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Type: Prelims Only

  • New Species of Plants and Animals Discovered

    Species in news: Azhdarchid Pterosaurs

    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: Azhdarchid pterosaurs

    Mains level: Not Much

    Azhdarchid pterosaurs, the giant reptiles that flew in the skies nearly 65 million years ago, had necks longer than that of a giraffe (i.e. more than 6fts).

    What are pterosaurs?

    • Pterosaurs are reptiles that are close cousins of dinosaurs, the first animals after insects to evolve powered flight.
    • Some pterosaurs were as large as an F-16 fighter jet, while others were as small as a paper aeroplane.
    • Pterosaurs went extinct about 65-66 million years ago (end of the Cretaceous period) and while they did not leave any of their descendants behind.
    • One reason for this is that few pterosaurs lived in places where fossils tend to form, because of which their bones are preserved poorly.

    Revise the geological timescale from your NCERT textbook.

    Azhdarchid pterosaurs

    • They are one type of pterosaur and one of the distinguishing characteristics about them is how big they were, especially their long necks.
    • Some of these pterosaurs were the largest animals to have flown in the sky, with wingspans greater than 30 feet.
    • The name azhdarchid, as per a blog on Scientific American comes from Azhdarcho, a Central Asian form named by Russian ornithologist and palaeontologist in 1984.

    What have the researchers found?

    • Researchers involved in this study were curious about how the reptile’s long neck functioned and how it was able to support the pterosaur’s body, allowing them to capture and eat heavy prey animals.

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  • Electoral Reforms In India

    Sushil Chandra appointed Chief Election Commissioner

    Prelims Only | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Indian Constitution – historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Chief Election Commissioner

    Mains level: Not Much

    The President has appointed Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra to take over as Chief Election Commissioner.

    Chief Election Commissioner

    • The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of India heads the Election Commission of India.
    • The ECI is a body constitutionally empowered to conduct free and fair elections to the national and state legislatures and of President and Vice-President.
    • This power of the Election Commission of India is derived from Article 324 of the Constitution of India.
    • CEC of India is usually a member of the Indian Civil Service and mostly (not necessarily) from the Indian Administrative Service.

    His/ Her Removal

    • It is very difficult to remove the authority of the Chief Election Commissioner once appointed by the president.
    • The two-thirds of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha need to present and vote against him for disorderly conduct or improper actions.

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  • Gravitational Wave Observations

    [pib] Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) Galaxy

    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: NLS1 Galaxy

    Mains level: Black holes and gravitation waves

    Astronomers have discovered a new active galaxy identified as the farthest gamma-ray emitting galaxy that has so far been stumbled upon. This active galaxy called the Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxy.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Recently, scientists observed the merger of giant ‘blackholes’ billions of light-years away from the Earth. What is the significance of this observation?

    (a) ‘Higgs boson particles’ were detected.

    (b) ‘Gravitational waves’ were detected.

    (c) Possibility of inter-galactic space travel through ‘wormhole’ was confirmed.

    (d) It enabled scientists to understand ‘singularity’.

    NLS1 Galaxy

    • Indian scientists have studied around 25,000 luminous Active galactic nuclei (AGN) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS).
    • They identified it as a gamma-ray emitting NLS1 galaxy, which is a rare entity in space.
    • It is about 31 billion light-years away, opens up avenues to explore more such gamma-ray emitting galaxies that wait to meet us.

    What makes it intriguing?

    • Ever since 1929, when Edwin Hubble discovered that the Universe is expanding, it has been known that most other galaxies are moving away from us.
    • Light from these galaxies is shifted to longer (and this means redder) wavelengths – in other words, it is red-shifted.
    • Scientists have been trying to trace such red-shifted galaxies to understand the early Universe.
    • Powerful relativistic jets, or sources of particles in the Universe travelling nearly at speed to light, are usually produced by AGN powered by large black holes and hosted in a giant elliptical galaxy.

    Why NLS1 is unique?

    • NLS1s are a unique class of AGN that are powered by the black hole of low mass and hosted in a spiral galaxy.
    • As of today, gamma-ray emission has been detected in about a dozen NLS1 galaxies, which are a separate class of AGN identified four decades ago.
    • All of them are at redshifts lesser than one, and no method was present to date to find NLS1 at redshifts larger than one.
    • This discovery opens up a new way to find gamma-ray emitting NLS1 galaxies in the early Universe.

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  • New Species of Plants and Animals Discovered

    Monkeydactyl: the flying reptile with the ‘oldest opposable thumbs’

    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: Monkeydactyl

    Mains level: Evolution of natural history

    Researchers have described a pterosaur species with opposable thumbs, which could likely be the earliest-known instance of the limb.

    Monkeydactyl

    • The pterosaur species were reptiles, close cousins of dinosaurs and the first animals after insects to evolve powered flight.
    • They evolved into various species; while some were as large as an F-16 fighter jet, others were as small as paper aeroplanes.
    • The new pterosaur fossil was discovered in the Tiaojishan Formation of Liaoning, China, and is thought to be 160 million years old.
    • It has now been described by an international team of researchers from China, Brazil, the UK, Denmark and Japan, and has been named Kunpengopterus antipollicatus, also dubbed “Monkeydactyl”.

    What has the team found?

    • “Antipollicatus” in ancient Greek means “opposite thumbs”, and it was attached to the name because the researchers’ findings could be the first discovery of a pterosaur with an opposed thumb.
    • Researchers suggested that K. antipollicatus could have used its hand for grasping, which is likely an adaptation for arboreal life.

    What makes it special?

    • Opposability of the thumb enables the species to “simultaneously flex, abduct and medially rotate the thumb” in a way that one is able to bring the tip of the thumb to touch the tips of the other fingers.
    • Along with humans, some ancient monkeys and apes also had opposable thumbs. Humans, however, have a relatively long and distally placed thumb, and larger thumb muscles.
    • This means that humans’ tip-to-tip precision grip when holding smaller objects is superior to non-human primates.
    • This is the reason that humans are able to hold a pen, unscrew an earring stopper, or put a thread through a needle hole.
    • The grasping hands of primates developed as a result of their life in the trees — an opposable thumb made it easier for the common ancestor of all primates to cling on to tree branches.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Some species of plants are insectivorous. Why?

    (a) Their growth in shady and dark places does not allow them to undertake sufficient photosynthesis and thus they depend on insects for nutrition

    (b) They are adapted to grow in nitrogen deficient soils and thus depend on insects for sufficient nitrogenous nutrition

    (c) They cannot synthesize certain vitamins themselves and depend on the insects digested by them

    (d) They have remained in that particular stage of evolution as living fossils, a link between autotrophs and heterotrophs

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  • Modern Indian History-Events and Personalities

    Person in news: Jyotirao Phule (1827 –1890)

    Prelims Only | | Mains Paper 1: Modern Indian History

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Jyotiba Phule

    Mains level: Social reformers in India

    The Prime Minister has paid tribute to the great social reformer, thinker, philosopher and writer Mahatma Jyotiba Phule on his birth anniversary.

    Mahatma Phule

    • Jotirao Govindrao Phule was an Indian social activist, thinker, anti-caste social reformer and writer from Maharashtra.
    • His work extended to many fields, including the eradication of untouchability and the caste system and for his efforts in educating women and exploited caste people.
    • He and his wife, Savitribai Phule, were pioneers of women’s education in India. Phule started his first school for girls in 1848 in Pune at Tatyasaheb Bhide’s residence or Bhidewada.
    • He, along with his followers, formed the Satyashodhak Samaj (Society of Truth Seekers) to attain equal rights for people from exploited castes.
    • People from all religions and castes could become a part of this association which worked for the upliftment of the oppressed classes.
    • Phule is regarded as an important figure in the social reform movement in Maharashtra. He was bestowed with an honorific Mahātmā title by Maharashtrian social activist Vithalrao Krishnaji Vandekar in 1888.

    His social work

    Phule’s social activism included many fields, including the eradication of untouchability and the caste system, education of women and the Dalits, and welfare of downtrodden women.

    1. Education
    • In 1848, aged 21, Phule visited a girls’ school in Ahmadnagar, run by Christian missionaries.
    • He realized that exploited castes and women were at a disadvantage in Indian society, and also that education of these sections was vital to their emancipation
    • Phule first taught reading and writing to his wife, Savitribai, and then the couple started the first indigenously run school for girls in Pune.
    • The conservative upper caste society of Pune didn’t approve of his work. But many Indians and Europeans helped him generously.
    1. Women’s welfare
    • Phule watched how untouchables were not permitted to pollute anyone with their shadows and that they had to attach a broom to their backs to wipe the path on which they had travelled.
    • He saw young widows shaving their heads, refraining from any sort of joy in their life. He saw how untouchable women had been forced to dance naked.
    • He made the decision to educate women by witnessing all these social evils that encouraged inequality.
    • He championed widow remarriage and started a home for dominant caste pregnant widows to give birth in a safe and secure place in 1863.
    • His orphanage was established in an attempt to reduce the rate of infanticide.
    • Along with his longtime friend Sadashiv Ballal Govande and Savitribai, he started an infanticide prevention centre.
    • Phule tried to eliminate the stigma of social untouchability surrounding the exploited castes by opening his house and the use of his water-well to the members of the exploited castes.
    1. Views on religion and caste
    • Phule recast Aryan invasion theory, proposing that the Aryan conquerors of India, were in fact barbaric suppressors of the indigenous people.
    • He believed that they had instituted the caste system as a framework for subjugation and social division that ensured the pre-eminence of their Brahmin successors.
    • He saw the subsequent Muslim conquests of the Indian subcontinent as more of the same sort of thing, being a repressive alien regime.
    • But he considered the British to be relatively enlightened and not supportive of the varnashrama dharma system instigated and then perpetuated by those previous invaders.
    • In his book, Gulamgiri, he thanked Christian missionaries and the British colonists for making the exploited castes realise that they are worthy of all human rights.
    • His critique of the caste system began with an attack on the Vedas, the most fundamental texts of Hindus. He considered them to be a form of false consciousness.
    • He is credited with introducing the Marathi word ‘Dalit’ (broken, crushed) as a descriptor for those people who were outside the traditional varna system.
    • He advocated making primary education compulsory in villages. He also asked for special incentives to get more lower-caste people in high schools and colleges.

    Satyashodhak Samaj

    • On 24 September 1873, Phule formed Satyashodhak Samaj to focus on the rights of depressed groups such as women, the Shudra, and the Dalit.
    • Through this the samaj opposed idolatry and denounced the caste system.
    • Satyashodhak Samaj campaigned for the spread of rational thinking and rejected the need for priests.
    • Phule established Satyashodhak Samaj with the ideals of human well-being, happiness, unity, equality, and easy religious principles and rituals.
    • A Pune-based newspaper, Deenbandhu, provided the voice for the views of the Samaj.
    • The membership of the samaj included Muslims, Brahmins and government officials. Phule’s own Mali caste provided the leading members and financial supporters for the organization.

    Published works

    • Tritiya Ratna, 1855
    • Manav Mahammand (Muhammad) (Abhang)
    • Gulamgiri, 1873
    • Sarvajanik Satya Dharma Poostak, April 1889
    • Sarvajanic Satya Dharmapustak, 1891

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

    Places in news: Thwaites Glacier

    Prelims Only | Enviro & Biodiversity | Mains Paper 1: Important Geophysical Phenomena

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Thwaites Glacier

    Mains level: Glacial melting and sea level rise

    The melting of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier – also called the “Doomsday Glacier”– has long been a cause of concern because of its high potential of speeding up the global sea-level rise happening due to climate change.

    Thwaites Glacier

    • Called the Thwaites Glacier, it is 120 km wide at its broadest, fast-moving, and melting fast over the years.
    • Because of its size (1.9 lakh square km), it contains enough water to raise the world sea level by more than half a meter.
    • Studies have found the amount of ice flowing out of it has nearly doubled over the past 30 years.
    • Thwaites’s melting already contributes 4% to global sea-level rise each year. It is estimated that it would collapse into the sea in 200-900 years.
    • Thwaites is important for Antarctica as it slows the ice behind it from freely flowing into the ocean. Because of the risk it faces — and poses — Thwaites is often called the Doomsday Glacier.

    What have previous studies said?

    • A 2019 study by New York University had discovered a fast-growing cavity in the glacier. Then last year, researchers detected warm water at a vital point below the glacier.
    • The study reported water at just two degrees above freezing point at Thwaites’s “grounding zone” or “grounding line”.
    • The grounding line is the place below a glacier at which the ice transitions between resting fully on bedrock and floating on the ocean as an ice shelf.
    • The location of the line is a pointer to the rate of retreat of a glacier.
    • When glaciers melt and lose weight, they float off the land where they used to be situated. When this happens, the grounding line retreats.
    • That exposes more of a glacier’s underside to seawater, increasing the melting rate resulting in the glacier speeding up, stretching out, and thinning, causing the grounding line to retreat ever further.

    What has the new study revealed?

    • The recent Gothenburg study used an uncrewed submarine to go under the Thwaites glacier front to make observations.
    • The submersible called “Ran” measured among other things the strength, temperature, salinity and oxygen content of the ocean currents that go under the glacier.
    • There is a deep connection to the east through which deepwater flows from Pine Island Bay, a connection that was previously thought to be blocked by an underwater ridge.

    Why this is a cause of worry?

    • The warm water is approaching the pinning points of the glacier from all sides, impacting these locations where the ice is connected to the seabed and where the ice sheet finds stability.
    • This has the potential to make things worse for Thwaites, whose ice shelf is already retreating.

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  • Wildlife Conservation Efforts

    Indus and Ganges river dolphins are two different species

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

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Gangetic and Indus Dolphin

    Mains level: Not Much

    Detailed analysis of South Asian river dolphins has revealed that the Indus and Ganges River dolphins are not one, but two separate species.

    About Gangetic Dolphin

    • The Gangetic river system is home to a vast variety of aquatic life, including the Gangetic dolphin (Platanista gangetica).
    • It is one of five species of river dolphin found around the world.
    • It is found mainly in the Indian subcontinent, particularly in Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna and Karnaphuli-Sangu river systems.
    • An adult dolphin could weigh between 70 kg and 90 kg. The breeding season of the Gangetic dolphin extends from January to June.
    • They feed on several species of fishes, invertebrates etc.

    Indus Dolphin is the divergent specie

    • Currently, they are classified as two subspecies under Platanista gangetica. The study estimates that Indus and Ganges river dolphins may have diverged around 550,000 years ago.
    • The international team studied body growth, skull morphology, tooth counts, colouration and genetic makeup and published the findings last month in Marine Mammal Science.

    Conservation status

    • The Indus and Ganges River dolphins are both classified as ‘Endangered’ species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
    • It is the national aquatic animal and had been granted non-human personhood status by the government in 2017.
    • It is also protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act (1972).
    • Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary (VGDS) in Bihar is India’s only sanctuary for the Gangetic dolphin.
    • It has been categorised as endangered on the Red List of Threatened Species by the IUCN
    • Physical barriers such as dams and barrages created across the river, the declining river flows reduced the gene flow to a great extent making the species vulnerable.

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  • Agricultural Sector and Marketing Reforms – eNAM, Model APMC Act, Eco Survey Reco, etc.

    Production of Poppy Straw

    Prelims Only | Agriculture | Mains Paper 3: Major Crops & Cropping Patterns

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not Much

    Mains level: Opium cultivation

    The Central government has decided to rope in the private sector to commence production of concentrated poppy straw from India’s opium crop.

    What is the move?

    • The move aims to boost the yield of alkaloids, used for medical purposes and exported to several countries.
    • Among the few countries permitted to cultivate the opium poppy crop for export and extraction of alkaloids, India currently only extracts alkaloids from opium gum at facilities controlled by the Revenue Department.
    • This entails farmers extracting gum by manually lancing the opium pods and selling the gum to government factories.
    • The Ministry has now decided to switch to new technologies after trial cultivation reports submitted last year by two private firms showed higher extraction of alkaloids using the concentrated poppy straw (CPS).

    Opium Poppy

    • The milky fluid that seeps from cuts in the unripe poppy seed pod has, since ancient times, been scraped off and air-dried to produce what is known as opium.
    • The seedpod is first incised with a multi-bladed tool.
    • This lets the opium “gum” ooze out.
    • The semi-dried “gum” is harvested with a curved spatula and then dried in open wooden boxes.
    • The dried opium resin is placed in bags or rolled into balls for sale.

    Why such a move?

    • India’s opium crop acreage has been steadily declining over the years.
    • The CPS extraction method is expected to help cut the occasional dependence on imports of products like codeine (extracted from opium) for medical uses.

    Amendments to NDPS Act

    • Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are the three traditionally opium-growing States, where poppy crop cultivation is allowed based on licences issued annually by the Central Bureau of Narcotics.
    • While roping in private players in producing CPS and extracting alkaloids from it is likely to require amendments to the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.
    • The Revenue Department has decided to appoint a consultant to help frame the bidding parameters and concession agreements for the same.

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  • Central Vigilance Commission (CVC)

    Prelims Only | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Indian Constitution – historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: CVC

    Mains level: Not Much

    The CVC has modified the guidelines pertaining to the transfer and posting of officials in the vigilance units of government organisations, restricting their tenure to three years at one place.

    Revise all statutory and constitutional bodies from your Polity Book at least 2-3 times before the prelims.

    Central Vigilance Commission (CVC)

    • CVC is an apex governmental body created in 1964 to address governmental corruption.
    • In 2003, the Parliament enacted a law conferring statutory status on the CVC.
    • It has the status of an autonomous body, free of control from any executive authority, charged with monitoring all vigilance activity under the Central Government of India.
    • It advises various authorities in central Government organizations in planning, executing, reviewing and reforming their vigilance work.

    Its establishment

    • It was set up by the Government Resolution on 11 February 1964, on the recommendations of the Committee on Prevention of Corruption, headed by Shri K. Santhanam.
    • N Srinivasa Rau was selected as the first Chief Vigilance Commissioner of India.

    Composition

    • The Commission shall consist of:
    1. A Central Vigilance Commissioner – Chairperson;
    2. Not more than two Vigilance Commissioners – Members.
    • The CVC and other VCs shall be appointed by the President on the recommendation of a Committee consisting of the PM (Chairperson), the Minister of Home Affairs (Member) and the Leader of the Opposition in the House of the People (Lok Sabha).

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  • Judicial Reforms

    Supreme Court Portal for Assistance in Court’s Efficiency (SUPACE)

    Prelims Only | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Executive & Judiciary

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: SUOPACE

    Mains level: Not Much

    The Supreme Court has unveiled its Artificial Intelligence (AI) portal SUPACE, designed to make research easier for judges, thereby easing their workload.

    SUPACE

    • A pet project of the former Chief Justice of India S A Bobde, the SUPACE is a tool that collects relevant facts and laws and makes them available to a judge.
    • The Supreme Court’s system is not designed to take decisions, but only to process facts and to make them available to judges looking for input for a decision.
    • The CJI had then said that AI is to the intellect, what muscle memory is to the mind.

    Its’ utility

    • SUPACE will produce results customized to the need of the case and the way the judge thinks.
    • This will be time-saving. It will help the judiciary and the court in reducing delays and pendency of cases.
    • AI will present a more streamlined, cost-effective and time-bound means to the fundamental right of access to justice.
    • It will make the service delivery mechanism transparent and cost-efficient.

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