💥UPSC 2026, 2027, 2028 UAP Mentorship (March Batch) + Access XFactor Notes & Microthemes PDF
Talk to mentor

Civilsdaily

Login

Type: Prelims Only

  • RBI Notifications

    What is a Small Finance Bank?

    Prelims Only | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Inclusive Growth & Issues

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Small Finance Bank

    Mains level: Not Much

    The Reserve Bank of India has issued a small finance bank (SFB) license to a consortium of fintech companies BharatPe and Centrum Financial Services Ltd.

    What is a SFB?

    • Small finance banks (SFBs) are a type of niche banks in India.
    • They can be promoted either by individuals, corporate, trusts or societies.
    • They are governed by the provisions of Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, Banking Regulation Act, 1949 and other relevant statutes.
    • They are established as public limited companies in the private sector under the Companies Act, 2013.
    • Banks with a SFB license can provide basic banking service of acceptance of deposits and lending.

    Objectives of setting-up an SFB

    • To provide financial inclusion to sections of the economy not being served by other banks, such as small business units, small and marginal farmers, micro and small industries and unorganized sector entities

    Key features of SFBs

    • Existing non-banking financial companies (NBFC), microfinance institutions (MFI) and local area banks (LAB) can apply to become small finance banks.
    • The banks will not be restricted to any region.
    • 75% of its net credits should be in priority sector lending and 50% of the loans in its portfolio must in ₹25 lakh.
    • The firms must have a capital of at least ₹200 crore.
    • The promoters should have 10 years’ experience in banking and finance.
    • Foreign shareholding will be allowed in these banks as per the rules for FDI in private banks in India.

    Back2Basics: Small Payments Bank Vs. Payment Bank

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

     

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

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

    Amendments to the Forest Conservation Act, 1980

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

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980

    Mains level: Issues with forest land diversion

    The Ministry for Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has published proposed amendments to the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.

    The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980

    The FCA is the principal legislation that regulates deforestation in the country.

    • It prohibits the felling of forests for any “non-forestry” use without prior clearance by the central government.
    • The clearance process includes seeking consent from local forest rights-holders and from wildlife authorities.
    • The Centre is empowered to reject such requests or allow it with legally binding conditions.
    • In a landmark decision in 1996, the Supreme Court had expanded the coverage of FCA to all areas that satisfied the dictionary definition of a forest; earlier, only lands specifically notified as forests were protected by the enforcement of the FCA.

    The FCA is brief legislation with only five sections of which-

    • Section 1 defines the extent of coverage of the law,
    • Section 2 restrictions of activities in forest areas and the rest deals with the creation of advisory committees, powers of rule-making and penalties.

    Why is the Act being amended now?

    • The current definition of forests has locked land across the country; even private owners cannot utilise their own property for non-forestry purposes.
    • The pressure for forest land diversion has been coming from — Ministries such as Rail and Roads.
    • Under the Act, any diversion of any forest land for any purpose, including assignment of leases, needs prior approval of the Centre.

    What defines ‘Forest’ under this act?

    • Previously, the Act had applied largely to reserve forests and national parks.
    • In 1996, ruling in T N Godavarman Thirumulpad v Union of India Case, the Supreme Court had expanded the definition and scope of forest land.
    • It would thus include all areas recorded as forest in any government record, irrespective of ownership, recognition and classification.
    • The court also expanded the definition of forests to encompass the “dictionary meaning of forests”.
    • This would mean that a forested patch would automatically become a “deemed forest” even if it is not notified as protected, and irrespective of ownership.
    • The Act would also be applicable over plantations in non-forest land.

    What are the proposed amendments?

    (A) Exemptions for Road and Railways

    • The MoEFCC has proposed that all land acquired by the Railways and Roads Ministries prior to 1980 be exempted from the Act.
    • Once the lands had been acquired for expansion, but subsequently, forests have grown in these areas, and the government is no longer able to use the land for expansion.
    • The Ministries will no longer need clearance for their projects, nor pay compensatory levies to build there.

    (B) Relaxation

    • It distinguishes individuals whose lands fall within a state-specific Private Forests Act or comes within the dictionary meaning of forest as specified in the 1996 Supreme Court order.
    • The government proposes to allow the “construction of structures for bona fide purposes’’ including residential units up to 250 sq m as a one-time relaxation.

    (C) Defense and other projects

    • Defence projects near international borders will be exempted from forest clearance.
    • Oil and natural gas extraction from forested lands will be permitted, but only if technologies such as Extended Reach Drilling are used.
    • Strip plantations alongside roads that would fall under the Act will be exempted.

    What are the concerns?

    • Legalizing private ownership of forests: The rules will facilitate corporate ownership.
    • Deforestation: The exemption of forests on private land will lead to the disappearance of large tracts of forests.
    • Fragmentation: Exemption for private residences on private forest will lead to fragmentation of forests, and open areas such as the Aravalli mountains to real estate.
    • Tribal concerns: The amendments do not address what will happen to tribals and forest-dwelling communities over the cleared lands.
    • Threat to wildlife: Exemption for roads and railways on forest land acquired prior to 1980 will be detrimental to forests as well as wildlife – especially elephants, tigers and leopards.

    Positives with the amendment

    • It has proposed making forest laws more stringent for notified forests, making offences non-bailable with increased penalties including imprisonment of up to one year.
    • It has disallowed any kind of diversion in certain forests.
    • It has attempt to define and identify forests once and for all — something that has been often ambiguous.

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • International Space Agencies – Missions and Discoveries

    James Webb: The most powerful space telescope

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

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: James Webb Space Telescope

    Mains level: Dark Ages of the Univers

    On Dec 18, 2021, after years of delays, the James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to launch into orbit and usher in the next era of astronomy.

    James Webb Space Telescope

    • JWST is a joint NASA–ESA–CSA space telescope that is planned to succeed the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA’s flagship astrophysics mission
    • It is the most powerful space telescope ever built.
    • It will enable a broad range of investigations across the fields of astronomy and cosmology, including observing some of the most distant events and objects in the universe,
    • It would help understand events such as the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.

    Its significance

    • Some have called JSWT the “telescope that ate astronomy.”
    • It is said to look back in time to the Dark Ages of the universe.

    What does the ‘Dark Ages’ of the universe mean?

    • Evidence shows that the universe started with an event called the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, which left it in an ultra-hot, ultra-dense state.
    • The universe immediately began expanding and cooling after the Big Bang.
    • One second after the Big Bang, the universe was a hundred trillion miles across with an average temperature of an incredible 18 billion F (10 billion C).
    • Around 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was 10 million light-years across and the temperature had cooled to 5,500 F (3,000 C).
    • Throughout this time, space was filled with a smooth soup of high-energy particles, radiation, hydrogen and helium.
    • There was no structure. As the expanding universe became bigger and colder, the soup thinned out and everything faded to black.

    This was the start of what astronomers call the Dark Ages of the universe.

    How will JWST study this?

    Ans. Looking for the first light

    • The Dark Ages ended when gravity formed the first stars and galaxies that eventually began to emit the first light.
    • Astronomers aim to study this fascinating and important era of the universe, but detecting first light is incredibly challenging.
    • Compared to massive, bright galaxies of today, the first objects were very small and due to the constant expansion of the universe, they’re now tens of billions of light years away from Earth.
    • Also, the earliest stars were surrounded by gas left over from their formation and this gas acted like fog that absorbed most of the light.
    • It took several hundred million years for radiation to blast away the fog. This early light is very faint by the time it gets to Earth.

    Try this PYQ:

    Consider the following phenomena:

    1. Light is affected by gravity.
    2. The Universe is constantly expanding.
    3. Matter warps its surrounding space-time.

    Which of the above is/are the predictions of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, often discussed in media?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 3 only

    (c) 1 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

     

    Post your answers here.

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Nobel and other Prizes

    Economics Nobel for Natural Experiments

    Prelims Only | Trivia | Mains Paper 3: Inclusive Growth & Issues

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Natural Experiments, Nobel Prize

    Mains level: Not Much

    The 2021 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to three US-based economists.

    Do you know?

    The Nobel Prize is officially called as Sveriges Riksbank Prize!

    Who are the awardees?

    • Nobel Committee awarded half the Prize to David Card for his “empirical contributions to labour economics”
    • Other half to Guido Imbens and Joshua Angrist “for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships”

    What makes this year’s award special?

    • This is the first time the economic prize has been divided in this fashion with one half going to one awardee and other half divided across two awardees.
    • In the past, prize money was divided equally between the awardees even if the prize was for different topics as is the case this time around.
    • It may appear that the Nobel Prize has been given for two different contributions, but there is a common theme: “natural experiments.”

    What are Natural Experiments?

    • Economists are often interested in causal questions such as the impact of education on incomes, impact of COVID-19 on poverty and so on.
    • They are also interested is understanding the direction of causality.
    • Economists have used two kinds of experiments to study these causality and direction of causality questions: random experiments and natural experiments.

    (I) Random experiments

    • Under randomized experiments, the researchers allocate say medicines to a treatment group and compare the effect of the medicine with the control group which is not given the medicine.
    • In 2019, the Nobel Committee gave awards to three scholars for their contribution to the field of randomized experiments.
    • However, one cannot randomize experiments to study issues such as why certain people and regions are more unequal or have fewer educational opportunities and so on.

    (II) Natural experiments

    • In natural experiments, economists study a policy change or a historical event and try to determine the cause and effect relationship to explain these developments.
    • The trio used such natural experiments to make some landmark contributions to economic development.
    • Natural experiments are more difficult for two reasons. The first is to identify what will serve as a natural experiment.
    • Second, in a random experiment, the researcher knows and controls the treatment and control groups which allows them to study the cause and effect of medicine.
    • But in natural experiments, such clear differentiation is not possible because people choose their groups on their own and even move between the two groups.
    • Despite the limitations, the researchers could use the natural setting to answer some big policy questions.

    Natural experiments conducted by David Card

    • One question of interest for policymakers is to understand the impact of higher minimum wages on employment.
    • Earlier studies showed that increasing minimum wages leads to lower unemployment.
    • Economists were also not sure of the direction of causation between minimum wages and employment.
    • Say a slowdown in the economy leads to higher unemployment amid lower income groups.
    • This could lead to lower income groups demanding higher minimum wages. In such a case, it is higher unemployment which leads higher minimum wages.

    Contribution of Angrist and Imbens

    • Angrist and Imbens showed how natural experiments can be used to identify cause and effect precisely.
    • We have discussed above how natural experiments make it difficult to separate control and treatment groups. This makes it difficult to establish causal relations.
    • In the 1990s, the duo developed a methodology – Local Average Treatment Effect (or LATE) – which uses a two-step process to help grapple with these problems of natural experiments.
    • Say, one is interested in finding the impact of an additional year of schooling on the incomes of people.
    • By using the LATE approach, they showed that effect on income of an additional year of education is around 9%.
    • While it may not be possible to determine individuals in the group, one can estimate the size of the impact.

    What is the importance of the award today?

    • Earlier it was difficult to identify natural experiments and even if one identified them, it was difficult to generate data from these experiments.
    • With increased digitalization and dissemination of archival records, it has not just become easier to identify natural experiments but also get data.
    • Economists have been using natural experiments to help us understand the impact of past policies.
    • As the 2020 pandemic struck, economists used the natural experiments approach extensively to analyse how previous pandemics impacted different regions and tried to draw policy lessons.

    India context

    • The methodology date back to the early and mid-90s and they have already had a tremendous influence on the research undertaken in several developing countries such as India.
    • For instance, in India, too, it is commonly held that higher minimum wages will be counterproductive for workers.
    • It is noteworthy that last year, in the wake of the Covid-induced lockdowns, several states, including UP, had summarily suspended several labour laws.
    • This included the ones regulating minimum wages, arguing that such a move will boost employment.
    • The main learning is that minimum wages can be increased in India without worrying about reducing employment.

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • ISRO Missions and Discoveries

    Indian meteorite helps study Earth’s formation

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

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Olivine, Bridgmanite

    Mains level: Formation of Earth

    The researchers from the Geological Survey of India collected about 30 meteorite fragments with the largest weighing around a kilogram near the town of Katol in Nagpur in 2012.

    Significance of meteor study

    • Now, by studying the composition of these meteorite fragments, researchers have unraveled the composition expected to be present in the Earth’s lower mantle which is at about 660 km deep.
    • Studying the meteorite could also tell us more about how our Earth evolved from being a magma ocean to a rocky planet.

    Key component of the Meteor: Olivine

    • Initial studies revealed that the host rock was mainly composed of olivine, an olive-green mineral.
    • Olivine is the most abundant phase in our Earth’s upper mantle.
    • Our Earth is composed of different layers including the outer crust, followed by the mantle and then the inner core.

    How to study a meteorite?

    • The researchers took a small sample of the meteorite and examined it using special microscopy techniques.
    • The mineralogy was determined using a laser micro-Raman spectrometer.
    • These techniques helped the team identify, characterise the crystal structure of the meteorite and determine its chemical composition and texture.

    What does the new study show?

    • The international team of scientists examined a section of this highly-shocked meteorite. It resembles to the first natural occurrence of a mineral called bridgmanite.
    • The mineral was named in 2014 after Prof. Percy W. Bridgman, recipient of the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physics.
    • Various computational and experimental studies have shown that about 80% of the Earth’s lower mantle is made up of bridgmanite.
    • By studying this meteorite sample, scientists can decode how bridgmanite crystallized during the final stages of our Earth’s formation.

    Bridgmanite: On Earth vs. on Meteorite

    • Katol meteorite is a unique sample and it is a significant discovery.
    • The bridgmanite in the meteorite was found to be formed at pressures of about 23 to 25 gigapascals generated by the shock event.
    • The high temperature and pressure in our Earth’s interior have changed over billions of years causing crystallisation, melting, remelting of the different minerals before they reached their current state.
    • It is important to study these individual minerals to get a thorough idea of how and when the Earth’s layers formed.

    How does it help understand evolution of Earth?

    • The inner planets or terrestrial planets or rocky planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are formed by accretion or by rocky pieces coming together.
    • They were formed as a planet by increased pressure and high temperature caused by radioactive elements and gravitational forces.
    • Our Earth was an ocean of magma before the elements crystallised and stabilised and the different layers such as core, mantle were formed.
    • The heavier elements like iron went to the core while the lighter silicates stayed in the mantle.
    • By using the meteorite as an analog for Earth, we can unearth more details about the formation.

    Answer this question from our AWE initiative:

    What are seismic waves? How have they helped in understanding the structure of the earth? (250 W/ 15 M)

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

     

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Water Management – Institutional Reforms, Conservation Efforts, etc.

    Who was Hermann Bacher?

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

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Hermann Bacher

    Mains level: Watershed development in India

    Hermann Bacher, popularly known as the ‘father of community-led watershed development in India’, passed away at the ripe old age of 97 years in Switzerland September 14, 2021.

    Hermann Bacher

    • Born in 1924, Bacher, came to India in 1948 at the young age of 24 years.
    • He was to spend the next 60 years of his life here, most of it in Maharashtra.
    • Struck by the poverty he saw in rural Maharashtra, he dedicated his life to the upliftment of the poor, the landless and rural women.
    • Bacher was given Germany’s highest civilian award, the Federal Cross of the Order of Merit in 1994, in recognition of his outstanding efforts.
    • In 2017, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertifiucation (UNCCD) awarded WOTR the prestigious ‘Land for Life Award 2017’.
    • He is widely regarded and respected as a true ‘man of God’ for whom selfless service of the poor was worship at its most sublime. He is fondly remembered as ‘Bacher Baba’.

    Notable works

    • The 1972 droughts in Maharashtra led him to re-calibrate his developmental approach.
    • This meant that in rain-dependent rural Maharashtra, a shift had to be made from ‘resource exploitation’ to sustainable resource use, or ‘resource mobilisation’, as he described it.
    • He helped thousands of landless labourers’ secure title to land under the Land Reforms Act, 1957, beginning in 1965.
    • He also organised lakhs of farmers to develop their farms and increase their agricultural productivity by helping them access irrigation, improved and hybrid seeds etc.

    Pioneering water harvest

    • Since rain fell in the watersheds and landscapes villagers lived in, the only way to harvest and conserve rainwater wherever it fell was to undertake watershed development measures.
    • The idea was that “running water must be made to walk; walking water made to stop and sink underground”.
    • This meant, planting trees and grasses, conserving forests, undertaking soil and water conservation works such as digging contour trenches, raising farm bunds, etc.
    • It also meant building water harvesting structures on the streams (check dams, earthen bunds, etc) in a systematic manner across the entire landscape of the village, beginning from the top.

    Establishing the IGWDP

    • Through his work, was born the idea which later became the large-scale Indo-German Watershed Development Program (IGWDP) that he conceived and launched in Maharashtra in 1989.
    • This was in collaboration with and the support of the Governments of India, Maharashtra and Germany, NABARD and the non-profit sector.
    • Its unique and ground-breaking feature was that it put the villagers in the driver’s seat — the community would plan the programme, implement it and maintain the watershed assets.
    • Funds, substantial amounts, would be given directly to them and they would have to manage and account

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Innovations in Biotechnology and Medical Sciences

    Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Model for Radiation Safety

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

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: LNT Model

    Mains level: Not Much

    The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) decisively upheld the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model to prescribe radiation safety standards, ending the protracted controversy on the topic.

    What is the LNT Model?

    • The LNT is a dose-response model used in radiation protection to estimate stochastic health effects such as radiation-induced cancer, genetic mutations etc. on the human body due to exposure to ionizing radiation.
    • The LNT model states that biological effects such as cancer and hereditary effects due to exposure to ionising radiation increase as a linear function of dose, without threshold.
    • It provides a sound regulatory basis for minimizing the risk of unnecessary radiation exposure to both members of the public and radiation workers.

    Why in news?

    • LNT model continues to provide a sound basis for a conservative radiation protection regulatory framework that protects both the public and occupational workers.
    • The model helps the agencies to regulate radiation exposures to diverse categories of licensees, from commercial nuclear power plants to individual industrial radiographers and nuclear medical practices.
    • There are also studies and findings that support the continued use of the LNT model, including those by national and international authoritative scientific advisory bodies.

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • RBI Notifications

    RBI suspends G-Sec Acquisition Programme (GSAP)

    Prelims Only | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Indian Economy

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Open Market Operations (OMO)

    Mains level: NA

    The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to halt its bond-buying under the G-Sec Acquisition Programme (GSAP).

    Why such move?

    • The GSAP had succeeded in ensuring adequate liquidity and stabilising financial markets.
    • Coupled with other liquidity measures, it facilitated congenial and orderly financing conditions and a conducive environment for the recovery.

    What is GSAP?

    • The G-Sec Acquisition Programme (G-SAP) is basically an unconditional and a structured Open Market Operation (OMO), of a much larger scale and size.
    • G-SAP is an OMO with a ‘distinct character’.
    • The word ‘unconditional’ here connotes that RBI has committed upfront that it will buy G-Secs irrespective of the market sentiment.

    What are Government Securities?

    • These are debt instruments issued by the government to borrow money.
    • The two key categories are:
    1. Treasury bills (T-Bills) – short-term instruments which mature in 91 days, 182 days, or 364 days, and
    2. Dated securities – long-term instruments, which mature anywhere between 5 years and 40 years

    Note: T-Bills are issued only by the central government, and the interest on them is determined by market forces.

    Why G-Secs?

    • Like bank fixed deposits, g-secs are not tax-free.
    • They are generally considered the safest form of investment because they are backed by the government. So, the risk of default is almost nil.
    • However, they are not completely risk-free, since they are subject to fluctuations in interest rates.
    • Bank fixed deposits, on the other hand, are guaranteed only to the extent of Rs 5 lakh by the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC).

    Other decisions

    • The RBI, however, remained ready to undertake G-SAP as and when warranted by liquidity conditions.
    • It would also continue to flexibly conduct other liquidity management operations including Operation Twist (OT) and regular open market operations (OMOs).

    Answer this PYQ in the comment box:

    Q.Consider the following statements:

    1. The Reserve Bank of India manages and services the Government of India Securities but not any State Government Securities.
    2. Treasury bills are issued by the Government of India and there are no treasury bills issued by the State Governments.
    3. Treasury bills offer are issued at a discount from the par value.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 3 Only

    (c) 2 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

     

    Post your answers here:

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Back2Basics: Open Market Operations (OMO)

    • OMOs is one of the quantitative monetary policy tools which is employed by the central bank of a country to control the money supply in the economy.
    • It is a part of the Market Stabilization Scheme (MSS) by the RBI.
    • OMOs are conducted by the RBI by way of sale or purchase of government securities (g-secs) to adjust money supply conditions.
    • The central bank sells g-secs to remove liquidity from the system and buys back g-secs to infuse liquidity into the system.

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Nobel and other Prizes

    Nobel Prize 2021

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

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Nobel Price, BioCatalysts

    Mains level: NA

    (1) Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences, 2021

    The 2021 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded in one half to Canadian-born David Card and the other half jointly to Israeli-American Joshua D Angrist and Dutch-American Guido W Imbens.

    • David Card has been awarded for his empirical contributions to labor economics. Joshua D Angrist and Guido W Imbens won the award “for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships.”
    • The 2020 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to Paul R Milgrom and Robert B Wilson “for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats”.

    Contributions

    • David Card: He has analyzed how minimum wages, immigration and education impact the labor market.
      • One of the significant findings of this research was that“increasing the minimum wage does not necessarily lead to fewer jobs”.
      • It also led to the understanding that“people who were born in a country can benefit from new immigration, while people who immigrated at an earlier time risk being negatively affected”.
      • It also illuminated the role of resources available in school in shaping the future of students in the labor market.
    • Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens: They were rewarded for their “methodological contributions” to the research tool.
      • Their work demonstrated “how precise conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn from natural experiments”.

     (2) Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 2021

    The 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Benjamin List and David MacMillan for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis.

    • Last year, the honour went to Frenchwoman Emmanuelle Charpentier and American Jennifer Doudna, for developing the gene-editing technique known as CRISPR-Cas9 – DNA snipping “scissors”.

    About the Development

    • They have developed a new and ingenious tool for molecule building: organocatalysis.
      • Many research areas and industries are dependent on chemists’ ability to construct molecules that can form elastic and durable materials, store energy in batteries or inhibit the progression of diseases. This work requires catalysts.
      • According to researchers, there were just two types of catalysts available: metals and enzymes. Catalysts are any substance that increases the rate of a reaction without itself being consumed.
    • In 2000, they, independent of each other, developed a third type of catalysis. It is called asymmetric organocatalysis and builds upon small organic molecules.
    • Significance:
      • Its uses include research into new pharmaceuticals and it has also helped make chemistry greener.
      • Both these sets of catalysts (metals and enzymes) had limitations.
      • Heavier metals are expensive, difficult to mine, and toxic to humans and the environment.
        • Despite the best processes, traces remained in the end product; this posed problems in situations where compounds of very high purity were required, like in the manufacture of medicines.
        • Also, metals required an environment free of water and oxygen, which was difficult to ensure on an industrial scale.
      • Enzymes on the other hand, work best when water is used as a medium for the chemical reaction. But that is not an environment suitable for all kinds of chemical reactions.

    Organocatalysis

      • Organic compounds are mostly naturally-occurring substances, built around a framework of carbon atoms and usually containing hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, or phosphorus.
      • Life-supporting chemicals like proteins, which are long chains of amino acids (carbon compounds containing nitrogen and oxygen) are organic.
      • Enzymes are also proteins, and therefore, organic compounds. These are responsible for many essential biochemical reactions.
      • Organocatalysts allow several steps in a production process to be performed in an unbroken sequence, considerably reducing waste in chemical manufacturing.
      • Organocatalysis has developed at an astounding speed since 2000. Benjamin List and David MacMillan remain leaders in the field, and have shown that organic catalysts can be used to drive multitudes of chemical reactions.
        • Using these reactions, researchers can now more efficiently construct anything from new pharmaceuticals to molecules that can capture light in solar cells.

    Asymmetric Organocatalysis

      • The process called asymmetric organocatalysis has made it much easier to produce asymmetric molecules – chemicals that exist in two versions, where one is a mirror image of the other.
      • Chemists often just want one of these mirror images – particularly when producing medicines – but it has been difficult to find efficient methods for doing this.
      • Some molecules with mirror versions have different properties. An example is the chemical called carvone, which has one form that smells like spearmint and a counterpart that smells like the herb, dill.
      • Different versions of the same molecule might have different effects when ingested. Then it becomes important to be able to make only the mirror image of a drug that has the desired physiological effect.

    (3) Nobel Prize in Physics, 2021

    The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded with one half jointly to Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and the other half to Giorgio Parisi “for groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems.”

    • This is the first time climate scientists (Manabe and Hasselmann) have been awarded the Physics Nobel. Last year, the award was given for the research into black holes.

    Manabe and Hasselmann

    • Awarded for work in physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming.
    • Demonstrated how increases in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would increase global temperatures, laying the foundations for current climate models.

    Parisi

    • Awarded for “the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales.”
    • He “built a deep physical and mathematical model” that made it possible to understand complex systems in fields such as mathematics, biology, neuroscience and machine learning.

    (4) Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine, 2021

    Recently, two United States-based scientists, David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian have been awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.

    • They have focused their work on the field of somatosensation, that is the ability of specialized organs such as eyes, ears and skin to see, hear and feel.

    About the Discoveries

    David Julius:

    • He discovered TRPV1, a heat-sensing receptor.
    • His findings on the skin’s sense of temperature was based on how certain cells react to capsaicin, the molecule that makes chili peppers spicy, by simulating a false sensation of heat.

    Ardem Patapoutian

    • He discovered two mechanosensitive ion channels known as the Piezo channels.
      • The Piezo1 is named after the Greek word for pressure, ‘píesi’.
    • He is credited for finding the cellular mechanism and the underlying gene that translates a mechanical force on our skin into an electric nerve signal.

    Significance of Discoveries

      • The findings have allowed us to understand how heat, cold and mechanical force can initiate the nerve impulses that allow us to perceive and adapt to the world around us.
      • This knowledge is being used to develop treatments for a wide range of disease conditions, including chronic pain.

    Back To Basics: About Nobel Prizes

    • The will of the Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel established the five Nobel prizes in 1895.
    • The Nobel Prizes are a set of recognition given to fields of Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine by The Nobel Foundation.
      • The Nobel Foundation is a private institution established in 1900, has ultimate responsibility for fulfilling the intentions in Alfred Nobel’s will.
    • The prizes in Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine were first awarded in 1901.
    • In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank established the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

     

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Innovations in Biotechnology and Medical Sciences

    Mosquirix: First malaria vaccine to get WHO nod

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

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Malaria and it vaccines

    Mains level: Malaria menace in India

    In a historic move, the World Health Organization (WHO) has endorsed the first anti-malarial vaccine, as mankind enters a key turning point in a battle waged relentlessly over decades between man and mosquito, the vector.

    Mosquirix

    • RTS,S/ASO1 (RTS.S), trade name Mosquirix acts against P. falciparum, the most deadly malaria parasite globally, and the most prevalent in Africa.
    • The vaccine was able to prevent approximately 4 in 10 cases of malaria over a 4-year period in Africa.
    • This is the first malaria vaccine that has completed the clinical development process.
    • It is also the first malaria vaccine to be introduced by three national ministries of health through their childhood immunization programs — more than 800,000 children in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi.
    • have been vaccinated, and are benefiting from the added protection provided by the vaccine as part of a pilot program.

    How the vaccine can help?

    • WHO’s recommendation is based on the advice of its two global advisory bodies, one for immunization and the other for malaria.
    • WHO has recommended that in the context of comprehensive malaria control, the RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine be used for the prevention of P. falciparum malaria in children living in regions with moderate to high transmission as defined by it.
    • The malaria vaccine should be provided in a schedule of 4 doses in children from 5 months of age for the reduction of malaria disease and burden.

    Back2Basics: Malaria

    • Malaria is caused by the bite of the female Anopheles mosquito if the mosquito itself is infected with a malarial parasite.
    • There are five kinds of malarial parasites — Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax (the commonest ones), Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium ovale and Plasmodium knowlesi.
    • Therefore, to say that someone has contracted the Plasmodium ovale type of malaria means that the person has been infected by that particular parasite.
    • Malaria is treated with prescription drugs to kill the parasite. Chloroquine is the preferred treatment for any parasite that is sensitive to the drug.

    Countries that have eliminated malaria

    • Globally, the elimination net is widening, with more countries moving towards the goal of zero malaria.
    • In 2019, 27 countries reported fewer than 100 indigenous cases of the disease, up from 6 countries in 2000.
    • Countries that have achieved at least 3 consecutive years of zero indigenous cases of malaria are eligible to apply for the WHO certification of malaria elimination.
    • 11 countries have been certified as malaria-free: United Arab Emirates (2007), Morocco (2010), Turkmenistan (2010), Armenia (2011), Sri Lanka (2016), Kyrgyzstan (2016), Paraguay (2018), Uzbekistan (2018), Algeria (2019), Argentina (2019), and El Salvador (2021).

    Burden of Malaria in India

    • In 2018, the National Vector-borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP) estimated that approximately 5 lakh people suffered from malaria.
    • 63% of the cases were of Plasmodium falciparum.
    • The recent World Malaria Report 2020 said cases in India dropped from about 20 million in 2000 to about 5.6 million in 2019.

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor