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Subject: Science and Technology

  • ‘Accelerate Vigyan’ Scheme

    To provide a single platform for research internships, capacity building programs and workshops across the country, the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) has launched a new scheme called ‘Accelerate Vigyan’ (AV).

    Note the following things about the ‘Accelerate Vigyan’ Scheme:

    1) Implementing agency/ Nodal Ministry

    2) Primary objective

    3) Target beneficiaries

    4) Its components

    ‘Accelerate Vigyan’ Scheme

    • Accelerate Vigyan (AV) strives to provide a big push to high-end scientific research and prepare scientific manpower which can venture into research careers and knowledge-based economy.
    • The primary objective of this scheme is to give more thrust on encouraging high-end scientific research and preparing scientific manpower, which can lead to research careers and knowledge-based economy.
    • AV will initiate and strengthen mechanisms of identifying research potential, mentoring, training and hands-on workshop on a national scale.
    • The aim is to expand the research base in the country, with three broad goals – consolidation / aggregation of all scientific training programs, initiating High-end Orientation Workshops and creating opportunities for Research Internships.

    Components of AV

    1) ABHYAAS

    • It is an attempt to boost research and development in the country by enabling and grooming potential PG/PhD students by means of developing their research skills in selected areas across different disciplines or fields.
    • It has two components: High-End Workshops (‘KARYASHALA’) and Research Internships (‘VRITIKA’).
    • This is especially important for those researchers who have limited opportunities to access such learning capacities/facilities/infrastructure.

    2) SAMOOHAN

    • Mission ‘SAMOOHAN’ marks the beginning of Accelerate Vigyan.
    • It aims to encourage, aggregate and consolidate all scientific interactions in the country under one common roof.
    • It has been sub-divided into ‘SAYONJIKA’ and ‘SANGOSHTI’.
    • SAYONJIKA is an open-ended program to catalogue the capacity building activities in science and technology supported by all government funding agencies in the country.
    • SANGOSHTI is a pre-existing program of SERB.

  • Festival in news: Bahuda Yatra

    The Bahuda Yatra, the return journey of the deities to the Puri Jagannath temple after the annual Rath Yatra, was recently concluded amid permitted restrictions.

    Bahuda Yatra

    • A/c to folk stories Lord Jagannath and his siblings, Goddess Shubhadra and Lord Balabhadra, returns from their aunt’s place at Gundicha Temple to Jagannath Temple.
    • This journey is known as Bahuda Yatra.
    • Nine days after the Rath Yatra, the yatra or the return journey takes place.

    About Jagannath Rath Yatra

    • Ratha Jatra, the Festival of Chariots of Lord Jagannatha is celebrated every year at Puri, the temple town in Orissa, on the east coast of India.
    • It involves a public procession with a chariot with deities Jagannath (Vishnu avatar), BalaBhadra (his brother), Subhadra (his sister) and Sudarshana Chakra (his weapon) on a ratha, a wooden deula-shaped chariot.
    • The huge, colourfully decorated chariots, are drawn by hundreds and thousands of devotees on the bada danda, the grand avenue to the Gundicha temple, some two miles away to the North.
    • It attracts over a million Hindu pilgrims who join the procession each year.

    Back2Basics: Puri Temple Architecture

    • Jagannath Temple is a very big temple and covers an area of 37000m2. The height of the outer wall is 6.1m.
    • It is surrounded by a high fortified wall 6.1 m high is known as Meghanada Pacheri.
    • The main portion of the temple is also surrounded by a wall known as Kurma Bheda.
    • The temple is built in Rekha Deula style and has four distinct sectional structures, namely –
    1. Deula, Vimana or Garba griha (Sanctum sanctorum) where the triad deities are lodged on the ratnavedi (Throne of Pearls)
    2. Mukhashala (Frontal porch)
    3. Nata mandir/Natamandapa, which is also known as the Jagamohan (Audience Hall/Dancing Hall), and
    4. Bhoga Mandapa (Offerings Hall)

    Try this question from CSP 2019:

    Q.Building ‘Kalyaana Mandapas’ was a notable feature in the temple construction in the kingdom of-

    (a) Chalukya (b) Chandela (c) Rashtrakuta (d) Vijayanagara

  • Gold Nanoparticles and their applications

    Indian researchers have successfully synthesized gold nanoparticles (GNPs) using psychrotolerant Antarctic bacteria through a non-toxic, low-cost, and eco-friendly way.

    Nanotechnology is a pathbreaking technology which can create many new materials and devices with a wide range of applications, such as in nanomedicine, nanoelectronics etc.   GNPs are another distinct development.

    What are Gold Nanoparticles?

    • Metallic NPs have been efficiently exploited for biomedical applications and among them, GNPs are found to be effective in biomedical research.
    • And NPs are those materials that are at least one dimension smaller than 100 nanometers.
    • NPs have a high surface-to-volume ratio and they can provide the tremendous driving force for diffusion, especially at elevated temperatures.
    • GNPs are melted at much lower temperatures (300 °C) than bulk gold (1064 °C).
    • NPs have been found to impart various desirable properties to different day-to-day products.
    • For example, GNPs are found to have greater solar radiation absorbing ability than the conventional bulk gold, which makes them a better candidate for use in the photovoltaic cell manufacturing industry.

    Properties of GNP

    1) Biomedical

    • Genotoxicity describes the property of a chemical agent that is capable of damaging the genetic information of DNA and thus causing the mutation of the cell, which can lead to cancer.
    • The study revealed the genotoxic effect of GNPs on a sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB).
    • These GNPs can be used as composite therapeutic agent clinical trials, especially in anti-cancer, anti-viral, anti-diabetic, and cholesterol-lowering drugs.

    2) Optical

    • GNPs have unique optical properties too. For example, particles above 100 nm show blue or violet colour in the water, while the colour becomes wine red in 100 nm gold colloidal particles.
    • They can thus be used for therapeutic imaging.

    3) Electronics

    • GNPs are also found to be useful in the electronics industry.
    • Scientists have constructed a transistor known as NOMFET (Nanoparticles Organic Memory Field-Effect Transistor) by embedding GNPs in a porous manganese oxide.
    • NOMFETs can mimic the feature of the human synapse known as plasticity or the variation of the speed and strength of the signal going from neuron to neuron.
    • These novel transistors can now facilitate better recreation of certain types of human cognitive processes, such as recognition and image processing and have their application in AI.

  • What is Gynandromorphism?

    Recently, a rare biological phenomenon called Gynandromorphism was observed in dragonflies at Kole wetlands of Kerala.

    Gynandromorphism is a core biology concept. We can expect a prelims question in a rare scenario.

    Try this question from CSP 2013:

    Q.Improper handling and storage of cereal grains and oilseeds result in the production of toxins known as aflatoxins which are not generally destroyed by normal cooking process. Aflatoxins are produced by

    (a) Bacteria (b) Protozoa (c) Moulds (d) Viruses

    Gynandromorphism

    • Gynandromorphs are individual animals that have both genetically male and female tissues and often have observable male and female characteristics.
    • They may be bilateral, appearing to divide down the middle into male and female sides, or they may be mosaic, with patches characteristic of one sex appearing in a body part characteristic of the other sex.
    • Gynandromorphs occur in insects, spiders, crustaceans, and other arthropods as well as in birds, but they are extremely rare, and discovering one in the field or in the laboratory is a major event.
    • Estimating how frequently they occur is difficult because they usually go unnoticed in species where sexual dimorphism is less pronounced.
    • Gynandromorphs have been reported in mosquitoes, fruit flies, and in other insects, but they are most dramatic in those butterfly species in which the male and female wing colours and patterns are dramatically different.

  • Statistics Day and P.C. Mahalanobis

    Statistics Day will be celebrated today on 29th June 2020 to popularize the use of Statistics in everyday life and sensitize the public as to how Statistics helps in shaping and framing policies.

    Try this question from CSP 2016:

    A recent movie titled The Man Who Knew Infinity is based on the biography of-

    (a) S. Ramanujan
    (b) S. Chandrasekhar
    (c) S. N. Bose
    (d) C. V. Raman

    Who was P.C. Mahalanobis?

    • Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (29 June 1893 – 28 June 1972) was an Indian scientist and statistician.
    • He is best remembered for the Mahalanobis distance, a statistical measure, and for being one of the members of the first Planning Commission of free India.
    • He made pioneering studies in anthropometry (the science of obtaining systematic measurements of the human body) in India.
    • He founded the Indian Statistical Institute and contributed to the design of large-scale sample surveys.
    • For his contributions, Mahalanobis has been considered the father of modern statistics in India.

  • IN-SPACe: Future forerunner for India’s space economy

    • The government approved the creation of Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) to ensure greater private participation in India’s space activities.
    • This decision is described as historic being part of an important set of reforms to open up the space sector and make space-based applications and services more widely accessible to everyone.

    Practice question for mains:

    Q. What is IN-SPACe? Discuss how it would benefit ISRO and contribute to India’s space economy.

    What is IN-SPACe?

    • IN-SPACe is supposed to be a facilitator, and also a regulator.
    • It will act as an interface between ISRO and private parties and assess how best to utilise India’s space resources and increase space-based activities.
    • IN-SPACe is the second space organisation created by the government in the last two years.
    • In the 2019 Budget, the government had announced the setting up of a New Space India Limited (NSIL), a public sector company that would serve as a marketing arm of ISRO.

    Confusion over NSIL and ANTRIX

    • NSIL’s main purpose is to market the technologies developed by ISRO and bring it more clients that need space-based services.
    • That role, incidentally, was already being performed by Antrix Corporation, another PSU working under the Department of Space, and which still exists.
    • It is still not very clear why there was a need for another organisation with overlapping function.
    • The government now had clarified the role of NSIL that it would have a demand-driven approach rather than the current supply-driven strategy.
    • Essentially, what that means is that instead of just marketing what ISRO has to offer, NSIL would listen to the needs of the clients and ask ISRO to fulfil those.

    Then, why was IN-SPACe needed?

    (1) ISRO and its limited resources

    • It is not that there is no private industry involvement in India’s space sector.
    • In fact, a large part of the manufacturing and fabrication of rockets and satellites now happens in the private sector. There is increasing participation of research institutions as well.
    • Indian industry, however, is unable to compete, because till now its role has been mainly that of suppliers of components and sub-systems.
    • Indian industries do not have the resources or the technology to undertake independent space projects of the kind that US companies such as SpaceX have been doing or provide space-based services.

    (2) India and the global space economy

    • Indian industry had a barely three per cent share in a rapidly growing global space economy which was already worth at least $360 billion.
    • Only two per cent of this market was for rocket and satellite launch services, which require fairly large infrastructure and heavy investment.
    • The remaining 95 per cent related to satellite-based services, and ground-based systems.

    (3) Catering to domestic demands

    • The demand for space-based applications and services is growing even within India, and ISRO is unable to cater to this.
    • The need for satellite data, imageries and space technology now cuts across sectors, from weather to agriculture to transport to urban development and more.
    • If ISRO is to provide everything, it would have to be expanded 10 times the current level to meet all the demand that is arising.

    (4) Promoting other private players

    • Right now, all launches from India happen on ISRO rockets, the different versions of PSLV and GSLV.
    • There were a few companies that were in the process of developing their own launch vehicles, the rockets like ISRO’s PSLV that carry the satellites and other payloads into space.
    • Now ISRO could provide all its facilities to private players whose projects had been approved by IN-SPACe.

    How ISRO gains from all these?

    • There are two main reasons why enhanced private involvement in the space sector seems important.
    • One is commercial, and the other strategic. And ISRO seems unable to satisfy this need on its own.
    • Of course, there is a need for greater dissemination of space technologies, better utilization of space resources, and increased requirement of space-based services.
    • The private industry will also free up ISRO to concentrate on science, research and development, interplanetary exploration and strategic launches.
    • Right now too much of ISRO’s resources are consumed by routine activities that delay its more strategic objectives.

    A win-win situation for all

    • ISRO, like NASA, is essentially a scientific organisation whose main objective is the exploration of space and carrying out scientific missions.
    • There are a number of ambitious space missions lined up in the coming years, including a mission to observe the Sun, a mission to the Moon, a human spaceflight, and then, possibly, a human landing on the Moon.
    • And it is not that private players will wean away from the revenues that ISRO gets through commercial launches.
    • The space-based economy is expected to “explode” in the next few years, even in India, and there would be more than enough for all.
    • In addition, ISRO can earn some money by making its facilities and data available to private players.

  • Coccolithophores: The Ancient Algae

    A study of microscopic ancient marine algae (Coccolithophores) has found that there is a decrease in the concentration of oceanic calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in the Southern Indian Ocean.

    Try this question:

    Q.The Coccolithophores sometimes seen in news are-

    (a) Diatoms

    (b) Algae

    (c) Coral Polyps

    (d) Sea grass

    Coccolithophores

    • Coccolithophores are single-celled algae living in the upper layers of the world’s oceans.
    • They have been playing a key role in marine ecosystems and the global carbon cycle for millions of years.
    • They calcify marine phytoplankton that produces up to 40% of open ocean calcium carbonate and responsible for 20% of the global net marine primary productivity.
    • They build exoskeletons from individual CaCO3 plates consisting of chalk and seashells building the tiny plates on their exterior.

    Role as a carbon sink

    • Though carbon dioxide is produced during the formation of these plates, coccolithophores help in removing it from the atmosphere and ocean by consuming it during photosynthesis.
    • At equilibrium, they absorb more carbon dioxide than they produce, which is beneficial for the ocean ecosystem.
    • These investigations are important for future intervention to bring positive changes in the marine ecosystem and the global carbon cycle.

    Threats

    • The reduction of coccolithophores is due to an increase in the presence of diatom algae, which occurs after sea ice breakdown with climate change and ocean acidification, and increases the silicate concentration in the waters of the Southern Ocean.
    • Their existence is highly dependent on time and influenced by various environmental factors such as silicate concentrations, calcium carbonate concentration, diatom abundance, light intensity and availability of macro and possibly micronutrient concentrations.

  • Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe)

    The Union Cabinet has approved the creation of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) to provide a level playing field for private companies to use Indian space infrastructure.

    Note the key differences between IN-SPACe, ANTRIX and NSIL. We can expect a prelims question with shuffled objectives of these organisations.

    IN-SPACe

    • The creation of IN-SPACe is part of reforms aimed at giving a boost to private sector participation in the entire range of space activities.
    • The IN-SPACe is expected to hand-hold, promote and guide the private industries in space activities through encouraging policies and a friendly regulatory environment.
    • It would endeavour to reorient space activities from a ‘supply-driven’ model to a ‘demand-driven’ one, thereby ensuring optimum utilization of the nation’s space assets.

    Why need IN-SPACe?

    • India is among a handful of countries with advanced capabilities in the space sector.
    • Space sector can play a major catalytic role in the technological advancement and expansion of our Industrial base.
    • The proposed reforms will enhance the socio-economic use of space assets and activities, including through improved access to space assets, data and facilities.

    Back2Basics: New Space India Limited (NSIL)

    • It functions under the administrative control of Department of Space (DOS).
    • It aims to commercially exploit the research and development work of ISRO Centres and constituent units of DOS.
    • The NSIL would enable Indian Industries to scale up high-technology manufacturing and production base for meeting the growing needs of the Indian space programme.
    • It would further spur the growth of Indian Industries in the space sector.

    ANTRIX

    • Antrix Corporation Limited (ACL), Bengaluru is a wholly-owned Government of India Company under the administrative control of the Department of Space.
    • It is as a marketing arm of ISRO for promotion and commercial exploitation of space products, technical consultancy services and transfer of technologies developed by ISRO.
    • Antrix is engaged in providing Space products and services to international customers worldwide.

  • 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.

  • What is Foldscope?

    Indian researchers have explored and validated the clinical utility of Foldscope in the diagnosis of diseases using various patient samples.

    Though trivial, Foldscope is a significant invention with most crucial applications. It somehow offers an alternative to costly microscopes for some basic diagnosis.

    What is Foldscope?

    • Foldscope is an affordable origami-based microscopy device composed of a series of paper clippings.
    • Upon assembly, the device can hold a specimen slide for observation, and this specimen can be viewed via a mobile phone camera attached to it.

    How does it work?

    • Foldscope can be assembled using paper clips and mounted on a cell phone using coupler and glue drops.
    • To do the assessment, a patient sample like urine is smeared on a transparent glass slide and visualized under a Foldscope mounted on a cell phone.
    • Sample images can be enlarged using the zoom function of the mobile, which can be stored on the mobile memory card for later reference/patient records.
    • Foldscope visualizes calcium oxalate crystals, which are a major cause of kidney stones.

    Utility of Foldscope

    • Foldscope is particularly convenient to diagnose urinary tract infection (UTI) and monitor kidney stone.
    • The study evaluated the use of Foldscope in the clinical diagnosis of oral and urinary tract infections.
    • Using this tool, one can easily monitor own-kidney stone status at home with a simple glass-slide, a Foldscope and a phone in hand.
    • Such monitoring could perhaps avoid kidney stone reaching a painful state or surgery in recurring cases.