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  • Innovations in Sciences, IT, Computers, Robotics and Nanotechnology

    What are Time Capsules?

    Prelims Only | Science Tech | Mains Paper 3: Awareness in various sc and tech fields

    Ahead of the laying of the foundation stone for a temple, claims and denials have emerged about plans to put in a time capsule, or ‘Kaal Patra’.

    Do you know?

    A rubidium standard or rubidium atomic clock is the most inexpensive, compact, and widely produced atomic clock, used to control the frequency of television stations, cell phone base stations, in test equipment, and global navigation satellite systems like GPS.

    What is a Time Capsule?

    • It is a container of any size or shape, which accommodates documents, photos and artefacts typical of the current era and is buried underground, for future generations to unearth.
    • The time capsule requires special engineering so that the contents don’t decay, even if pulled out after a century.
    • Material such as aluminium and stainless steel are used for the encasing, and documents are often reproduced on acid-free paper.
    • While the term “time capsule” was coined in the 20th century, among the earliest examples of one dates back to 1777, found by historians inside the statue of Jesus Christ in Spain during its restoration.

    There’s a global society:

    International Time Capsule Society

    • The International Time Capsule Society (ITCS), based in the US and formed in 1990, is now defunct but continues estimating the number of time capsules in the world.
    • As per its database, there are “10,000-15,000 times capsules worldwide”.

    Are there any time capsules in India?

    • There have been a number of prominent examples.
    • One time capsule, outside the Red Fort and placed underground in 1972 by then PM Indira Gandhi, was dug out by the subsequent government.
    • Other time capsules are at a school in Mumbai, IIT-Kanpur, LPU in Jalandhar, and Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar.
    • The Red Fort time capsule was supposed to be dug out after 1,000 years.

    Significance of time capsules

    • Historians often criticize the idea of being motivated.
    • This exercise is inevitably a subjective exercise, geared towards glorification not to construct the real picture.
    • All historians look at this time capsule exercise with suspicion.
    • It’s not a valid historical method — who decides what matter, what artefacts, written documents are going into it?

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  • Forest Conservation Efforts – NFP, Western Ghats, etc.

    [pib] National Transit Pass System (NTPS)

    PIB | Enviro & Biodiversity | Mains Paper 3: Conservation, Environmental Pollution & Degradation, Eia

    Environment Minister has launched piloting of the National Transit Pass System for seamless movement of forest produce.

    Try this MCQ:

    Q.The National Transit Pass System (NTPS) recently seen in news is related to:

    (a) Transport of Forest Produces

    (b) Transport through National Waterways

    (c) Inter-state transport during restrictions

    (d) None of these

    About National Transit Pass System

    • The NTPS is an online system for issuing transit permits for timber, bamboo and other forest produce.
    • This system helps in monitoring and keeping records of transit permits for inter-state and intra-state transportation of timber and bamboo from private lands/government/private depot and other minor forest produce.
    • E-pass will be issued for transit through the desktop-based web portal as well as a mobile application.
    • It will bring ease of business and expedite the issuance of transit permits for timber, bamboo and other minor forest produce without physically going to forest offices.
    • It will be functional in Madhya Pradesh and Telangana for now on a pilot basis.

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  • Health Sector – UHC, National Health Policy, Family Planning, Health Insurance, etc.

    [pib] Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN)

    PIB | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

    The eVIN has reached 32 States and Union Territories (UTs) and will soon be rolled out in the remaining States and UTs of Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Ladakh and Sikkim.

    Try this question from CSP 2016:

    Q.‘Mission Indradhanush’ launched by the Government of India pertains to:

    (a) Immunization of children and pregnant women

    (b) Construction of smart cities across the country

    (c) India’s own search for the Earth-like planets in outer space

    (d) New Educational Policy

    About eVIN

    • The eVIN is an innovative technological solution aimed at strengthening immunization supply chain systems across the country.
    • This is being implemented under the National Health Mission (NHM) by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
    • It aims to provide real-time information on vaccine stocks and flows, and storage temperatures across all cold chain points in the country.
    • This system has been used during the COVID pandemic for ensuring the continuation of the essential immunization services and protecting our children and pregnant mothers against vaccine-preventable diseases.

    Components of eVIN

    • eVIN combines state-of-the-art technology, a strong IT infrastructure and trained human resource to enable real-time monitoring of stock and storage temperature of the vaccines kept in multiple locations across the country.
    • At present, 23,507 cold chain points across 585 districts of 22 States and 2 UTs routinely use the eVIN technology for efficient vaccine logistics management.

    Benefits of eVIN

    • It has helped create a big data architecture that generates actionable analytics encouraging data-driven decision-making and consumption-based planning.
    • It helps in maintaining optimum stocks of vaccines leading to cost savings. Vaccine availability at all times has increased to 99% in most health centres in India.
    • While instances of stock-outs have reduced by 80%, the time taken to replenish stocks has also decreased by more than half, on an average.
    • This has ensured that every child who reaches the immunization session site is immunized, and not turned back due to unavailability of vaccines.

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  • Judicial Reforms

    Explained: What is Contempt of Court?

    | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Executive & Judiciary

    Contempt of court, as a concept is back in the news after the proceeding by the Supreme Court of India, on its own motion, against a senior Delhi-based advocate-activist.

    Try this question for mains:

    Q.What is Contempt of Court? Discuss, how free speech can lead to the contempt of courts?

    What is Contempt of Court?

    • It seeks to protect judicial institutions from motivated attacks and unwarranted criticism, and as a legal mechanism to punish those who lower its authority.

    How did the concept of contempt come into being?

    • The concept of contempt of court is several centuries old.
    • In England, it is a common law principle that seeks to protect the judicial power of the king, initially exercised by him, and later by a panel of judges who acted in his name.
    • Violation of the judges’ orders was considered an affront to the king himself.
    • Over time, any kind of disobedience to judges, or obstruction of the implementation of their directives, or comments and actions that showed disrespect towards them came to be punishable.

    What is the statutory basis for contempt of court?

    • There were pre-Independence laws of contempt in India. Besides the early High Courts, the courts of some princely states also had such laws.
    • When the Constitution was adopted, contempt of court was made one of the restrictions on freedom of speech and expression.
    • Separately, Article 129 of the Constitution conferred on the Supreme Court the power to punish contempt of itself.
    • Article 215 conferred a corresponding power on the High Courts.
    • The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, gives statutory backing to the idea.

    What are the kinds of contempt of court?

    The law codifying contempt classifies it as civil and criminal.

    • Civil contempt is fairly simple. It is committed when someone willfully disobeys a court order or wilfully breaches an undertaking given to the court. However, Criminal contempt is more complex.
    • It consists of three forms: (a) words, written or spoken, signs and actions that “scandalise” or “tend to scandalise” or “lower” or “tends to lower” the authority of any court (b) prejudices or interferes with any judicial proceeding and (c) interferes with or obstructs the administration of justice.
    • The rationale for this provision is that courts must be protected from tendentious attacks that lower its authority, defame its public image and make the public lose faith in its impartiality.
    • The punishment for contempt of court is simple imprisonment for a term up to six months and/or a fine of up to ₹. 2,000.

    What does not account to contempt?

    • Fair and accurate reporting of judicial proceedings will not amount to contempt of court.
    • Nor is any fair criticism on the merits of a judicial order after a case is heard and disposed of.

    Is truth a defence against a contempt charge?

    • For many years, the truth was seldom considered a defence against a charge of contempt.
    • There was an impression that the judiciary tended to hide any misconduct among its individual members in the name of protecting the image of the institution.
    • The Act was amended in 2006 to introduce truth as a valid defence if it was in the public interest and was invoked in a bonafide

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  • Modern Indian History-Events and Personalities

    William Jones and his linguistic studies

    Prelims Only | History | Mains Paper 1: Arts & Culture

    This newscard is an excerpt from the original article published in the Indian Express.

    Try this PYQ from CSP 2016:

    Q.Who of the following had first deciphered the edicts of Emperor Ashoka?

    (a) Georg Buhier

    (b) James Prinsep

    (c) Max Muller

    (d) William Jones

    William Jones

    • William Jones was appointed as a judge on the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal,
    • In the next couple of years, Jones established himself as an authority on ancient Indian language and culture, a field of study that was hitherto untouched.
    • He is particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among European and Indo-Aryan languages, which he coined as Indo-European.
    • He is also credited for establishing the Asiatic Society of Bengal in the year 1784.

    His linguistic studies

    • Jones’ was the first to suggest that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin languages had a common root and that indeed they may all be further related, in turn, to Gothic and the Celtic languages, as well as to Persian.
    • He also suggested that Sanskrit ‘was introduced to India by conquerors from other kingdoms in some very remote age’ displacing ‘the pure Hindi’ of north India
    • His claim rested on the evidence of several Sanskrit words that had similarities with Greek and Latin.

    Some examples of his propositions

    • As he studied the languages further, it became clearer that apart from Greek and Latin, Sanskrit words could be found in most other European languages.
    • For instance, the Sanskrit word for ‘three’, that is ‘trayas’, is similar to the Latin ‘tres’ and the Greek ‘treis’. Similarly, the Sanskrit for ‘snake’, is ‘sarpa’, which shares a phonetic link with ‘serpens’ in Latin.
    • For instance, ‘mata’ or mother in Sanskrit, is ‘mutter’ in German. ‘Dan’ or ‘to give’ in Sanskrit is ‘donor’ in Spanish.

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  • Climate Change Impact on India and World – International Reports, Key Observations, etc.

    In news: Galapagos Islands

    Prelims Only | Enviro & Biodiversity | Mains Paper 1: Distribution Of Key Natural Resources Across The World

    Chinese ships are frequently entering Ecuador’s waters for commercial fishing near the Galapagos Islands.

    Try this question from CSP 2018:

    Q.Which one of the following can one comes across if one travels through the Strait of Malacca?

    (a) Bali

    (b) Brunei

    (c) Java

    (d) Singapore

    The Galapagos Islands

    • Renowned worldwide for its unique species, the islands host a wide array of aquatic wildlife, including marine iguanas, fur seals, and waved albatrosses.
    • The giant tortoises found here – ‘Galápagos’ in old Spanish– give the islands its name.
    • Ecuador made a part of the Galapagos a wildlife sanctuary in 1935, and the sanctuary became the Galapagos National Park in 1959.
    • In 1978, the islands became UNESCO’s first World Heritage Site.
    • It was here that the British naturalist Charles Darwin made key observations in 1835 that shaped his theory of evolution. Darwin described the islands as a “world in itself”.

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  • Wildlife Conservation Efforts

    Species in news: Dhole

    Species | Enviro & Biodiversity | Mains Paper 3: Conservation, Environmental Pollution & Degradation, Eia

    Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh rank high in the conservation of dhole in India, according to a new study.

    Dhole

    • The dhole is a canid native to Central, South, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.
    • India perhaps supports the largest number of dholes, with key populations found in three landscapes — Western Ghats, Central India and Northeast India.
    • It is a highly social animal, living in large clans without rigid dominance hierarchies and containing multiple breeding females.
    • It is listed as ‘Endangered’ by the IUCN as populations are decreasing and are estimated at fewer than 2,500 adults.
    • Factors contributing to this decline include habitat loss, loss of prey, competition with other species, persecution due to livestock predation and disease transfer from domestic dogs.

    Their significance

    • Dholes play an important role as apex predators in forest ecosystems.
    • Besides the tiger, the dhole is the only large carnivore in India that is under IUCN’s ‘endangered’ category.

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  • Wildlife Conservation Efforts

    Species in news: Hoolock Gibbons

    Species | Enviro & Biodiversity | Mains Paper 3: Conservation, Environmental Pollution & Degradation, Eia

    Hoolock Gibbons, the only species of apes found in India, are threatened with extinction in the Ukhrul and Kamjong districts of Manipur, a report has claimed.

    Try this PYQ from CSP2013:

    Q.Consider the following pairs:

    Protected area:: Well-known for

    1. Bhitarkanika, Orissa:: Salt Water Crocodile
    2. Desert National Park, Rajasthan:: Great Indian Bustard
    3. Eravikulam, Kerala:: Hoolock Gibbon

    Which of the above pairs is/are correctly matched?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 1 and 2 only

    (c) 2 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

    Hoolock Gibbons

    • The two districts used to be covered with dense, tropical rainforests, which provided ideal tree canopies for the arboreal, brachiating ape species.
    • Rampant deforestation for timber, forest fires and indiscriminate hunting had led to the decline in their population.
    • Without the tree canopies, the gibbons cannot swing from branch to branch and stake out their territories.
    • They also cannot adapt to living on the ground and cannot bear the high temperatures brought about by the loss of green cover.

    Conservation status (a/c to WWF India)

    • The gibbon has a much wider range, as it is found in all the states of the north-east, restricted between the south of the Brahmaputra River and east of the Dibang River.
    • Outside India, it is found in eastern Bangladesh and north-west Myanmar.
    • The eastern hoolock gibbon inhabits specific pockets of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in India, and southern China and north-east Myanmar.
    • Of the two, the western hoolock is listed as Endangered in the IUCN Redlist, while the eastern hoolock is listed as Vulnerable.

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  • Digital India Initiatives

    [pib] Bharat Airfiber

    PIB | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways Etc.

    The Union Ministry of Communications has inaugurated “Bharat Air Fibre Services” at Akola in Maharashtra.

    Try this PYQ from CSP 2018:

    Q: Which of the following is/are the aim/aims of “Digital India” plan of the Government of India?

    1. Formation of India’s own Internet companies like china did.
    2. Established a policy framework to encourage overseas multinational corporations that collect big data to build their large data centers within our national geographical boundaries.
    3. Connect many of our villages to the internet and bring WiFi to many of our schools, public places and major tourist centers.

    Select the correct answer using the code given below:

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 3 only

    (c) 2 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

    Bharat Air Fibre Services

    • The Bharat Air Fibre services are introduced by BSNL as part of Digital India initiates by the GoI.
    • It aims to provide Wireless Connectivity in the range of 20 KMs from the BSNL Locations.
    • It provides internet connectivity upto 100 Mbps speed.
    • It is completely wireless and offers broadband up to 10Mbps up to a distance of 5 Kms.
    • These services are special and different from other operators as BSNL is providing unlimited free voice calling.
    • Customers at remote places also will be benefitted as BSNL comes with the cheapest services with the support of Telecom Infrastructure Partners (TIPs).

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  • Digital India Initiatives

    The digital lifeline provided by UPI

    | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Indian Economy

    The UPI sets the template for India in its journey toward digitalisation. This article by WhatsApp head Will Cathcart explains the success story of UPI and the future scope to build on its success.

    The success story of UPI

    • The UPI system set a national open standard for all of India’s banks, more than 155 of which have adopted it.
    • UPI is open standard that technology companies can adopt on an equal and level-playing field.
    • This means that no one company, foreign or domestic, can write the rules for the other.
    • Since its launch, the UPI system has grown to manage a 100 million-strong user base.
    • NPCI has also set a goal to increase UPI’s user base to 500 million by 2022, which if achieved, would be a true game-changer for Digital India.

    What the success of UPI means

    •  UPI has set important new frameworks around security and efficiency.
    • Because of the strong rules that India has put in place, payment transaction information remains with the banks and within the country.
    • And as a platform built on Indian technology and governed by Indian rules, UPI benefits Indians now and holds great potential for further innovation and commerce.

    Future scope for UPI

    •  It is imperative more tech companies are able to leverage the power of UPI to expand the digital ecosystem to accelerate financial inclusion.
    • UPI can also anchor a broader suite of fintech applications like micro-pensions, digital insurance products, and flexible loans.
    • These are custom solutions created by Indian technology companies, on the public infrastructure of UPI.
    • These solutions will first solve large social, business and financial problems in India and then become templates for other countries to deploy.
    • COVID-19 has only underscored the importance of these tools that will serve as critical lifelines for small and micro-enterprises and individuals as they look to recover.

    Consider the question “Within a short period from its launch the UPI has transformed the payment landscape in India. Examine the factors that contributed to the success of UPI and elaborate on its future scope.”

    Conclusion

    With courage, ambition, and boundless potential, India can emerge from this pandemic stronger than ever before — a leading democratic digital powerhouse that will lead the world in the 21st century.

    B2BASICS

    What is Unified Payments Interface (UPI)?

    Image for post

    • It was launched in April 2016 and in the last two years, the platform has emerged as a popular choice among users for sending and receiving money.
    • UPI is a payment system that allows money transfer between any two bank accounts by using a smartphone.
    • UPI allows a customer to pay directly from a bank account to different merchants, both online and offline, without the hassle of typing credit card details, IFSC code, or net banking/wallet passwords.
    • It also caters to the “Peer to Peer” collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience.

    Original article:

    https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/coronavirus-india-economy-poverty-digital-payment-bhim-upi-6533171/

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