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

  • [pib] India’s AI supercomputer PARAM Siddhi

    India’s newest and fastest supercomputer, PARAM-Siddhi AI, has been ranked 63rd in the Top500 list of most powerful supercomputers in the world.

    Try this MCQ:

    Q.The terms Mihir, Param Siddhi and Pratyush are sometimes seen in news are actually:

    a)Indigenous Submarines

    b)Supercomputers

    c)Missiles

    d)Satellites

    Param Siddhi

    • It is a high-performance computing-artificial intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer established under National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) at C-DAC.
    • It was commissioned by the C-DAC earlier and has been developed in association with chipmaker Nvidia and French IT consulting firm Atos.
    • It will help deep learning, visual computing, virtual reality, accelerated computing, as well as graphics virtualization.
    • The computer is expected to be used as a platform for academia, scientific research, startups and more.

    Other Indian supercomputers

    • PARAM-Siddhi is the second Indian supercomputer to be entered in the top 100 on the Top500 list.
    • Pratyush, a supercomputer used for weather forecasting at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, ranked 78th on the November edition of the list.
    • It was ranked 66th in the June rankings announced by the project.
    • Another Indian supercomputer, Mihir (146th on the list), clubs with Pratyush to generate enough computing power to match PARAM-Siddhi.

    Who topped the rankings?

    • The Top500 project tracks the most powerful supercomputers in the world and is published twice a year.
    • Japanese supercomputer Fugaku (442 petaflops) and IBM’s Summit (148.8 petaflops) are the two most powerful supercomputers in the world, according to the list.
    • Chinese Sunway TaihuLight is number four on the list (93 petaflops), developed by the National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering & Technology (NRCPC) in China.

    Back2Basics:

    National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)

    Petaflop

    • A petaflop is a measure of a computer’s processing speed and can be expressed as A thousand trillion floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) A thousand teraflops.
    • In computing, floating-point operations per second is a measure of computer performance, useful in fields of scientific computations that require floating-point calculations.
    • For such cases, it is a more accurate measure than measuring instructions per second.

  • Needed, a policy framework in step with technology

    The changing realm of technology requires a change in the policy framework. The article discusses the issue of the impact of technology and the required changes in the policy framework.

    Adoption of information-based technologies

    • The expansion of computing power has driven the pace of information gathering and analysis.
    • The new currency drives processes and decision-making across a wide array of products and services, making them more efficient and value accretive for consumers.
    • These information-based technologies have been widely adopted across a broad range of industries and products that traditionally have not been perceived as electronic or software based.
    •  A modern automobile has 40% of its component value from electronic-based products.
    • This is a paradigm shift as the amount of “value add” from intangible technology services as opposed to physical objects, even in traditional goods, is being transformed by information.
    • Information and electronics are becoming all-pervasive, ensuring that we set boundaries to control quality or the uptime of the equipment.
    • Information availability drives efficiency and creates value for customers by providing greater control over the product
    • There is increasing digitisation and electronification of industrial activities, products and services, influencing the evolving skill sets in industry.

    Need for holistic views in policies

    • To address the needs of various stakeholders, governments have tended to build specialised departments and designed policies that govern those areas.
    • Over time, as each of these departments grew, they have tended to operate in silos.
    • The recent developments in technology have, however, blurred standard boundaries that dictate policy framework in most governments.
    • As technology is driving an increasing share of the value add coming from digitisation and data analytics, there needs to be a way of encouraging capital formation by way of intangibles in traditionally tangible industries.
    • There is a need to have a holistic view of policies for economic development as technology is becoming a significant enabler in most industries.
    • A change in policy framework regarding economic development that enables various ministries to work together is essential.

    Way forward

    • A nourishing ecosystem for industry, including the hard infrastructure and softer areas such as education, skilling, technical institutions, laboratories, testing centres, etc., has to be cultivated.
    • The creation of clusters of companies in adjacent but complementary areas could constitute such an ecosystem that encourages multi and cross-disciplinary learning and spur innovation and economic development.
    • Moreover, this type of ecosphere could also attract investment and capital formation.
    • There is also the larger issue of a shift of value between manufacturing and services as technology changes.
    • The policy, by and large, promotes and gives incentives for manufacturing, whereas the share of intangibles are not adequately covered in industrial policies.
    • It is important to include these to encourage innovation and technological development.
    • It is important that there is close cooperation and alignment between the Centre and State to ensure effective implementation on the ground.

    Conclusion

    Some of these thoughts could help us navigate through an ecosystem that is changing with technology.

  • National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)

    The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has launched the second phase of the ambitious National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).

    Tap to read more about National Supercomputing Mission (NSM):

    [pib] National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)

    National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)

    • NSM is a proposed plan by GoI to create a cluster of seventy supercomputers connecting various academic and research institutions across India.
    • In April 2015 the government approved the NSM with a total outlay of Rs.4500 crore for a period of 7 years.
    • The mission was set up to provide the country with supercomputing infrastructure to meet the increased computational demands of academia, researchers, MSMEs, and startups by creating the capability design, manufacturing, of supercomputers indigenously in India.
    • Currently, there are four supercomputers from India in the Top 500 list of supercomputers in the world.

    Aims and objectives

    • The target of the mission was set to establish a network of supercomputers ranging from a few Tera Flops (TF) to Hundreds of Tera Flops (TF) and three systems with greater than or equal to 3 Peta Flops (PF) in academic and research institutions of National importance across the country by 2022.
    • This network of Supercomputers envisaging a total of 15-20 PF was approved in 2015 and was later revised to a total of 45 PF (45000 TFs), a jump of 6 times more compute power within the same cost and capable of solving large and complex computational problems.

    What is a Supercomputer?

    • A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer.
    • The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instructions per second (MIPS).
    • Since 2017, there are supercomputers which can perform over a hundred quadrillion FLOPS (petaFLOPS).
    • Since November 2017, all of the world’s fastest 500 supercomputers run Linux-based operating systems.

    Why do we need supercomputers?

    • Tackle problems: Developed and almost-developed countries have begun ensuring high investments in supercomputers to boost their economies and tackle new social problems.
    • These high-performance computers can simulate the real world, by processing massive amounts of data, making cars and planes safer, and more fuel-efficient and environment-friendly.
    • They also aid in the extraction of new sources of oil and gas, development of alternative energy sources, and advancement in medical sciences.
    • Disaster Management: Supercomputers have also helped weather forecasters to accurately predict severe storms, enable better mitigation planning and warning systems.
    • They are also used by financial services, manufacturing and internet companies and infrastructure systems like water-supply networks, energy grids, and transportation.
    • Future applications of artificial intelligence (AI) also depend on supercomputing.
    • Due to the potential of this technology, countries like the US, China, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia have created national-level supercomputing strategies and are investing substantially in these programmes.

    When did India initiate its efforts to build supercomputers?

    • India’s supercomputer programme initiated in the late 1980s, when the United States ceased the export of a Cray Supercomputer due to technology embargos.
    • This resulted in India setting up C-DAC in 1988, which in 1991, unveiled the prototype of PARAM 800, benchmarked at 5 Gflops. This supercomputer was the second-fastest in the world at that time.
    • Since June 2018, the USA’s Summit is the fastest supercomputer in the world, taking away this position from China.
    • As of January 2018, Pratyush and Mihir are the fastest supercomputers in India with a maximum speed of Peta Flops.

  • 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.