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Type: Prelims Only

  • National Maritime Heritage Complex

    In order to showcase the maritime heritage and history of India, a National Maritime Heritage Complex (NMHC) will be developed in the Lothal region of Gujarat.

    National Maritime Heritage Complex

    • It is to note that the National Maritime Heritage Complex will be made within the ASI site of Lothal that is located 80 km away from Ahmedabad in Gujarat.
    • The project, once completed, will be made an international tourist destination in India where people from across the countries can take a look at the maritime heritage of India from ancient to modern times.
    • The government is aiming to showcase this via an edutainment approach where the latest technology would be adopted to spread awareness.
    • The development will be done in an area expanding 400 acres.
    • The complex will have many offerings including National Maritime Heritage Museum, Heritage Theme Park, and Light House Museum.

    About Lothal

    • Lothal was one of the southernmost cities of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization located in Gujarat.
    • Construction of the city began around 2200 BCE.
    • According to the ASI, Lothal had the world’s earliest known dock, which connected the city to an ancient course of the Sabarmati river on the trade route between Harappan cities in Sindh and the peninsula of Saurashtra.
    • Lothal was a vital and thriving trade Centre in ancient times, with its trade of beads, gems, and valuable ornaments reaching the far corners of West Asia and Africa.
    • The techniques and tools they pioneered for bead-making and in metallurgy have stood the test of time for over 4000 years.
    • The Lothal site has been nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and its application is pending on the tentative list of UNESCO.

    Answer this question from CSP 2019 in the comment box:

    Q. Which one of the following is not a Harappan site?

    (a) Chanhudaro

    (b) Kot Diji

    (c) Sohgaura

    (d) Desalpur

  • [pib] Space-time induces Neutrino Oscillations

    Indian scientists have shown that the geometry of space-time can cause neutrinos to oscillate.

    What are Neutrinos?

    • A neutrino is a subatomic particle that is very similar to an electron but has no electrical charge and a very small mass, which might even be zero.
    • Since neutrinos are electrically neutral, they are not affected by the electromagnetic forces which act on electrons. Hence, they are also called Ghost Particles.
    • Neutrinos are affected only by a “weak” sub-atomic force of a much shorter range than electromagnetism and are therefore able to pass through great distances in matter without being affected by it.
    • They are also one of the most abundant particles in the universe. As they have very little interaction with matter, however, they are incredibly difficult to detect.

    Answer this PYQ in the comment box:

    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?

    (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

    Finding of the new research

    • Neutrinos are mysterious particles, produced copiously in nuclear reactions in the Sun, stars, and elsewhere.
    • They “oscillate”- meaning that different types of neutrinos change into one another – as has been found in many experiments.
    • Probing of oscillations of neutrinos and their relations with mass are crucial in studying the origin of the universe.
    • Neutrinos interact very weakly with everything else – trillions of them pass through every human being every second without anyone noticing.
    • A neutrino’s spin always points in the opposite direction of its motion, and until a few years ago, neutrinos were believed to be massless.

    What makes this possible?

    • The geometry of space-time can cause neutrino oscillations through quantum effects even if neutrinos are massless.
    • Einstein’s theory of general relativity says that gravitation is the manifestation of space-time curvature.
    • Neutrinos, electrons, protons and other particles which are in the category of fermions show a certain peculiarity when they move in presence of gravity.
    • Space-time induces a quantum force in addition to gravity between every two fermions.
    • This force can depend on the spin of the particles and causes massless neutrinos to appear massive when they pass through matter, like the Sun’s corona or the Earth’s atmosphere.
    • Something similar happens for electroweak interactions, and together with the geometrically induced mass, it is enough to cause oscillation of neutrinos.

  • Kerala’s Silver-Line Railway Project

    Last week, the Kerala cabinet gave the green light to begin acquiring land for SilverLine, its flagship semi high-speed railway project.

    What is the SilverLine project?

    • The SilverLine Project entails building a semi high-speed railway corridor through the state linking its southern end and state capital Thiruvananthapuram with its northern end of Kasaragod.
    • It is billed as one of the biggest infrastructure enterprises being pushed by the ruling Left government.
    • The line is proposed to be 529.45 km long, covering 11 districts through 11 stations.
    • When the project is realized, one can travel from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram in less than four hours on trains traveling at 200 km/hr.
    • The current travel time on the existing Indian Railways network is 12 hours.
    • The project is executed by the Kerala Rail Development Corporation Limited (KRDCL), a joint venture between the Kerala government and the Union Ministry of Railways.

    What was the need for the project?

    • It has long been argued by urban policy experts that the existing railway infrastructure in the state cannot meet the demands of the future.
    • Most trains run with an average speed of 45 km/hr due to a lot of curves and bends on the existing stretch.
    • The government claims the SilverLine project is the need of the hour as it can take a significant load of traffic off the existing railway stretch and make travel easier and faster for commuters.
    • This will in turn reduce the congestion on roads and help reduce accidents and fatalities.

    Issues with the Project

    • The unofficial deadline for the project is 2025 but many would say it’s not a realistic target, given the laborious nature of land acquisition in a highly densely populated state like Kerala.
    • Acquiring land, especially from private players, in urban areas remains the key challenge for the project.
    • There’s also significant opposition to the project by environmentalists citing potential damage to the state’s ecosystem in the path of the proposed route.
    • They fear irreversible impact to the state’s rivers, paddy fields, and wetlands, triggering floods and landslides in the future.

  • FSSAI recognizes new precision Iodine Value Analyser

    The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Central Scientific Instruments Organization (CSIR-CSIO) has developed and transferred the technology of Precision Iodine Value Analyzer (PIVA).

    What is Precision Iodine Value Analyzer?

    • It is an instrument for the measurement of the degree of unsaturation (iodine value) in vegetable oils.
    • This indigenous food testing equipment was recognized by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) on World Food Safety Day on June 7, 2021.
    • It has applications in oil extraction units, quality control and assurance labs, food regulatory authorities, soaps and cosmetics, bakeries, meat industry, paint industry, biodiesel analysis, and charcoal industry.
    • It is also useful in determining adulteration in edible oils and fats.

    Measuring iodine value

    • Iodine value is conventionally determined using manual titration and a few analytical instruments based on automated titration.
    • However, these methods take a longer time to analyze, are costly, and use toxic chemicals.
    • Researchers at CSIR-CSIO developed a rapid analysis technique that takes just three minutes to carry out the same analysis.
    • Currently, PIVA has been calibrated and tested for coconut, sunflower, mustard, palm, rice bran, soybean, groundnut, olive oil, and ghee.
    • This new development is a part of the ongoing effort to strengthen the food testing capabilities by introducing quick and advanced food testing kits.

  • New Shephard rocket system for cost-effective access to space

    Last week, Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos’s space company called Blue Origin concluded the online auction for the first seat on New Shephard, a rocket system meant to take tourists to space.

    What is New Shephard?

    • New Shephard has been named after astronaut Alan Shephard – the first American to go to space – and offers flights to space over 100 km above the Earth and accommodation for payloads.
    • Essentially, it is a rocket system that has been designed to take astronauts and research payloads past the Karman line – the internationally recognized boundary of space.
    • The idea is to provide easier and more cost-effective access to space meant for purposes such as academic research, corporate technology development, and entrepreneurial ventures among others.
    • Apart from its academic and research-oriented goal, New Shephard will also allow space tourists to experience microgravity by taking them 100 km above the Earth.

    Its components

    • The rocket system consists of two parts, the cabin or capsule, and the rocket or the booster.
    • The cabin can accommodate experiments from small Mini Payloads up to 100 kg.
    • As per Blue Origin, the Mini Payloads provide easier space access to students, who are part of educational institutions that are developing their own space programs.
    • Further, the cabin is designed for six people and sits atop a 60 feet tall rocket and separates from it before crossing the Karman line, after which both vehicles fall back to the Earth.
    • All the six seats in the capsule are meant for passengers, each of whom gets their own window seat. The capsule is fully autonomous and does not require a pilot.

    How does it work?

    • The system is a fully reusable, vertical takeoff and vertical landing space vehicle that accelerates for about 2.5 minutes before the engine cuts off.
    • After separating from the booster, the capsule free falls in space, while the booster performs an autonomously controlled vertical landing back to Earth.
    • The capsule, on the other hand, lands back with the help of parachutes.

    A boost for space tourism

    • Space tourism seeks to give laypeople the ability to go to space for recreational, leisure, or business purposes.
    • The idea is to make space more accessible to those individuals who are not astronauts and want to go to space for non-scientific purposes.

  • [pib] Northern Limit of Monsoon (NLM)

    The Northern Limit of Monsoon (NLM) continues to pass through Diu, Surat, Nandurbar, Bhopal, Nowgong, Hamirpur, Barabanki, Bareilly, Saharanpur, Ambala & Amritsar.

    Try this question from CS Mains 2017:

    Q.What characteristics can be assigned to monsoon climate that succeeds in feeding more than 50 percent of the won population residing in Monsoon Asia?

    What is the Northern Limit of Monsoon?

    • NLM, is the northernmost boundary of India up to which monsoon rains have advanced on any given day.
    • So, it is a way of tracking the progress of monsoon clouds as they move over India’s landmass.
    • The India Meteorological Department (IMD) adds that the monsoon “advances northwards, usually in surges, and covers the entire country around July 15″.

    What are the Eastern and Western Arms?

    • It is the mountains of southern India that split the south-western winds, giving the Indian monsoon its ‘two arms.
    • The western arm of the monsoon is deflected northwards, by the Western Ghats, to (Mumbai) and then on to Pakistan.
    • The eastern arm travels up through the Bay of Bengal to (Kolkata) and Assam and is deflected north-westwards by the Himalayas.

    Also refer this link:

    Explain the formation of Indian monsoons. Highlight the link between monsoons and India’s cropping pattern. (15 marks)

  • Mustard oil blending is now banned

    The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India had decided this on March 31. This would end the practice to add other edible oil (like palms, rice bran, etc) to mustard oil.

    Why such move?

    • This is good news for mustard farmers whose fortunes were adversely hit as up to a fifth of mustard oil volume could earlier be blends of other oils.
    • But why did India start the practice in the first place? And how has it affected consumer health?

    Answer this question from CSP 2018:

    Q.Consider the following statements:

    1. The quantity of imported edible oils is more than the domestic production of edible oils in the last five years.
    2. The Government does not impose any customs duty on all the imported edible oils as a special case.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 only

    (c) Both 1 and 2

    (d) Neither 1 nor 2

    Why did the blending begin?

    • The Union health ministry had allowed blending in edible vegetable oil in a notification in 1990.
    • In 1998, Delhi and other north Indian states witnessed the dropsy epidemic — a disease that caused swelling in the body due to the build-up of fluid in tissues.
    • At least 60 people died and 3,000 were hospitalized in the national capital.
    • Researchers believed the consumption of mustard oil caused the disease.

    Adulteration is hazardous

    • Upon investigation, it was found to be adulterated with Argemone Mexicana, a kind of weed that grows with yellow flowers.
    • The adulteration, however, was highly suspicious: While mustard is a rabi crop that is cultivated in the winters, Argemone Mexicana grows in April-May.
    • This meant that the possibility of mixing mustard seeds with that Argemone mexicana was rare.
    • The suspicious adulteration stoked fear among the masses.  It started a campaign against the consumption of oil.
    • Several studies have found mustard oil unsafe for consumption.

    The 1990 decision

    • Experts have claimed that the blending of mustard oil was not only dangerous to health but also adversely impacted mustard farming.
    • Some groups have also flagged the blending of refined oil.
    • Following the Union health ministry’s 1990 notification allowing for the blending of edible vegetable oil, the FSSAI rolled out regulations in the regard in 2006.
    • Producers and other companies involved in blending were regularised through the Agriculture Produce (Grading and Marking) Act (AGMARK).
    • It also made it mandatory to write the kind of oil used for blending over the packet.
    • The companies involved in blending strongly advocated for the cause, despite reports about its excess and unregulated use. The governments over the years have been tight-lipped about it.

    Has blending led to dependence over the import of oil?

    • In 1990-91, India was self-reliant in mustard oil production and produced 98 percent of the oil needed.
    • Blending mustard oil with other edible oils considered to bolster nutritional profile, taste, and quality.
    • Despite the harmful effects, the processing industry took advantage of blending.
    • Cheap palm oil would be blended up to 80 percent in mustard oil sometimes.
    • As a result, profits of mustard farmers dried up, which discouraged them from cultivating the crop.
    • This could be one of the reasons behind India’s increasing dependency on oil imports over the last two decades.

  • Polar-Areas Stellar-Imaging in Polarisation High-Accuracy Experiment (PASIPHAE)

    The development of a vital instrument PASIPHAE, which will be used in upcoming sky surveys to study stars, is being led by an Indian astronomer.

    What is PASIPHAE?

    • PASIPHAE stands for Polar-Areas Stellar-Imaging in Polarisation High-Accuracy Experiment.
    • It is an international collaborative sky surveying project. Scientists aim to study the polarisation in the light coming from millions of stars.
    • The name is inspired by Pasiphae, the daughter of Greek Sun God Helios.
    • The survey will use two high-tech optical polarimeters to observe the northern and southern skies, simultaneously.
    • It will focus on capturing starlight polarisation of very faint stars that are so far away that polarisation signals from there have not been systematically studied.
    • By combining the data, astronomers will perform a maiden magnetic field tomography mapping of the interstellar medium of very large areas of the sky using a novel polarimeter instrument known as WALOP.

    Why is PASIPHAE important?

    • Since its birth about 14 billion years ago, the universe has been constantly expanding, as evidenced by the presence of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation which fills the universe.
    • Immediately after its birth, the universe went through a short inflationary phase during which it expanded at a very high rate before it slowed down and reached the current rate.
    • However, so far, there have only been theories and indirect evidence of expansion associated with the early universe.
    • A definitive consequence of the inflationary phase is that a tiny fraction of the CMB radiation should have its imprints in the form of a specific kind of polarisation (known scientifically as a B-mode signal).
    • All previous attempts to detect this signal met with failure mainly due to the difficulty posed by our galaxy, the Milky Way, which emits copious amounts of polarized radiation.
    • Besides, it contains a lot of dust clouds that are present in the form of clusters. When starlight passes through these dust clouds, they get scattered and polarized.

    What will PASIPHAE do?

    • The PASIPHAE survey will measure starlight polarisation over large areas of the sky.
    • This data along with distances to the stars will help create a 3-Dimensional model of the distribution of the dust and magnetic field structure of the galaxy.
    • Such data can help remove the galactic polarized foreground light and enable astronomers to look for the elusive B-mode signal.

    What is WALOP?

    • Wide Area Linear Optical Polarimeter (WALOP) is an instrument when mounted on two small optical telescopes, that will be used to detect polarized light signals emerging from the stars along high galactic latitudes.
    • The images will simultaneously have the finest of details of a star along with its panoramic background.
    • WALOP will operate on the principle that at any given time, the data from a portion of the sky under observation will be split into four different channels.
    • Depending on the manner in which light passes through the four channels, the polarisation value from the star is obtained.
    • That is, each star will have four corresponding images which when stitched together will help calculate the desired polarisation value of a star.

  • EnVision Mission to Venus

    Following NASA’s footsteps, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that it has selected EnVision as its next orbiter that will visit Venus sometime in the 2030s.

    Last week, NASA selected two missions to the planet Venus, Earth’s nearest neighbour. The missions called DAVINCI+ and VERITAS have been selected based on their potential for scientific value and the feasibility of their development plans.

    What is EnVision?

    • EnVision is an ESA-led mission with contributions from NASA. It is likely to be launched sometime in the 2030s.
    • The earliest launch opportunity for EnVision is 2031, followed by 2032 and 2033.
    • Once launched on an Ariane 6 rocket, the spacecraft will take about 15 months to reach Venus and will take 16 more months to achieve orbit circularization.
    • The spacecraft will carry a range of instruments to study the planet’s atmosphere and surface, monitor trace gases in the atmosphere and analyses its surface composition.

    What are other such missions?

    • EnVision will follow another ESA-led mission to Venus called ‘Venus Express’ (2005-2014) that focused on atmospheric research and pointed to volcanic hotspots on the planet’s surface.
    • Other than this, Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft has also been studying the planet’s atmosphere since 2015.

    Why are scientists interested in studying Venus?

    • At the core of the ESA’s mission is the question of how Earth and Venus evolved so differently from each other considering that they are roughly of the same size and composition.
    • Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system because of the heat that is trapped by its thick cloud cover.
    • Last year, a team of scientists reported that they had found phosphine gas (a chemical produced only through biological processes) in the atmosphere of Venus.
    • This triggered excitement in the scientific community that some life forms might be supported by the planet.
    • But the existence of life on the planet is nearly impossible given the high temperatures of Venus and its acidic atmosphere.

    Back2Basics: Venus Planet

    • For those on Earth, Venus is the second-brightest object in the sky after the moon.
    • It appears bright because of its thick cloud cover that reflects and scatters light.
    • But while Venus, which is the second closest planet to the Sun, is called the Earth’s twin because of their similar sizes, the two planets have significant differences between them.
    • For one, the planet’s thick atmosphere traps heat and is the reason that it is the hottest planet in the solar system, despite coming after Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun.
    • Surface temperatures on Venus can go up to 471 degrees Celsius, which is hot enough to melt lead.
    • Further, Venus moves forward on its orbit around the Sun but spins backwards around its axis slowly.
    • This means on Venus the Sun rises in the west and sets in the East.
    • One day on Venus is equivalent to 243 Earth days because of its backward spinning, opposite to that of the Earth’s and most other planets.
    • Venus also does not have a moon and no rings.

  • What is Fastly Internet Outage?

    Several big websites around the world went down for about half an hour because of a major issue with the content delivery network (CDN) of American cloud computing services provider Fastly.

    Global internet outage: Which websites were affected?

    • com, Reddit, Twitch, Spotify, Pinterest, Stack Overflow, GitHub, gov.uk, Hulu, HBO Max, Quora, PayPal, Vimeo and Shopify are some of the big names.
    • Prominent news websites impacted were the Financial Times, the Guardian, the New York Times, CNN, and Verge, to name some.
    • Most users would have seen a 503 error when trying to access these websites, indicating that the browser was not able to access the server.

    What is Fastly?

    • Fastly is a cloud computing services provider, which offers CDN, edge computing, cloud storage services.
    • All of its geographies, including the three stations it has in India — Chennai, Mumbai and New Delhi — were suffering from “Degraded Performance”.

    Answer this PYQ 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 a CDN?

    • A CDN refers to a geographically distributed group of servers that work together to provide fast delivery of Internet content.
    • They house content close to the telecom service providers’ networks.
    • Majority of web traffic across the world today is routed through CDNs.
    • Platforms such as Netflix, Facebook, Amazon — ones with large quantities of data held in global libraries — host their geographically relevant content closer to where that content is to be consumed.
    • This ensures the end customer is able to access the content faster.
    • Another reason companies rely on these CDNs is to help protect their sites against traffic spikes, distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, etc.