Daily Current Affairs 5 September 2020 | UPSC Current Affairs 2020

 Current Affairs Of Today Are

1) Russia’s COVID­19 vaccine is safe: study

• The two­shot vaccine being developed by Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute generated a strong immune response and didn’t produce serious adverse reactions in the 76 volunteers who were inoculated in a trial, according to results of a study reported online in The Lancet
• This is the first time that details of the early human studies — or Phase­1/2 trials, to check the vaccine’s safety and ability to generate an immune response — of the vaccines have been reported in a peer­-reviewed journal.
• The vaccine consists of two components, a recombinant adenovirus type 26 (rAd26) vector and a recombinant adenovirus type 5 (rAd5) vector, both carrying the gene for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS­CoV­2) spike glycoprotein (rAd26­S and rAd5­S).
• Adenoviruses commonly affect humans and primates and have emerged as a sought­after platform to develop a vaccine against COVID­19. The ChAdOx1 vaccine candidate developed by Oxford University is based on a chimpanzee adenovirus vector platform and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology and CanSino Biologics Inc. of China too are developing a vaccine on an adenovirus platform.
• In The Lancet, the scientists said the vaccines were given to the selected volunteers 21 days apart — the spacing meant to generate a boosted response — and checked for whether it induced protective antibodies as well as if it managed to stimulate the body’s cells into producing a class of cells that can destroy viral cells, a process known as a ‘humoral response.’ Both of these happened, the scientists claim, and no “serious adverse events” were reported. 
• However, between 28% and 50% of the volunteers reported pain at injection site, hyperthermia, headache, asthenia and muscle and joint pain. “Most adverse events were mild and no serious adverse events were detected,” the authors note.
• So far, adenoviral vector vaccines have never been tested in commercial human vaccines except for a rabies vaccine but have been tested on people as part of experimental studies.

Source: The Hindu

2) CSIR-CMERI develops Affordable Solar Powered Battery based Sprayers to tackle Water Crisis in Agriculture

• Water is a precious resource and water scarcity is looming large over the entire Nation. Agriculture, which consumes around 70% of Water, for irrigation purpose, is the most vulnerable sector of the Economy owing to this crisis. To address this issue there has been discussion on implementing solar pump in almost every farmland.
• Apart from solar pumps, CSIR-CMERI isworking on methods to reduce water consumption required for irrigation. Initially, Drip irrigation was considered but later it was realised that Drip irrigation is not affordable for marginal to small farmers, who are the major stake holders in Indian Agrarian scenario. Those farmers use manual sprayers costing a few thousand rupees.
• As per the available knowledge, pesticides play very big role in increasing crop productivity, but large amount of pesticide sprays is wasted due to lack of appropriate machinery, and soil, water and air become polluted. Due to such harmful effects of pesticides, there is an increasing pressure to reduce their use and make their spraying more efficient. To make efficient sprayer, there is need to understand science of surface tension, viscosity, wettability, air drag, dynamic pressure, particle size, etc. CSIR-CMERI developed two variants of battery operated spray systems one for “marginal famers” and other for “small farmers”. Back Pack Sprayer, having capacity of 5 litres, is made for “marginal farmers”, while the Compact Trolley Sprayer having capacity of 10 litres, is made for “small farmers”. These sprayers are equipped with two separate tanks, flow control and pressure regulator to handle different water requirements of the crops, target/site specific irrigation, maintaining appropriate dilution of pesticide/fungicide to control the pest (on foliage, under the leaves, at root zone etc.), creating water based micro-roughness of leaf surface, maintaining soil moisture levels in a narrow range, and weed control. The systems functions on Solar-Powered batteries, thus enabling its usage even in energy and power deprived agricultural regions of the Nation, thus reducing dependence on price volatile fossil fuels. The sprayers are simple to develop, easy to learn and implement, therefore will help to overcome water crisis faced by Indian farmers.
• The flow control feature of the Sprayers helps achieve multiple levels of Water/Pesticide flow thereby enhancing the flexibility and dynamicity of the coverage area as well as the intensity of the application. The Dual-Chamber design of the Sprayers helps achieve a degree of resource versatility as it allows the system to carry two variants of liquids at any particular instant. As per experiments conducted at CSIR-CMERI, the engaged farmers have informed that it helps save 75% of Water and 25% time-consumption while using the CSIR-CMERI developed sprayers. This design element might also help reduce the time consumption for Spray based Agricultural applications, as the farmer need not empty the contents of a single vessel completely before using a different content.
• These couple of variants can bring about a revolution in the sphere of Precision Agriculture by reducing usage of Water in Agriculture. This revolutionary technology will help in creating agricultural avenues even in arid and semi-arid regions, as the Water scarcity will no longer be feared by the farming community. The CSIR-CMERI developed sprayers provide a cost-effective socio-economic solution for both marginalised and small-scale farmers. The affordable pricing profile helps to provide opportunities to cottage and micro-industries in furthering the outreach factor of the technology widely.

Source: PIB

3) Indra Navy – 20

• The 11th edition of exercise INDRA NAVY, a biennial bilateral maritime exercise between Indian Navy and Russian Navy is scheduled in the Bay of Bengal from 04 to 05 September 2020. Initiated in 2003, Ex INDRA NAVY epitomises the long-term strategic relationship between the two Navies.  Whilst the exercise is being undertaken in the Bay of Bengal, Shri Rajnath Singh, the Hon’ble Defence Minister of India, is on a visit to Moscow from 03 September 2020 on the invitation of Defence Minister of the Russian Federation, General Sergei Shoigu to discuss bilateral cooperation and issues of mutual interest and commemoration of the 75th anniversary of victory in World War II.
• This exercise has matured over the years with increase in scope, complexity of operations, and level of participation. The primary aim of exercise INDRA NAVY-20 is to further consolidate inter-operability built up by the two Navies over the years and also to enhance understanding and procedures for multi-faceted maritime operations. The scope of this edition includes wide-ranging and diverse activities across the spectrum of maritime operations. Due to restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, INDRA NAVY-20 would be undertaken in a ‘non-contact, at sea only’ format.
• The Indian Navy will be represented by guided missile destroyer Ranvijay, indigenous frigate Sahyadri and fleet tanker Shakti, along with their integral helicopters.Sahyadri has been presently redeployed to provide assistance to MT New Diamond, which has caught fire off the coast of Sri Lanka.
• The Russian Federation Navy will be represented by destroyer Admiral Vinogradov, destroyer Admiral Tributs and fleet tanker Boris Butoma of the Pacific Fleet, based at Vladivostok.
• The exercise is aimed at enhancing interoperability, improving understanding and imbibing best practices between the two navies, and would involve surface and anti-aircraft drills, firing exercises, helicopter operations, seamanship evolutions etc. The last edition of the exercise was conducted off Visakhapatnam in December 2018.
• Exercise INDRA NAVY-20 will help to further boost mutual confidence and cooperation between the two Navies and would reinforce the long-standing bond of friendship between the two countries.

Source: PIB

4) Canister bag named “AcryloSorb”

• Infectious secretions from contagious diseases such as COVID 19, tuberculosis (TB), and influenza poses high risk for healthcare workers. Their exposure to the high-risk hazard while handling the waste can soon be controlled with a canister bag that solidifies the secretions rapidly, making disposal safer.
• For the safe management of infected respiratory secretions, the researchers at Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology, Govt of India, have come up with a method for safe handling and disposal of respiratory secretions in hospitals for ICU patients or those with copious respiratory secretions treated in the wards. They have developed canister bags lined with super-absorbent material containing an effective disinfectant, named “AcryloSorb”.
• When the patient is admitted to the hospital, secretions are sucked into bottles or canisters using vacuum line and discarded through the waste fluid disposal system after subjecting to decontamination process. There is a high risk of contamination during the handling, and the disposal needs well-equipped sluice rooms with disinfection facilities. The safety threat and manpower issues will be manifold in less equipped hospitals or temporary isolation wards set up during pandemics.
• The canister bags can absorb 500 ml of secretions and solidify it immediately. In addition to that, the whole system will be decontaminated within no time because of the presence of disinfectant. The liner structure has a patented design which allows the progressive absorbent availability upwards. Solidification and immediate disinfection that occurs inside these bags eliminate risk of secondary infections by avoiding spilling and aerosol formation, and thereby protect healthcare workers and promote safe workplace management.Canister bags are enclosed in a customizable sealer bag which can pack it as spill-proof decontaminated biomedical waste disposable through incineration. The product has been tested as per the international standards.

Source: PIB

5) Turkey- Russia Military Drill in Eastern Mediterranean

Turkey has announced that Russia will hold live-fire naval exercises in the eastern Mediterranean. This will happen during escalating tensions between Turkey and its coastal neighbors Greece and Cyprus over the rights to search for energy resources in the region.

Complex Geo-politics:

• Turkey is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member, and it is strange to expect NATO-member Turkey to engage such drills on Russia’s behalf.
• It can be noted that the two countries have in recent years significantly strengthened their military, political and economic ties.

Russia-Turkey Link:

• Apart from the announced drill, they are coordinating closely on their military presence in Syria.
• Turkey has purchased Russia’s advanced S-400 missiles and has agreed to go with a Russian-built nuclear power plant on its southern coast.

Reasons:

• Recently, the U.S. lifted a decades-old arms embargo (1987) on Cyprus which created the fresh strains between Turkey and Greece.
• Turkey condemned the move and urged the USA to reverse course to safeguard Turkish-speaking Cypriots.
• The Embargo: To prevent an arms race that would hinder UN-facilitated reunification efforts for Cyprus.
• It was directed against the southern, Greek Cypriot part of the island, where Cyprus' internationally recognised government is seated.

Impact of Russia-Turkey Military Drill:

• Turkey's announcement comes at a time when Turkish survey vessels and drillships continue to prospect for hydrocarbons in waters where Greece and Cyprus claim exclusive economic rights.
• Russia maintains a sizeable naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean and regularly conducts naval manoeuvres.
• It’s also at odds with the European Union over its territorial disputes with bloc members Greece and Cyprus.
• France recently increased its military presence in the area to support Greece and Cyprus.
• Impact on India:
• Energy: Mediterranean oil accounted for about 4.5% of India's overall imports in the year 2019-20. Stability of this region is important for India’s energy security.
• Diaspora: Any turmoil in the region will have an impact on India’s diaspora in the region.
• India is not only a party, but also founded the Non Aligned Movement whereas Turkey and Russia lean to different polar ideologies.
• It is a real test of Indian diplomatic skills to create a balance between different ideologies.
• The diplomatic exchanges between Turkey and India have intensified in recent past following India’s decision to end the special status of Kashmir.
• India’s voice over this remains important being a protagonist of democracy, right to self-determination and sovereign responsibility.

Background of Conflict

• Energy is one of the key factors in the contemporary geopolitics of the Mediterranean region.
• Turkish energy exploration in the eastern Mediterranean has stoked tensions that is rooted in:
• Conflicting interpretations of maritime boundaries.
• The feud between Turkey and Cyprus over gas reserves around the island, whose northern third is controlled by Turkish forces.
• Turkish forces captured the northern third of Cyprus in 1974, following a coup attempt in which a military junta in Athens sought to unite Cyprus with Greece.
• The Republic of Cyprus officially has sovereignty over the entire island, though it in effect remains divided.
• It builds upon a much longer history of enmity between the Greeks and the Turks going back to before the modern Turkish state was founded.

Source: The Hindu

6) G-20 Foreign Ministers Meet

• Recently, Saudi Arabia hosted the G-20 foreign ministers meeting with focus on cross-border movement amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Currently, Saudi Arabia holds the presidency of G-20. It is the first Arab nation to take over the G20 Presidency.

The Meeting:

• The foreign ministers acknowledged the importance of opening borders, and promoting measures to allow the economy to thrive in light of the protective measures for the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Many health safety protocols were brought in to minimize the risk of spread of the Covid-19, like closed borders.
• However, they have now become a huge obstacle in running trade and businesses worldwide resulting in a crisis of life and livelihood for many.
• India apprised the G-20 foreign ministers about steps taken by India including Vande Bharat Mission and creation of travel bubbles for the welfare and protection of foreign citizens stranded in India as well as its own citizens abroad.

Recent Initiatives Taken by G-20:

• Earlier, in the 3rd G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting held in july 2020, G-20 came up with the G20 Action Plan to deal with the pandemic.
• The Action Plan includes a list of collective commitments under the pillars of Health Response, Economic Response, Strong and Sustainable Recovery and International Financial Coordination.
• The G-20 also organised a virtual meeting of G-20 Digital Economy Ministers to highlight the digital initiatives taken by the countries to deal with Covid-19.

India’s Proposal:

• Development of voluntary ‘G-20 Principles on Coordinated Cross-Border Movement of People’ with three elements:
• Standardisation of testing procedures and universal acceptability of test results.
• Standardisation of Quarantine procedures.
• Standardisation of ‘movement and transit’ protocols.
• Governments around the world need to ensure that interests of foreign students are protected and movement of stranded seafarers back to their home country is facilitated.
• The education institutes around the globe have been shut for months due to pandemic. With borders closed now, foreign students who had returned to their home countries are now finding it difficult to rejoin their respective institutions.

G-20

• The G20 is an informal group of 19 countries and the European Union, with representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
• The G20 membership comprises a mix of the world’s largest advanced and emerging economies, representing about two-thirds of the world’s population, 85% of global gross domestic product, 80% of global investment and over 75% of global trade.
• The members of the G20 are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.
• It does not have any permanent secretariat or headquarters.

Source: Indian Express

7) English as Medium of Education

• Recently, the Supreme Court refused to stay the Andhra Pradesh High Court’s order striking down the state government’s decision to make English the medium of education for government school students from Classes I to VI beginning 2020-21 academic year.
• The Court pointed out that Section 29(2)(f) of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009 says that the medium of instruction shall, as far as practicable, be in a child’s mother tongue.

Constitutional and Legal Provisions:

• Article 29 (Protection of interests of minorities) gives all citizens right to conserve their language and prohibits discrimination on the basis of language.
• Article 120 (Language to be used in Parliament) provides for use of Hindi or English for transactions of parliament but gives the right to members of parliament to express themselves in their mother tongue.
• Part XVII of the Indian Constitution deals with the official languages in Articles 343 to 351.
• Article 350A (Facilities for instruction in mother-tongue at primary stage) provides that it shall be the endeavour of every State and of every local authority within the State to provide adequate facilities for instruction in the mother-tongue at the primary stage of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups.
• Article 351 (Directive for development of the Hindi language) provides that it shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language.
• The Eighth Schedule recognises following 22 languages as official languages: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili and Dogri.
• Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009 says that the medium of instruction shall, as far as practicable, be in a child’s mother tongue.

Arguments in Favour of English as Medium of Instruction:

• Career: The ability to speak in english qualifies one for many jobs which are not yet available for speakers of regional languages.
• Competitive Exams: Lack of knowledge of english will put the students of government schools on a backfoot as compared to those of English-medium private schools in competitive exams,
• Higher Education: Most technical and scientific books are available only in english and much of higher education is also imparted in english. This may hinder the access of students from government schools to STEM and higher education.
• Global Opportunities: English being the global lingua franca gives the students opportunity to compete at the global level.
• Status Symbol: Knowing english is often equated with progressiveness.

Arguments against English as Medium of Instruction:

• Accessibility to Knowledge: The use of mother tongue or regional languages makes the process of learning familiar, comprehensible, and approachable for the students. This encourages wholehearted engagement of students in the learning process and boosts their confidence.
• Promotion of Local Culture: Also, using mother tongue allows students to express themselves better and communicate their experiences, their multifaceted identities, and their cultures.
• Encouragement to Merit: The use of English language often creates a divide between students hailing from backward castes and communities and the ‘upper’ class. Often, real talent and merit gets suppressed due to an imposed linguistic disability.

Government Initiatives to Promote Regional Languages:

• The recently announced New Education Policy states that wherever possible, students till Class 5 in schools should be taught in mother tongue/regional language/local language. It also introduces the Three-Language Formula for primary education, as per the recommendation of Kothari Commision, 1968.
• The Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology (CSTT) is providing publication grants towards the publications of University Level Books in regional languages.
• It was established in 1961 to evolve technical terminology in all Indian Languages.
• The National Translation Mission (NTM) is being implemented through the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore under which the text books of various subjects prescribed in Universities and Colleges are being translated in all languages of the Eighth Schedule.
• CIIL was established in 1969 under the administrative control of the Ministry of Education.
• Its objective is to coordinate the development of Indian languages, to bring about the essential unity of Indian languages through scientific studies and protect and document minor, minority and tribal languages.
• The Government of India is running a scheme known as “Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages” for conservation of threatened languages.
• The University Grants Commission (UGC) also promotes regional languages in higher education courses in the country and supports nine Central Universities under the scheme “Establishment of Centre for Endangered Languages in Central Universities”.
• Recently, an initiative Namath Basai by Kerala State Government has proved to be very beneficial in educating children from tribal areas by adopting vernacular languages as medium of instruction.

Global Efforts:

• The Yuelu Proclamation made by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at Changsha, China, in 2018 plays a central role in guiding the efforts of countries and regions around the world to protect linguistic resources and diversity.
• The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL). The IYIL 2019 strives to preserve, support and promote indigenous languages at the national, regional and international levels.

Source: Indian Express

8) UN Special Rapporteurs on EIA 2020

• Recently, a group of Special Rapporteurs to the United Nations (UN) has written to the Indian government expressing concerns over the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification 2020.
• Special Rapporteurs are independent experts working on behalf of the UN. They work on a country or a thematic mandate specified by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
• The group has highlighted that the proposed notification appeared to have clauses that obstructed people’s rights to a safe, clean and healthy environment.
• There are clauses which exempt several large industries and projects from the public consultation, as part of the Environmental Impact Assessment process.
• The draft notification provides for a reduction of the time period from 30 days to 20 days for the public to submit their responses during a public hearing for any application seeking environmental clearance.
• This time frame is inadequate for the preparation of views, comments and suggestions and without a meaningful public hearing, the whole EIA process would lack transparency and credibility.
• The draft notification does not require publication of information or holding of public consultation for projects labelled by the Central government as ‘involving strategic considerations’.
• The 2020 draft notification allows for post-facto approval for projects which means that the clearances for projects can be awarded even if they have started construction or have been running phase without securing environmental clearances.
• Post facto approval is the derogation of the fundamental principles of environmental jurisprudence and violation of the precautionary principle, which is a principle of environmental sustainability.
• The group has sought the government's response on how the provisions of the notification are consonant with India’s obligations under international law.
• India is a party to the Rio declaration (also known as the Earth Summit) adopted by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, which articulated a catalogue of environmental principles including sustainable development, precautionary principle, and EIA.
• Following the Rio Conference 1992, EIA became part of the formalised legal framework in India in 1994.
• India is also party to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which contain a requirement to have a prior EIA in situations having a significant threat to the environment.

Indian Government’s Response:

• The Environment Ministry Secretary has held that nothing in the proposed EIA, 2020 violates the UN Declaration of Human Rights and that the rapporteurs’ concerns are “misplaced”.
• The proposed EIA is still a draft and was issued for public consultation. The imperfections in the existing EIA would be amended in the new notification.
• With regard to post facto clearances, the violation of not taking prior approval would be punished as per law and projects that are already running would be considered only on merit.

Source: The Hindu

9) Intermediate-Mass Black Hole

• Analysis of signals from gravitational waves detected in 2019 at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), the USA and the detector Virgo, Italy have indicated a black hole with unusual mass
• These waves were a result of a collision between two black holes billions of years ago.
• The signal has been named GW190521 and likely represented the instant that the two black holes merged.
• It lasted less than one-tenth of a second.
• It was calculated to have come from roughly 17 billion light-years away, a time when the universe was about half its age.
• Out of the two, the larger black hole was of 85 solar masses and the smaller black hole was of 66 solar masses. Post-merger they created a new black hole of about 142 solar masses and energy equivalent to 8 solar masses was released in the form of gravitational waves, leading to the strongest ever wave detected by scientists so far.
• A solar mass is the mass of the sun or more precisely, it is 1.989 x 1030 kilograms, which is equivalent to about 333,000 Earths.
• Astronomers use a solar mass as a basic unit of mass.

Unusual Mass Category:

• The black hole with 85 solar masses falls in an “intermediate-mass” range (first-ever to be observed) and it defies the traditional knowledge of how black holes are formed.
• According to traditional knowledge, stars that could give birth to black holes between 65 and 120 solar masses do not do so because they blow themselves apart when they die, without collapsing into a black hole.
• In the merger leading to the GW190521 signal, the larger black hole was well within the unexpected range, known as the pair-instability mass gap.

Suggested Reasons for Unusual Mass:

• The researchers suggest that the larger 85-solar-mass black hole was not the product of a collapsing star but was itself the result of a previous merger.

Black Hole

• It refers to a point in space where the matter is so compressed as to create a gravity field from which even light cannot escape.
• The concept was theorized by Albert Einstein in 1915 and the term ‘black hole’ was coined in the mid-1960s by American physicist John Archibald Wheeler.
• All the black holes observed so far belong to two categories:
• One category ranges between a few solar masses and tens of solar masses. These are thought to form when massive stars die.
• The other category is of supermassive black holes. These range from hundreds of thousands to billions of times that of the sun from the Solar system to which Earth belongs.
• In April 2019, the scientists at the Event Horizon Telescope Project released the first-ever image of a Black Hole (more precisely, of its shadow).
• The image was made possible by the Event Horizon Telescope which is a group of 8 radio telescopes (used to detect radio waves from space) located in different parts of the world.
• Gravitational waves are created when two black holes orbit each other and merge.

Gravitational Waves

• These are invisible ripples that form when:
• A star explodes in a supernova.
• Two big stars orbit each other.
• Two black holes merge.
• They travel at the speed of light and squeeze and stretch anything in their path.
• As a gravitational wave travels through space-time, it causes it to stretch in one direction and compress in the other, Any object that occupies that region of space-time also stretches and compresses as the wave passes over them, though very slightly, which can only be detected by specialized devices like LIGO.
• Gravitational Waves are a relatively new field of discovery.
• These were proposed by Albert Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity, over a century ago.
• However, the first gravitational wave was actually detected by LIGO only in 2015.

Source: Indian Express