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Type: Prelims Only

  • What is Immune Imprinting?

    A slew of recent studies has shown that a phenomenon in our bodies, called immune imprinting, might be making new boosters vaccines far less effective than expected for coronavirus infection.

    What is Immune Imprinting?

    • Immune imprinting is a tendency of the body to repeat its immune response based on the first variant it encountered.
    • Our body does this through infection or vaccination — when it comes across a newer or slightly different variant of the same pathogen.
    • The phenomenon was first observed in 1947, when scientists noted that “people who had previously had flu, and were then vaccinated against the current circulating strain, produced antibodies against the first strain.
    • At the time, it was termed the ‘original antigenic sin’ but today, it’s commonly known as imprinting.

    How imprinting works for immune system?

    • Imprinting acts as a database for the immune system, helping it put up a better response to repeat infections.
    • After our body is exposed to a virus for the first time, it produces memory B cells that circulate in the bloodstream and quickly produce antibodies whenever the same strain of the virus infects again.
    • The problem occurs when a similar, not identical, variant of the virus is encountered by the body.
    • In such cases, the immune system, rather than generating new B cells, activates memory B cells.
    • This in turn produce antibodies that bind to features found in both the old and new strains, known as cross-reactive antibodies.

    Are the booster doses completely useless?

    • These cross-reactive antibodies do offer some protection against the new strain,.
    • However they are not as effective as the ones produced by the B cells when the body first came across the original virus.

    How to circumvent immune imprinting?

    • Currently, several ongoing studies are trying to find a way to deal with imprinting.
    • Some scientists have said nasal vaccines might be better at preventing infections than injected ones.
    • They believe the mucous membranes would create stronger protection, despite carrying some imprint of past exposure.
    • Researchers are also trying to find if spacing out coronavirus vaccine shots on an annual basis, could help with the problem of imprinting.

     

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  • Who was Goswami Tulsidas (1511–1623)?

    tulsidas

    Tulsidas has come into controversy due to some of its verses (Chaupai) mentioned in the Ramcharitmanas.

    Who was Tulsidas?

    • Tulsidas, a Brahmin whose original name was Ram Bola Dubey, is believed to have been born in Rajapur by the Yamuna in today’s Banda district.
    • He composed the Ramcharitmanas on the bank of the Ganga in Varanasi — he is said to have begun writing on Ram Navami day in 1574, and completed the poem over the next few years.
    • Tulsidas lived in the time of Emperor Akbar, and some believe that he was in touch with Abdurrahim Khan-e-Khanan, the son of Akbar’s commander Bairam Khan.

    The Ramcharitmanas

    • The poem was written in the 16th century in the Awadhi dialect that is mainly spoken in the areas that are today’s Lucknow, Prayagraj, and Ayodhya districts.
    • It was written in the Avdhi dialect. The sacred chant ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ is a part of it.
    • It is divided into seven chapters (Kand) that tell the story of Lord Ram from birth to his becoming King of Ayodhya.

    Why is Ramcharitmanas so famous?

    • The Ramcharitmanas is based on the Ramayana, sage Valmiki’s great epic.
    • It is the holiest book of the Indo-Gangetic region, and among the world’s most read holy books — by one estimate, Geeta Press (Gorakhpur) has sold almost 7 crore copies.
    • Across the Hindi heartland, a reference to “Ramayan” often actually means Ramcharitmanas.
    • Tulsidas made the story of Lord Ram popular among the masses because he wrote in the regional dialect that most people understood.

    Tulisdas and political controversies

    • While in the Ramcharitmanas, Lord Ram is maryada purushottam, the epitome of righteousness, his conduct has been criticised by leaders of anti-Brahmin movements like E V Ramasamy Periyar.
    • One of the 22 pledges that Dr B R Ambedkar administered to his followers while embracing Buddhism in October 1956 was: “I shall have no faith in Rama and Krishna, who are believed to be incarnation of God, nor shall I worship them.”
    • Non-upper caste assertion in politics has sometimes been manifested in criticism of the Ramcharitmanas.
    • Critics have used these parts of the poem to accuse Tulsidas of being against the non-upper castes and women, and a flagbearer of the idea of Brahminical superiority.

     

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  • New T+1 Settlement Cycle comes into effect

    settlement

    After China, India will become the second country in the world to start the ‘trade-plus-one’ (T+1) settlement cycle in top-listed securities today.

    What’s the T+1 settlement plan?

    • The T+1 settlement cycle means that trade-related settlements must be done within a day, or 24 hours, of the completion of a transaction.
    • For example, under T+1, if a customer bought shares on Wednesday, they would be credited to the customer’s demat account on Thursday.
    • This is different from T+2, where they will be settled on Friday.
    • As many as 256 large-cap and top mid-cap stocks, including Nifty and Sensex stocks, will come under the T+1 settlement from Friday.

    What was the earlier settlement system?

    • Until 2001, stock markets had a weekly settlement system.
    • The markets then moved to a rolling settlement system of T+3, and then to T+2 in 2003.
    • In 2020, Sebi deferred the plan to halve the trade settlement cycle to one day (T+1) following opposition from foreign investors.

    What are the benefits of T+1?

    • T+1 system brings operational efficiency, faster fund remittances, share delivery, and ease for stock market participants.
    • In the T+1 format, if an investor sells a share, she will get the money within a day, and the buyer will get the shares in her demat account also within a day.
    • The shorter trade settlement cycle augurs well for the Indian equity markets from a liquidity perspective.
    • This will also help investors in reducing the overall capital requirements with the margins getting released on T+1 day, and in getting the funds in the bank account within 24 hours of the sale of shares.
    • The shift will boost operational efficiency as the rolling of funds and stocks will be faster.

    Issues with T+1 system

    • T+1 is being implemented despite opposition from foreign investors.
    • The United States, United Kingdom and Eurozone markets are yet to move to the T+1 system.

    Why are foreign investors opposed?

    • Foreign investors have some operational issues as they operate from different geographies.
    • Among the issues raised by them were time zone differences, information flow processes, and foreign exchange problems.
    • Foreign investors said they would also find it difficult to hedge their net India exposure in dollar terms at the end of the day under the T+1 system.

     

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  • Ideal Train Profile: Railways’ AI-based project to shorten ticket waitlists

    The Indian Railways has concluded the trial of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) program it built to fix a perennial issue — long waiting lists for tickets.

    Ideal Train Profile

    • Ideal Train Profile was made by Railways’ in-house software arm Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS).
    • It was fed with information like how millions of passengers booked tickets on these trains, which origin-destination pairs were a hit and which were flops at what time of the year, which seats remained vacant for what portion of a journey, etc.
    • This project has been in the works for the past two years, wherein the AI has been “taught” ticket booking data and trends of the past few years.
    • It has come up with the best possible combination of how many berths to keep for which sectors and at what time.
    • The combination of “training data” the AI has been fed goes back three years.

    Significance of the project

    • The AI-driven program has, for the first time, allocated vacant berths in over 200 trains in such a way that fewer people need to turn away without a confirmed ticket.
    • The waiting lists on these trains, as a result, have seen a curtailment.

    Need for AI in ticket booking

    • Currently, the passenger is handed out a wait-listed ticket and asked to wait until four hours prior to departure, when the final seat chart is prepared, to see if she made the list.
    • This is because a large number of berths are earmarked for various quotas and various origin-destination combinations of the train’s routes.
    • If there are 60 halts in a long-distance train, then there are 1,800 possible ticket combinations of origin and destination.
    • If there are 10 halts, there are typically about 45 ticket combinations and so on.
    • The Ideal Train Profile’s AI tells the Passenger Reservation System how best to give out confirmed tickets and for which sectors.

    Way forward

    • The AI does data-driven remote location selection, completely automates the process of quota distribution, and suggests optimal quota for different ticket combinations based on historical demand.
    • The project has got the Railway Board excited about the possibility of how it can manage busy season rush, when the demands of confirmed tickets are at a peak.
    • So the coming summer vacation season will be the first big test for the new system.

     

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  • In news: Etikoppaka Toy Craft

    etikoppaka

    The Union conferred Padma Shri to Mr. Raju in the art category as an honour to the Etikoppaka wooden toy craft.

    Etikoppaka Toys

    • Etikoppaka is a small village on the banks of Varaha River at a distance of 64 Kms away from the Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh.
    • The name Etikoppaka is synonymous with beautiful wooden artifacts and lacquer colours.
    • The toys are made with lacquer color and are traditionally known as Etikoppaka toys or Etikoppaka Bommalu.
    • The village is very famous for its toys made of wood. The toys are also called as lacquer toys because of application of lacquer coating.
    • Etikoppaka Toys have obtained their GI tag under the Handicrafts category in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

    How are they made?

    • The toys are made out of wood and are coloured with natural dyes derived from seeds, lacquer, bark, roots and leaves.
    • The wood used to make the toys is soft in nature and the art of toy making is also known as Turned wood Lacquer craft.
    • While making the Etikoppaka toys, lac, a colourless resinous secretion of numerous insects, is used.
    • The already prepared vegetable dyes are further mixed to the lac, during the process of oxidation.
    • After this process, the end product obtained is rich and colored lacquer.
    • The lac dye is used for decorating the Etikoppaka toys, which are exported all over the world.

     

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  • Green Comet appears close to Earth after 50,000 years

    comet

    The rare green comet that last came to Earth about 50,000 years ago has returned to the skies of Earth. C/2022 E3 (ZTF) can be seen with the naked eye if the conditions in the sky are just right.

    What are Comets?

    • Comets are frozen rocky or gas-filled objects that are remnants of the formation of the solar system.
    • Due to their composition, characteristics and the path they move in, they tend to leave a light “behind them”.
    • Here, the comet itself is green (called the head of the comet) and emits a whitish light behind it (often called the tail of the comet).
    • Just like other bodies in space, comets also have orbits.
    • They are sometimes pulled in close to the sun because of the sun’s gravity acting on them.
    • As they orbit near the Sun, they heat up and spew gases and dust into a glowing head that can be larger than a planet.
    • The remains of dust following this burning up, from a distance, look like a trail of light to humans on Earth.

    What is Green Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)?

    • Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was first discovered in March last year by the wide-field survey camera at the Zwicky Transient Facility when it was already inside the orbit of Jupiter.
    • While it was initially believed to be an asteroid, it began developing a tail as the Sun’s influence began vapourising the ice.
    • At the time of its discovery, it was shining with a magnitude of 17.3.

    Why is it green in colour?

    • Comets have often been seen giving out blue or whitish light, or even green.
    • In this case, the green glow “is thought to arise from the presence of diatomic carbon – pairs of carbon atoms that are bound together – in the head of the comet.
    • The molecule emits green light when excited by the ultraviolet rays in solar radiation.

    When and where can the green comet be seen?

    • Observers in the Northern Hemisphere will find the comet in the morning sky, as it moves swiftly toward the northwest during January.
    • It’ll become visible in the Southern Hemisphere in early February.
    • In Indian skies, when looking in the northwest direction, one might spot it 16° above the horizon in the Bootes constellation.
    • But with lights from buildings and streetlights on, it can be difficult to make it out without equipment.

    Is the green comet rare?      

    • It last came in the skies above Earth during the Upper Paleolithic period, a time when Neanderthals roamed the planet and early homo sapiens had just come around.
    • Coming under the category of long-period comets, which take more than 200 years to orbit the Sun, the green comet is not easily spotted.
    • With a highly elliptical orbit, the comet will head back to the Oort cloud and make its next appearance roughly 50,000 years later.
    • But given their orbits, it’s not unique for comets to reappear close to Earth only after many, many years.

     

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  • Norovirus Cases detected in Kerala

    norovirus

    The Kerala Health Department confirmed two cases of the gastrointestinal infection norovirus in class 1 students in Ernakulam district.

    What is Norovirus?

    • Norovirus is an important cause of acute non-bacterial gastroenteritis in children as well as adults worldwide.
    • It leads to diarrhoea, vomiting, nausea, and abdominal pain. Being a diarrhoeal disease, it can lead to dehydration, so drinking plenty of fluids is recommended.
    • The virus was first discovered in connection with an outbreak of acute diarrhoeal disease in Norwalk, Ohio, in 1968 and was called the Norwalk Virus.
    • Later, several stomach flu viruses closely linked to the Norwalk virus were found and together, these are now called Noroviruses.
    • Many stomach flu outbreaks typically in cruise ships have been traced to NoV.

    How deadly is this?

    • Norovirus is not new; it has been circulating among humans for over 50 years and is thought to be one of the primary causes of gastroenteritis.
    • The virus is estimated to kill 200,000 persons globally every year, with most deaths occurring among those below the age of five years and those over the age of 65 years.
    • The virus is capable of surviving low temperatures, and outbreaks tend to be more common during the winter and in colder countries — that is why it is sometimes referred to as “winter vomiting disease”.

    What is the incidence of infection in India?

    • Cases of norovirus are not as common in India as in many other places — at the same time.
    • The infection has been reported in previous years as well, mainly from Southern India, and especially from Kerala.
    • A 2021 study from Hyderabad reported that norovirus was detected in 10.3% samples of children who came in with acute gastroenteritis.

    Can norovirus infection cause a large-scale outbreak?

    • Even though more cases of norovirus are being detected, experts say that this is unlikely to lead to a large-scale outbreak.
    • There is no epidemiological study to co-relate of these cases.

     

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  • Species in news: Olive Ridley Turtles

    olive

    Hundreds of vulnerable Olive Ridley Turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) have washed ashore along the coastline between Kakinada and Antarvedi in the Godavari region during the ongoing annual breeding season on the east coast.

    Why in news?

    • The wastewater from the aqua ponds is also being released into the sea.
    • This is suspected to be one of the reasons for the mortality of turtles

    Olive Ridley Turtles

    • The Olive Ridley Sea Turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea), also known as the Pacific ridley sea turtle, is a medium-sized species of sea turtle found in warm and tropical waters, primarily in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
    • In the Indian Ocean, the majority of olive ridleys nest in two or three large groups at Rushikulya rookery near Gahirmatha in Odisha.
    • The coast of Odisha in India is the largest mass nesting site for the olive ridley, followed by the coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica.
    • The species is listed as Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List, Appendix 1 in CITES, and Schedule 1 in Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

    Special feature: Mass nesting

    • They are best known for their behavior of synchronized nesting in mass numbers, termed Arribadas.
    • Interestingly, females return to the very same beach from where they first hatched, to lay their eggs.
    • They lay their eggs in conical nests about one and a half feet deep which they laboriously dig with their hind flippers.
    • They hatch in 45 to 60 days, depending on the temperature of the sand and atmosphere during the incubation period.

     

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  • Bimodal Nuclear Propulsion can send missions to Mars in 45 days

    nuclear

    NASA is planning to send mission to Mars in 45 days using the Bimodal Nuclear Propulsion.

    Bimodal Nuclear Propulsion: What is it?

    • NASA relaunched its program to develop bimodal nuclear propulsion a few years ago. Bimodal nuclear propulsion is a two-part system that includes an NTP and NEP element.
    • This system is expected to enable transits to Mars in 100 days.
    • In 2023, the US space agency started a new program named NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) and has selected a nuclear concept for Phase I development.
    • This new bimodal nuclear propulsion system will use a “wave rotor topping cycle” that may reduce transit times to Mars to 45 days.

    How will nuclear propulsion work?

    • Nuclear propulsion is based on two concepts Nuclear-Thermal Propulsion (NTP) and Nuclear-Electric Propulsion (NEP).
    • The NTP system includes a nuclear reactor that will heat liquid hydrogen (LH2) propellant and turn it into ionised hydrogen gas (plasma) that will then be channelled through nozzles to generate thrust.
    • NEP depends on a nuclear reactor to provide electricity to a Hall-Effect thruster (ion engine).
    • It will generate an electromagnetic field that will ionise and accelerate an inert gas (for example xenon) to create thrust.

    Benefits offered

    • Nuclear propulsions have major advantages over conventional chemical propulsion.
    • These benefits include fuel efficiency, a higher specific impulse rating and unlimited energy density (virtually).
    • NEP’s advantage over NTP and conventional chemical propulsion systems is that it offers more than 10,000 seconds of Specific impulse (ISP).
    • ISP is a measure of how efficiently a reaction mass engine (a rocket using propellant or a jet engine using fuel) creates thrust.

    Benefits for manned missions

    • A crewed mission to Mars based on conventional propulsion technology may last up to three years.
    • However, A transit time of 45 days will reduce the overall mission time to months instead of years.
    • This will drastically reduce the major risks associated with missions to Mars which include – radiation exposure, the time spent in microgravity and related health concerns.

    Limitations of these nuclear propulsion systems

    • This means NEP systems can maintain thrust for close to three hours.
    • However, the thrust level is lower compared to conventional rockets and NTP systems.
    • In outer space, the thermal energy conversion rate is just 30-40% under ideal circumstances.

     

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  • INS Vagir commissioned into the Indian Navy

    ins vagir

    The fifth Scorpene class conventional submarine was commissioned into the Indian Navy as INS Vagir.

    INS Vagir

    • The latest submarine gets its name from the erstwhile Vagir, a submarine that served the Navy between 1973 and 2001 and undertook numerous operational missions.
    • The construction of the new Vagir began in 2009 and it took its maiden sea sortie in February last year.
    • Also known as Sand Shark, the submarine was delivered to the Indian Navy in December 2022.

    Class: Kalvari

    • In maritime parlance, a class of ships is a group of vessels which have the same make, purpose and displacement.
    • Vagir is a Kalvari-class submarine, which includes other vessels, such as the INS Kalvari, INS Khanderi, INS Karanj, INS Vela and INS Vagsheer.
    • Of these, Kalvari and Khanderi were commissioned in 2017 and 2019, and Vela and Karanj were inducted in 2021.
    • Vagir has now been commissioned and Vagsheer was launched in 2022 and is expected to be inducted next year.
    • The submarines in the current Kalvari-class take their names from erstwhile decommissioned classes of submarines named Kalvari, which included Kalvari, Khanderi, Karanj and Vela classes — comprising Vela, Vagir, Vagshir.

    Capabilities and technical details of INS Vagir

    • The Kalavari class of submarines have an estimated endurance of approximately 50 days.
    • They also have the capability of operating in a wide range of Naval combat including anti-warship and anti-submarine operations, intelligence gathering and surveillance and naval mine laying.
    • These submarines are around 220 feet long and have a height of 40 feet. It can reach the highest speeds of 11 knots (20 km/h) when surfaced and 20 knots (37 km/h) when submerged.
    • The modern variants of the Scorpene class of submarines have what is called Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) which enables non-nuclear submarines to operate for a long time without access to surface oxygen.

    Strategic importance

    • Currently, India has less number of submarines than what is required with some more of those from both types being at various stages of construction.
    • India operates one submarine in the nuclear-powered class of Chakra and two other nuclear-powered vessels in Arihant.
    • There are in addition to submarines belonging to three classes of Diesel Electric category — Kalvari, Shishumar and Sindhughosh, some of which are ageing.
    • The nuclear-powered and diesel-electric submarines have their designated roles in the Carrier Battle Groups, which are formations of ships and submarines with Aircraft Carriers in the lead role.
    • As per the basic principles of submarine deployment and minimum requirement for India to create a strategic deterrence, there is a specific number of submarines of both types that India needs to have in active service.

     

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