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Palestinian Islamist group Hamas launched the biggest attack on Israel in years on Saturday, killing at least 200 people and claiming it had taken dozens of hostages in a surprise assault combining gunmen crossing into Israel and a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza.
More than 1,000 people have been wounded, Israeli rescue service Zaka said. A Reuters photographer saw multiple bodies lying in streets of the southern town of Sderot.
Israel said the Iran-backed group had declared war as its Army confirmed fighting with militants in several Israeli towns and military bases near Gaza, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate. “Our enemy will pay a price the type of which it has never known,” he said. “We are in a war and we will win it.”
The Israeli military said it had responded with air strikes into Gaza, where witnesses reported hearing heavy explosions and multiple dead and wounded being carried into hospitals. The Israeli military said Navy forces killed dozens of militants trying to infiltrate Israel by sea.
GST Council affirms 28% tax on online betting from Oct. 1 (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council lowered the tax rates on certain millet-based products, tweaked the age-related norms for members of the much-awaited GST Appellate Tribunals, and ceded the taxation rights on extra neutral alcohol to the States, while clearing several long-hanging issues.
The council also signalled that there would be no back-pedalling on the 28% levy to be imposed on bets made in online gaming, casinos and horse racing from October 1, despite 13 States not having passed the enabling laws yet.
Tax demands worth an estimated ₹1.5 lakh crore served on e-gaming firms for the prior period were also discussed, but it was asserted that the amended GST law is not retrospective in nature.
News
‘Bhutan-China border demarcation talks inching to completion’ (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Bhutan and China are “inching” towards the completion of a three-step road map that will completely demarcate their boundary, including marking territory along the Doklam plateau, Bhutan’s Prime Minister Lotay Tshering said in an interview at the Prime Minister’s Office in Thimphu.
The talks, which he confirmed include a possible exchange between Doklam and areas to Bhutan’s north, have been watched with keen interest from Delhi, especially given the 2017 Doklam stand-off between the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
These talks with China could even see progress within the next month, Mr. Tshering said, after which a caretaker government will assume charge in Bhutan before the election, expected by January-end. Excerpts:
Many rounds of talks have happened and there has been progress. In 2020, we drew a clear timeline with a three-step road map: first, agreeing on the table; then visiting the sites [on the ground]; and formally demarcating the boundary.
ISRO plans Gaganyaan unmanned flight tests, gears for abort mission (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The Indian Space Research Organisation, which is planning to commence unmanned flight tests for the Gaganyaan mission, has started to make preparations for the Flight Test Vehicle Abort Mission-1 (TV-D1).
Preparations for the abort mission, which demonstrates the performance of the crew escape system, are under way,” the ISRO posted on X (formerly Twitter).
Though the space agency has not announced the date, the abort mission is expected by October-end from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota.
The ISRO said the astronauts would remain in a pressurised earth-like atmospheric condition in the crew module during the Gaganyaan mission.
The CM for the Gaganyaan mission is in different stages of development. For the TV-D1, the CM is an unpressurised version that has completed its integration and testing and is ready to be shipped to the launch complex.
This unpressurised CM version has to have an overall size and mass of actual Gaganyaan CM. It houses all the systems for the deceleration and recovery.
With its complete set of parachutes, recovery aids, actuation systems and pyros. The avionics systems in CM are in a dual redundant mode configuration for navigation, sequencing, telemetry, instrumentation and power.
The CM in this mission is extensively instrumented to capture the flight data for evaluation of the performance of various systems.
The CM will be recovered after touchdown in the Bay of Bengal, using a dedicated vessel and diving team from the Indian Navy.
UGC to train over 1,000 teachers to teach Indian knowledge systems from degree level (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
More than 1,000 university teachers across the country are being equipped with a working understanding of Indian traditions, culture and way of life, to enable them to teach relevant courses on Indian knowledge systems at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels from the next academic session.
The training is being imparted, keeping in mind the University Grants Commission’s plans to make compulsory two credit courses giving an overview of Indian culture and traditions in the first years of both the UG and PG programmes in varsities across the country, sources in the Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) division of the Ministry of Education told The Hindu. In fact, UGC intends to train 15 lakh teachers in IKS over the next two years.
The main areas being covered are parampara (tradition), drishti (perspective), and loukik prayojan (modern relevance) of ancient Indian knowledge systems. The six-day training has been divided into four parts.
The first part deals with an overview of the subject, including an introduction to pre-14th century Vedic texts, followed by the philosophical foundations of IKS such as Darshana Shastra (Vedic Philosophy).
Vocabulary lessons, containing words which cannot be translated, such as karma and dharma, will be covered in the third part.
In the fourth and possibly most important part, teachers are being trained in the methods of teaching IKS, such as Tantra Yukti, which is a research methodology and innovative pedagogy.
The UGC decision is in line with the National Education Policy, 2020, which directed that knowledge from ancient India and its contributions to modern India must be part of the curriculum.
Ganga-Ghagra basin canals pose a threat to dolphins: study (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
A recent publication by scientists and researchers has revealed that 19 Gangetic river dolphins had been rescued from the irrigation canals of the Ganga-Ghagra basin in Uttar Pradesh between 2013 and 2020.
The publication, “Rescuing Ganges river dolphins (Platanista gangetica) from irrigation canals in Uttar Pradesh, North India, 2013-2020”, not only highlights the capture and relocation methods but also describes the behavioural and demographic details of rescued animals and locations of the canals where the animals had been trapped.
The paper points out that 24 rescue operations had been conducted from 2013 to 2020 and five dolphins had died.
“There were 19 successful rescue operations and 14 dolphins were identified as female and 10 as male. The TBL (total body length) of these dolphins was found to be between 128 cm and 275 cm.
The size of male dolphins ranged from 128 cm to 195 cm, whereas the females ranged from 190 cm to 274 cm. Of the five dolphins that died, three had a length over 243 cm.
The publication said dams and barrages had severely affected this habitat as dolphins moved into irrigation canals where they were at a risk of injury or death from a multiple factors, such as rapidly receding waters, heat stroke and human interferences.
The Ganges river dolphin is in Schedule 1 of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and Appendix 1 of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS).
Science
Improving compatibility of pig organs for transplantation into humans (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The design and successful transplantation of kidney grafts from genetically modified pigs into non-human primates has been described in a recent study published inNature. Modifying the pig genomes to remove antigen coding genes, add human genes and eliminate pig viruses, resulted in long-term survival of the monkey recipients, up to around two years.
This preclinical work may move the field a step closer to clinical testing of genetically modified pig kidneys for human transplantation.
The transplantation of animal organs into humans (xenotransplantation) may offer a solution to the worldwide organ shortage.
Pigs are promising donor animals but several obstacles first require overcoming before they can be considered clinically viable, notably organ rejection and risk of zoonosis (transmission of animal viruses to humans).
Previous work has identified three glycan antigens expressed in pigs that are recognised by human antibodies and attacked, leading to rejection of the organ. The porcine endogenous retrovirus has also been identified as a risk for transmission into humans.
Wenning Qin from Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. and other build on this previous research by introducing alterations into the genome of a donor pig and achieve successful transplantation of kidney grafts from a genetically engineered pig into a cynomolgus monkey model (a non-human primate with several human-like traits).
Now a more efficacious, inexpensive malaria vaccine (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
A malaria vaccine — R21/MatrixM — developed by the University of Oxford, manufactured by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India and tested in a phase-3 trial at five sites in four countries — Mali, Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Tanzania — in Africa was recommended (but yet to be prequalified) by the WHO on October 2.
Three countries — Nigeria, Ghana, and Burkina Faso — have already approved the use of the vaccine to immunise children aged less than 36 months.
According to the WHO, in 2021, there were 247 million malaria cases worldwide and 6,19,000 deaths. About 25 million children are born each year in countries with moderate to high malaria transmission.
The phase-3 trial was conducted in 4,800 children who were randomly assigned to receive either the malaria vaccine or a control (approved rabies vaccine) and neither the participants nor the people conducting the trial knew who got the vaccine and who did not.
The five sites in the four countries where the trial was conducted have different malaria transmission intensities and seasonality.
The participants received three vaccine doses four weeks apart, and a booster shot at the end of 12 months after the last dose. Theprimary vaccination was carried out prior to the malaria season in countries where malaria is seasonal or at any time of year in countries where malaria occurs throughout the year.
How plastics affect our daily life (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Recall what grandparents did, before the age of plastics. They would bring their own bags, normally of cotton or jute, bring home the purchase, and later, wash and dry the bags, ready for the next use.
They also used glass and steel vessels and bottles. But now, in the age of plastics, when we go to the grocer, vegetable vendor and markets to buy stuff, we all use plastic bags.
Traders use plastic bags and bottles for their products and even water. When did the age of plastics start? It was in 1907 that the Belgian scientist Leo Baekeland synthesised the first plastic using formaldehyde and phenol, called it Bakelite, mass produced it and marketed it. This was the dawn of the plastics age.
Some of the early products that became 20th century icons were the camera, telephone and radio. Today, just about everything is made of plastics - water bottles, straws, plastic cutlery, polythene bags, baby products, laptops, cell phones, drones and aircrafts. Even Chandrayan used materials made of a combination of metals, glass and plastic in its voyage.
However, there is a downside to the plastic age. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) points out that every day, the equivalent of 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic are dumped into the world’s oceans, rivers, and lakes.
Plastic pollutionis a global problem.Every year, 19-23 million tonnes of plastic waste leaks into aquatic ecosystems, polluting lakes, rivers and seas.
Plastic pollution can alter habitats and natural processes, reducing ecosystems’ ability to adapt to climate change, directly affecting millions of people’s livelihoods, food production capabilities and social well-being.
The UNEP points out that the environmental, social, economic and health risks of plastics need to be assessed alongside other environmental stressors, like climate change.
Very little of plastics we discard every day is recycled or incinerated in waste-to-energy facilities. Much of it ends in the soil and the sea. The greenhouse gases emitted by plastics affect the global temperature, costing over 300 billion dollars annually.
FAQ
New tools to fathom the world of electrons (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
On October 3, the 2023 Nobel Prize for physics was awarded to Anne L’Huillier, Pierre Agostini, and Ferenc Krausz “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter”.
An attosecond is one quintillionth of a second, or 10^-18 seconds. This is the timescale at which the properties of an electron change.
So, to truly understand electrons, it should be possible to study them at these timescales. This is what the work of the Nobel laureates made possible.
Attosecond science, including attosecond physics, or attophysics, deals with the production of extremely short light pulses and using them to study superfast processes.
A hummingbird’s wings beat 80 times a second, so a single beat would last 1/80th of a second. At its best, the human eye can see up to 60 frames per second, which is not good enough to see a single wingbeat as it happens. Instead, the wings’ motion would appear as a blur.
One solution is to use a digital camera that creates photographs by capturing light coming from a source using a sensor. To capture a single wingbeat, the camera needs to capture only just as much light — which it can do if its aperture is open for exactly 1/80th of a second.
An alternative is to keep the aperture open at all times and release a light pulse whose duration is 1/80th of a second towards the wing and capture the reflection.
The former is much easier to do with a digital camera, but when you’re studying electrons, the latter is a better option. In attosecond science, the light pulse’s duration is a few hundred attoseconds because the electrons’ ‘wingbeats’ happen that rapidly.
How was mRNA research used to fight COVID? (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
On October 2, Nobel Prize week began with the 2023 Prize in Physiology or Medicine being awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman.
They were awarded the prize for their “discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19”.
mRNA, which stands for messenger RNA, is a form of nucleic acid which carries genetic information. Like other vaccines, the mRNA vaccine also attempts to activate the immune system to produce antibodies that help counter an infection from a live virus.
However, while most vaccines use weakened or dead bacteria or viruses to evoke a response from the immune system, mRNA vaccines only introduce a piece of the genetic material that corresponds to a viral protein.
This is usually a protein found on the membrane of the virus called spike protein. Therefore, the mRNA vaccine does not expose individuals to the virus itself.
According to an article by Thomas Schlake et al, in RNA Biology, RNA as a therapeutic was first promoted in 1989 after the development of a broadly applicable in vitro transfection technique.
A couple of years later, mRNA was advocated as a vaccine platform. He says, “mRNA offers strong safety advantages. As the minimal genetic construct, it harbours only the elements directly required for expression of the encoded protein.”
A common approach by vaccine makers during the pandemic was to introduce a portion of the spike protein, the key part of the coronavirus, as part of a vaccine.
Some makers wrapped the gene that codes for the spike protein into an inactivated virus that affects chimpanzees, called the chimpanzee adenovirus.
The aim is to have the body use its own machinery to make spike proteins from the given genetic code. The immune system, when it registers the spike protein, will create antibodies against it.
Significance of quantum dots in nanotechnology (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Alexei I. Ekimov, Louis E. Brus, and Moungi G. Bawendi have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize for chemistry “for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots”.
A quantum dot is a really small assembly of atoms (just a few thousand) around a few nanometres wide. The ‘quantum’ in its name comes from the fact that the electrons in these atoms have very little space to move around, so the crystal as a whole displays the quirky effects of quantum mechanics — effects that otherwise would be hard to ‘see’ without more sophisticated instruments.
Quantum dots have also been called ‘artificial atoms’ because the dot as a whole behaves like an atom in some circumstances.
There are two broad types of materials: atomic and bulk. Atomic of course refers to individual atoms and their specific properties. Bulk refers to large assemblies of atoms and molecules.
Quantum dots lie somewhere in between and behave in ways that neither atoms nor bulk materials do. One particular behaviour distinguishes them: the properties of a quantum dot change based on how big it is. Just by tweaking its size, scientists can change, say, the quantum dot’s melting point or how readily it participates in a chemical reaction.
World
Why did Hamas launch a surprise attack on Israel? (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Just last week, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said Gaza was in a state of “stable instability”. Yet, on Saturday morning, Israel witnessed the largest attack from the enclave — and perhaps the worst security crisis in 50 years — when dozens of Hamas militants, using motorcycles, pickup trucks, boats, paragliders and mid-range rockets, launched a highly coordinated attack, infiltrating Israeli cities, hitting military bases and killing and taking hostage soldiers and civilians.
The attacks, reminiscent of the 1973 Yom Kippur holiday attack by Egyptian and Syrian troops, took Israel by surprise, raising questions on intelligence failure. Israeli media reports say at least 200 people were killed.
While it’s too early to draw conclusions on the possible impact of the attack on Israel’s continuing occupation of the Palestinian territories, one question that demands urgent attention is why did Hamas launch such a massive incursion into Israel knowing that the response would be disproportionate. At least three factors — Palestinian, Israeli and geopolitical — could have influenced Hamas’s thinking.
Firstly, Palestine-Israel relations have steadily deteriorated in recent years. Israel has been carrying out military raids in the occupied West Bank almost on a daily basis.
At least 200 Palestinians and some 30 Israelis have been killed so far this year. In April, Israeli police raided Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third holiest place of worship, triggering rocket attacks from Gaza, which were followed by Israeli air strikes. In July, Israel carried out a major raid in the West Bank town of Jenin.