889.
    • It was based on liberal principles. It described itself as the standard-bearer of Mohammedan Renaissance, and based itself, like the Brahmo Samaj, on the principles of universal religion of all humanity, opposing jihad.
    • The Ahmadiyya community is the only Islamic sect to believe that the Messiah had come in the person of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to end religious wars and bloodshed and to reinstate morality, peace and justice.
    • They believed in separating the mosque from the State as well as in human rights and tolerance.

    (29) Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and the Aligarh Movement

    • A section of Muslims led by Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-1898) was ready to allow the British patronage to stimulate a process of growth among Indian Muslims through better education and employment opportunities.
    • Syed Ahmed Khan was a member of the judicial service of the British government. After retirement, he became a member of the Imperial Legislative Council in 1878. His loyalty earned him a knighthood in 1888.
    • He wanted to reconcile Western scientific education with the teachings of the Quran. He advocated a critical approach and freedom of thought and not complete dependence on tradition or custom.
    • He opened schools in towns, got books translated into Urdu and started the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College (the Aligarh Muslim University) at Aligarh in 1875.
    • Magazine: Tahdhib-ul-Akhlaq (Improvement of Manners and Morals)
    • Aim: (i) modern education among Indian Muslims without weakening their allegiance to Islam; (ii) social reforms among Muslims relating to purdah, polygamy, widow remarriage, women’s education, slavery, divorce,

    (30) The Deoband School (Darul Uloom)

    • The Deoband Movement was organized by the orthodox section among the Muslim ulema.
    • The Deoband Movement was begun at the Darul Uloom (or Islamic academic centre), Deoband, in Saharanpur district (United Provinces) in 1866 by Mohammad Qasim Nanotavi (1832-80) and Rashid Ahmed Gangohi (1828-1905) to train religious leaders for the Muslim community.
    • Aim: moral and religious regeneration of the Muslim community
    • Deoband school welcomed the formation of the Indian National Congress.
    • Mahmud-ul-Hasan gave a political and intellectual content to the religious ideas of the school. He worked out a synthesis of Islamic principles and nationalist aspirations.
    • Shibli Numani favoured the inclusion of English language and European sciences in the system of education. He founded the Nadwatal Ulama and Darul Uloom in Lucknow in 1894-96.
    • He believed in the idealism of the Congress and cooperation between the Muslims and the Hindus of India to create a state in which both could live amicably.

    (31) Parsi Reform Movements

    • The Rahnumai Mazdayasnan Sabha (Religious Reform Association) was founded in 1851 by a group of English educated Parsis for the “regeneration of the social conditions of the Parsis and the restoration of the Zoroastrian religion to its pristine purity”.
    • The movement had Naoroji Furdonji, Dadabhai Naoroji, R. Cama and S.S. Bengalee as its leaders. The message of reform was spread by the newspaper Rast Goftar (Truth-Teller).
    • Aim: to uplift the status of Parsi women through removal of the purdah system, raising the age of marriage and education. Gradually, the Parsis emerged as the most westernized section of the Indian society.

    (32) Sikh Reform Movements

    • The Singh Sabha Movement was founded at Amritsar in 1873.
    • Two-fold objective: (i) to make available modern western education to the Sikhs, and (ii) to counter the proselytizing activities of Christian missionaries as well as the Brahmo Samajists, Arya Samajists and Muslim maulvis
    • The Akali movement (also known as Gurudwara Reform Movement) was an offshoot of the Singh Sabha Movement. It aimed at liberating the Sikh gurudwaras from the control of corrupt Udasi mahants.
    • The government tried its repressive policies against the non-violent non-cooperation satyagraha launched by the Akalis in 1921, but had to bow before popular demands;
    • It passed the Sikh Gurudwaras Act in 1922 (amended in 1925) which gave the control of gurudwaras to the Sikh masses to be administered through Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) as the apex body.

    (33) The Theosophical Movement

    • A group of westerners led by Madame H.P. Blavatsky (1831- 1891) and Colonel M.S. Olcott, who were inspired by Indian thought and culture, founded the Theosophical Society in New York in 1875.
    • In 1882, they shifted their headquarters to Adyar, on the outskirts of Madras in India. The society believed that a special relationship could be established between a person’s soul and God
    • In India, the movement became somewhat popular with the election of Annie Besant (1847-1933) as its president after the death of Olcott in 1907.
    • She laid the foundation of the Central Hindu College in Benaras in 1898. The college became the nucleus for the formation of Benaras Hindu University in 1916.

    Significance of Reform Movements

    Positive Aspects

    • Liberation of the individual from the conformity born out of fear and from uncritical submission to exploitation by the priests and other classes.
    • The translation of religious texts into vernacular languages, emphasis on an individual’s right to interpret the scriptures and simplification of rituals made worship a more personal experience.
    • The reform movements gave the rising middle classes the much needed cultural roots to cling to, and served the purpose of reducing the sense of humiliation which the conquest by a foreign power had produced.
    • A realization of the special needs of modern times, especially in terms of scientific knowledge, and thus promoting a modern, this-worldly, secular and rational outlook.
    • Socially, this attitude reflected in a basic change in the notions of ‘pollution and purity’ and aimed at modernization rather than outright westernization based on blind imitation of alien Western cultural values.
    • Ended India’s cultural and intellectual isolation from the rest of the world.

    Negative Aspects

    • They had a narrow social base, namely the educated and urban middle classes, while the needs of the vast masses of peasantry and the urban poor were ignored.
    • The tendency of reformers to appeal to the greatness of the past and to rely on scriptural authority encouraged mysticism and fostered pseudo-scientific thinking.
    • Insufficient emphasis on other aspects of culture—art, architecture, literature, music, science and technology.
    • Compartmentalizing Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Parsis and also alienating high caste Hindus from low caste Hindus.
    • Rise of another form of consciousness – communal consciousness – along with national consciousness among the middle classes.

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  • [Sansad TV] Perspective: Concerns over Dam Safety

    [Sansad TV] Perspective: Concerns over Dam Safety

    Context

    • A parliamentary panel has expressed concerns over the safety of ageing dams in India.
    • The Standing Committee on water resources, in its 20th report, has raised the issue of safety risks posed by more than 200 dams in the country.

    Central idea

    • Citing the National Register of Large Dams 2019, the panel says there are 234 large dams in India which are 100 years old – and still functional.
    • Dams are normally designed for approximately 100 years of useful age.
    • Their functional life gets decreased with progressive reservoir sedimentation concurrently reducing project benefits – is what has been submitted by the parliamentary panel in its report.

    Ageing Dams of India

    • India has 4,407 large dams, the third highest number in the world after China (23,841) and the USA (9,263).
    • Over 1,115 large dams will be about 50 years old by 2025.
    • In less than 30 years, by 2050, over 4,250 large dams would pass 50 years of age, with 64 large dams being 150 years old, cited a 2019 paper published in the Economic & Political Weekly.
    dam

    Why discuss Dams?

    • Cost overruns: The construction of dams can be expensive, and cost overruns are common. This can lead to delays in construction, reduced funding for other projects, and higher costs for consumers.
    • Environmental damage: Dams can cause significant environmental damage, such as altering the natural flow of rivers and altering habitats for fish and wildlife. The creation of reservoirs can also lead to the loss of forests and other important ecosystems.
    • Water scarcity: While dams can provide a source of water for irrigation, drinking, and other purposes, they can also lead to water scarcity downstream. The reduced flow of water can affect agriculture and the livelihoods of those who rely on rivers for their water supply.
    • Seismic activity: The construction of large dams can sometimes trigger seismic activity in the surrounding area. This can lead to landslides and other types of damage.

    Social Impacts of Dams

    • Displacement: Dams often result in the displacement of people living in the area. The displaced people are forced to leave their homes and land, which disrupts their livelihoods and cultural practices.
    • Dismay over resettlement: This is often promised as a means to compensate for displacement, is not always met.
    • Cultural loss: The construction of dams often involves flooding of large areas, which can lead to the loss of cultural heritage sites and artifacts.  
    • Environmental Impacts: Dams can have a range of environmental impacts, such as altering the natural flow of rivers, disrupting the habitats of aquatic species, and changing the water temperature and chemistry.  
    • Economic Impacts: There may also be a loss of economic opportunities due to the displacement of people and disruption of traditional livelihoods.
    • Health Impacts: These may include the spread of waterborne diseases due to changes in water quality, increased incidence of malaria due to the creation of stagnant water, and respiratory illnesses etc.

    Woes of Ageing Dams

    (1) Faster Rate of Storage Loss

    • As dams age, soil replaces the water in the reservoirs, causing the storage capacity to decrease.
    • In India, the storage space in reservoirs is receding at a faster rate than anticipated, with some reservoirs expected to become extinct in a few decades.
    • The iconic Bhakra dam’s siltation rate is 139.86% higher than originally assumed, causing it to function for only 47 years instead of the estimated 88 years.

    (2) Impact of Climate Change

    • The increasing frequency and severity of flooding and other extreme environmental events can overwhelm a dam’s design limits and accelerate the ageing process.
    • For example, development of crack on empty dams’ wall.

    (3) Structurally vulnerable dams

    • Most Indian reservoirs are designed with a poor understanding of sedimentation science, which can make them structurally weak over time.
    • Large storage structures, whether concrete, masonry, or earth, can become vulnerable with age.

    (4) Lack of storage information

    • The loss of large dams’ storage capacity over time is part of the ageing process. Sort of river rejuvenation also changes the dam topography.
    • However, this information continues to be sporadically documented in India, which makes it a blind spot in terms of understanding the water crisis in the country.

    Issues related to Ageing Dams

    • Decreasing Storage Capacity: As dams age, soil replaces the water in the reservoirs, leading to decreased storage capacity over time. This is a common problem faced by dams all over the world. In the case of Indian reservoirs, the storage space is receding at a rate faster than anticipated.  
    • Design flaws: Many of India’s reservoirs are designed with a poor understanding of sedimentation science, leading to flawed designs. The designs underestimate the rate of siltation and overestimate the live storage capacity created.
    • High Siltation Rates: High siltation rates refer to both the increased concentration of suspended sediments and the increased accumulation of fine sediments on bottoms where they are undesirable. This leads to the reduction of the storage capacity of the reservoirs and can have a detrimental effect on the functioning of the dam.

    Consequences of Ageing Dams

    The ageing of dams can have a significant impact on various aspects of life, including food security, farmers’ income, and increased flooding.

    • Impact on food Security: As soil replaces the water in reservoirs, the supply gets choked, leading to less and less water for cropped areas. This can cause the net sown water area to either shrink in size or depend on rains or over-exploited groundwater, which can have an impact on food security.
    • Impact on farmers’ Income: As crop yields may get affected severely, this can disrupt the farmer’s income. Water is a crucial factor for crop yield and credit, crop insurance, and investment. Therefore, the ageing of dams can have a significant impact on the livelihoods of farmers.
    • Increased flooding: The flawed siltation rates reinforce the argument that the designed flood cushion within several reservoirs across many river basins may have already depleted substantially. This has led to floods becoming more frequent downstream of dams.  

    Policy measures so far

    (1) Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project (DRIP)

    • The DRIP was initiated in April 2012 to improve the safety and operational performance of selected existing dams along with dam safety institutional strengthening with a system-wide management approach.
    • Financial assistance for DRIP was provided by the World Bank. The budget outlay for DRIP is Rs 10,211 Cr, which includes rehabilitation provisions for 736 dams.
    • The project is being implemented in three phases with a budget outlay of Rs 5,107 Cr each for Phase II and III.

    (2) Dam Safety Act 2021

    • The Dam Safety Act 2021 is a significant step taken by the government towards ensuring the safe functioning of all specified dams in the country.
    • The act provides for proper surveillance, inspection, operation, and maintenance of dams to ensure their safe functioning.
    • It also includes the establishment of the National Dam Safety Authority as a regulatory body and the constitution of a State Committee on Dam Safety by the State Government.

    Way forward

    • Timely reviews: Review dams that have reached 50-60 years of age to assess their safety and take an informed decision.
    • Decommissioning: This should be given equal importance as dam building in water storage infrastructure development. Projects that pose serious safety risks should be listed and decommissioned in a phased manner.
    • Accountability and Transparency: Ensure accountability and transparency while taking into consideration the views of downstream communities, the most at-risk group in case of a breach.
    • Operational safety and drills: Update the rule curve, which decides how a dam should be operated, at regular intervals based on environmental changes like siltation and rainfall patterns that would change the frequency and intensity of incoming floods and the spillway capacity.
    • Cumulative Assessment: Conduct a cumulative assessment of every upstream and downstream dam to ensure dam safety in terms of operations. 

    Some major dams in India

    Dam nameRiverStateType of DamHeight (m)Length (m)
    Tehri DamBhagirathiUttarakhandEarth and rockfill260575
    Sardar Sarovar DamNarmadaGujaratConcrete gravity1631210
    Bhakra DamSutlejHimachal PradeshConcrete gravity225520
    Hirakud DamMahanadiOdishaEarthfill6125,800
    Nagarjuna Sagar DamKrishnaAndhra PradeshMasonry gravity1241,550
    Indira Sagar DamNarmadaMadhya PradeshConcrete gravity92653
    Mettur DamKaveriTamil NaduMasonry gravity1201,700
    Godavari Bridge DamGodavariMaharashtraEarthfall472,300
    Idukki DamPeriyarKeralaArch168550
    Mullaperiyar DamPeriyarKeralaMasonry gravity53365

  • Nikaalo Prelims Spotlight || Important Viceroys and Governor Generals, Important Personalities, Constitutional Developments under British and British Administrative Measures

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    Constitutional Developments under British Rule and British Administrative Measures

    In India, the British Government passed various laws and acts before the formulation of the constitution. The Regulating Act of 1773 was enacted as a first step to regulate the working of East India Company. However, the Indian Independence Act, 1947 finally ended the British rule in India and declared India as an independent and sovereign nation with effect from August 15, 1947.

    The Regulating Act of 1773

    • The Regulating Act of 1773 was enacted as a first step to regulate the working of East India Company
    • The Gov of Bengal was made Gov General of Bengal. He was assisted by 4 people. This 4+1 becomes became Supreme Council of Bengal also known as the GG’s Exec Council.
    • A Supreme Court was established in Bengal comprising of a chief justice and three other judges

    Pitts’s India Act, 1784

    • We see a shrinking of the Council from 4 members to 3 members. Hence 3+1 is the renewed GG’s Executive Council.
    • Board of control was established to control the civil, military and revenue affairs of the company
    • The Court of Proprietors was no more empowered to revoke or suspend the resolution of the directors approved by the Board of Control.

    Charter Act of 1833

    • The Governor-General of Bengal was made the Governor-General of India. The first Governor-General of India was William Bentinck.
    • He was given legislative powers over entire India including the Governors of Bombay and Madras.
    • The company lost the status of a commercial body and was made purely an administrative body.
    • This Act. was the first law to distinguish between the executive and legislative powers of the Gov General.
    • A 4th member was introduced who could only discuss and vote only on the legislative matter.
    • Council of India = [(3+1) +  1(4th member also called the Law Member)]
    • The first such Law Member was Macaulay. This Council of India was, to a certain extent, the Legislature. Strength of the Executive remained 3+1 .

    Charter Act of 1853

    • From here on, we see a gradual increase in the membership of the Council and further separation of powers.
    • Access to compete in civil services for Indians.
    • It brought out the separation in the legislative and executive functions of the Governor-General’s council.
    • The 4th member (Law Member)was included as a full-time Member in the GG’s Executive Council. His position was taken by 6 Members referred to as Legislative Councillors.
    • Council of India = [(4+1) + 6(Legislative Councillors) + 1 Commander-in-Chief]
    • 6 Councillors were,
      1. 1 Chief Judge of SC of Calcutta.
      2. 1 Judge of SC of Calcutta
      3. 4 members of the ICS

    Government of India Act, 1858

    • India was to be governed by and in the name of the crown through Viceroy, who would be the representative of the crown in India.
    • The designation of Governor-General of India was changed to Viceroy. Thus, Governor-General Lord Canning became the first Viceroy of India
    • Board of Control and Board of directors were abolished transferring all their powers to British Crown
    • A new office ‘secretary of state was created with a 15 member council of India to assist him. Indian Councils Act, 1861
    • The major focus of the act was on administration in India. It was the first step to associate Indians to legislation.
    • The act provided that the viceroy should nominate some Indians as non-official members in the legislative council.
    • The legislative powers of Madras and Bombay presidencies were restored.
      It provided for the establishment of legislative councils for Bengal, North-Western Frontier Province (NWFP) and Punjab.
    • Viceroy was empowered to issue ordinances during an emergency without the concurrence of the legislative council.

    Indian Councils Act of 1861

    • After 1861, the Council was called Imperial Legislative Council(ILC) or Indian Legislative Council(ILC). The Executive was further enhanced by 1 member.
    • The Viceroy now had the power to Nominate 6 – 12 Non-Official members in the Legislature who would be holding the office for 2 years.
    • ILC = [(5+1) + (Additional Members -> Minimum 6, Maximum 12)]
    • The composition of Additional Members was as follows:
      1. 50% Nominated Official Members
      2. 50% Nominated Non-Official Members
    • The Act thus sowed the seed for the future Legislative as an independent entity separate from the Executive Council.

    Indian Councils Act of 1892 

    • Due to the excessive demand of the Congress, the Additional Members were increased. Additional Members -> Minimum 10, Maximum 12.
    • ILC = [(5+1) + (Additional Members -> Minimum 10, Maximum 16)]

    The composition of Additional Members was as follows:

    • Nominated official members (those nominated by the Governor-General and were government officials)
    • 5 Nominated Non-Officials (nominated by the Governor-General but were not government officials)
    • 4 Nominated by the Provincial Legislative Councils of Bengal Presidency, Bombay Presidency, Madras Presidency and North-Western Provinces.
    • 1 Nominated by the Chamber of Commerce in Calcutta.

    Indian Councils Act of 1909: The Morley-Minto reforms

    • It introduced for the first time the method of election.
    • The additional members of the Governor-General Council were increased from 16 to a maximum of 60.
    • The composition of Additional Members was as follows:
      1. Nominated official members (those nominated by the Governor-General and were government officials)
      2. Nominated non-official members (nominated by the Governor-General but were not government officials)
      3. Elected Members (elected by different categories of Indian people)
    • It provided for the association of Indians in the executive council of the Viceroy and Governors. Satyendra Prasad Sinha joined the Viceroy’s executive council as a law member.
    • It introduced Separate Electorate for Muslims.

    Indian Councils Act of 1919: The Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms

    • Central Legislature thereafter called the Indian Legislature was reconstituted on the enlarged and more representative character.
    • The act set up bicameral legislatures at the centre consisting of two houses- the Council of the States (Upper House) and the Central Legislative Assembly (Lower House).
    • It consisted of the Council of State consisted of 60 members of whom 34 members were elected and the Legislative Assembly consisted of about 145 members, of whom about 104 were elected and the rest nominated.
    • Of the nominated members, about 26 were officials.  The powers of both the Chambers of the Indian Legislature were identical except that the power to vote supply was granted only to the Legislative Assembly.
    • The central and provincial subjects were demarcated and separated.
    • The Provincial subjects were further divided into Transferred Subjects and Reserved Subjects, the legislative council had no say in the latter. This was known as the system of Diarchy.
    • The principle of separate electorate was further extended to Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans.
    • It provided for the appointment of a statutory commission to report the working of the act after ten years

    The Government of India Act 1935

    • It marked the next great stride in the evolution of the Legislatures.
    • The Federal Legislature was to consist of two Houses, the House of Assembly called the Federal  Assembly and the Council of States.
    • The Federal Assembly was to consist of 375 members, 250 to represent Provinces and 125 to represent the Indian States, nominated by the Rulers.
    • The representatives of the Provinces were to be elected not directly but indirectly by the Provincial Assemblies.
    • The term of the Assembly was fixed as five years.
    • The Council of State was to be a permanent body not subject to dissolution, but one-third of the members should retire every three years.
    • It was to consist of 260 members.  104 representatives of Indian States, six to be nominated by the Governor-General, 128 to be directly elected by territorial communal constituencies and 22 to be set apart for smaller minorities, women and depressed classes.
    • The two Houses had in general equal powers but demands for supply votes and financial Bills were to originate in the Assembly.
    • The principle of Separate Electorate was extended to depressed classes, women and workers.
    • Provided for the formation of Reserve bank of India

    Indian Independence Act, 1947

    • The act formalized the Lord Mountbatten Plan regarding the independence of India on June 3, 1947.
    • The Act ended the British rule in India and declared India as an independent and sovereign nation with effect from August 15, 1947.
    • Provided for the partition of India into two dominions of India and Pakistan
    • The office of Viceroy was abolished and a Governor-General was to be appointed in each of the dominions
    • The Constituent Assemblies of the two dominions were to have powers to legislate for their respective territories.
    • Princely states were free to join any of the two dominions or to remain independent.

      Important Viceroys and Governor Generals

    • With almost absolute power the Governor-General and viceroy played a significant role in the shaping history of the country. Following are some of these important figures and significant events and major reforms carried out by them.

       Governor Generals of Bengal/India (Period)

      		   Important events/Reforms

          Warren Hastings

           (1773-1785)
      • Regulating Act of 1773.
      • First Governor-General of Bengal.
      • End of the dual system of administration (1765-1772).
      • Supreme Court at Calcutta.
      • Wrote Introduction to the first English translation of Gita.
      • Founded Madarasa Aliya at Calcutta.

           Lord Cornwallis

           (1786-1793)
      • Separation of three branches of service: commercial, judicial and revenue.
      • Permanent Land Revenue Settlement of Bengal-1793.
      • Reformed, modernised and rationalised the civil service.
      • Introduced the Cornwallis Code.
      • Sanskrit College, Varanasi.

           Lord Wellesley

           (1797-1805)
      • Introduction of Subsidiary Alliance System.
      • Fourth Anglo-Mysore war.
      • Fort William College, Calcutta.

           Lord Hastings

           (1813-1823)
      • Anglo-Nepal War (1814-16)
      • Third Anglo-Maratha War-(1817-19) and dissolution of Maratha confederacy.
      • Introduction of Ryotwari System of Thomas Munro, Governor of Madras-1820.

           Lord William Bentinck

           (1828-1835)
      • Charter Act of 1833.
      • Abolition of Sati-1829.
      • Resolution of 1835 and Education reforms and introduction of English as the official language.
      • The annexation of Mysore-1831, Coorg, and Central Cachar-1831.

           Lord Dalhousie

           (1848-1856)
      • Introduction of the Doctrine of Lapse and annexations of Satara-1848, Jaitpur and Sambhalpur-1849, Udaipur-1852, Jhansi-1853, Nagpur-1854 and Awadh-1856.
      • Wood’s Dispatch of 1854.
      • Railway Minute of 1853.
      • Telegraph and Postal reforms.
      • Widow Remarriage Act-1856.

           Lord Canning

           (1856-1857)
      • Establishment of universities at Bombay, Madras and Calcutta.
      • Mutiny of 1857.
      Governor-General and Viceroy of India (Period)                                Important events/Reforms
       Lord Canning

      (1858-1862)
      • First Voiceroy of India.
      • Transfer of control from East India Company to the Crown by the Government of India Act 1858
      • Indian Councils Act-1861

           Lord Mayo

           (1869-1872)
      • Opening of Rajkot College in Kathiawad and Mayo College at Ajmer for political training of Indian Princes.
      • Statistical Survey of India was established.
      • Department of Agriculture and Commerce was established.
      • Introduction of state railways.

           Lord Lytton

           (1876-1880)
      • The Great Famine of 1876 affecting Bombay, Madras, Mysore, Hyderabad, Central India and Punjab.
      • Appointment of Famine Commission under the presidency of Richard Strachey.
      • Vernacular Press Act was passed- 1878.
      • The Arms Act-1878.

           Lord Ripon

           (1880-1884)
      • Education Commission 1882 under William Hunter-1882.
      • Ilbert Bill controversy.
      • Repeal of Vernacular Press Act in 1882.
      • The First Factory Act in 1881 to improve labour conditions.
      • Government resolution on local self government-1882.

           Lord Dufferin

           (1884-1888)
      • Establishment of Indian National Congress.

           Lord Lansdowne

          (1888-1894)
      • The categorisation of civil services into imperial, provincial and subordinate.
      • Indian Councils Act-1892
      • Durand Commission (1893) was set up to define the Durand Line between India and Afghanistan.

           Lord Curzon

           (1899-1905)
      • Police Commission (1902) was appointed under Sir Andrew Frazer.
      • University Commission (1902) was appointed and Universities Act (1904) was passed.
      • Department of Commerce and Industry was established.
      • Calcutta Corporation Act-1899
      • Partition of Bengal (1905).

           Lord Minto-II

           (1905-1910)
      • Popularisation of anti-partition and Swadeshi Movements.
      • Split in Indian National Congress at Surat in 1907.
      • Indian Muslim League was established by Aga Khan (1907)
      • Morley-Minto reforms or Indian Councils Act 1909.

           Lord Hardinge-II

           (1910-1916)
      • Transfer of capital from Calcutta to Delhi (1911).
      • Establishment of Hindu Mahasabha (1915) by Madan Mohan Malviya.
           Lord Chelmsford

          (1916-1921)
      • Home Rule League was formed by Annie Besant and Tilak (1916)
      • Lucknow session of Congress (1916).
      • Lucknow Pact between Congress and Muslim League (1916).
      • Champaran Satyagraha (1918), and Satyagraha at Ahmadabad (1918).
      • Montague’s August Declaration.
      • Government of Indian Act- 1919
      • Jallianwalla Bagh massacre (1919).
      • Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movements were launched.
      • Foundation of Women’s University at Poona (1916) and Saddler’s Commission was appointed for reforms in educational policy.
      • Appointment of S. P. Sinha as governor of Bihar first Indian to do so.

           Lord Reading

           (1921-1926)
      • The Chaura-Chauri Incident-Feb5, 1922 and withdrawal of Non-Cooperation movement.
      • Moplah rebellion in Kerala (1921).
      • Repeal of the Press Act of 1910 and Rowlatt Act of 1919.
      • Kakori train robbery (1925)
      • Establishment of Swaraj Party (1922).
      • The decision to hold a simultaneous examination for ICS in Delhi and London with effect from 1923.

           Lord Irwin

           (1926-1931)
      • Simon Commission-1928
      • Appointment of the Harcourt Butler Indian States Commission (1927)
      • Murder of Saunders and Bomb blast in the Assembly Hall of Delhi-1929
      • Lahore session of Congress 1929 and Purna Swaraj Resolution.
      • Dandi March (12 March, 1929) and launch of Civil Disobedience Movement.

          Lord Willingdon

          (1931-1936)
      • Second Round Table Conference and failure of the conference, resumption of the Civil Disobedience Movement.
      • Announcement of the Communal Award (1932).
      • Poona Pact (1932)
      • Third Round Table Conference 1932.
      • The Government of India Act, 1935.
      • Establishment of All India Kisan Sabha 1936.
      • Establishment of Congress Socialist Party by Acharya Narendra Dev and Jayaprakash Narayan (1934)

           Lord Linlithgow

           (1936-1944)
      • First general elections were held and Congress attained absolute majority (1936-1937).
      • Congress ministers resigned (1937) after the outbreak of WW-II
      • Subhash Chandra Bose elected as the president of Congress-1938.
      • Lahore Resolution by Muslim League for the demand of separate state for Muslims.
      • August Offer by the viceroy-1940.
      • Cripp’s Mission to India
      • Passing of the Quit India Resolution by Congress-1942

           Lord Wavell

           (1944-1947)
      • C Rajgopalachari’s CR Formula (1944) and Gandhi-Jinnah Talks failed.
      • Wavell Plan and the Shimla Conference (1942)
      • Cabinet Mission and Congress accepted its plan 1946
      • Observance of the ‘Direct Action Day’ (16 August 1946) by the Muslim League.
      • Elections to the Constituent Assembly and formation of Interim Government by the Congress (September 1946).
      • Announcement of the end of British rule in India by Clement Attlee on February 20, 1946

           Lord Mountbatten

           (1947-48)
      • June Third Plan (June 3, 1947) announced.
      • Introduction of Indian Independence Bill in the House of Commons.
      • Appointment of two boundary commissions under Sir Cyril Radcliff for the partition of Bengal and Punjab.

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  • [Sansad TV] Perspective: SCO-NSA Meeting

    [Sansad TV] Perspective: SCO-NSA Meeting

    Context

    • India recently hosted a meeting of the National Security Advisors of member countries.
    • India is the current Chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and is holding a series of events which will culminate in the SCO Summit, which will be held in July.

    In this article, we will discuss the significance of the SCO for India.

    Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): A quick recap

    sco
    • Background: After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the then security and economic architecture in the Eurasian region dissolved and new structures had to come up.
    • Original shanghai five: The original Shanghai Five were China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
    • SCO formation: The SCO was formed in 2001, with Uzbekistan included. It expanded in 2017 to include India and Pakistan.
    • Security is the priority: Since its formation, the SCO has focused on regional non-traditional security, with counter-terrorism as a priority.
    • Three evils: The fight against the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism and extremism has become its mantra.
    • Expanded areas of cooperation: Today, areas of cooperation include themes such as economics and culture.

    Partner countries

    • Member States: 8 member states- China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, and Pakistan.
    • Observers: 4 observer states- Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia.
    • Dialogue Partners: 6 dialogue partners- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey.

    Functionaries of SCO

    • Executive Branch: The SCO has an executive branch, which is headed by the Secretary-General and is responsible for the day-to-day functioning of the organization.
    • Council of Heads of State: The highest decision-making body of the SCO is the Council of Heads of State, which meets annually to discuss and decide on important issues.
    • Council of Heads of Government: The Council of Heads of Government is the second most important decision-making body of the SCO, which meets annually to discuss and decide on economic and trade-related issues.
    • Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS): The SCO has RATS, which is responsible for coordinating the efforts of member states in the fight against terrorism, separatism, and extremism.

    Significance of SCO for India

    • Central Asia connection: SCO membership provides India with an opportunity to engage with Central Asian nations, Russia, and China, and work towards promoting regional stability, security, and economic cooperation.
    • Security cooperation: SCO focuses on combating terrorism, separatism, and extremism in the region, which is of particular concern to India.
    • Consensus over CBT: India has been a victim of cross-border terrorism for decades. India has been working closely with the RATS to share intelligence and coordinate counter-terrorism operations in the region.
    • Economic push: SCO has set up mechanisms for trade and economic cooperation, including the SCO Business Council, the SCO Interbank Consortium, and the SCO Development Bank.
    • Cultural cooperation: The organization aims to promote cultural exchanges among member states and has set up mechanisms for cooperation in fields such as education, science, and technology.

    Major push for India’s diplomacy

    • Engagement with China: SCO membership provides India with an opportunity to engage with China and Russia, two major powers in the region.
    • Reinstating Afghanistan: India has been working with China and Russia to promote peace and stability in Afghanistan.
    • Dais sharing with Pakistan: Pakistan’s membership in the SCO is also significant in the context of its ongoing conflict with India, as it provides it with a platform to engage in dialogue with India.

    Issues with SCO (Indian context)

    There have been several issues with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Some of these include:

    • Pakistan’s presence: India has accused Pakistan of using SCO forums to spread propaganda and misinformation against India.
    • China’s dominance: India has also expressed concerns over China’s dominance in the organization and its attempts to use the platform to push its strategic interests in the region.  
    • Limited economic benefits: Despite being a member of the organization for over a decade, India’s trade with other SCO members remains limited and has not been able to tap the full potential of the organization.
    • Limited counter-terrorism cooperation: While the primary objective of the organization is to combat terrorism, India has expressed concerns over the limited counter-terrorism cooperation among member states.  
    • Limited influence: Despite being a major power in the region, India’s voice and concerns have not been adequately represented in the organization

    Way forward

    • Engaging in more active participation: India can increase its participation in SCO activities, meetings, and initiatives to ensure its voice is heard and its concerns are addressed.
    • Emphasizing economic cooperation: India can focus on expanding economic cooperation with other SCO members to increase trade and investment and promote joint economic projects in the region.
    • Strengthening bilateral ties: India can work to strengthen bilateral ties with key SCO members, such as Russia and China, to ensure its interests are taken into account in SCO decisions and initiatives.
    • Addressing security concerns: India can work with other SCO members to address security concerns in the region, including terrorism, extremism, and separatism. This could involve sharing intelligence, coordinating security measures, and conducting joint military exercises.
    • Cultural exchanges: India can focus on promoting cultural exchanges with other SCO members to foster greater understanding and cooperation between nations. This could include promoting tourism, student exchanges, and cultural events.
    • Focusing on regional stability: India can work with other SCO members to promote stability and security in the region, including addressing conflicts and tensions between nations. This could involve promoting dialogue, mediating disputes, and supporting peacekeeping efforts.

  • It’s time for NEWSPAPERLESS Current Affairs Prep! FREE Webinar on ‘How to cover UPSC current affairs without reading daily Newspapers?’ | Register for 1-1 Recorded Video by Diksha ma’am | Get Samachar Manthan’s current week’s module for FREE

    It’s time for NEWSPAPERLESS Current Affairs Prep! FREE Webinar on ‘How to cover UPSC current affairs without reading daily Newspapers?’ | Register for 1-1 Recorded Video by Diksha ma’am | Get Samachar Manthan’s current week’s module for FREE

    Preparing for UPSC Current Affairs? Do without Reading Newspapers | Register FREE for Recorded Session | Get Samachar Manthan’s current week’s module for FREE

    CLICK & Register for FREE recorded session by Diksha Ma’am

    Aspirants, UPSC is changing. So why should your preparation not change or evolve?

    No more it’s about covering the syllabus, doing current affairs, and attempting tests. Instead, the sole focus is on bringing efficiency, and productivity to your preparation.

    UPSC Current Affairs Preparation (Newspaperless)
    UPSC Current Affairs Preparation (Newspaperless)

    Toppers have been going against conventional UPSC prep wisdom and have been rendering it obsolete. One such maxim has been – READING NEWSPAPERS DAILY.

    UPSC 2023-24 calls for a NEWSPAPERLESS Current Affairs Preparation

    Aspirants follow this blindly and as a result spend hours reading The Hindu, Indian Express, etc. on a daily basis, feeling miserably lost, frustrated, unfulfilled, and guilty of wasting time.

    It also compromises with their GS static and optional preparation.

    Moreover, many aspirants don’t even know how to actually cover current affairs. They just live for the high they get after finishing the newspaper, which is a short-lived joy.

    Diksha ma’am, senior IAS Faculty will take up a LIVE session to help you tackle this changing paradigm of UPSC Current Affairs Prep

    Say goodbye to feeling overwhelmed and frustrated with Newspaper Reading for current affairs and join us for this exciting session. Diksha Sharma’s expert guidance will help you save time, reduce stress, and prepare more efficiently for the exam.

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    Points that were discussed in the Recorded Session

    1. What is the basic funda to cover Current Affairs for UPSC without reading Newspapers? 
    2. How to maintain practical steps such as “What”, “Why”, “How”, “Who”, “When”, and “Where”?
    3. If not Newspapers, What are the best sources to prepare Current Affairs?
    4. How to take out case studies, anecdotes, examples, and facts for mains answers and essays?
    5. Passive Techniques to cover current affairs holistically for Prelims, Mains, and Interviews?
    6. What the are best alternative supplement sources like Yojana, Kurukshetra, etc, and make notes from them.
    7. How to focus on these:
      • Socio-economic issues like Women’s issues, Education or Health related issues, Issues or policies affecting vulnerable sections, etc.
      • Issues of national and international importance.
      • Political issues related to Indian Constitution, Legislative and Administrative processes.
      • Supreme Court or High Court verdicts.
      • Good analysis of current issues.
      • Parliamentary Debates.
      • Government policies and orders.
    8. How to pick important news topics for UPSC. How to Update all notes, etc after reading repeating News.

    Those who understand the exam syllabus and pattern well, have less anxiety but a beginner (due to less understanding of the syllabus and pattern) wastes enough time (Minimum 4 Hrs/Day reading Newspapers.

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    What The Hindu mentioned about Civilsdaily Mentorship

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    Samachar Manthan Yearly 2024 Plus

  • Nikaalo Prelims Spotlight || Information and Communication Technology

    Dear Aspirants,

    This Spotlight is a part of our Mission Nikaalo Prelims-2023.

    You can check the broad timetable of Nikaalo Prelims here

    Session Details

    YouTube LIVE with Parth sir – 1 PM  – Prelims Spotlight Session

    Evening 04 PM  – Daily Mini Tests

    Join our Official telegram channel for Study material and Daily Sessions Here

    31st Mar 2023

    BASICS OF CELLULAR NETWORK

    • Mobile communication involves transmitting voice or data using wireless radio transmission.
    • Mobile generations refer to change like mobile wireless communication network speed, technology, data capacity, frequency, latency etc.

    5G:

    • 5G is the next-generation cellular technology that will provide faster and more reliable communication with ultra-low latency.
    • Latency is a measure of delay. In a network, latency measures the time it takes for some data to get to its destination across the network.

    4G:

    • 4G mobile technology provides wireless mobile broadband internet access in addition to voice and other services of 3G.
    • Applications include improved web access, Internet Protocol (IP) telephony, Video Conferencing, Cloud Computing, Gaming Services, High-Definition Mobile TV etc.
    • 4G uses LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology, which allows voice & data-communication simultaneously.
    4G LTE 4G VoLTE
    Long Term Evolution Voice over Long-Term Evolution
    While accessing Data it uses 4G & voice calls routed to 2G / 3G network Enables both data & voice over the same 4G network

    WI-FI (WIRELESS FIDELITY) 6:

    • Wi-Fi 6 is the sixth generation of WIFI, working on the same principal as other wireless devices- It uses radio frequencies to send signals between devices.
    • Wi-Fi is just a type of WLAN.

    Key benefits of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 technology:

    		 1. Higher data rates

    2. Increased capacity

    3. Performance in environments with many connected devices

    4. Improved power efficiency

    Wi-Fi 6 caters the need of improved network connection and speed which is required for the Internet of Things (IoT).

    INFLIGHT WIFI

    • Recently the Indian government approved to provide inflight Wi-Fi service.
    • It works based on any one of the following two methods:
      1. Air-to-ground Wi-Fi System: Similar to cell phone connectivity.
      2. Satellite-based Wi-Fi System

    BLUETOOTH

    • It is a wireless technology standard used to exchange data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances using Radio waves.
    • Bluetooth 2 is the latest version.

    HOTSPOT

    • A hotspot is a physical location where people can access the Internet, via a wireless local area network (WLAN) with a router connected to an Internet service provider.

    WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY

    • These are smart electronic devices designed to be worn on the user’s body.
    • Ex: Smart jewelry, Wristbands, watches etc.
    • These devices detect, analyze, and transmit information.
    • Wearable technology is evolving into an important category of the Internet of things, with life-changing applications in medicine and other fields.

    NEAR-FIELD COMMUNICATION (NFC)

    • NFC is a short-range contactless communicationtechnology based on a Radio Frequency (RF) field using a base frequency of 13.56 MHz
    • NFC-enabled devices must be either physically touching or within a few centimeters of each other for data transfer to occur.

    RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION (RFID)

    • RFID technology uses radio waves to passively identify a tagged object.
    • An RFID tag consists of a tiny radio transponder; a radio receiver and transmitter.
    • Unlike a barcode, the tag doesn’t need to be within the line of sight of the reader, so it may be embedded in the tracked object.
    Aspect NFC RFID Bluetooth Wi-Fi
    Maximum Coverage 10 cm 3 m 100 m 100 m
    Frequency of operation 13.56MHz Varies 2.4GHz 2.4 – 5 GHz
    Communication Bidirectional Unidirectional Bidirectional Bidirectional
    Applications Card payments Toll pass, Items tracking Communication, Data transfer Wireless Internet

    INTERNET OF THINGS (IoT):

    • IoT is the interlinking of digital devices, people, machines, appliances, & other objects with one another through wireless networks.
    • It allows machines & people to be connected and communicate as well.
    • IoT Applications are many including works of daily life, Industry, Agriculture, Healthcare, Transportation, Governance etc.

    IoT and India

    • IoT is part of Digital India mission.
    • The National Digital Communications Policy, 2018 to aid its development.
    • 100% FDI is allowed in the Telecom sector.
    • The government has set a target of USD 15 billion for the IoT market by the year 2020. This would be 5 to 6% of the global IoT industry.

    ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI):

    • AI refers to the simulation of human intelligencein machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions.
    • AI is a self, adaptive learning
    • Applications: Industrial automation, Space science, self-driven cars, Healthcare sector, weather forecasting etc.

    AI & INDIA

    		 · According to the ‘Global AI Report’ 2019, AI will add 957 billion dollars to India’s GDP by the year 2035 boosting India’s annual growth by 1.3% points.

    · India stood at the 9th position in terms of the number of AI specialists working.

    · The US, China & the UK topped the list.

    Steps were taken by the Government

    		 · In 2018-19 budget, the government-mandated NITI Aayog to establish the National Program on AI

    · AIRAWAT – Artificial Intelligence Research, Analytics and Knowledge Assimilation Platform by NITI Aayog.

    · National Strategy for AI, 2018 focuses on 5 sectors:

    1. Healthcare

    2. Agriculture

    3. Education

    4. Smart Cities & Infrastructure

    5. Smart Mobility and Transportation.
    National Artificial Intelligence Portal

    		 · A joint initiative of National e-Governance Division of Ministry of Electronics and IT and NASSCOM.

    · It will work as a one-stop digital platform for AI-related developments in India
    RAISE (Responsible AI for Social Empowerment) 2020 · Organized by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to use AI for Social Empowerment.

    SUPERCOMPUTERS:

    • Theseare large systems that are specifically designed to solve complex scientific & industrial challenges.
    • The performance of a supercomputer is measured in Floating-Point Operations per Second (FLOPS).
    • The top five Supercomputers in the world:
      1. Fugaku (Japan)
      2. Summit (USA)
      3. Sierra (USA)
      4. Sunway Taihu Light (China)
      5. Tianhe-2 (China)
    • India has 4 supercomputers in the list of world’s top 500 supercomputers with Pratyush & Mihir being the fastest super-computers in India.
    • Application areas: Climate Modeling, Computational Biology, Atomic Energy Simulations, National Defence, Disaster management etc.

    NATIONAL SUPERCOMPUTING MISSION (NSM):

    • Launched in 2015
    • NSM is jointly steered by the MeitY and Department of S&T (DST) &
    • Implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune & the IISc, Bengaluru.
    • Objective: to connect national academic and R&D institutions with a grid of over 70 high-performance computing facilities.
    • These will be networked on the ‘National Supercomputing Grid’ over theNational Knowledge Network (NKN).

    Achievements:

    		 · ParamShivay: India’s first supercomputer was installed in IIT (BHU), followed by Param Shakti and Param Brahma at IIT-Kharagpur& IISER, Pune, respectively.

    · Rudra: an indigenous server.

    · SHAKTI: India’s first indigenously developed microprocessor (by, IIT Madras)

    QUANTUM COMPUTING:

    • Quantum computersare machines that use the properties of quantum physics to store data and perform computations.
    • A classical computer performs operations using classical bits, which can be either 0 or 1.
    • Quantum computer uses quantum bits or Qubits, which can be both 0 and 1 at the same time.
    • Major advantages: Faster, Accurate, & Energy efficient.

    QUANTUM COMPUTING AND INDIA

    • There are no quantum computers in India yet.
    • In 2018, the Department of Science & Technology unveiled a programme called Quantum-Enabled Science & Technology (QuST) to accelerate research on Quantum computing.
    • SYCAMORE: is Google’s Quantum Computer, which recently claimed Quantum Supremacy.
    • It reportedly did a task in 200 seconds that would have taken a supercomputer 10,000 years to complete.
    • Quantum Supremacy: refers to quantum computers being able to solve a problem that a classical computer cannot.

  • Nikaalo Prelims Spotlight || Nanotechnology and Nuclear Technology

    Dear Aspirants,

    This Spotlight is a part of our Mission Nikaalo Prelims-2023.

    You can check the broad timetable of Nikaalo Prelims here

    Session Details

    YouTube LIVE with Parth sir – 1 PM  – Prelims Spotlight Session

    Evening 04 PM  – Daily Mini Tests

    Join our Official telegram channel for Study material and Daily Sessions Here

    30th Mar 2023

    Introduction

    Nanotechnology is science, engineering, and technology conducted at the nanoscale, which is about 1 to 100 nanometers. Nanoscience and nanotechnology are the study and application of extremely small things and can be used across all the other science fields, such as chemistry, biology, physics, materials science, and engineering.

    Nanotechnology proposes the construction of new nanoscale devices that possess extraordinary properties as they are lighter, smaller and less expensive, and more precise. Materials reduced to the nanoscale can show properties compared to what they exhibit on a macro-scale, enabling unique applications.

    Two main approaches are used in nanotechnology:

    1. Bottom-up approach – materials and devices are built from molecular components that assemble themselves chemically by principles of molecular recognition.
    2. Top-down approach – nano-objects are constructed from larger entities without atomic-level control.

    Why do we need it?

    (1) Health sector

    • Nanomedicine: It has healthcare applications such as treatment and diagnostics of various diseases using nanoparticles in medical devices, as well as nanoelectronic biosensors and molecular nanotechnology.
    • Smart pills: Nano-level electronic devices that are shaped and designed like pharmaceutical pills but perform more advanced functions such as sensing, imaging, and drug delivery.
    • Cancer detection and treatment: Regular chemotherapy and radiation damages body’s healthy cells during the treatment. New nanomedicine approaches are being used in the treatment of skin cancer, which enables efficient delivery of drugs and other therapeutic treatments to specific tumor sites and target cells with low toxic side-effects.
    • Nanobots: Nanobots are micro-scale robots, which essentially serve as miniature surgeons. They can be inserted into the body to repair and replace intracellular structures. They can also replicate themselves to correct a deficiency in genetics or even eradicate diseases by replacing DNA molecules. Nanobots can also be used to clear artery blockages by drilling through them.
    • Nanofibers: Nanofibers are being used in wound dressings and surgical textiles, as well as in implants, tissue engineering, and artificial organ components.
    • Nanotech-based wearables: Such wearables have embedded nanosensors in the cloth that record medical data such as heartbeat, sweat components, and blood pressure. It helps save lives by alerting the wearer and medical professionals of any adverse changes faced by the body

     (2) Food Industry

    • Nanotechnology provides the potential for safe and better quality food and improved texture and taste of the food.
    • A contamination sensor, using a flash of light can reveal the presence of E-coli.
    • Antimicrobial packaging made out of cinnamon or oregano oil or nanoparticles of zinc, calcium, etc., can kill bacteria.
    • The nano-enhanced barrier can keep oxygen-sensitive food fresh.
    • Nano-encapsulating can improve the solubility of vitamins, antioxidants, healthy omega, etc.
    • Nanobarcodes are used to tag individual products and trace outbreaks.

    (3) Electronic components

    Nanotechnology has greatly improved the capacity of electronic components by:

    • Reducing the size of the integrated circuits’ transistors
    • Improving the display screens of the electronic devices
    • Reducing power consumption, weight, and thickness of the electronic devices.

    (4) Energy-efficient

    • This technology can improve the efficiency of the existing solar panels. It can also make the manufacturing process of solar panels cheaper and efficient.
    • It can improve the efficiency of fuel production and consumption of petroleum materials.
    • It is already being made use of in many batteries that are less-flammable, efficient, quicker-charging and are lightweight and higher power density.

    (5) Textile industry

    • Nanotechnology has already made revolutionary changes in the textile industry and is estimated to make a market impact worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
    • Nanoscience has now produced stain and wrinkle resistant cloths and may further improve upon the existing innovations.

    (6) Environment

    • It has the potential to address the current problem of pollution.
    • It can provide for affordable, clean drinking water through swift detection of impurities and purification of water.
    • The nanotechnology can be used to remove industrial water pollutants in the groundwater through chemical reactions at a cheaper rate.
    • Nanotechnology sensors and solutions also have the potential to detect, identify, filter and neutralise harmful chemical or biological agents in the air and soil.

    (7) Transport

    • Nanotechnology contributes to manufacturing lighter, smarter, efficient and greener automobiles, aircraft and ships.
    • It also allows various means to improve transportation infrastructures like providing resilience and longevity of the highway and other infrastructure components.
    • The nanoscale sensors and devices can also provide for cheap and effective structural monitoring of the condition and performance of the bridges, rails, tunnels, etc. They can also enhance transportation infrastructure that makes the drivers avoid collisions and congestions, maintain lane position, etc.

    (8) Space

    • Materials made of carbon nanotubes can reduce the weight of the spaceships while retaining or increasing the structural strength.
    • They can also be used to make cables that are needed for the space elevator. Space elevators can significantly reduce the cost of sending materials to the orbit.
    • The nanosensors can be used to monitor the chemicals in the spacecraft to look into the performance of the life support system.

    (9) Agriculture

    • The nanocapsule can enable effective penetration of herbicides, chemical fertilizers, and genes into the targeted part of the plant. This ensures a slow and constant release of the necessary substance to the plants with minimized environmental pollution.
    • The nanosensors and delivery systems can allow for precision farming through the efficient use of natural resources like water, nutrients, chemicals etc.
    • The nanosensors can also detect the plant viruses and soil nutrient levels.
    • Nano-barcodes and nano-processing could also be used to monitor the quality of agriculture produce.

    Carbon Nanotubes

    • Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are cylindrical molecules that consist of rolled-up sheets of single-layer carbon atoms (graphene).
    • They can be single-walled (SWCNT) (dia<1nm) or multi-walled (MWCNT) (dia>100nm), consisting of several concentrically interlinked nanotubes. Their length can reach several micrometers or even millimeters.
    • Like their building block graphene, CNTs are chemically bonded with sp2 bonds, an extremely strong form of molecular interaction

    Applications:

    • Used in electric wires to reduce losses
    • It can replace silicon made transistors as they are small and emit less heat and it can revolutionise electronics
    • Can be used in solar cell

    Graphene

    • Graphene is a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb-like pattern. Graphene is considered to be the world’s thinnest, strongest and most conductive material – of both electricity and heat.
    • All of these properties are exciting researchers and businesses around the world – as graphene has the potential to revolutionize entire industries – in the fields of electricity, conductivity, energy generation, batteries, sensors and more.

    Issues in Nanotechnology

    • The nanotechnology may pose a potential risk to the environment, health and other safety issues.
    • Since this field is still at its nascent stage, the likely risks are contentious. As for whether or not this technology requires special government regulation, the issue is still debated.
    • The regulatory authorities like the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Health and Consumer Protection Directorate of the European Commission have started assessing the potential risks posed by the nanoparticles.
    • The organic food sector is the first to be regulated so that the engineered nanoparticles are excluded from the organic produce. It has been implemented in Australia, UK and Canada as well as all the food certified under the Demeter International Standards.
    • Nanotoxicology is the study of potential health risks of nanomaterials.  The human body can easily take up the nanomaterials as they are small in size.
    • However, there is a need for detailed research on how it would behave inside an organism. The behaviour of nanoparticles based on their size, shape and surface reactivity must be thoroughly analysed before launching them into the market.
    • Nanopollution is the generic term that is used to describe the waste generated by the nanodevices or nanomaterials during the manufacturing process.
    • Nanowastes may be of risk due to their size and different properties and interactions. Since the man-made nanoparticles are not naturally made, living organisms may not have the appropriate means to deal with them.
    • The risk of nanotechnology on health, environment, society, economy, security, and trade is not yet fully assessed. This in itself is a threat.

    Government Measures

    • Nanotechnology regulatory board to regulate industrial nano products
    • Nano technology institutes like Indian Institute of Nano sciences at Bangalore,Mumbai,kolkata
    • Nano technology initiatives program by Department of Information technology and for nano electronic products
    • Nano mission:1000 crore allotted for 5 years for development of nano technology
    • Department of Science and Tech-Nanomission (nano-biotechnology activities) through DBT, ICMR, and CoE in Nanoelectronics by MeitY support nanoscience, nanotechnology, nanobiotechnology, and nanoelectronics activities.
    • Eighteen sophisticated analytical instruments facilities (SAIFs) established by DST across India play a major role in the advanced characterization and synthesis of nanomaterials for various applications.
    • The Center of Excellence in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology established by DSTNanomission helps research and PG students in various thrust areas.
    • Thematic Units of Excellence (TUEs) for various areas of nanoscience and nanotechnology play a major role in product-based research to support nanotechnology.
    • Visveswaraya Ph.D. fellowships offered by MeitY supports various nanotechnology activities in the country.
    • INSPIRE scheme supports research fellows to work in interdisciplinary nanotechnology, nanoscience, and nano-biotechnology areas.
    • DST-Nanomission supports more than 20 PG teaching programs to create a baseline for nanoscience and nanotechnology in India, out of about 70 PG programs currently running in India.

     Mission on Nano Science and Technology (Nano Mission)

    • Launched in 2007.
    • It is as an “umbrella capacity-building programme”.
    • The Mission’s programmes will target all scientists, institutions and industry in the country.
    • It will also strengthen activities in nano science and technology by promoting basic research, human resource development, research infrastructure development, international collaborations, among others.
    • It will be anchored in the Department of Science and Technology and steered by a Nano Mission Council chaired by an eminent scientist.

     Outcomes and significance of the mission

    • As a result of the efforts led by the Nano Mission, today, India is amongst the top five nations in the world in terms of scientific publications in nano science and technology (moving from 4th to the 3rd position).
    • The Nano Mission itself has resulted in about 5000 research papers and about 900 Ph.Ds and also some useful products like nano hydrogel based eye drops, pesticide removal technology for drinking water, water filters for arsenic and fluoride removal, nanosilver based antimicrobial textile coating, etc.
    • The Nano Mission has thus helped establish a good eco-system in the country to pursue front-ranking basic research and also to seed and nurture application-oriented R&D, focused on useful technologies and products.

    Conclusion

    Nanotechnology provides a bright future for humankind. However, much is yet to be known about its impacts and risks. The government, before indulging in the promotion and launch of this new technology, must invest more in basic research to understand this field.

  • Nikaalo Prelims Spotlight || Biotechnology

    Dear Aspirants,

    This Spotlight is a part of our Mission Nikaalo Prelims-2023.

    You can check the broad timetable of Nikaalo Prelims here

    Session Details

    YouTube LIVE with Parth sir – 1 PM  – Prelims Spotlight Session

    Evening 04 PM  – Daily Mini Tests

    Join our Official telegram channel for Study material and Daily Sessions Here

    29th Mar 2023

    Biotechnology

    What is Biotechnology?

    Biotechnology refers to the industrial use of micro-organism, living plant and animal cells to produce substances useful to the people. It includes the manufacture of antibiotics, vitamins, vaccines, toxic waste disposal systems using microbes etc.

    Biotechnology sector in India

    1. Indian biotechnology sector has crossed the $ 3 billion milestones and is growing at the rate of more than 30% over the last few years.  
    2. There is also a general perspective that India could even achieve the target of attaining $20 billion by 2020.

    Applications of Biotechnology in India

    Image result for applications of biotechnology in india

    Agriculture

    1. Biotechnology revolutionized research activities in agriculture which include tissue culture in plants, the creation of new transgenic plants and animals which eventually used as bio-reactors to produce the drug from their milk, food etc.
    2. Genetic engineering accelerates improvements in plants by increasing the diversity of the gene pool. It has also helped in the production of plants that have
    • a short maturing period
    • higher yield
    • potential to promote food production even in adverse conditions like drought, salinity etc.

    Indian scientists have also come up with an inexpensive algal bio-fertilizer technology for rice.

    Animal husbandry

    1. Biotechnology is used in the production of the physiological system, embryos transfer, health and well-being of animals.
    2. Indian scientists have developed a procedure for producing several identical buffalo by using the nuclear transfer technique.

    Human health

    1. Biotechnology has enabled the production of human insulin through microbes, human growth hormone etc.
    2. Diagnostic kits to diagnose viral infections, hepatitis B etc.

    Industry

    1. In the Industrial sector biotechnology has been used for the production of high fructose corn syrup, sweetening agent for soft drinks, improving the production of alcohol, production of the chemical from agricultural waste etc.

    Environment

    1. Biotechnology applications have been successfully made in the treatment of wastes.
    2. An important achievement was made when the Indian borne Anand Chakraborty designed a bacterium Pseudomonas putida that could feed on oil which is of great economic and environmental importance in the battle against oil slicks.

    Measures taken

    1. The Indian government has been very supportive to the Biotech sector and the National Biotechnology Development Strategy has been approved.
    2. A new patent regime is in place and the regulatory system is being beefed up.
    3. The public involvement in biotech investments has been strengthened through the small business innovation research initiative of the Department of Biotechnology.
    4. The Department of Biotechnology has also committed to spending 30% of its budget on public-private partnership programmes in Biotechnology.  
    5. Biotechnology has also been promoted through emphasizing on higher education, establishing 16 new national level universities, 8 new Indian Institute of Technology and 4 new Indian Institutes of Science, Education and Research etc.
    6. Several new interface programmes to connect academic with industry in order to bridge the knowledge to the market chain.

    Challenges

    1. Companies have not been able to launch new products at a significant pace because of bureaucratic red-tape and multiple regulatory bodies.
    2. Innovative companies face funding constraints since the investors have shied away from early-stage ventures.
    3. Another issue is the lack of trained manpower. While India has a considerable number of graduates and postgraduates in biotechnology and related fields, they are not employable. Thus companies have to invest heavily in their training before incorporating them into the business.
    4. India also suffers from brain drain. Top global biotech companies are able to poach the brightest Indian minds with attractive job profiles and good remuneration.
    5. Lack of manufacturing capacity. Several biotech parks (established through PPPs) are solely focused on providing biotech services and diagnostics rather than pure biotech manufacturing.

    Way forward

    1. India is already facing tough competition from China, Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia in terms of attracting investments. Therefore, it is high time that India should enable better technological and scientific competence, better infrastructure, tax and duty exemptions, better course structure, and easier regulatory procedures in order to remain competitive and spur growth in the industry.
    2. The biotech industry should come up with a concrete action plan to effectively utilize the available infrastructure and resources and focus on strengthening innovation to take the biotech industry to new heights.
    3. The government must promote the domestic biotech industry through steps like venture capital, industry-academia link, entrepreneurship incubation centres etc.

  • [Sansad TV] Mudda Aapka: Victory over Left-Wing Extremism

    [Sansad TV] Mudda Aapka: Victory over Left-Wing Extremism

    Central idea

    • In the last eight years, there has been a historic success in curbing Left Wing Extremism violence and the credit for this goes to the CRPF.
    • Union Home Minister has informed that there has been a 76 per cent decline in the incidents of LWE violence in the country and the fight against Naxalities is in the final stages.
    • In 2022, the number of deaths of civilians and security forces drastically reduced, with only 98 deaths as compared to 1005 deaths in 2010.

    Left vs. Right: Behind the Political Dichotomy

    • In politics, left refers to people and groups that have liberal views.
    • That generally means they support progressive reforms, especially those seeking greater social and economic equality.
    • The far left is often used for what is considered more extreme, revolutionary views, such as communism and socialism.
    • Collectively, people and groups, as well as the positions they hold, are referred to as the Left or the left wing.

    Being ‘Right’ means

    • The word right, in contrast, refers to people or groups that have conservative views.
    • It generally means they are disposed to preserve existing conditions and institutions.
    • They often want to restore traditional ones and limit change.
    • The far right is often used for more extreme, nationalistic viewpoints, including fascism and some oppressive ideologies.

    People and groups, as well as their positions, are collectively referred to as the Right or the right wing.

    Confused between Maoists and Naxalities?

    • Usually, people confuse themselves over Maoists and Naxalities and cannot exactly trace the difference between the two terminologies.
    • Media seems to be confused with the terms and uses Maoists and Naxalities quite inter-changeably. 
    • This creates confusion in the readers’ minds over the actual meaning of individual terms. 

    The actual difference between the terms is as follows: 

    • The difference between Maoists’ struggle and the Naxalite movement is that both trace their origin to the Naxalbari uprising of 1967.
    • But while the Naxalite movement thrives on the original spirit of Naxalbari; the Maoist struggle is an outcome of the 1967 uprising.
    • Maoists work with an agenda and use weapons to achieve their aims. 
    • Naxalism focuses on mass organisations while the Maoism relies mainly on arms.

    (1) Naxalism

    • Naxalism originated as a rebellion against the marginalisation of the poor forest dwellers and gradually against the lack of development and poverty at the local level in rural parts of eastern India.
    • It began in 1967 with an armed peasant uprising in Naxalbari village of Darjeeling district in West Bengal.
    • The term ‘Naxal’ came from the name of the village. 
    • The origin of the Naxals was a result of the split that took place in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 1967.
    • It led to the formation of Communist Party of India (Marxist and Leninist).

    (2) Maoism

    • Maoism originated in China as a form of communist theory derived from the teachings of Chinese political leader Mao Zedong.
    • Maoists were the loyal believers of the Chairman Mao’s philosophy that “Power flows from the barrel of the gun.”
    • When the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) was born out of the Naxalbari uprising, a section of communist rebels retained a distinct identity.
    • Along with Marxism and Leninism, a new concept, which is of Maoism, started emerging in India.
    • Around 1966, Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) was formed in West Bengal.

    History and evolution

    left
    • Russian Revolution: Naxalism in India, like any other leftist movement around the globe, draws its ideological basis from the Russian revolution.
    • Overthrowing Tsarist Regime: Lenin successfully fought against the Czarist Rule through a combination of the peasant movement and an armed struggle.
    • Marxian ideology of class struggle: The prime intent was to bestow power in the hands of the exploited and marginalized and enforce societal control over governance and nation building.
    • Neo-Marxism: After the success of the Lenin-led revolution in Russia, the intellectual class in many countries got inspired. Prominent amongst them were Fidel Castro and Mao Zedong.

    Root cause of origin in India

    • Corporate exploitation: Since Eastern India is rich in natural resources including forests, minerals and mines, tribal face exploitation and harassment from government and corporate bodies targeting to extract those resources.
    • Tribal alienation: Tribal communities have been systematically alienated from their traditional rights over natural resources after independence.
    • Livelihood losses: Tribal livelihood is at stake due to depletion of natural resource base.
    • Forceful displacement: Forceful displacement from their homeland destroys their traditional governance system.
    • Absence of governance: In such exploited areas, the absence of governance becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy since the delivery systems are extinguished through killings and intimidation.
    • Foreign provocations: Many of LWE outfits are supported by external forces inimical to India and the Maoists consider such alliances as strategic assets.

    Other factors:

    1. Oppression and HR violations by Security Forces e.g. AFSPA
    2. Violation of Constitutional Protections under PESA and FRA
    3. Prevalence of Acute Poverty

    Impact of LWE

    • Romanticism without a cause: Some sections of society, especially the younger generation, have romantic illusions about the Maoists, arising out of an incomplete understanding of their ideology of Class –Struggle.
    • Extreme violence: Their doctrine glorifies violence as the primary means to overwhelm the existing socio-economic and political structures.
    • Destruction of governance mechanism: LWEs aims at creating a vacuum at the grassroots level of the existing governance structures by killing lower-level government officials, police personnel of the local police stations and the people’s representatives of the PRIs.
    • Radicalization of youths: After creating a political and governance vacuum, they coerce the local population to join the movement.
    • Urban-Maoism: Many extremists have facilitated mass mobilization in semi-urban and urban areas through ostensibly democratic means often led by well-educated intellectuals.

    Outcomes of perpetrating LWE

    The Leftist organizations skilfully use state structures and legal processes to further the Maoist agenda and weaken the enforcement regime through:

    1. Recruitment of ‘professional revolutionaries’
    2. Raising funds for the insurgency
    3. Creating urban shelters for underground cadres
    4. Providing legal assistance to arrested cadres and
    5. Mass- mobilization by agitating over issues of relevance/ convenience

    Govt initiatives for LWE-affected areas

    • Aspirational Districts: The MHA has been tasked with the monitoring of the Aspirational district’s programme in 35 LWE affected districts.
    • HRD measures: Building of schools under the Eklavya model.
    • Road Connectivity Project for LWE affected areas (RRP-II): This aims for improving road connectivity in LWE affected States. Under this, 9279 km of roads and 392 bridges are sanctioned.
    • Naxal Surrender Policy: It aims to wean away misguided youth and hardcore naxalites who have strayed into the fold of the naxal movement and cannot find a way back.
    • National Policy Action Plan: To address Left Wing Extremism approved in 2015, has development as one of the most important component.

    SAMADHAN doctrine: It encompasses the entire strategy of government from short-term policy to long-term policy formulated at different levels. SAMADHAN stands for-

    • S- Smart Leadership
    • A- Aggressive Strategy
    • M- Motivation and Training
    • A- Actionable Intelligence
    • D- Dashboard Based KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and KRAs (Key Result Areas)
    • H- Harnessing Technology
    • A- Action plan for each Theatre
    • N- No access to Financing

    Way forward

    • Indian counterinsurgency has to work with a dual objective of defeating the insurgents militarily and fully quell the insurgent impulses.
    • This will need institutional overhauls.
    • States must do more to synergize their efforts by launching coordinated operations, thereby denying Maoists any space for manoeuvrability.
    • On parallel grounds, it is also important to segregate the population from the insurgents both operationally and ideologically.
    • The conflict over the distribution of resources can be mended with economic development.

    

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  • Nikaalo Prelims Spotlight || Global Space Missions and Telescopes in News

    Dear Aspirants,

    This Spotlight is a part of our Mission Nikaalo Prelims-2023.

    You can check the broad timetable of Nikaalo Prelims here

    Session Details

    YouTube LIVE with Parth sir – 1 PM  – Prelims Spotlight Session

    Evening 04 PM  – Daily Mini Tests

    Join our Official telegram channel for Study material and Daily Sessions Here

    27th Mar 2023

    NASA’s ICESat-2 maps Antarctic ice sheet melting

    ICESat-2 

    • NASA’s ICESat-2 launched less than three months ago has mapped melting ice sheets in Antarctica and the resulting sea level rise across the globe, which could help improve climate forecasts.
    • The ICESat-2 stands for Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 .
    • It is measuring the height of sea ice to within an inch, tracing the terrain of previously unmapped Antarctic valleys, surveying remote ice sheets, and peering through forest canopies and shallow coastal waters.
    • With each pass of the ICESat-2 satellite, the mission is adding to datasets tracking Earth’s rapidly changing ice.
    • As ICESat-2 orbits over the Antarctic Ice Sheet, the photon returns reflect from the surface and show high ice plateaus, crevasses in the ice 20 metres deep, and the sharp edges of ice shelves dropping into the ocean.

    Unified Geologic Map of the Moon

    • The first-ever digital, unified, global, geological map of the moon was released virtually by the  United States Geological Survey (USGS), NASA and the Lunar Planetary Institute.
    • The UGM will serve as a blueprint for future human missions and a source of research and analysis for the educators and the general public interested in lunar geology.
    • The map is a ‘seamless, globally consistent, 1:5,000,000-scale geologic map’.
    • The mapped surface features of the moon included crater rim crests, buried crater rim crests, fissures, grabens, scarps, mare wrinkle ridges, faults, troughs, rilles, and lineaments.

    Its’ significance

    • The moon’s South Pole is especially interesting because the area is much larger than the North Pole and there could be a possibility of the presence of water in these permanently shadowed areas.
    • Further, the South Pole region also contains the fossil record of the early Solar System.
    • These present and future moon missions’ success can be further helped by the digital map of the moon.
    • The Chandrayaan 2, an active mission also targets the Lunar South Pole for exploration

    GRACE-FO Mission

    • The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission is a partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ).
    • GRACE-FO is a successor to the original GRACE mission, which orbited Earth from 2002-2017.
    • It carries on the extremely successful work of its predecessor while testing a new technology designed to dramatically improve the already remarkable precision of its measurement system.

    Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs)

    • FRBs are super intense, millisecond-long bursts of radio waves produced by unidentified sources in the space.
    • Their discovery in 2007 by American astronomer Duncan Lorimer led to the term ‘Lorimer Bursts’.
    • Since then, just a few dozen similar events have been observed in data collected by radio telescopes around the world, building evidence that points to a variety of potential causes.
    • Only a handful of emissions have been traced to specific areas of the sky, indicating sources in other galaxies.
    • The flash of radio waves is incredibly bright if distant, comparable to the power released by hundreds of millions of suns in just a few milliseconds.
    • This intensity suggests powerful objects like black holes and neutron stars could be involved.
    • The events were once considered to be largely transient – they seemed to happen once, without obvious signs of a repeat emission. However, a number of such bursts have been identified since then.

    Why are they significant?

    • First noticed in 2018 by the Canadian observatory the waves have created ripples across the globe for one reason — they arrive in a pattern.
    • This gave birth to theories that they could be from an alien civilization.
    • Initially, it was believed that the collision of black holes or neutron stars triggers them.
    • But the discovery of repeating FRBs debunked the theory of colliding objects.

    NASA’s new Mars rover: Perseverance

    • The Perseverance rover weighs less than 2,300 pounds and is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.
    • The rover’s mission will be to search for signs of past microbial life. It will also collect samples of Martian rocks and dust, according to the release.
    • The rover will also be tasked with studying the red planet’s geology and climate.
    • All of NASA’s previous Mars rovers — including the Sojourner (1997), Spirit and Opportunity (2004) and Curiosity (exploring Mars since 2012) — were named in this way.

    2020 CD3

    • The mini-moon was discovered by some astronomers at NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) in Arizona.
    • It is actually an asteroid, about the size of a car; its diameter is about 1.9-3.5 m.
    • And unlike our permanent Moon, the mini-moon is temporary; it will eventually break free of Earth’s orbit and go off on its own way.
    • Orbit integrations indicate that this object is temporarily bound to the Earth.
    • 2020 CD3 was captured into Earth’s orbit over three years ago.
    • For CSS, it is only the second such discovery. It previously discovered 2006 RH120, which orbited Earth for some time that year, before it escaped in 2007.

    NASA’s InSight Mission

    • The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission is a robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of the planet Mars.
    • It is the first mission dedicated to looking deep beneath the Martian surface.
    • Among its science tools are a seismometer for detecting quakes, sensors for gauging wind and air pressure, a magnetometer, and a heat flow probe designed to take the planet’s temperature.
    • The InSight mission is part of NASA’s Discovery Program.
    • It is being supported by a number of European partners, which include France’s Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA).

    Habitable-zone Planet Finder

    • NASA’s Kepler mission observed a dip in the host star’s light, suggesting that the planet was crossing in front of the star during its orbit.
    • To confirm, researchers turned to an instrument called Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF). It has confirmed that there is indeed an exoplanet.
    • HPF is an astronomical spectrograph, built by Penn State University scientists, and recently installed on the 10m Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory in Texas.
    • The instrument is designed to detect and characterize planets in the habitable zone — the region around the star where a planet could sustain liquid water on its surface — around nearby low-mass stars.
    • The newly confirmed planet, called G 9-40b, is the first one validated by HPF. It is about twice the size of Earth and orbits its star once every six Earth-days.

     Betelgeuse

    • Using the European Space Organization’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have noticed the unprecedented dimming of Betelgeuse.
    • It is a red supergiant star (over 20 times bigger than the Sun) in the constellation Orion.
    • Along with the dimming, the star’s shape has been changing as well, as per recent photographs of the star taken using the VISIR instrument on the VLT.
    • Instead of appearing round, the star now appears to be “squashed into an ova”.

    NASA announced it has selected four Discovery Program investigations to develop concept studies for possible new missions.

    What are the new missions?

    • Two proposals are for trips to Venus, and one each is for Jupiter’s moon Io and Neptune’s moon Triton.
    • After the concept studies are completed in nine months, some missions ultimately may not be chosen to move forward.

    DAVINCI+

    • DAVINCI+ stands for Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging Plus.
    • This will analyse Venus’s atmosphere to understand how it was formed and evolved, and if it ever had an ocean.
    • This will advance understanding of the formation of terrestrial planets.

    IVO

    • Io Volcano Observer is a proposal to explore Jupiter’s moon Io, which is extremely volcanically active.
    • This will try to find out how tidal forces shape planetary bodies.
    • The findings could further knowledge about the formation and evolution of rocky, terrestrial bodies and icy ocean worlds in the Solar System.

    TRIDENT

    This aims to explore Neptune’s icy moon, Triton, so that scientists can understand the development of habitable worlds in the Solar System.

    VERITAS

    Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy will aim to map Venus’s surface to find out why Venus developed so differently from Earth.

    Pale Blue Dot

    • The ‘Pale Blue Dot’ is one of the most iconic images in the history of astronomy.
    • It shows Earth as a single bright blue pixel in empty space within a strand of sun rays, some of which are scattering from and enlightening the planet.
    • The original image was taken by the Voyager 1 mission spacecraft on February 14, 1990 when it was just beyond Saturn.
    • At the behest of astronomer Carl Sagan, the cameras were turned towards Earth one final time to capture the image.
    • After this, the cameras and other instruments on the craft were turned off to ensure its longevity.

    About Voyager 1

    • Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977.
    • Having operated for more than 42 years, the spacecraft still communicates with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and to transmit data to Earth.
    • At a distance of 148.67 AU (22.2 billion km) from Earth as of January 19, 2020 it is the most distant man-made object from Earth.
    • The probe’s objectives included flybys of Jupiter, Saturn, and Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.

    The Family Portrait of the Solar System

    • The Pale blue dot image was a part of a series of 60 images designed to produce what the mission called the ‘Family Portrait of the Solar System’.
    • This sequence of camera-pointing commands returned images of six of the solar system’s planets, as well as the Sun.

    Solar Orbiter (SolO) Probe

    • The Solar Orbiter, a collaborative mission between the European Space Agency and NASA to study the Sun, took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
    • Carrying four in situ instruments and six remote-sensing imagers, the Solar Orbiter (called SolO) will face the sun at approximately 42 million kilometres from its surface.
    • Before SolO, all solar imaging instruments have been within the ecliptic plane, in which all planets orbit and which is aligned with the sun’s equator.
    • The new spacecraft will use the gravity of Venus and Earth to swing itself out of the ecliptic plane, passing inside the orbit of Mercury, and will be able to get a bird’s eye view of the sun’s poles for the first time.

    Spitzer Space Telescope

    • The Spitzer Space Telescope is a space-borne observatory, one of the elements of NASA’s Great Observatories that include the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray.
    • Using different infrared wavelengths, Spitzer was able to see and reveal features of the universe including objects that were too cold to emit visible light.
    • Apart from enabling researchers to see distant cold objects, Spitzer could also see through large amounts of gas using infrared wavelengths to find objects that may otherwise have been invisible to human beings.
    • These included exoplanets, brown dwarfs and cold matter found in the space between stars.
    • Spitzer was originally built to last for a minimum of 2.5 years, but it lasted in the “cold” phase for over 5.5 years. On May 15, 2009 the coolant was finally depleted and the “warm mission” began.

    Thirty Metre Telescope

    • The TMT is a proposed astronomical observatory with an extremely large telescope (ELT) that has become the source of controversy over its planned location on Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii in the US state of Hawaii.
    • It is being built by an international collaboration of government organisations and educational institutions, at a cost of $1.4 billion.
    • “Thirty Metre” refers to the 30-metre diameter of the mirror, with 492 segments of glass pieced together, which makes it three times as wide as the world’s largest existing visible-light telescope.
    • The larger the mirror, the more light a telescope can collect, which means, in turn, that it can “see” farther, fainter objects.
    • It would be more than 200 times more sensitive than current telescopes and would be able to resolve objects 12 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope.

    Artemis Mission

    • In 2011, NASA began the ARTEMIS (Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence, and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun) mission using a pair of repurposed spacecraft and in 2012 the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft studied the Moon’s gravity.
    • For the program, NASA’s new rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS) will send astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft a quarter of a million miles away from Earth to the lunar orbit.
    • The astronauts going for the Artemis program will wear newly designed spacesuits, called Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or xEMU.
    • These spacesuits feature advanced mobility and communications and interchangeable parts that can be configured for spacewalks in microgravity or on a planetary surface.

    Bhibha Constellation and Santamasa Planet

    Bhibha

    • The star has been named in honour of a pioneering Indian woman scientist Bibha Choudhury, who discovered subatomic particle, pi-meson.
    • ‘Bhibha’ also means “a bright beam of light” in Bengali.
    • It is located in the constellation of Sextans. It is as hot as the sun, with a surface temperature of about 6,000 degrees Kelvin. It is 1.55 times bigger, 1.21 times massive, and 1.75 times brighter.
    • It is so far away that light from it takes 310.93 years to reach Earth and hence it is visible only with a telescope.

    Santamasa

    • The planet has been named S’antamasa’ to reflect the cloudy nature of its atmosphere. ‘Santamasa’ is the Sanskrit term for ‘clouded’.
    • ‘Santamasa’, which is its only planet, is estimated to have a mass of 1.5 times that of Jupiter, going around the central star in a nearly circular orbit just in 2.1375 days.
    • Revolving so near the host star, the planet is expected to be very hot.

    Arrokoth

    • The International Astronomical Union and Minor Planets Center, the global body for naming Kuiper Belt objects have given this name.
    • It was discovered in 2014 with the Hubble Space Telescope, which is operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
    • Nasa’s New Horizons spacecraft flew by the snowman figured ice mass in December 2018, some 1.6 billion kilometres beyond Pluto.
    • The New Horizons team of NASA proposed the name to the International Astronomical Union and Minor Planets Center.
    • For the New Horizons team it took some months to finalise this name. In the language of the Powhatan tribe, Arrokoth means “sky”.
    • The team got the approval from the elders of the Powhatan tribe to assign it to their newfound “baby”.

    About New Horizons mission

    • NASA launched the New Horizons mission in January 2006.
    • After crossing by Pluto in 2015, in 2019 it flew by Arrokoth. This remains the “farthest flyby ever conducted.”

    Maxwell

    • The Maxwell is the latest in a line of experimental aircraft the NASA.
    • It has been developed over many decades for many purposes, including the bullet-shaped Bell X-1 that first broke the sound barrier and the X-15 rocket plane flown by Neil Armstrong before he joined the Apollo moon team.
    • The two largest of 14 electric motors that will ultimately propel the plane are powered by specially designed lithium ion batteries.
    • The Maxwell will be the agency’s first crewed X-plane to be developed in two decades.
    • The lift propellers will be activated for take-off and landings, but retract during the flight’s cruise phase.

    Voyager 2

    • Voyager 2 was launched in 1977, 16 days before Voyager 1, and both have travelled well beyond their original destinations.
    • The spacecraft were built to last five years and conduct close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn.
    • As the spacecraft flew across the solar system, remote-control reprogramming was used to endow the Voyagers with greater capabilities than they possessed when they left Earth.
    • It carries a working instrument that will provide first-of-its-kind observations of the nature of this gateway into interstellar space.
    • It is slightly more than 18 billion kilometres from Earth. Its twin, Voyager 1, crossed this boundary in 2012.
    • Their five-year lifespans have stretched to 41 years, making Voyager 2 NASA’s longest-running mission.

    Ionospheric Connection Explorer

    • NASA has launched a satellite to explore the mysterious, dynamic region where air meets space.
    • The satellite — called ICON, short for Ionospheric Connection Explorer — rocketed into orbit following a two-year delay.
    • The refrigerator-size ICON satellite will study the airglow formed from gases in the ionosphere and also measure the charged environment right around the spacecraft which is at a level of 580 kilometres above the Earth’s surface.
    • The ionosphere is the charged part of the upper atmosphere extending several hundred miles (kilometres) up.
    • It’s in constant flux as space weather bombards it from above and Earth weather from below, sometimes disrupting radio communications.

    Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)

    • The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite missions began on June 18, 2009.
    • It is a robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon.
    • It studies the Moon’s surface, clicks pictures, and collects data that help in figuring out the presence and possibility of water ice and other resources on the Moon, as well as plan future missions to it.
    • The primary mission of the LRO, managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, located in Greenbelt, Maryland, was to measure the entire lunar surface to create a high-resolution 3-D map of the Moon.
    • The map with ~50-centimeter resolution images would aid in the planning of future robotic and crewed missions.
    • In addition, LRO would map the Polar Regions and search for the presence of water ice

    K2-18b

    • About 110 light years from Earth, an exoplanet eight times the mass of Earth orbits a star. Called K2-18b, it was discovered in 2015 by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft.
    • The researchers used 2016-17 data from the Hubble Space Telescope and developed algorithms to analyse the starlight filtered through K2-18b’s atmosphere.
    • The results revealed the molecular signature of water vapour, also indicating the presence of hydrogen and helium in the planet’s atmosphere.
    • It resides in a habitable zone — the region around a star in which liquid water could potentially pool on the surface of a rocky planet.
    • Scientists have found signatures of water vapour in the atmosphere of K2-18b. The discovery of water vapour is not the final word on the possibility of life.
    • That makes it the only planet orbiting a star outside the Solar System that is known to have both water and temperatures that could support life.

    Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment (AIDA)

    • It is an ambitious double-spacecraft mission to deflect an asteroid in space, to prove the technique as a viable method of planetary defence.
    • The mission, which includes NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), is known as the Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment (AIDA).
    • The target is the smaller of two bodies in the “double Didymos asteroids” that are in orbit between Earth and Mars.
    • Didymos is a near-Earth asteroid system. Its main body measures about 780 m across; the smaller body is a “moonlet” about 160 m in diameter.
    • The project aims to deflect the orbit of the smaller body through an impact by one spacecraft.
    • Then a second spacecraft will survey the crash site and gather the maximum possible data on the effect of this collision.

    Parker Solar Probe

    • It is part of NASA’s “Living with a Star” programme that explores different aspects of the Sun-Earth system.
    • The probe seeks to gather information about the Sun’s atmosphere and NASA says that it “will revolutionise our understanding of the Sun”.
    • It is also the closest a human-made object has ever gone to the Sun.
    • During the spacecraft’s first two solar encounters, the instruments were turned on when Parker was about 0.25 AU from the Sun and powered off again at the same distance on the outbound side of the orbit.
    • For this third solar encounter, the mission team turned on the instruments when the spacecraft was around 0.45 AU from the Sun on the inbound side of its orbit.
    • It will turn them off when the spacecraft is about 0.5 AU from the Sun on the outbound side.

    TOI 270

    • It is the name of the dwarf star and the planetary system recently discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).
    • TOI 270 is about 73 light years away from Earth, and is located in the constellation Pictor.
    • Its members include the dwarf star, which is 40 per cent smaller than the Sun in size and mass, and the three planets or exoplanets (planets outside the solar system) that have been named TOI 270 b, TOI 270 c, and TOI 270 d.
    • These three planets orbit the star every 3.4 days, 5.7 days, and 11.4 days respectively. In this system, TOI 270 b is the innermost planet.

    About Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)

    • TESS is NASA’s latest satellite to search for planets outside our solar system, known as exoplanets.
    • The mission will spend the next two years monitoring the nearest and brightest stars for periodic dips in their light.
    • TESS is expected to transmit its first series of science data back to Earth in August, and thereafter periodically every 13.5 days, once per orbit, as the spacecraft makes it closest approach to Earth.
    • These events, called transits, suggest that a planet may be passing in front of its star.
    • TESS is expected to find thousands of planets using this method, some of which could potentially support life.

    Tiangong-2

    • Tiangong means “Heavenly Palace”. It was 10.4 metres long and 3.35 metres wide at its widest point, and weighed 8.6 metric tonnes.
    • It was launched on September 15, 2016 and, in late 2016, hosted two Chinese astronauts for 30 days in what was China’s longest manned space mission so far.
    • The recently decommissioned space lab followed the Tiangong-1, China’s first space station, which crashed into the southern Pacific Ocean on April 1, 2018 after Chinese scientists lost control of the spacecraft.
    • China had launched Tiangong-1 in 2011 as proof-of-concept of technologies for future stations. The lab was visited by two teams of Chinese astronauts for 11 days and 13 days respectively.

    About Hayabusa2

    • Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft, which successfully made its second touchdown on asteroid Ryugu has become the first ever space probe to gather material from beneath the surface of an asteroid.
    • Launched in December 2014, the probe is a follow-up of Hayabusa, which explored the asteroid Itokawa in 2005.
    • Hayabusa was the first mission to return an asteroid sample to Earth.
    • The asteroid mission first reached Ryugu — a kilometre-wide asteroid, with a relatively dark surface and almost zero gravity — in June 2018 and made its first touchdown on the surface in February 2019.
    • A month later the spacecraft hit the surface of Ryugu with a pellet and created a 10-metre-wide crater.
    • It also exposed the materials under the asteroid’s surface that were so far protected from the harsh effects of cosmic rays and charged particles of solar wind blasting through space.

    About PUNCH Mission

    • NASA has selected an US-based Indian researcher to lead its PUNCH mission which will image the Sun.
    • PUNCH stands for “Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere,” is focused on understanding the transition of particles from the Sun’s outer corona to the solar wind that fills interplanetary space.
    • It will consist of a constellation of four microsatellites that through continuous 3D deep-field imaging, will observe the corona and heliosphere as elements of a single, connected system.
    • This is a landmark mission will image regions beyond the Sun’s outer corona.
    • The Sun and the solar wind are one interconnected system, but these have until recently been studied using entirely different technologies and scientific approaches.

    Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) Telescope

    • The telescope will be launched into space on a Russian-built Proton-M rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in June 2019.
    • The four-year mission will survey the entire sky eight times and track the evolution of the universe and dark energy, a mysterious repulsive force that is accelerating its expansion.
    • Besides, it also aims to detect up to three million supermassive black holes — many of which are unknown — and X-rays from as many as 700,000 stars in the Milky Way.
    • The telescope is the first to be sensitive to high-energy ‘hard’ X-rays and map the entire sky.
    • The SRG will also find how dark matter — the main engine of galaxy formation — is spread in the universe.
    • X-ray sky surveys have also been conducted by previous missions, but they were not able to map the entire sky, the report said.

    MeerLICTH Optical Telescope

    • Scientists in South Africa have launched the world’s first optical telescope linked to a radio telescope, combining “eyes and ears” to try to unravel the secrets of the universe.
    • The latest move combines the new optical telescope MeerLITCH — Dutch for ‘more light’ — with the recently-completed 64-dish MeerKAT radio telescope, located 200 kilometres away.
    • This is the eye, with the MeerKAT being the ears as a radio telescope.
    • The MeerLITCH uses a main mirror just 65 cm in diameter and a single 100 megapixel detector measuring 10 cm x 10 cm.
    • Astronomers have previously had to wait for a cosmic incident to be picked up by a radio telescope and then carry out optic observations afterwards.
    • The project has been six years in the making by a joint-team of South African, Dutch and British scientists.

    Ultima Thule

    • NASA has found evidence for a unique mixture of methanol, water ice, and organic molecules on Ultima Thule’s surface — the farthest world ever explored by mankind.
    • Ultima Thule is a contact binary, with two distinctly differently shaped lobes.
    • At about 36 kilometres long, it consists of a large, strangely flat lobe — nicknamed “Ultima” — connected to a smaller, somewhat rounder lobe — dubbed “Thule” — at a juncture.
    • Officially named (486958) 2014 MU69, it earned the nickname Ultima Thule following a public contest in 2018.
    • It is located in the Kuiper Belt, a disc in the outer Solar System (beyond Neptune) that consists of small bodies including Pluto.
    • 2014 MU69 was discovered in June 2014 by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope but is so distant that many of its characteristics remain to be understood.

    About the mission

    • New Horizons, a space probe that was launched in 2006, became the first mission to visit Pluto in 2015.
    • Travelling farther into the Kuiper Belt, the nuclear-powered space probe has come within 3,500 km of Ultima Thule.
    • Images taken revealed that the object may have a shape similar to a bowling pin, or a “snowman”, or a peanut spinning end over end, or could be two objects orbiting each other.
    • Flyby data showed that Ultima Thule is spinning like a propeller with the axis pointing approximately toward New Horizons.
    • NASA released a composite of two images taken by New Horizons’ high-resolution Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager.

    Chang’e-4

    • In January, the Chinese spacecraft Chang’e-4 — named after the moon goddess in Chinese mythology — became the first ever craft to touch down on the far side of the lunar surface.
    • The team landed its probe in the Von Karmen Crater in the Aitken Basin at the Moon’s south pole — home to one of the largest impact craters known in the solar system.
    • Scientists have said they could be a step closer to solving the riddle behind the Moon’s formation, unveiling the most detailed survey yet of the far side of Earth’s satellite.

    Cassini Mission

    • Launched in 1997, the Cassini mission is a cooperation between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
    • It has sent back thousands of stunning images and made numerous discoveries about the ringed planet and its moons.
    • Cassini–Huygens is an unmanned spacecraft sent to the planet Saturn.
    • Cassini is the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter orbit. Its design includes a Saturn orbiter and a lander for the moon Titan.
    • The lander, called Huygens, landed on Titan in 2005.

    China’s BeiDou navigation satellite, a rival to US GPS, starts global services

    • China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), touted as a rival to the widely-used American GPS, has started providing global services.

    BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS)

    • Named after the Chinese term for the ‘Big Dipper’, the BeiDou system started serving China in 2000 and the Asia-Pacific region in 2012.
    • It will be the fourth global satellite navigation system after the US GPS, Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo.
    • The positioning accuracy of the system has reached 10 metres globally and five metres in the Asia-Pacific region.
    • Its velocity accuracy is 0.2 metres per second, while its timing accuracy stands at 20 nanoseconds, he said.
    • Pakistan has become the first country to use the BeiDou system ending its reliance on the Global Positioning System (GPS).

    GRAPES-3 Experiment

    • For the first time in the world, researchers at the GRAPES-3 muon telescope facility in Ooty have measured the electrical potential, size and height of a thundercloud that passed overhead on December 1, 2014.
    • GRAPES-3 (Gamma Ray Astronomy PeV EnergieS phase-3) is designed to study cosmic rays with an array of air shower detectors and a large area muon detector.
    • It aims to probe acceleration of cosmic rays in the following four astrophysical settings.
    • It is located at Ooty in India and started as a collaboration of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India and the Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan.

    Asteroid ‘99942 Apophis’

    • On April 13, 2019, a near-Earth asteroid will cruise by Earth, about 31,000 km above the surface.
    • The asteroid, called 99942 Apophis, is 340 m wide.
    • At one point, it will travel more than the width of the full Moon within a minute and it will get as bright as the stars in the Little Dipper, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
    • It is rare for an asteroid this size to pass by Earth so close.
    • Although scientists have spotted small asteroids, on the order of 5-10 metres, flying by Earth at a similar distance, asteroids the size of Apophis are far fewer in number and so do not pass this close to Earth as often.
    • Among potential lessons from Apophis, scientists are hoping they can use its flyby to learn about an asteroid’s interior.
    • Apophis is one of about 2,000 currently known Potentially Hazardous Asteroids, and scientists also hope their observations might help gain important scientific knowledge that could one day be used for planetary defence.

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