Daily Current Affairs 20 April 2020 | UPSC Current Affairs 2020

Current Affairs Of Today Are

1) Draft intangible cultural heritage list released by the Union Culture Ministry.

Every year 18th April is celebrated as the International Day for Monuments and Sites or World Heritage Day.
The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) established the day in 1982 and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) approved it in 1983.
Since then, it has been a day to celebrate and promote cultural heritage, and an opportunity to raise awareness about its diversity, its relevance, how vulnerable it can be and what the needs and benefits of its conservation are.
The theme for 2020: Shared Cultures, Shared Heritage, Shared Responsibility.
It is an important expression of global unity in the face of the ongoing worldwide health crisis (Covid-19 pandemic).

106 items have been listed as intangible cultural heritage in the draft released by the Union Culture Ministry as a part of the ministry’s Vision 2024 program.
Out of these 13 traditions of Indian intangible cultural heritage are already recognized by UNESCO.
As per the 2003 UNESCO Convention for Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, the list has five broad categories — oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, knowledge, and practices related to nature and traditional craftsmanship.
Some of the major mentions in the draft list:
Kalaripayuttu (martial art form) Kerala

Kolam (the practice of making designs at the entrance of homes and temples) Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.
Pachoti (Traditional folk festival- the birth of a baby, particularly a male infant is celebrated with relatives and neighbors. Related to the birth of Krishna) Assam
Kinnar Kanthgeet (Oral traditions of the transgender community) Delhi
Patola silk textiles (Geometric and figurative patterns) Gujarat (Patan)
Buddhist chanting Leh and Kargil districts
Kalam Bhat or Qalambaft Gharana of Sufiana music Jammu and Kashmir
Khor (Rice Beer by Tangkhul community) Manipur
Tying a turban or Safa Rajasthan

Other notable mentions include:

Devotional music of Qawwali and the music of the oldest instrument in the country, the Veena.
The Kumbh Mela and Ramlila traditions of different States.
The compositions of Ameer Khusro.
The making of gourd vessels and wicker baskets in Manipur.
Different forms of shadow puppet theatre — Chamadyacha Bahulya in Maharashtra, Tolu Bommalatta in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, Togalu Gombeyatta in Karnataka, Tolpava Kuthu in Kerala and Ravanchhaya in Odisha — have also been included.

Significance:

The national list is an attempt to further awareness and protection to the valuable cultural heritage of India.

International Council on Monuments and Sites

It is a global non-governmental organization associated with UNESCO.
Its mission is to promote the conservation, protection, use, and enhancement of monuments, building complexes and sites.
It is an Advisory Body of the World Heritage Committee for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention of UNESCO.
As such, it reviews the nominations of cultural world heritage and ensures the conservation status of properties.
India has 38 world heritage sites that include 30 Cultural properties, 7 Natural properties, and 1 mixed site.
Its creation in 1965 is the logical outcome of initial conversations between architects, historians and international experts that began in the early twentieth century and that materialized in the adoption of the Venice Charter in 1964.

Source: The Hindu

2) COVID-19 pandemic and its effects in the South Asian region.

The SAARC region is witnessing a slower increase in novel coronavirus infections, particularly in terms of critical cases as compared to other regions.

According to the latest figures, the eight SAARC nations account for approximately 1% of the world’s total COVID-19 cases.
India has also witnessed a slower rate of growth in infections.
In terms of fatalities, the SAARC total is 49% of the total people who died of the infection.

The numbers are particularly low when one considers that South Asia accounts for a fifth (21%) of the world’s population, living in dense conditions on 3% of the world’s landmass.

Possible causes:

Handling by the governments:

The “South Asia Economic Focus” study, recently published by the World Bank made important observations concerning the COVID-19 response.

All governments in South Asia have responded rapidly to the crisis.
Strict lockdown and social distancing measures were adopted in India and other South Asian countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives. This enabled governments to reduce the rapid spread of the disease.
Governments apart from the social-distancing measures also introduced relief packages to secure access to food and provided for delays in payments on taxes, rent, utilities, and debt service. This could have reduced the need for people to move out.

Low testing rates:

Experts worldwide have pointed to the low testing rates in the region as a valid reason to question the idea that South Asia has fewer infections.

As compared to countries such as the U.S. and Italy; India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka have considerably lower testing figures.

However, it should also be noted that the number of positive cases from the tests is much lower in India. Similar observations have been made in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka also.

While the U.S. showed 19.8% positive cases, France showed 41.8% and Italy showed 15.1% positive cases, according to the NITI Aayog study, India showed about 4.7% positive cases among the tested.

Other reasons:

Given the lack of sufficient information on the novel virus, it is worth studying the causes of this trend in South Asia.

Experts are pointing to the need to study the effects of immunity in the population of the region.
There are also hints that the climatic condition of the region may also have limited the spread of the disease.

Concerns:

Despite the low infection rates, the present crisis still poses certain concerns for the region.

Economic impact:

Even though the region witnessed much lower infection rates, the study by the World Bank predicts a sharp fall in the economic growth rates of all SAARC countries.

Higher risk:

Given the high density of the population in the region and also considering the weak public health system the COVID-19 pandemic is all the more challenging to the countries of the region. Any large scale outbreak could be disastrous.

Source: The Hindu

3) IIA scientists connect Lithium abundance in interstellar space to new Lithium rich red giants

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), an autonomous institute under the Department of Science &Technology, Govt. of India, have discovered hundreds of Li-rich giant stars indicating that Li is being produced in the stars and accounts for its abundance in the interstellar medium. They have also associated such Li enhancement with central He-burning stars, also known as red clump giants, thereby opening up new vistas in the evolution of the red giant stars.
Lithium (Li), is one of the three primordial elements, apart from Hydrogen and Helium (He), produced in the big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) whose models predict primordial Li abundance (A(Li) ~2.7~dex). However, the present measurement of Li in the interstellar medium and very young stars is about 4 times more than the primordial value. Thus, identifying sources of Li enrichment in our Galaxy has been a great interest to researchers to validate Big Bang Nucleosynthesis as well as a stellar mixing process. Apart from reactions, in which high energy cosmic ray particles bombard with heavier nuclei such as carbon and oxygen-producing lighter particles such as Li, stars are also proposed as likely Li source in the Galaxy. In general, stars are considered as Li sinks. This means that the original Li, with which stars are born, only gets depleted over stars’ life-time as Li burns at relatively very low temperatures of about 2.5X106 K – a range which is easily encountered in stars.
The team embarked on cracking this long-standing problem in stellar astrophysics. They followed a two-fold strategy by increasing the sample by systematically searching for high Li among low mass evolved stars in the Galaxy and determining the exact evolutionary phase of these high Li abundance stars. By employing data from large scale ground and space missions, they discovered hundreds of Li-rich giants. Though their study increased the number of Li-rich giants by many-fold Li-rich giants still accounts for only about 1 in 100 in the Galaxy.
The researchers determined the evolutionary phase of these giants by analyzing relative positions of thousands of stars using their temperature and luminosity and also subjecting their independent data set to atmospheric oscillations analysis using data from Kepler Space Telescope, a NASA mission for discovering planets. By determining their characteristic frequency and period spacing of pressure (p)-modes and gravity (g)-modes, they could differentiate between the stars that have a He-burning core, or inert He ashes at the center due to Hydrogen fusion reaction.
Importantly, they showed for the first time that the Li enhancement in giants is associated only with central He-burning stars, which are also known as red clump giants. This is an important discovery that will help to eliminate many proposed theories such as planet engulfment or nucleosynthesis during the red giant evolution in which helium at the center is not burning.

All the Li-rich giants (red squares) for which asteroseismic data available are in a region of core He-burning phase

Source: PIB

4) Changes in the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy.

In light of the threat of opportunistic takeovers/acquisitions of Indian companies due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the government has revised the FDI policy.
Under the revised FDI policy, prior government approval is mandatory for FDI from countries that share a land border with India. The new policy states that when an entity of a country, which shares land borders with India or where the beneficial owner of investment into India is situated in or is a citizen of any such country, can invest only under the Government route.

India shares land borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.

As per the changed FDI policy, the transfer of ownership of any existing or future FDI in an Indian entity to those in the restricted countries would also need government approval.
Investors from countries not covered by the new policy only have to inform the RBI after a transaction rather than asking for prior permission from the relevant government department.
This move will help restrict Chinese investments in India and also help monitor the investments.

Additional information:

Though India’s FDI policy is directed at attracting FDI, it needs to also balance security aspects. Investments from Pakistan and Bangladesh face higher restrictions as compared to FDIs from other countries. They need government approval and there is no provision for automatic FDI from these two countries into India.
Pakistani investors require government approval for FDI in defense, space, and atomic energy sectors.

Background:

Chinese investment In India:

China’s footprint in the Indian business space has been expanding rapidly, especially since 2014.
The Chinese investment in India in 2014 stood at $1.6 billion. This involved mostly investment from Chinese state-owned players in the infrastructure space in India.
By 2017, the total investment had increased five-fold to at least $8 billion accompanied by a marked shift from a state-driven to market-driven approach.
The report, titled “Following the Money: China Inc’s Growing Stake in India-China Relations” estimates that the total current and planned Chinese investment in India has crossed $26 billion in March 2020.
The major Chinese investments in India span a range of sectors with a significant share in the start-up space. A 2017 survey of Chinese enterprises in India by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s Mumbai branch found that 42% were in the manufacturing sector, 25% in infrastructure and others in telecom, petrochemicals, software and IT.

Threat due to the COVID-19 pandemic:

Many Indian businesses have come to a halt due to the lockdown imposed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, their valuations have plummeted.
Many such domestic firms may be vulnerable to opportunistic takeovers or acquisitions from foreign players.
Recently, the People’s Bank of China made a portfolio investment through the stock market into the housing finance company HDFC and now holds a 1.01% stake in the company.

5) Special Drawing Rights (SDR)

India is not supporting a general allocation of new Special Drawing Rights (SDR) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) because it feels it might not be effective in easing COVID-19-driven financial pressures.
The new SDR allocation was supposed to provide all 189 members with new foreign exchange reserves with no conditions.

What’s the reason?

Such a major liquidity injection could produce potentially costly side-effects if countries used the funds for “extraneous” purposes.

What is a Special Drawing Right (SDR)?

The SDR is an international reserve asset, created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement its member countries’ official reserves.
The value of the SDR is based on a basket of five currencies—the U.S. dollar, the euro, the Chinese renminbi, the Japanese yen, and the British pound sterling.
So far SDR 204.2 billion (equivalent to about US$281 billion) has been allocated to members, including SDR 182.6 billion allocated in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis.

The role of the SDR:

The SDR was created as a supplementary international reserve asset in the context of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system.
The SDR serves as the unit of account of the IMF and some other international organizations.
The SDR is neither a currency nor a claim on the IMF. Rather, it is a potential claim on the freely usable currencies of IMF members.
SDRs can be exchanged for these currencies.

Review:

The SDR basket is reviewed every five years, or earlier if warranted, to ensure that the basket reflects the relative importance of currencies in the world’s trading and financial systems.
The reviews cover the key elements of the SDR method of valuation, including criteria and indicators used in selecting SDR basket currencies and the initial currency weights used in determining the amounts (number of units) of each currency in the SDR basket.

Source: The Hindu

6) ARI researchers develop bug sniffer for efficient detection of pathogens

Researchers at the Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), Pune, an autonomous institute under the Department of Science &Technology, Govt. of India, have developed a sensitive and low-cost sensor to rapidly detect bacteria. The portable device can detect as low as ten bacterial cells from a sample size of one milliliter in just 30 minutes. At present, they are working on a method for simultaneous separation and detection of Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium.
ARI calls it the ‘bug sniffer,’ which is a biosensor that uses synthetic peptides, magnetic nanoparticles, and quantum dots to detect the presence of bacteria, providing a cost- and time-effective way of screening water and foodborne pathogens. The researchers also developed a chip comprising of microchannels made from copper wires and poly (dimethylsiloxane) The conventional techniques available for pathogen detection are less sensitive and cannot detect low cell numbers, besides being time-consuming and laborious whereas the ARI device, can detect pathogens with a limit of detection of 10 cells per 1 mL within 30 minutes.
The most common disease-causing bacteria Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium can be detected individually and simultaneously using the in-house developed synthetic peptides, which act as a recognition element and provide the specificity to the detection. These peptides, which are highly specific to the bacteria to be detected, have extremely low cross-reactivity. In their work, which was published in the Journal of Biotechnology, initially, magnetic nanoparticles attached to the peptides were allowed to flow through the microchannel along-side the bacteria.
On applying an external magnetic field, the bacteria attached to the peptide were isolated and immobilized. Finally, the peptide tagged with quantum dots was passed through the microchannels to complete the sandwiched peptide assay. After capturing the bacteria, microchannels exhibited strong and stable fluorescence due to the quantum-dot-tagged peptides.
Currently, the researchers are working with simultaneous separation and detection of Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium using LAMP (Loop-mediated isothermal amplification), a single-tube technique for the amplification of DNA and a low-cost alternative to detect certain diseases. This work is funded by ICMR.

Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium

Escherichia coli also is known as E. coli (/ˌiː ˈkoʊlaɪ/), is a Gram-negative, facultatively anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus Escherichia that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms (endotherms). Most E. coli strains are harmless, but some serotypes can cause serious food poisoning in their hosts and are occasionally responsible for food contamination incidents that prompt product recalls The harmless strains are part of the normal microbiota of the gut and can benefit their hosts by producing vitamin K2, (which helps blood to clot) and preventing colonization of the intestine with pathogenic bacteria, having a symbiotic relationship. E. coli is expelled into the environment within fecal matter. The bacterium grows massively in the fresh fecal matter under aerobic conditions for 3 days, but its numbers decline slowly afterward
E. coli and other facultative anaerobes constitute about 0.1% of gut microbiota, and fecal-oral transmission is the major route through which pathogenic strains of the bacterium cause disease. Cells can survive outside the body for a limited amount of time, which makes them potential indicator organisms to test environmental samples for fecal contamination. A growing body of research, though, has examined environmentally persistent E. coli which can survive for many days and grow outside a host.
The bacterium can be grown and cultured easily and inexpensively in a laboratory setting and has been intensively investigated for over 60 years. E. coli is a chemoheterotroph whose chemically defined medium must include a source of carbon and energy. E. coli is the most widely studied prokaryotic model organism, and an important species in the fields of biotechnology and microbiology, where it has served as the host organism for the majority of work with recombinant DNA. Under favorable conditions, it takes as little as 20 minutes to reproduce.
Salmonella typhimurium is a pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria predominately found in the intestinal lumen. Its toxicity is due to an outer membrane consisting largely of lipopolysaccharides (LPS) which protect the bacteria from the environment. The LPS is made up of an O-antigen, a polysaccharide core, and lipid A, which connects it to the outer membrane. Lipid A is made up of two phosphorylated glucosamines which are attached to fatty acids. These phosphate groups determine bacterial toxicity. Animals carry an enzyme that specifically removes these phosphate groups in an attempt to protect themselves from these pathogens. The O-antigen, being on the outermost part of the LPS complex is responsible for the host immune response. S. Typhimurium can undergo acetylation of this O-antigen, which changes its conformation, and makes it difficult for antibodies to recognize

Source: PIB

7) COVID-19 pandemic and drug development efforts.

Difference between Coronavirus and bacterium:

Bacteria are living even outside a host body.
The viruses are basically inactive outside a host organism.
Each bacterial cell has its own machinery to reproduce itself.
Viruses would be unable to renew and grow by themselves.
The genes in the Bacterial cells are made up of DNA molecules. The Coronavirus does not have DNA as their genome but instead has RNA. (Some viruses also have DNA as their genetic material)
The information contained in this DNA is transcribed as a message to the messenger molecules called RNA. This message is translated into action molecules called proteins which help in the growth and multiplication of the bacterium.
The Coronaviruses can only translate and not transcribe. The viruses infect the ‘host cells’ which they bind to and multiply.

Drug strategy:

Upon infection, the entire RNA of the Virus with its 33,000 bases is translated into a long tape of amino acid sequences. Since this long chain contains several proteins within it, it is called a “polyprotein” sequence.

COVID19 has RNA-based genomes and subgenomes in its polyprotein sequence, that code for the spike protein (S), the membrane protein (M), the envelope protein (E), and the nucleocapsid protein (N, which covers the viral cell nuclear material) – all of which are needed for the architecture of the virus.
In addition to these, there are special structural and accessory proteins, called non-structural proteins (NSP), indeed 16 of them, which serve specific purposes for infection and viral multiplication.

A detailed understanding of these proteins can help the scientific community find relevant proteins and understand their effect on Virus functioning and infection.
These proteins in the virus can be targeted by several potential molecules and drugs which can interfere and stop the production of the viral proteins.

Source: The Hindu

8) Plenary Meeting of IMFC

Recently, the Union Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs attended the plenary meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) through video-conferencing.

Key Points

This meeting’s Global Policy Agenda was “Exceptional Times – Exceptional Action”.
The IMFC was updated by the members on the actions and measures taken by the member countries to combat Covid-19.
The members remarked on IMF’s crisis-response package to address global liquidity and members’ financing needs.
India also highlighted that the IMF has always played a pivotal role in maintaining the stability of the international monetary and financial system and that it should continue rendering this critical role to the global financial architecture.
Measures taken by India to respond to the health crisis and to mitigate its impact were highlighted. Few of them are:

India Covid-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package: Allocation of $2 Billion (₹15,000 crores) by the Government of India for strengthening the healthcare system.
Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana: Announcement of a scheme of social support measures amounting to $23 Billion (₹1.70 lakh crore) to alleviate the hardship of the poor and the vulnerable.
Provision of relief to firms in statutory and regulatory compliance matters.
Easing of monetary policy by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and a three-month moratorium on loan installments.
Creating a Covid-19 Emergency Fund for the SAARC region.

International Monetary and Financial Committee

It is the Ministerial-level committee of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
It meets twice a year, once during the Fund-Bank Annual Meetings in October and once during the Spring Meetings in April.

This year, due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the meeting took place through video-conference.

Functions:

It discusses the management of the international monetary and financial system.
It advises the IMF on any other matters of common concern affecting the global economy.

IMFC has 24 members, drawn from the pool of 189 governors, and represents all member countries. India is one of the current members.
It operates on consensus, including the selection of its chairman.

Source: PIB

9) India’s Water Woes

Recently, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has issued an advisory to state governments asking them to ensure safe drinking water supply and management during the nationwide lockdown that has been extended to 3rd May 2020.

Key Points

Advisory:

State governments need to assess the requirements of water purifying chemicals, including chlorine tablets, bleaching powder, sodium hypochlorite solution, and alum and use them wherever necessary.
These purifying products are classified under the list of essential commodities (Essential Commodities Act, 1955)
For ensuring social distancing, states are recommended to increase water supply hours if demand goes up and people come to fetch water from the public stand post.

Reasons Behind the Advisory

The urgent need to ensure the availability of safe potable water to all citizens, mainly in the rural areas where medical sanitizers may not be available, has been highlighted in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the list of preventive measures for controlling the spread of coronavirus, frequent washing of hands with frothing soaps is the most efficient and effective measure.

Water Crisis of India

India has been facing the challenge of a lack of access to clean water for several years.

Falling groundwater levels, drought, increasing demand from agriculture and industry, pollution and poor water resource management are few other challenges that will intensify with the changing climate.

According to the data of the Ministry of Water Resources in 2017, (merged into the Ministry of Jal Shakti in 2019) average annual per capita, water availability fell from 1820 cubic meters assessed in 2001 to 1545 cubic meters in 2011.

The data also highlighted the possibility of it reducing further to 1341 and 1140 in the years 2025 and 2050 respectively.

The ministry also held that the water availability of water-stressed/water-scarce regions of the country is much below the national average due to the high temporal and spatial variation of precipitation.

Water Stressed Condition: Where annual per-capita water availability is less than 1700 cubic meters.
Water Scarcity Condition: Where annual per- capita water availability is below 1000 cubic meters.

According to the Global Annual Report, 2018 by the WaterAid, the water and sanitation advocacy group, India ranked at the top of 10 countries with the lowest access to clean water close to home, with 16.3 crore people not having such access.
However, the government's efforts (such as Jal Jeevan Mission) in solving the water crisis have been appreciated as well. It has been highlighted that despite facing several challenges, India is one of the world’s most-improved nations for reaching the most people with clean water.

Water in the Constitution

In the Constitution, water is a matter included in Entry 17 of List-II i.e. State List. This entry is subject to the provision of Entry 56 of List-I i.e. Union List.

Under Article 246, the Indian Constitution allocates responsibilities of the States and the Centre into three lists– Union List, State List, and Concurrent List.

Most of the rivers in the country give rise to inter-state differences and disputes (Article 262) on the regulation and development of waters of these rivers.

10) Gamma-ray flux variability of luminous and high energy blazars: clues to blazar emission mechanisms

At the center of most galaxies, there’s a massive black hole that can have a mass of millions or even billions of Suns that accrete gas, dust, and stellar debris around it. As this material falls towards the black hole, their gravitational energy gets converted to light forming active galactic nuclei (AGN). A minority of AGN (~15%) emit collimated charged particles called jets traveling at speeds close to the speed of light. Blazars are AGN whose jets are aligned with the observer’s line of sight. Some blazars are thought to host binary black holes in them and could be potential targets for future gravitational-wave searches
Researchers from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bangalore, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, have conducted the first systematic study on the gamma-ray flux variability nature on different types of blazars. Their study could provide clues to the processes happening close to the black hole, not visible through direct imaging.
The research work based on characterizing the flux variability nature on month-like time scales in the high energy gamma-ray (100 MeV to 300 GeV) band for different types of blazars has been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. The knowledge of the flux variability nature in the high energy gamma-rays on a month like timescales is limited. The results of this work will thus fill the gap in the knowledge of the high energy flux variability nature of blazars.
Blazars are the most luminous and energetic objects in the known universe were found to be emitters of gamma-rays in the 1990s. It is only with the capability of Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope (launched in 2008) to scan the entire sky once in three hours one can probe the flux variability characteristics of blazars on a range of time scales. One of the open problems in high energy astrophysics is to localize the site for the production of gamma-rays. Variability studies in the high energy gamma-ray band can help one to locate the high energy emission site and the high energy emission process. Therefore, the variability analysis in the gamma-ray band carried out in this work is significant
The gamma-ray band is one of the bands of the electromagnetic spectrum on which there is limited knowledge on the flux variability of blazars. But this band needs to be explored as this is the energy range where the high energy emission from blazars peaks. Exploring this band of the electromagnetic spectrum will provide key inputs to constrain the high energy production site as well as the high energy emission processes. This is the key idea behind this work. Several explanations are available in the literature on the cause of the high energy emission in blazars.
With the availability of near-simultaneous data covering the gamma-ray, X-ray, ultra-violet, optical, and infrared bands, the existing notion of high energy emission in blazars is challenged. One of the ways to test the high energy emission in blazars is to look for similarities and differences in the gamma-ray flux variability characteristics of different types of blazars, and this forms the basic idea to carry out this work.
This particular research by IIA researchers characterized the amplitude and time scale of flux variations and then look for similarity and/or differences in the amplitude and time scale between different types of blazars. The reduction of large volumes of data for a large number of sources was accomplished by the use of the High-Performance Computing facility of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore.
The results obtained from this particular piece of work will provide key inputs to the problem of finding the high energy gamma-ray production site in blazars. Thus it will have direct relevance to the enhancement of the knowledge on blazars. The expertise of handling high energy data from celestial sources gained in this work will build capacity to interpret the gamma-ray data that will emerge from India's upcoming facility, the Major Atmospheric Cerenkov Experiment Telescope as well as from any X-ray missions by India in the future.

One month binned gamma-ray light curve of the FSRQ 3FGL J0102.8+5825

Source: PIB