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Type: Prelims Only

  • Cyber Security – CERTs, Policy, etc

    Sandes: the government’s new Instant Messaging Platform

    Prelims Only | | Mains Paper 3: Cyber Security

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Sandes

    Mains level: Secured instant messaging

    The National Informatics Centre (NIC) has launched an instant messaging platform called Sandes on the lines of WhatsApp.  Open initially only to government officers, it has now been released for the common public as well.

    Features of Sandes Platform

    • The instant messaging app, called Sandes, has an interface similar to many other apps currently available in the market.
    • Like WhatsApp, the new NIC platform can be used for all kinds of communications by anyone with a mobile number or email id.
    • Although there is no option to transfer the chat history between two platforms, the chats on government instant messaging systems or GIMS can be backed up to a users’ email.
    • It also offers features such as group making, broadcast message, message forwarding and emojis.
    • Further, as an additional safety feature, it allows a user to mark a message as confidential, which will allow the recipient to be made aware the message should not be shared with others.

    Why need such instant messaging platform?

    • Following the nationwide lockdown, the government felt the need to build a platform to ensure secure communication between its employees as they worked from home.
    • The idea for a secure communication network dedicated exclusively to government employees has been in the works for the past four years.
    • In August 2020, the NIC released the first version of the app, which said that the app could be used by both central and state government officials for intra and inter-organisation communication.
    • The app was initially launched for Android users and then the service was extended to iOS users.

    Limitations of the app

    • The limitation, however, is that the app does not allow the user to change their email id or registered phone number.
    • The user will have to re-register as a new user in case they wish to change their registered email id or phone number on the app.

    Do you remember?

    [Burning Issue] WhatsApp Snooping

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  • ISRO Missions and Discoveries

    ISRO collaborates to build alternative to Google Maps

    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: MapmyIndia, Various tools of ISRO

    Mains level: Geospatial data and its utilization

    The ISRO has joined hands with MapmyIndia to combine their geospatial expertise and build holistic solutions by leveraging their geoportals.

    Note various geo-spatial solutions of ISRO mentioned in the newscard.

    What is the Project?

    • It combines the power of MapmyIndia’s digital maps and technologies with ISRO’s catalogue of satellite imagery and earth observation data.
    • Indian users would not be dependent on foreign organisations for maps, navigation and geospatial services, and leverage made-in-India solutions instead.

    Various components

    The collaboration will enable them to jointly identify and build holistic geospatial solutions utilising the ISRO’s earth observation datasets such as-

    • IRNSS (Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System) called NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation, is India’s own navigation system, developed by ISRO.
    • Bhuvan is the national geo-portal developed and hosted by ISRO comprising geospatial data, services and tools for analysis.
    • VEDAS (Visualization of Earth observation Data and Archival System) is an online geo-processing platform using an optical, microwave, thermal and hyperspectral EO data covering applications particularly meant for academia, research and problem solving, according to ISRO.
    • MOSDAC (Meteorological and Oceanographic Satellite Data Archival Centre)is a data repository for all the meteorological missions of ISRO and deals with weather-related information, oceanography and tropical water cycles.

    About MapmyIndia

    • MapmyIndia is an Indian technology company that builds digital map data, telematics services, location-based SaaS (Software as a service) and GIS AI services.
    • The company was founded in 1992 and is headquartered at New Delhi with regional offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru and smaller offices across India.
    • Its map covers all 7.5 lakh villages, 7500+ cities at street and building-level, connected by all 63 lakh kilometres of road network pan India and within cities, in total providing maps for an unparalleled 3+ crore places across India.

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

    Mechanophotonics: Manipulating light through crystals

    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: Mechanophotonics, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)

    Mains level: Not Much

    Crystals are normally rigid, stiff structures, but researchers from the University of Hyderabad have shown how crystals can be sliced and even bent using atomic force microscopy. They have named this technique as “mechanophotonics”.

    The newscard discusses an out of the box technology which if brought to reality in practical use, can create immense disruptions in the technology market.

    Manipulating light through crystals

    • Manipulating them with precision and control comes in very useful in the field of nanophotonics, a qualitative, emerging field.
    • The aim is to go beyond electronics and build-up circuits driven entirely by photons (light).

    If the technique can be successfully developed, this can achieve an unprecedented level of miniaturisation and pave the way to all-optical-technology such as pliable, wearable devices operated by light entirely.

    What Indian researchers have achieved?

    : Bending light path

    • Light, when left to itself moves along straight paths, so it is crucial to develop materials and technology that can cause its path to bend along what is required in the circuits.
    • This is like using fibre optics, but at the nanoscale level using organic crystals.
    • The Hyderabad group has demonstrated how such crystals can be lifted, bent moved, transferred and sliced using atomic force microscopy.

    : How?

    • Researchers add a crucial piece to the jigsaw puzzle of building an “organic photonic integrated circuit” or OPIC.
    • Generally, millimetre- to centimetre-long crystals were bent using hand-held tweezers.
    • This method lacks precision and control. Also, the crystals used were larger than what was required for miniaturisation.
    • The atomic force microscopy (AFM) cantilever tip could be used to lift a crystal, as crystals tend to stick to the tip due to tip–crystal attractive forces.
    • Thus they demonstrated the real waveguiding character of the crystal lifted with a cantilever tip.

    In 2014, for the first time, the group led by Rajadurai Chandrasekar of the Functional Molecular Nano/Micro Solids Laboratory in University of Hyderabad demonstrated that tiny crystals could be lifted and moved with precision and control using atomic force microscopy.

    What is Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)?

    • AFMs are a type of electron microscope used for the observation at an atomic level.
    • It is commonly used in nanotechnology.
    • The AFM works by employing an ultra-fine needle attached to a beam.
    • The tip of the needle runs over the ridges and valleys in the material being imaged, “feeling” the surface.

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  • Innovations in Biotechnology and Medical Sciences

    Novel Open Reading Frames (NORF)

    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: nORF

    Mains level: Not Much

    A team from the University of Cambridge set out to find whether new genes emerge in the genome of living organisms and if they do, how they do so. They have now catalogued 1,94,000 novel regions.

    Genes/Genomes/DNA/RNA is all-time favourite of UPSC. You can easily find 1-2 questions every year since 2017 in Prelims.

    Novel genomic regions

    • The ‘novel’ genomic regions cannot be defined by our current ‘definition’ of a gene.
    • Hence, researchers call these novel regions – novel Open Reading Frames or as nORFs.
    • Researchers found that the mutations in nORFs do have physiological consequences and a majority of mutations that are often annotated as benign have to be re-interpreted.

    What novel did the researchers find?

    • nORF regions were uniquely present in the cancer tissues and not present in the control tissue.
    • They found that some nORF disruptions strongly correlated with the survival of patients.
    • nORFs proteins can form structures, can undergo biochemical regulation like known proteins and be targeted by drugs in case they are disrupted in diseases.
    • The researchers also identified these nORFs in Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite which causes the deadliest form of malaria.

    Connected to disease

    • The research found that these regions are also broadly involved in diseases.
    • The nORFs were seen as dysregulated in 22 cancer types.
    • Dysregulated is a term which means that they could either be mutated, upregulated, or downregulated, or they could be uniquely present.

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  • Cyber Security – CERTs, Policy, etc

    What is NetWire Malware?

    Prelims Only | Security Issues | Mains Paper 3: Cyber Security

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Malwares

    Mains level: Cyber attacks and the treats posed to national security

    This newscard is an excerpt from the original article published in The Hindu.

    Try this question from CSP 2018:

    Q.The terms ‘WannaCry, Petya, Eternal Blue’ sometimes mentioned news recently are related to

    (a) Exoplanets

    (b) Crypto currency

    (c) Cyber attacks

    (d) Mini satellites

    What is NetWire?

    • NetWire, which first surfaced in 2012, is a well-known malware.
    • It is also one of the most active ones around.
    • It is a remote access Trojan, or RAT, which gives control of the infected system to an attacker. Such malware can log keystrokes and compromise passwords.

    Threats posed

    • This malware essentially does two things:
    1. One is data exfiltration, which means stealing data. Most anti-virus software is equipped to prevent this.
    2. The other involves infiltrating a system, and this has proven to be far more challenging for anti-virus software.
    • NetWire is described as an off-the-shelf malware, while something like Pegasus, which used a bug in WhatsApp to infiltrate users’ phones in 2019, is custom-made and sold to nations.

    Back2Basics: Classification of malicious softwares

    Viruses

    • A computer virus is a type of malware that propagates by inserting a copy of itself into and becoming part of another program.
    • It spreads from one computer to another, leaving infections as it travels.
    • Viruses can range in severity from causing mildly annoying effects to damaging data or software and causing denial-of-service (DoS) conditions.
    • Almost all viruses are attached to an executable file, which means the virus may exist on a system but will not be active or able to spread until a user runs or opens the malicious host file or program.
    • When the host code (alternative word for a computer program) is executed, the viral code is executed as well.

    Ransomware

    • Ransomware is a type of malicious software that threatens to publish the victim’s data or perpetually block access to it unless a ransom is paid.
    • While some simple ransomware may lock the system in a way that is not difficult for a knowledgeable person to reverse, more advanced malware uses a technique called cryptoviral extortion.
    • This encrypts the victim’s files, making them inaccessible, and demands a ransom payment to decrypt them.

    Worms

    • Computer worms are similar to viruses in that they replicate functional copies of themselves and can cause the same type of damage.
    • In contrast to viruses, which require the spreading of an infected host file, worms are standalone software and do not require a host program or human help to propagate.
    • To spread, worms either exploit the vulnerability on the target system or use some kind of social engineering to trick users into executing them.
    • A worm enters a computer through a vulnerability in the system and takes advantage of file-transport or information-transport features on the system, allowing it to travel unaided.
    • More advanced worms leverage encryption, wipers, and ransomware technologies to harm their targets.

    Trojans

    • A Trojan is a harmful piece of software that looks legitimate.
    • After it is activated, it can achieve any number of attacks on the host, from irritating the user (popping up windows or changing desktops) to damaging the host (deleting files, stealing data, or activating and spreading other malware, such as viruses).
    • Trojans are also known to create backdoors to give malicious users access to the system.
    • Unlike viruses and worms, Trojans do not reproduce by infecting other files nor do they self-replicate.
    • Trojans must spread through user interaction such as opening an email attachment or downloading and running a file from the Internet.

    Bots

    • “Bot” is derived from the word “robot” and is an automated process that interacts with other network services.
    • Bots often automate tasks and provide information or services that would otherwise be conducted by a human being.
    • A typical use of bots is to gather information, such as web crawlers, or interact automatically with Instant Messaging (IM), Internet Relay Chat (IRC), or other web interfaces.
    • They may also be used to interact dynamically with websites.

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  • Modern Indian History-Events and Personalities

    [pib] Swami Dayanand Saraswati

    PIBPrelims Only | | Mains Paper 1: Modern Indian History

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Dayanand Saraswati

    Mains level: Not Much

    Information and Broadcasting Minister paid his tributes to Swami Dayanand Saraswati on his birth anniversary.

    Dayanand Saraswati (1824-1883)

    • Swami Dayanand Saraswati was a philosopher, social leader and founder of the Arya Samaj, a reform movement of the Vedic dharma.
    • He was the first to give the call for Swaraj as “India for Indians” in 1876, a call later taken up by Lokmanya Tilak.
    • Denouncing the idolatry and ritualistic worship, he worked towards reviving Vedic ideologies.
    • Subsequently, the philosopher and then President, S. Radhakrishnan called him one of the “makers of Modern India”, as did Sri Aurobindo.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Which among the following event happened earliest?

    (a) Swami Dayanand established Arya Samaj

    (b) Dinabandhu Mitra wrote Neeldarpan

    (c) Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote Anandmath

    (d) Satyendranath Tagore became the first India to succeed in the Indian Civil Services Examination

    His influence

    • Those who were influenced by and followed him included Madam Cama, Shyamji Krishna Varma, Kishan Singh, Bhagat Singh, VD Savarkar, Bhai Parmanand, Lala Hardayal, Madan Lal Dhingra, Ram Prasad Bismil, MG Ranade, Ashfaq Ullah Khan, , Lala Lajpat Rai etc.

    Philosophy

    • He was ascetic from boyhood and a scholar.
    • He believed in the infallible authority of the Vedas.
    • He advocated the doctrine of Karma and Reincarnation.
    • He emphasized the Vedic ideals of Brahmacharya, including celibacy and devotion to God.

    His contribution

    • Among Dayananda’s contributions were his promoting of the equal rights for women, such as the right to education and reading of Indian scriptures.
    • He wrote his commentary on the Vedas from Vedic Sanskrit in Sanskrit as well as in Hindi.

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  • Festivals, Dances, Theatre, Literature, Art in News

    Art in news: Tholpavakkoothu

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

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Tholpavakkoothu

    Mains level: India's puppetry

    A shadow leather puppet in Kerala’s famous temple art Tholpavakkoothu is being animated by a robot in Palakkad.

    Tholpavakkoothu

    • Tholpavakkoothu or shadow puppetry is a temple art form which is prevalent in the Bhagavathy temples (mother Goddess) in Palakkad district and nearby regions in Kerala.
    • Tholppava (Thol means leather, Pava means puppet) are moved with the help of strings, and their shadows are depicted on a screen with the help of a row of oil lamps in the background.
    • The story of Tholpavakkoothu performance is from the Indian epic, Ramayana.
    • In the olden days, it was performed elaborately over a period of forty-one days.
    • The narrative used for the performance is a mixture of prose and poetry called Adalpattu.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.With reference to Manipuri Sankirtana, consider the following statements:

    1. It is a song and dance performance.
    2. Cymbals are the only musical instruments used in the performance.
    3. It is performed to narrate the life and deeds of Lord Krishna.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1, 2 and 3.

    (b) 1 and 3 only

    (c) 2 and 3 only

    (d) 1 only

    Setup of the art

    • Tholppavas are made of the skin of deer and the puppet forms are made by making small holes in the leather that is then attached vertically to a bamboo stick.
    • Accompanying instruments include Ezhupara, Chenda and Maddalam.
    • The artists have to undergo several years of rigorous training to master this art form.
    • The puppetry is staged on a special structure in temple premises called Koothumadam.

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  • Historical and Archaeological Findings in News

    Dickinsonia fossil discovered in Bhimbetka

    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: Dickensonia, Bhimbetka

    Mains level: Stone age paintings in India

    Researchers have found the first-ever fossil in India of a Dickinsonia —the Earth’s ‘oldest animal’, dating back 570 million years — on the roof of what’s called the ‘Auditorium Cave’ at Bhimbetka.

    Dickinsonia

    • Dickinsonia is an extinct genus of basal animal that lived during the late Ediacaran period in what is now Australia, Russia and Ukraine.
    • The individual Dickinsonia typically resembles a bilaterally symmetrical ribbed oval.
    • Its affinities are presently unknown; its mode of growth is consistent with a stem-group bilaterian affinity, though some have suggested that it belongs to the fungi or even an “extinct kingdom”.
    • The discovery of cholesterol molecules in fossils of Dickinsonia lends support to the idea that Dickinsonia was an animal.

    What are the new findings?

    Like the awe-inspiring rock shelters themselves, this fossil was discovered by chance.

    • Dickinsonia fossils have shown that they could exceed four feet in length but the one found in Bhimbetka is 17 inches long.
    • Eleven feet above the ground, almost blending with the rock and easily mistaken by laymen for prehistoric rock art, they found imprints of the Dickinsonia.
    • It is believed to be one of the key links between the early, simple organisms and the explosion of life in the Cambrian Period, about 541 million years ago.

    Cambrian Explosion and Dickinsonia

    • The ‘Cambrian Explosion’ is the term given to the period of time in history when complex animals and other macroscopic organisms such as molluscs, worms, arthropods and sponges began to dominate the fossil record.
    • Researchers from Australian found the Dickinsonia fossil since its tissue contained molecules of cholesterol a type of fat that is the hallmark of animal life.

    Do you know?

    Cosmogenic nuclide dating is deployed to determine time of earliest human culture. India’s oldest stone-age tools, up to 1.5 million years old, are at a prehistoric site near Chennai.

    About Bhimbetka

    • The Bhimbetka rock shelters are an archaeological site in central India that spans the prehistoric Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods, as well as the historic period.
    • It exhibits the earliest traces of human life in India and evidence of Stone Age starting at the site in Acheulian times.
    • It is located in the Raisen District in Madhya Pradesh about 45 kilometres (28 mi) south-east of Bhopal.
    • It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that consists of seven hills and over 750 rock shelters distributed over 10 km (6.2 mi).
    • At least some of the shelters were inhabited more than 100,000 years ago.
    • Some of the Bhimbetka rock shelters feature prehistoric cave paintings and the earliest are about 10,000 years old (c. 8,000 BCE), corresponding to the Indian Mesolithic.
    • These cave paintings show themes such as animals, early evidence of dance and hunting.
    • The Bhimbetka rock shelters were found by V S Wakankar 64 years ago. Since then, thousands of researchers have visited the site, but this rare fossil went undetected.

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  • Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act

    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: Not Much

    Mains level: Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act

    Police have booked several under The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, for the alleged insult of the National Flag in farmers protest on Republic Day.

    Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act

    • The law, enacted on December 23, 1971, penalizes the desecration of or insult to Indian national symbols, such as the National Flag, the Constitution, the National Anthem, and the Indian map, as well as contempt of the Constitution of India.
    • Section 2 of the Act deals with insults to Indian National Flag and Constitution of India.

    Do you know?

    Article 51 ‘A’ contained in Part IV A i.e. Fundamental Duties asks:

    To abide by the constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the National Flag and the National Anthem in clause (a).

    Other provisions

    • Section 3.22 of The Flag Code of India, 2002 deals with laws, practices and conventions that apply to the display of the national flag.
    • Section 3.58 says: On occasions of State/Military/Central Paramilitary Forces funerals, the flag shall be draped over the bier or coffin with the saffron towards the head of the bier or coffin.
    • The Flag shall not be lowered into the grave or burnt in the pyre.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.The national motto of India, ‘Satyameva Jayate’ inscribed below the Emblem of India is taken from:

    (a) Katha Upanishad

    (b) Chandogya Upanishad

    (c) Aitareya Upanishad

    (d) Mundaka Upanishad

    Use of flag in funerals

    • The flag can only be used during a funeral if it is accorded the status of a state funeral.
    • Apart from police and armed forces, state funerals are held when people who are holding or have held the office of President, Vice-President, PM, Cabinet Minister, or state CM pass away.
    • The status of a state funeral can be accorded in case of death of people not belonging to the armed forces, police or the above-mentioned categories by the state government.
    • Then too, the national flag can be used.

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  • Nuclear Energy

    Einsteinium: the mysterious element named after Albert Einstein

    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: Einsteinium

    Mains level: Not Much

    The University of California has reported some of the properties of element 99 in the periodic table called “Einsteinium”, named after Albert Einstein.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.The known forces of nature can be divided into four classes, viz, gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force and strong nuclear force.

    With reference to them, which one of the following statements is not correct? (CSP 2012)

    (a) Gravity is the strongest of the four

    (b) Electromagnetism act only on particles with an electric charge

    (c) Weak nuclear force causes radioactivity

    (d) Strong nuclear force holds protons and neutrons inside the nuclear of an atom.

    Einsteinium

    • It was discovered in 1952 in the debris of the first hydrogen bomb (the detonation of a thermonuclear device called “Ivy Mike” in the Pacific Ocean).
    • Since its discovery, scientists have not been able to perform a lot of experiments with it because it is difficult to create and is highly radioactive.
    • Therefore, very little is known about this element.
    • With this new study published in the journal Nature last week, for the first time researchers have been able to characterize some of the properties of the element.

    The discovery of the element

    • Ivy Mike was detonated on November 1, 1952, as part of a test at a remote island location called Elugelab on the Eniwetok Atoll in the South Pacific.
    • The blast produced an explosion that was about 500 times more destructive than the explosion that occurred at Nagasaki.
    • Subsequently, the fallout material from this explosion was sent to Berkeley in California for analysis which identified over 200 atoms of the new element.

    Properties of the element

    • Einsteinium has a half-life of 20 days.
    • Because of its high radioactivity and short half-life of all einsteinium isotopes, even if the element was present on Earth during its formation, it has most certainly decayed.
    • This is the reason that it cannot be found in nature and needs to be manufactured using very precise and intense processes.
    • Therefore, so far, the element has been produced in very small quantities and its usage is limited except for the purposes of scientific research.
    • The element is also not visible to the naked eye and after it was discovered, it took over nine years to manufacture enough of it so that it could be seen with the naked eye.

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