History, Indian Art & Culture-GS Paper I

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Geography-GS Paper-1

1. Evapotranspiration: first part of a cycle moving water from terrestrial surfaces to the air

1. Evapotranspiration is an amalgam of these terms conceptually, and it is the first part of the water cycle, when water from terrestrial surfaces moves into the atmosphere.
   • A number of factors affect the rate of evapotranspiration, including solar radiation, the length of day, the amount of soil moisture, the ambient temperature, the winds, and the amount of water vapour that the air already holds.
   • The American climatologist Charles Warren Thornthwaite later defined it in 1944.

Social Issues-GS Paper 1

1. Centre mulling equal share in property to ST women: Minister

1. The Centre is considering a notification under the Hindu Succession Act to apply beneficial provisions to the Scheduled Tribe women who profess Hinduism to enable them to inherit an equal share in the properties of their fathers or Hindu Undivided Families.
   • The subject matter falls on List-III (Concurrent List) of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution

Constitution, Polity and Governance- GS Paper II

1. U.P. plans to create State Capital Region on the lines of NCR
2. The Delhi ordinance is an unabashed power-grab
3. Understanding the Kavach system

1. The Uttar Pradesh government is planning to create a State Capital Region (SCR) along the lines of the National Capital Region (NCR), connecting Lucknow and the neighbouring districts in the central parts of the State, with the aim of enhancing the potential of the State capital for coordinated and balanced development.
2. The Union government promulgated an ordinance to amend the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCTD) Act, 1991
   • The ordinance removes Entry 41 (services) of the State List from the Delhi government’s control and creates a National Capital Civil Service Authority, consisting of the Chief Minister, Chief Secretary and Principal Secretary-Home, to decide on service matters in Delhi.
   • Decisions of the Authority will be made through majority voting, which means that two Union-appointed bureaucrats could overrule the Chief Minister.
   • Further, the ordinance provides that if a disagreement arises between the Authority and the Lieutenant Governor (LG), the decision of the LG shall prevail.
   • The Supreme Court, in its recent verdict, had noted that the addition of Article 239AA in the Constitution accorded the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCTD) a “sui generis” status.
   • The Court held that there is no “homogeneous class” of Union Territories and States; rather, India’s Constitution has several examples of special governance arrangements which treat federal units differently from each other.
     • It noted that the special provisions for States under Article 371 are in the nature of “asymmetric federalism” made for “accommodating the differences and the specific requirements of regions”.
   • The presidential ordinance is problematic at different levels.
     • First, the government’s swift and brazen act of undoing a Constitution Bench judgment does not augur well for judicial independence.
     • While the legislature can alter the legal basis of a judgment, it cannot directly overrule it.
     • Further, executive law-making through an ordinance, as the Supreme Court held in D.C. Wadhwa (1987), is only to “meet an extraordinary situation” and cannot be “perverted to serve political ends”.
     • Most crucially, adding an additional subject of exemption (services) to the existing exemptions (land, public order, and police) of Delhi’s legislative power listed in Article 239AA, without amending the Constitution, is arguably an act of constitutional subterfuge.
     • Finally, creating a civil services authority where bureaucrats can overrule an elected Chief Minister destroys long-established norms on bureaucratic accountability.
3. The KAVACH is an indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system by the Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) in collaboration with the Indian industry.
   • It is a state-of-the-art electronic system with Safety Integrity Level-4 (SIL-4) standards.
   • It is meant to provide protection by preventing trains to pass the signal at Red (which marks danger) and avoid collision.
   • It activates the train’s braking system automatically if the driver fails to control the train as per speed restrictions.
   • In addition, it prevents the collision between two locomotives equipped with functional Kavach systems.
   • The system also relays SoS messages during emergency situations.
   • An added feature is the centralised live monitoring of train movements through the Network Monitor System.
   • ‘Kavach’ is one of the cheapest, SIL-4 certified technologies where the probability of error is 1 in 10,000 years.
   • The Traffic collision avoidance system (TCAS), with the help of equipment on board the locomotive and transmission towers at stations connected with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, helps in two-way communication between the station master and loco-pilot to convey any emergency message.

Social Justice: Education, Health and Human Resource-GS Paper II

1. ‘Disarm Meiteis only after cancelling pact with Kuki groups’
2. Spare the rod and change the law

1. Amid the ongoing ethnic conflict in Manipur, hundreds of people from Meitei organisations in New Delhi held a demonstration, stressing that youth belonging to the community in the northeastern State should not be disarmed unless the government cancelled the Suspension of Operations (SoO) pact signed with Kuki insurgent groups in 2008.
   • The Meiteis also known as Meetei are the dominant ethnic group of the North Indian state of Manipur. Meiteis mainly live in the Imphal Valley region of today’s Manipur, though a sizeable population has settled in the other Indian states of Assam, Tripura, Nagaland, Meghalaya, and Mizoram. The Meitei ethnic group makes up around 53 per cent of the population of
   • The Meitei people speak the Meitei language which is also known as the Manipuri language, and comes under the sub-family of the Tibeto-Burman language.
   • One of India’s recognised official languages, Meitei, was added to the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India in 1992.
   • According to the 2011 census, Meiteis follow only two religions, with an overwhelming majority of Meiteis practicing Hinduism. Around 16 per cent of Meiteis traditionally believe in Sanamahi religion named after god Sanamahi. Around 8 per cent of Meiteis follow Islam..
   • The Meiteis are divided into seven Salai or clans — Mangang, Luwang, Khuman, Angom, Moirang Kha, Ngangba, and Sarang Leishangthem.
   • An unbroken line of kings of the Ningthouja dynasty, belonging to the Mangang clan, ruled until 1955, and Pakhamba, the serpent king from whom the dynasty claimed descent, remains the presiding deity of Manipur and symbols of Pakhamba — a snake with its tail in its mouth — are seen all over the Imphal valley, in offices, homes, temples, restaurants, and the palace.
2. India mandated such bio-equivalence testing only in 2017.
   • Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB)
   • The lack of bio-equivalence testing is just one of the issues with generic medicines in India.
   • The other massive problem is the issue of stability testing.
   • The key challenge to manufacturing any drug is to ensure that it remains stable through a stressed supply chain in differing conditions of heat and humidity.
   • An unstable drug will start decomposing, possibly reducing its efficacy.
   • Sometimes a tablet will just crumble into powder when removed from its packaging.
   • Many of these problems can be checked if the law prescribed mandatory stability testing prior to providing marketing approval and also while the drug is in the market.
   • This common requirement across the world became mandatory in India only in 2018, after the government managed to overcome immense opposition from the pharmaceutical industry.
   • But once again, the new regulations not only lacked scientific rigour, but also did not apply retrospectively to generic drugs approved prior to 2018.
   • TMany generic medicines in the Indian market have not been subjected to mandatory stability testing.

International Relations-GS Paper II

1. U.S. Defence Secretary Austin arrives in India
2. ‘G-20 Presidency lays stress on medical countermeasures’
3. Why does North Korea want spy satellites?
4. Suez Canal traffic resumes after stranded tanker tugged away
5. Pro-Ukrainian group claims custody of two Russians

1. U.S. Defence Secretary arrived in India on a two-day visit to explore ways to further strengthen bilateral defence cooperation, especially in areas of transfer of critical technologies for co-development of military hardware.
2. India’s G-20 Presidency is working towards building consensus for an end-to-end Global Medical Countermeasure ecosystem, following a network-to-network approach, and leveraging existing global and regional initiatives.
3. North Korean military reconnaissance satellite Malligyong-1 was launched through a new type of rocket named Chollima-1.
   • The satellite is said to have flown for about 10 minutes before crashing into the Yellow Sea.
   • Satellite launch vehicles use the same core technology as long-range missiles that deliver warheads capable of destroying intercontinental targets. (the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles or ICBMs).
   • The Unha-type launch vehicle was also used in the 2016 launch of Pyongyang’s Earth Observation satellite.
4. Egypt deployed three tugboats to tow away an oil tanker that had broken down and caused brief delays in the Suez Canal.
5. Russia’s Belgorod region

Indian Economic Development-GS Paper III

1. Himachal and Punjab appear set for face-off over Shanan power project

1. Punjab and Himachal Pradesh are set for a face-off as the 99-year lease on the British-era 110 MW Shanan hydropower project situated at Jogindernagar in Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh, presently under the control of the Punjab government, will expire in March 2024.
   • The 110 MW Shanan power project was envisaged by Col. Battye, the then chief engineer of the Government of Punjab, in 1922.
   • The first stage (48 MW) of the project was commissioned in 1932. The project was constructed following the execution of the lease agreement in 1925.

Science and Technology- GS Paper III

1. How genome sequences tracked down an ancient disease

1. The ‘Black Death’, or the Great Plague, of the 14th century was one of the deadliest epidemics in human history.
   • The ‘Black Death’ was caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis, which infects mammals. This bacterium’s discovery has been attributed separately to Alexandre Yersin, a Swiss-French physician, and Kitasato Shibasaburō, a Japanese physician and microbiologist during the plague outbreak in Hong Kong in 1894.
   • India has experienced plague epidemics of varying intensities from as early as 1896 in Bombay to outbreaks in Karnataka (1966) and Surat (1994), and to a more recent isolated outbreak (2004) in a village in Uttarakhand.
   • Plague outbreaks were possibly common in Asia and Europe as early as the Late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age (LBNA), as implied by genetic material isolated from a Swedish tomb dated to 3000 B.C.
   • The reconstructed genomes lacked the gene to create a molecule called yapC, short for ‘yersinia autotransporter C’, associated with the bacterium’s ability to bind to mammalian cells and form biofilms – and thus important for causing infections. They also did not find the gene for ymt, short for ‘yersinia murine toxin’, which is required for the bacterium’s transmission through fleas.
   • The LBNA period is estimated to have lasted 5,000-2,500 years before present. This era was also characterised by human contact, exchange across Europe, and a consequent social, economic, and cultural transformation of human society.

Biodiversity and Environment, Disaster Management- GS Paper III

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Security: Internal and External- GS Paper III

1. Three-member panel to probe ethnic violence in Manipur
2. Refugee influx into Mizoram raises security issue in State

1. The Centre on Sunday appointed a three-member Commission of Inquiry to investigate the ethnic violence in Manipur.
2. In the past couple of years, Mizoram has seen an influx of refugees from Myanmar and recently from Bangladesh and now Manipur, adding to the internal security situation there.
   • The influx from Bangladesh is particularly worrying with potential for smuggling of narcotics and weapons opening a new front for security forces to deal with.
   • With refugees coming in, this was adding to shortage of resources and could lead to unrest in the local population.
   • South Mizoram has very thick jungles and there are no regular tracks.
   • Myanmar’s military junta imposed martial law across Chin, Kachin, Karen, Karenni, and Mon States, as well as in Yangon and Mandalay regions and also air strikes recently very close to the India-Myanmar Border (IMB).
   • The Lunglei Battalion of Headquarter 23 Sector Assam Rifles apprehended two cadres of the KCNA, one of them a high ranking cadre, at Hmunnuam village of Lawngtalai district.

Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude-GS Paper IV

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