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GS Paper: GS3-16.Achievements of Indians in Science & Technology

  • Indian Sat: Another satellite made by students

    An experimental satellite developed by three students of Karur (TN) has been selected for launch in sub-orbital space by NASA.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.The term ‘IndARC’, sometimes seen in the news, is the name of:

    (a) An indigenously developed radar system inducted into Indian Defence

    (b) India’s satellite to provide services to the countries of Indian Ocean Rim

    (c) A scientific establishment set up by India in Antarctic region

    (d) India’s underwater observatory to scientifically study the Arctic region

    Indian Sat

    • The Indian Sat is made of reinforced graphene polymer. It is 3 cm in size and weighs 64 gm.
    • It has its own radio frequency communication to transmit and receive a signal from earth to outer space. The solar cells attached to the satellite generate power for it.
    • The photographic film will absorb and measure the cosmic radiation inside the rocket.
    • It would study the effect of reinforced graphene polymers in microgravity. It would be in sub-orbital space flight for a few minutes before landing in the ocean.

    What is micro-gravity?

    • The term micro-g environment is more or less synonymous with the terms weightlessness and zero-g, but with an emphasis on the fact that g-forces are never exactly zero—it is just very small.
    • On the ISS, for example, the small g-forces come from tidal effects, gravity from objects other than the Earth, such as astronauts, the spacecraft, and the Sun, and, occasionally, air resistance.

    Back2Basics: Femto-satellites

    • Femto-satellites are satellites with a mass lower than 100 grams.
    • These new categories of satellites are, by concept, low cost devices if they are based on Commercial-of-the-Shelf (COTS) components.
    • Some examples of applications are related to low-cost missions with a short time of development.

     Kalamsat

    • Kalamsat was a communication satellite with a life span of two months launched in 2017.
    • The nanosatellite is a 10cm cube weighing 1.2 kg.
    • It will be the first to use the rocket’s fourth stage as an orbital platform.
    • The fourth stage will be moved to higher circular orbit so as to establish an orbital platform for carrying out experiments.
    • It is named after former Indian president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam and was built by an Indian high school student team, led by Rifath Sharook, an 18-year-old from the Tamil Nadu town of Pallapatti.
    • It is the world’s lightest and first-ever 3D-printed satellite.

  • Shaurya Missile and India’s K missiles family

    A successful trial of the nuclear-capable Shaurya missile was conducted by India.

    Shaurya Missile

    • Shaurya is a land-based parallel of the submarine-launched K-15 missile.
    • It is a land variant of short-range SLBM K-15 Sagarika, which has a range of at least 750 kilometres.
    • These ballistic weapons belong to the K missile family — codenamed after late Dr APJ Abdul Kalam — which is launched from Arihant class of nuclear submarines.
    • Because these missiles are to be launched from submarines, they are lighter, smaller and stealthier than their land-based counterparts; the Agni series.

    A look at what this family of missiles is their strategic importance as a nuclear deterrent and their recent tests.

    K Family of missiles

    • The K family of missiles is primarily Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), which have been indigenously developed by DRDO.
    • These are named after Dr Kalam, the central figure in India’s missile and space programmes who also served as the 11th President of India.
    • The development of this naval platform launched missiles began in the late 1990s as a step towards completing India’s nuclear triad (land, sea and air-based).

    Strategic importance of SLBMs

    • The capability of being able to launch nuclear weapons submarine platforms has great strategic importance in the context of achieving a nuclear triad, especially in the light of ‘no first use’ policy of India.
    • The sea-based underwater nuclear-capable assets significantly increase the second strike capability of a country and thus boosts its nuclear deterrence.
    • These submarines can not only survive the first strike by the adversary but also can launch a strike in retaliation thus achieving Credible Nuclear Deterrence.
    • The development of these capabilities is important in light of India’s relations with the two neighbours China and Pakistan.

    Try this PYQ now:

    What is “Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)”, sometimes seen in the news? (CSP 2018)

    (a) An Israeli radar system

    (b) India’s indigenous anti-missile programme

    (c) An American anti-missile system

    (d) A defence collaboration between Japan and South Korea

  • [pib] ABHYAS Air Vehicle

    Successful flight test of ABHYAS – High-speed Expendable Aerial Target (HEAT) was today conducted by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) from the Interim Test Range, Balasore in Odisha.

    Try this PYQ:

    What is “Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)”, sometimes seen in the news?

    (a) An Israeli radar system

    (b) India’s indigenous anti-missile programme

    (c) An American anti-missile system

    (d) A defence collaboration between Japan and South Korea

    ABHYAS Air Vehicle

    • ABHYAS is designed & developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), DRDO.
    • The air vehicle is launched using twin underslung booster.
    • It is powered by a small gas turbine engine and has a MEMS-based Inertial Navigation System (INS) for navigation along with the Flight Control Computer (FCC) for guidance and control.
    • The vehicle is programmed for fully autonomous flight. The check out of air vehicle is done using laptop-based Ground Control Station (GCS).
    • During the test campaign, the user requirement of 5 km flying altitude, vehicle speed of 0.5 mach, the endurance of 30 minutes and 2g turn capability of the test vehicle were successfully achieved.

    Its uses

    • Abhyas’s radar cross-section (RCS), as well as its visual and infrared signatures, can be augmented to simulate a variety of aircraft for air-defence weapon practices.
    • It can also function as a jammer platform and decoy.
    • The HEAT system is utilized to do away with the post-launch recovery mode, which is time-consuming and difficult in a scenario as the sea.

  • What is a Serological Survey?

    A Serological Survey was recently conducted in New Delhi to determine the exposure of the novel coronavirus among the population.

    Try this question from CSP 2019:

    Which one of the following statements is not correct?

    (a) Hepatitis B virus is transmitted much like HIV.
    (b) Hepatitis B, unlike Hepatitis C, does not have a vaccine.
    (c) Globally, the number of people infected with Hepatitis B and C viruses is several times more than those infected with HIV.
    (d) Some of those infected with Hepatitis Band C viruses do not show the symptoms for many years.

    Serological Survey

    • A serological survey seeks to assess the prevalence of the disease in a population by detecting the presence of specific antibodies against the virus.
    • A serological test is performed to diagnose infections and autoimmune illnesses. It can also be conducted to check if a person has developed immunity to certain diseases.
    • The survey included the IgG Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) test which estimates the proportion of the population exposed to SARS-CoV-2 infection.
    • The IgG test is not useful for detecting acute infections, but it indicates episodes of infections that may have occurred in the past.
    • The test has been approved by ICMR for its high sensitivity and specificity.

    Highlights of the Survey

    • The study found the presence of antibodies in 22.86 percent of the people surveyed.
    • It indicated that a large number of infected persons remain asymptomatic.

    Why needed such survey?

    • Since it is not possible to test everyone in the population, serological studies are used as a tool to make an estimate of the extent of disease spread in the community.

    Conclusions from the survey

    • Results show that a significant proportion of the population is still vulnerable to contracting the novel coronavirus infection.
    • Containment measures need to continue with the same rigour.
    • Non-pharmacological interventions such as physical distancing, use of face mask/cover, hand hygiene, cough etiquette and avoidance of crowded places etc. must be followed strictly.

  • Lithium Nucleosynthesis in Stars

    A forty-year-old puzzle regarding the production of lithium in stars has been solved by Indian researchers.

    Try this question from CSP 2013:

    Q.Consider the following phenomena:

    1. Size of the sun at dusk
    2. Colour of the sun at dawn
    3. Moon being visible at dawn
    4. Twinkle of stars in the sky
    5. Polestar being visible in the sky

    Which of the above are optical illusions?

    (a) 1, 2 and 3

    (b) 3, 4 and 5

    (c) 1, 2 and 4

    (d) 2, 3 and 5

    Lithium nucleosynthesis in Stars

    • Stars, as per known mechanisms of evolution, actually destroy lithium as they evolve into red giants.
    • Planets were known to have more lithium than their stars — as is the case with the Earth-Sun pair.
    • However, leading to a contradiction, some stars were found that were lithium-rich.
    • The new work by an Indian researcher shows that when stars grow beyond their Red Giant stage into what is known as the Red Clump stage, they produce lithium.
    • This is known as a Helium Flash and this is what enriches them with lithium.

    Studying lithium-rich stars

    • About 40 years ago, a few large stars were spotted that were lithium-rich.
    • This was followed by further discoveries of lithium-rich stars, and that posed a puzzle — if stars do not produce lithium, how do some stars develop to become lithium-rich.
    • The planet engulfment theory was quite popular. For example, Earth-like planets may increase the star’s lithium content when they plunge into [their] star’s atmosphere when the latter become Red Giants.

    Findings of the Indian research

    • Indian researchers have been working on this puzzle for nearly 20 years to devise a method of measuring lithium content using low-resolution spectra in a large number of stars.
    • The study demonstrated that lithium abundance enhancement among low mass giant stars is common.
    • Until now, it was believed that only about 1% of giants are lithium-rich.
    • Secondly, the team has shown that as the star evolves beyond the Red Giant stage, and before it reaches the Red Clump stage, there is a helium flash which produces an abundance of lithium.

    Back2Basics: Lithium

    • Lithium is a chemical element with the symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard conditions, it is the lightest metal and the lightest solid element.
    • S light element commonly used today in communication device technology, it has an interesting story.
    • It was first produced in the Big Bang, around 13.7 billion years ago when the universe came into being, along with other elements.
    • While the abundance of other elements grew millions of times, the present abundance of lithium in the universe is only four times the original [Big Bang] value. It is actually destroyed in the stars.
    • The Sun, for instance, has about a factor of 100 lower amount of lithium than the Earth.

  • Remembering P C Mahalanobis

    Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, India’s ‘Plan Man’ and the architect of the country’s statistical system is more relevant now in times of Covid pandemic when we grapple with the lack of data.

    Analysing 1944 Bengal famine

    • He conducted a large-scale sample survey of Bengal’s famine between July 1944 and February 1945.
    • Sample survey helped in causal analysis and to assess the extent of the disaster and an estimate of the number of people affected.

    Relevance today

    • Bengal’s famine survey reminds us that we need estimates of the millions who will lose jobs or livelihoods in today’s pandemic.
    • The extent of feasibility, success and problem of online access also needs to be properly estimated in this new dawn.
    • Mahalanobis is perhaps more relevant today when the accuracy of different sorts of data is under the scanner.
    • Mahalanobis envisaged large-scale sample surveys as statistical engineering rather than pure theory of sampling.
    • He was instrumental in establishing the National Sample Survey (NSS) in 1950 and the Central Statistical Organization in 1951.

    Data accuracy

    • Mahalanobis was very careful about data accuracy in his surveys.
    • In Kautilya’s Arthashastra, there is mention of the need for cross-checking by an independent set of agents for data collection.
    • This, according to Mahalanobis, was the “striking feature in the Arthashastra”.
    • This might have prompted him to have an independent supervisory staff during the conduct of field operations by the NSS.
    • His initial training in Physics might have made him conscious about errors in measurement and observation.
    • The desire to have built-in cross-checks and to get an estimate of errors in sampling led him to introduce the Inter-Penetrating Network of Subsamples.
    • The network is considered as the curtain-raiser for re-sampling procedures like Bootstrap.
    • Bootstrap is a revolutionary concept of statistics.

    Difficulties in conducting surveys

    • Even Mahalanobis could have faced hardship had he wished to conduct surveys now.
    • First, even in pre-COVID-19 India, it’s widely reported that surveyors were facing tremendous resistance from people due to some sociopolitical reasons.
    • Pronab Sen, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Economic Statistics, and former Chief Statistician, expressed his concern that the survey system is already in “deep trouble”.
    • Conducting household surveys with the Census as the frame would be “very tough” going ahead.
    • The problem will intensify due to COVID-19.

    Use of technology for survey

    • Mahalanobis never shied away from technology.
    • He was instrumental in bringing computers to India.
    • The Mahalanobis-led Indian Statistical Institute procured India’s first computer in 1956 and the second in 1959.

    Consider the question asked in 2019 “How was India benefitted from the contributions of Sir M.Visvesvaraya and Dr M. S. Swaminathan in the fields of water engineering and agricultural science respectively?”

    Conclusion

    Mahalanobis wrote: “Statistics are a minor detail, but they do help.” This is an eternal truth. What Mahalanobis didn’t spell out is that one needs a top statistician for listening to the heartbeats of data and for framing data-based policy decisions for human welfare and national development.

  • What is Raman Spectroscopy?

    Mumbai-based researchers have turned to Raman Spectroscopy to detect RNA viruses present in saliva samples.

    Try this question from CSP 2017
    Q.Which Indian astrophysicist and Nobel laureate predicted rapidly rotating stars emit polarized light?
    (a) Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    (b) CV Raman
    (c) Ramanujan
    (d) Amartya Sen

    The Raman Spectroscopy

    • Raman spectroscopy is an analytical technique where scattered light is used to measure the vibrational energy modes of a sample.
    • In 1928, Raman discovered that when a stream of light passes through a liquid, a fraction of the light scattered by the liquid is of a different colour.
    • While Raman was returning from London in a 15-day voyage, he started thinking about the colour of the deep blue Mediterranean.
    • He wasn’t convinced by the explanation that the colour of the sea was blue due to the reflection of the sky.
    • As the ship docked in Bombay, he sent a letter to the editor of the journal Nature, in which he penned down his thoughts on this.
      Subsequently, Raman was able to show that the blue colour of the water was due to the scattering of the sunlight by water molecules.
    • By this time he was obsessed with the phenomenon of light scattering.

    How does it work?

    • The Raman Effect is when the change in the energy of the light is affected by the vibrations of the molecule or material under observation, leading to a change in its wavelength.
    • Significantly, it notes that the Raman effect is “very weak” — this is because when the object in question is small (smaller than a few nanometres), the light will pass through it undisturbed.
    • But a few times in a billion, light waves may interact with the particle. This could also explain why it was not discovered before.
    • In general, when light interacts with an object, it can either be reflected, refracted or transmitted.
    • One of the things that scientists look at when light is scattered is if the particle it interacts with is able to change its energy.

    Applications

    • Raman spectroscopy is used in many varied fields – in fact, any application where non-destructive, microscopic, chemical analysis and imaging is required.
    • Whether the goal is qualitative or quantitative data, Raman analysis can provide key information easily and quickly.
    • It can be used to rapidly characterize the chemical composition and structure of a sample, whether solid, liquid, gas, gel, slurry or powder.

  • International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Project

    The heavy engineering division of L&T dispatched a giant Cryostat lid, to International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) site in France from its Hazira unit in Gujarat.

    Try this MCQ:

    Q.With reference to International science projects, consider the following:

    1. Large Hadron Collider (LHC)– The God Particle
    2. Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT) – The World’s Most Advanced Telescope
    3. International-Thermonuclear-Experimental-Reactor (ITER) – Fusion Energy
    4. Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) – Antiproton and Ion Research

    Which of the above projects have India’s active participation?

    a) 1 only

    b) 2 and 3 only

    c) 1, 3 and 4 only

    d) All of them

    ITER Project

    • ITER is international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject, which will be the world’s largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment.
    • The goal of ITER is to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy for peaceful use.

    Minutes of the project

    • The project is funded and run by seven member entities—the European Union, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the United States.
    • The EU, as host party for the ITER complex, is contributing about 45 per cent of the cost, with the other six parties contributing approximately 9 per cent each.
    • Construction of the ITER Tokamak complex started in 2013 and the building costs were over US$14 billion by June 2015.

    How does it work?

    • ITER is the most complex science project in human history. The ITER aims to use a strong electric current to trap plasma inside a doughnut-shaped enclosure long enough for fusion to take place.
    • Hydrogen plasma will be heated to 150 million degrees Celsius, ten times hotter than the core of the Sun, to enable the fusion reaction.
    • The process happens in a doughnut-shaped reactor, called a tokamak 1, which is surrounded by giant magnets that confine and circulate the superheated, ionized plasma, away from the metal walls.
    • The superconducting magnets must be cooled to -269°C (-398°F), as cold as interstellar space.
    • Scientists have long sought to mimic the process of nuclear fusion that occurs inside the sun, arguing that it could provide an almost limitless source of cheap, safe and clean electricity.
    • Unlike in existing fission reactors, which split plutonium or uranium atoms, there’s no risk of an uncontrolled chain reaction with fusion and it doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste.

    Back2Basics: Nuclear Fusion

    • Nuclear fusion is the process of making a single heavy nucleus (part of an atom) from two lighter nuclei. This process is called a nuclear reaction.
    • The nucleus made by fusion is heavier than either of the starting nuclei. It releases a large amount of energy.
    • Fusion is what powers the sun. Atoms of Tritium and Deuterium (isotopes of hydrogen, Hydrogen-3 and Hydrogen-2, respectively) unite under extreme pressure and temperature to produce a neutron and a helium isotope.
    • Along with this, an enormous amount of energy is released, which is several times the amount produced by fission.
    • Scientists continue to work on controlling nuclear fusion in an effort to make a fusion reactor to produce electricity.

    How it is different from nuclear fission?

    • Simply put, fission is the division of one atom into two (by neutron bombardment), and fusion is the combination of two lighter atoms into a larger one (at a very high temperature).
    • Nuclear fission takes place when a large, somewhat unstable isotope (atoms with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons) is bombarded by high-speed particles, usually neutrons.

  • Celebrating the contributors to agriculture

    This article introduces us to the Indian winners of the prize that is considered as the Nobel for research in food. Their contribution has benefited agriculture immensely.Here, we’ll get a brief idea about their work.

    Word Food Prize

    • The World Food Prize is often described as the Nobel for research in food.
    • It was set up by Ñorman Borlaug.
    • Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1972 for his work on hybridisation of wheat and rice.
    • His work led to the Green Revolution in the mid-1960s.

    Indian winners of the award

    • The awards to eight Indians of the total of 50 given so far are a tribute to the country’s agricultural university education and research system.
    • The country should celebrate their achievements unabashedly when 7-10 million new productive jobs need to be created annually.
    • And when it accounts for a third of global undernourished.
    • The COVID-19 pandemic has made job creation and improved nutrition and health more urgent than ever.

    Let’s look at the contributions made by these personalities

     Rattan Lal

    • Rattan Lal was awarded for developing and mainstreaming a soil-centric approach to increasing food production.
    • This approach also restores and conserves natural resources and mitigates climate change.
    • His research has shown that growing crops on healthy soils produces more food from less land area, less use of agrochemicals, less tillage, less water, and less energy.

    M S Swaminathan

    • Swaminathan’s vision transformed India from a “begging bowl” to a “breadbasket” almost overnight.
    • His work helped bringing the total crop yield of wheat from 12 million tonnes to 23 million tonnes in four crop seasons.
    • Which helped in ending India’s dependence on grain imports.

    Verghese Kurien

    • Kurien, received the prize in 1989 for India’s white revolution.
    • Under his leadership, milk production increased from 23.3 million tonnes (1968-69) to 100.9 million tonnes (2006-07).
    • And now it is projected to reach 187 million tonnes for 2019-20.
    • This helped in bringing millions of small and marginal farmers, including women into the marketplace.

     Ramlal Barwale

    • Barwale, a small farmer and entrepreneur, received the award in 1996.
    • He made selling seeds of okra and sorghum “hip” and founded the Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company.
    • The Crop Science Society of America has called him father of the seed industry in India.
    • He introduced hybrid rice from China to India.

    Surinder Vasal

    • Vasal was given the prize in 2000 for developing quality protein maize (QPM).
    • Integrating cereal chemistry and plant breeding techniques, Vasal and Villegas of Mexico collaborated to work on “opaque-2” maize variety using molecular biology techniques.
    • In the mid-1980s, they produced a QPM germplasm with hard kernel characteristics and taste like that of the traditional grain.
    • But it has much higher quality levels of lysine and tryptophan, thereby enhancing the nutrition value.

    Mododugu Gupta

    • Gupta received the award in 2005 for starting a blue revolution.
    • He developed two exceptional approaches for increasing fish harvests among the very poor.
    • This helped in increasing the protein and mineral content in the diets of over one million of the world’s most impoverished families.
    •  Gupta’s aquaculture technologies boosted Bangladesh’s fish yields from 304 kg per hectare to over 2,500 kg per hectare in less than a year — including 1,000 kg per hectare harvests in the dry season.

    Sanjaya Rajaram

    • Rajaram, who won the prize in 2014.
    • He succeeded Borlaug in leading CIMMYT’s wheat breeding programme.
    • There he went on to develop an astounding 480 varieties that have been widely adopted by both small and large-scale farmers.
    • Rajaram was born near a small farming village in Uttar Pradesh and received his master’s degree from IARI.

    Decreasing government support

    • The awardees all come from the time of the green and rainbow revolutions (of dairy and aqua-culture).
    • It was also the time when India invested heavily in agricultural science education and research and Indian scientists shone brightly in the global galaxy of science.
    • Government support for state agricultural universities, and research conducted by the ICAR and the departments of science and technology and biotechnology has slipped in recent years.
    • Today, not a single Indian university is counted among the top 100 in the world.
    Consider the question asked by the UPSC in 2019 “How was India benefitted from the contributions of Sir M.Visvesvaraya and Dr M. S. Swaminathan in the fields of water engineering and agricultural science respectively?”

    Conclusion

    Students and faculty at ICAR and state agricultural universities can follow in their footsteps and achieve scientific excellence, if they receive the resources and their work is supported with incentives.

  • Nature Index, 2020

    India has ranked twelfth, globally in science research output as per the recently-released Nature Index table 2020. The top five positions have gone to the United States of America, China, Germany, United Kingdom and Japan.

    Note: This nature index has nothing to do with nature conservation. It has only mentioned the rankings of research institutes in natural and physical sciences.

    What is the Nature Index?

    • The Nature Index is a database of author affiliation information collated from research articles published in an independently selected group of 82 high-quality science journals.
    • It serves as an indicator of high-quality research in the Natural and Physical Sciences.
    • The database is compiled by Nature Research, a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals.
    • The index provides a close to the real-time proxy of high-quality research output and collaboration at the institutional, national and regional level.

    India’s achievements

    • Globally the top-rated Indian institutions in this list are CSIR, a group of 39 institutions at the 160th position and IISc Bangalore at the 184th
    • Three of the autonomous institutions of the DST have found their place among the top 30 Indian Institutions.
    • Keeping out CSIR, which is a cluster of institutions, IACS Kolkata is among the top three institutions in quality Chemistry Research in India.
    • NCASR Banglore ranks 4th among academic institutions in life sciences, 10th in Chemistry and Physical Sciences, 10th among Indian academic institutions, and 469th in the global ranking.