Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
The government has approved the creation of a Weapon System branch for officers in the Indian Air Force (IAF) which will bring all weapon systems operators of the force under one roof.
This is the first time since Independence that a new operational branch is being created, said IAF chief Air Chief Marshal (ACM) V. R. Chaudhari. The IAF also unveiled a new digital camouflage uniform for its rank and file.
This will essentially be for manning of four specialised streams of Surface to Surface missiles, Surface to Air Missiles, Remotely Piloted Aircraft and weapon system operators in twin and multi crew aircraft. Creation of this branch would result in savings of over Rs. 3,400 crore due to reduced expenditure on flying training.
Creation of the new branch would entail unification of all weapon system operators under one entity dedicated to the operational employment of all ground-based and specialist airborne weapon systems.
In a break from tradition, we have decided to conduct the Air Force Day parade at Chandigarh this year and in different locations across the country from here onwards.
Today is an occasion to renew our allegiance to the Constitution of India and as preservers of the integrity and sovereignty of our country, we owe it to our future generations.
For the first time both the Army and Air Force Day parades are moving out of the National Capital Region (NCR). The next Army Day parade on January 15, 2023, will be held in Southern Command area.
Following the parade in the morning, a fly past was held over Sukna lake in Chandigarh which was witnessed by the public in large numbers.
The flypast saw the participation of 74 aircraft and helicopters including 44 fighter aircraft while another nine platforms were on standby in the air. The recently inducted Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) was also part of the air display while the Suryakiran acrobatic team of the IAF enthralled the viewers. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh joined the Air Force Day celebrations.
This shift of venue follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s guidance that major events in national capital should be moved out to various places across the country to enable more people to witness and engage in them.
German call for UN role in J&K is injustice to terror victims: India (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The government took strong objection to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s call for the “engagement of the United Nations” in solving the Kashmir dispute in response to a question during a joint press conference with Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto in Bonn. The External Affairs Ministry called such comments a “grave injustice” to victims of terrorism.
In her remarks, Ms. Baerbock said Germany supported a UN role in resolving the Kashmir dispute, praised the Line of Control ceasefire agreement of February 2021, and called for a “political dialogue” between India and Pakistan.
Germany has a role and responsibility with regard to the situation of Kashmir. Therefore, we support intensively the engagement of the United Nations to find peaceful solutions in the region.
There are tensions as described, so we encourage Pakistan and we encourage India to follow the track of the ceasefire, to follow the track of the United Nations, and to intensify the political dialogue, and also the political and practical cooperation in the region.
Reacting sharply to the wording of Ms. Baerbock’s comments, Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said the “role and responsibility” of any “serious and conscientious member of the global community” was to call out international, cross-border terrorism.
The Indian Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has borne the brunt of such a terrorist campaign for decades. This continues till now,” Mr. Bagchi said referring to the unfinished prosecution of Pakistan-based terrorists involved in the Mumbai 26/11 attacks.
When states do not recognise such dangers, either because of self-interest or indifference, they undermine the cause of peace, not promote it. They also do grave injustice to the victims of terrorism.
Agreeing with Ms. Baerbock on the UN role, Mr. Bhutto said peace in South Asia was not possible without the “peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, in accordance with the UN resolutions, in accordance with international law”, and even sought to draw a parallel between “unilateral actions in Ukraine” and “unilateral actions in Kashmir”, in reference to the government’s August 2019 reorganisation of the State.
Clean swipe for MGNREGS attendance app only in 8 States (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Social Justice)
Five months after the Union government’s order making it mandatory to record attendance of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) workers through a government mobile application, National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS), at work sites where 20 or more people are employed, at least three States — Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Assam — are pushing for making this universal, though a majority of the States still have concerns about it.
September data put out by the Union Rural Development Ministry show only eight States have recorded usage of the app at 90% or more worksites.
They are Assam (93.42%), Odisha (92%), Tamil Nadu (93%), Karnataka (92%), Kerala (91.5%), Tripura (91%), Uttarakhand (91%) and Puducherry (99%). In Puducherry, though the usage is high, the number of worksites in September was just 774.
We have listened to complaints and made several tweaks to make it easier for the end user. One big change is allowing offline use of the app.
The mates can record the attendance even if there is no Internet connectivity and it will get uploaded whenever they reach a place which has the necessary signal strength,” the official said. The official further added that based on complaints, the app and procedures were constantly evolving.
There are still a host of shortcomings for which the worker ends up paying the penalty. The data from the Ministry reveal that in nine States and Union Territories, the usage of the app is 50% or less.
These States are Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Goa, Nagaland, Andaman and Nicobar and Jammu and Kashmir. In case of Goa and Nagaland, the usage is zero.
Andhra Pradesh, which has one of the largest MGNREGS workforce, used the NMMS app for recording attendance in September only in 21.48% of over 92,000 work sites. In August this number was at 9.56%.
In Uttar Pradesh, another State which receives a significant percentage of total MGNREGS national funds, in September, out of 1.3 lakh work sites, only in 50.19% the muster roll was filled via the app. The September numbers are marginally better than August, when it was 48.31%.
In the States which have been reporting high usage too, many workers end up suffering wage loses due to technical glitches. Nikhil Shenoy, divisional secretary, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Jodhpur, Rajasthan has an illustrative example. Rajasthan has reported 86.75% rate of usage of the app.
International
IAF all set to create a new weapon systems branch, says Air chief (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
China defended its policies in Xinjiang and said issues there were “not related to human rights”, a day after India called for the human rights of the people of the region to be “respected and guaranteed”.
India was among the countries that did not vote in favour of a West-led United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) draft resolution on Xinjiang that failed to pass this week.
Explaining why New Delhi abstained on the vote, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday cited India’s long-held view that “country-specific resolutions are never helpful”, but at the same time also called for “the human rights of the people of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region to be respected and guaranteed.
China’s Foreign Ministry said Beijing had “noted” reports on India’s abstention as well as the MEA’s statement. “I want to stress that the issues related to Xinjiang are not related to human rights and are about countering violent terrorism, radicalisation, and separatism.
Ms. Mao said the UNHRC vote in its favour had affirmed China’s position. The voting results at the UNHRC reflect the position of the international community, especially of developing countries, in firmly rejecting the politicisation of the human rights issues.
India said it had also taken note of concerns expressed by a recent report of the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR), which said China’s “arbitrary detention” of Uighurs may have constituted crimes against humanity.
Beijing slammed the report and blamed Western interference. China initially denied the mass detention of Uighurs in “re-education” camps, but later claimed the vast network of centres in Xinjiang were for “vocational training”.
Science
Chandrayaan-2 gauges sodium content on Moon’s surface (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Scientists from Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have mapped out the global distribution of sodium on the Moon’s surface.
They used the CLASS instrument (Chandrayaan-2 large area soft X-ray spectrometer) carried by the second Indian Moon mission, Chandrayaan-2.
This is the first effort to provide a global-scale measurement of sodium on the lunar surface using X-ray fluorescent spectra. The results have been published in a recent edition of The Astrophysical Journal .
X-ray fluorescence is commonly used to study the composition of materials in a non-destructive manner. When the sun gives out solar flares, a large amount of X-ray radiation falls on the moon, triggering X-ray fluorescence.
The CLASS measures the energy of the X-ray photons coming from the moon and counts the total number. The energy of the photons indicates the atom (for instance, sodium atoms emit X-ray photons of 1.04 keV) and the intensity is a measure of how many atoms are present.
When compared to Earth, the moon is significantly depleted of volatile elements such as sodium. “The amount of volatiles on the moon today can be used to test formation scenarios of the Earth-Moon system.
Sodium can be used as a tracer of the volatile history of the moon,” explains the scientists from the Space Astronomy group of ISRO’s U.R. Rao Satellite Centre.
Earlier moon missions, like Apollo-11, Luna and Chang’e-5, brought back rock samples. The amount of sodium in the rocks was precisely gauged.
The new study by the Chandrayaan group shows that there is a thin veneer of sodium atoms that are weakly bound to the lunar surface apart from the minor quantities found in lunar rocks.
These sodium atoms on the surface are liberated when enough energy is given to them by solar ultraviolet radiation and solar wind ions. The study shows a pattern in time that supports this, said the scientists.
Sodium is the only element apart from potassium that can be observed through telescopes in the lunar atmosphere (its exosphere). This new map of sodium would enable understanding of the surface-exosphere connection.
Early warning for heatwaves sees huge improvement (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
A heatwave is a period of unusually hot weather with above normal temperatures that typically last three or more days. In India, heatwaves are generally experienced during March-June.
On an average, two-three heatwave events are expected every season. Heatwaves are predominantly observed over two areas, central and northwest India and another over coastal Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, supported by favourable atmospheric conditions.
Total duration of heatwaves has increased by about three days during the last 30 years and a further increase of 12-18 days is expected by 2060.
In future climate, heatwaves will be spread to new areas including southern parts of India. Climate change is causing heatwaves more frequently, and they are much stronger and can last for more days.
Heatwaves have multiple and cascading impact on human health, ecosystems, agriculture, energy, water and economy. The recent 2022 heatwave in India and Pakistan in March-April made devastating impacts.
It is estimated to have led at least 90 deaths across India and Pakistan. It also triggered an extreme Glacial Lake Outburst Flood in northern Pakistan.
Adaptation to heatwaves can be effective to minimise the negative impacts, by developing a comprehensive heat response plan that includes early warnings, awareness rising and technology intervention.
India has now a strong national framework for heat action plans involving the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the National and State disaster management authorities, and local bodies. Early warning systemsare an integral part of this heat action plan.
How good is our early warning system for heatwaves? Research helped us to improve our understanding on the underlying mechanism of its genesis and intensity.
Heatwaves are caused by large scale atmospheric circulation anomalies like high pressure areas, upper-tropospheric, jet streams, etc.
The global forcing like the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean modulate the frequency and duration of Indian heatwaves. Heatwave can be further accentuated by local effects like depleted soil moisture and enhanced sensible heat flux.
FAQ
How is ‘click chemistry’ more energy efficient? (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
A trio of chemists, Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless, are this year’s Nobel laureates for Chemistry. They won it for pioneering ‘click chemistry’, which underpins green chemistry.
A big part of what chemists do is making new molecules, which is as much an art as it is science. The standard approach is to mimic nature.
In the early 20th century, finding nitrogen in a form usable by plants, despite it being the most abundant element in the atmosphere, was one of the discoveries scientists were striving hard to achieve.
German chemist, Fritz Haber cracked the code for ammonia, which combined nitrogen and hydrogen that plants could synthesise for nitrogen, and Carl Bosch figured out a way to produce it in massive amounts.
The Haber-Bosch process is still the dominant way of producing cheap fertilizer and is at the heart of industrialised agriculture.
However, this process is extremely energy intensive and polluting and the modern-day challenge is to therefore produce so-called ‘green ammonia’.
This principle extends to most synthetic chemicals — where scientists try to create a natural substance, in a way that is different from the usual method which is often circuitous and creates several unwanted toxic by-products.
Shortly after winning his first Nobel Prize in 2001, Sharpless began discussing ways to synthesise chemicals that were efficient and not wasteful.
To be able to create new pharmaceuticals, Sharpless argued, chemists ought to be moving away from trying to make ‘natural’ molecules and creating new ones in simpler ways that did the job.
As an example, he said, it was hard to coax carbon atoms — the building blocks of organic molecules — from different molecules to link to each other.
Instead, why not take smaller molecules, which already have a complete carbon frame and link them using bridges of nitrogen atoms or oxygen atoms? Sure, it wouldn’t be as elegantly constructed as the natural stuff but would be efficient, greener and useful.
This Lego-block like approach to making new molecules is the essence of ‘click chemistry.’ The ‘click’ is from an analogy he drew from seatbelts clicking snugly into buckles.
For a chemical reaction to be called click chemistry, it has to occur in the presence of oxygen and in water, which is a cheap and environmentally friendly solvent.
While Sharpless gave examples of existing reactions that were potentially ‘click worthy’, the actual breakthrough came in a Copenhagen laboratory.
What lies at the heart of the 2022 Physics Nobel? (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
On October 4, the Nobel Committee of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the names of three physicists as the laureates for the Nobel Prize in physics.
They are Alain Aspect from the University of Paris-Saclay, France; John F. Clauser of John F. Clauser and Associates, California, U.S.; and Anton Zeilinger, University of Vienna, Austria.
They have been awarded “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”, according to a press release given out by the Academy of Sciences, which is based in Stockholm, Sweden.
The prize has been given for experimental work in quantum entanglement, which Einstein referred to as ‘spooky action at a distance’.
John Clauser and Alain Aspect firmed up this concept, developing more and more complex experiments that demonstrated and established that entanglement was indeed a true characteristic of quantum mechanics.
They did this by creating, processing and measuring what are called Bell pairs. Anton Zeilinger innovatively used entanglement and Bell pairs, both in research and in applications. These include quantum computation and quantum cryptography.
Classical mechanics is the study of the dynamics of a system which uses Newton’s laws of motion at the very basic level. The dynamics of a few bodies or particles interacting with each other can be described using classical mechanics itself. This can be extended to many particle systems, such as a box containing millions of molecules of a gas, by employing the powerful technique of statistics, leading to statistical mechanics.
The success of Newton’s laws, classical mechanics, and classical statistical mechanics is not to be sneezed at. From describing a tennis match to sending a rocket to Mars this encompasses a whole lot of everyday activities. However, this approach breaks down when one wishes to describe subatomic particles such as light quanta.
To understand these problems that could not be explained using classical mechanics, postulates of quantum mechanics were invoked. Some of the chief architects of this were Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrodinger, Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr.
Does palaeogenomics explain our origins? (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
The Nobel Prize for Physiology this year has been awarded to Svante Pääbo, Swedish geneticist, who pioneered the field of palaeogenomics, or the study of ancient hominins by extracting their DNA.
Pääbo is the Director of the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany and has, over three decades, uniquely threaded three scientific disciplines: palaeontology, genomics and evolution.
The study of ancient humans has historically been limited to analysing their bone and objects around them such as weapons, utensils, tools and dwellings.
Pääbo pioneered the use of DNA, the genetic blueprint present in all life, to examine questions about the relatedness of various ancient human species.
He proved that Neanderthals, a cousin of the human species that evolved 1,00,000 years before humans, interbred with people and a fraction of their genes — about 1-4% — live on in those of European and Asian ancestry.
Later on, Pääbo’s lab, after analysing a 40,000-year-old finger bone from a Siberian cave, proved that it belonged to a new species of hominin called Denisova.
This was the first time that a new species had been discovered based on DNA analysis and this species too had lived and interbred with humans.
The challenge with extracting DNA from fossils is that it degrades fairly quickly and there is little usable material. Because such bones may have passed through several hands, the chances of it being contaminated by human as well as other bacterial DNA get higher.
This has been one of the major stumbling blocks to analysing DNA from fossils. One of Pääbo’s early forays was extracting DNA from a 2,500-year-old Egyptian mummy and while it caused a stir and helped his career, much later in life he said that the mummy-DNA was likely contaminated.
DNA is concentrated in two different compartments within the cell: the nucleus and mitochondria, the latter being the powerhouse of the cell.
Nuclear DNA stores most of the genetic information, while the much smaller mitochondrial genome is present in thousands of copies and therefore more retrievable.