UPSC (IAS) Preparation - Only most important current affairs for UPSC / IAS /UKPSC : August 2016

28 August 2016

ISRO successfully test-fires scramjet engine

The Advanced Technology Vehicle (ATV), a sounding rocket (research rocket) with a solid booster carrying advanced scramjet engines, was successfully flight-tested from the launch pad of the Sathish Dhawan Space Centre, also known as Sriharikota Range (SHAR), at Sriharikota on Sunday.

This first experimental mission of Indian Space Research Organisation is aimed at the realisation of an Air Breathing Propulsion System which uses hydrogen as fuel and oxygen from the atmosphere air as the oxidiser.

The mission had a smooth countdown of 12 hours as the ATV with scramjet engines weighing 3277 kg lifted off at 6 a.m. ISRO chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar and SHAR director P. Kunhikrishnan along with a host of space scientists were present at Sriharikota on the occasion.

The ATV vehicle, which touched down in the Bay of Bengal approximately 320 km from Sriharikota after a flight of 300 seconds, was successfully tracked during its flight from the ground stations at Sriharikota. With this, the ISRO had successfully demonstrated its capabilities in critical technologies like ignition of air breathing engines at supersonic speed, air intake mechanism and fuel injection systems.

Technological challenges handled by ISRO scientists during the development of the scramjet engine include the design and development of hypersonic engine air intake, the supersonic combustor, proper thermal management and ground testing of the engines.

With this, India became the fourth country to demonstrate the flight testing of a scramjet engines. This mission is a milestone for ISRO’s future space transportation system.

The scientists said that all the important flight events such as the burn out of booster rocket stage and functioning of scramjet engines for 5 seconds followed by burn out of the second stage took place exactly as planned.

10 things to know about ISRO's scramjet engine launch

1	India successfully tests its own scramjet engine in flight on board an Advanced Technology Vehicle rocket.
2	Two scramjet engines were tested during the flight from Sriharikota.
3	India is the fourth country to demonstrate the flight testing of scramjet engine.
4	Scramjet engines in flight is an important milestone in ISRO’s endeavour towards its future space transportation system.
5	The scramjet engine is used only during the atmospheric phase of the rocket’s flight.
6	Scramjet engines will help bringing down launch cost by reducing the amount of oxidiser to be carried along with the fuel.
7	Scramjet engines designed by ISRO uses hydrogen as fuel and the oxygen from the atmospheric air as the oxidiser.
8	The test-flight is maiden short duration experimental test of ISRO’s scramjet engine with a hypersonic flight at Mach 6 (six times the speed of sound).
9	Two scramjet engines were “hugging” the rocket on its sides and when the rocket reaches a height of 11 km the scramjet engines would start breathing air.
10	The ATV rocket weighed 3,277 kg during lift-off.

26 August 2016

Star system next door may host habitable planet

Informally designated Proxima b, the planet revolves around its star once every 11.2 days and is located at a distance of nearly 7 million kilometres from its star.

Just over four light years away, a planet orbits its cool red-dwarf star – Proxima Centauri, the sun’s closest star neighbour. What is special about this planet is that after years of tracking it, astronomers have come to the conclusion that it is in the habitable zone of its star. This milestone discovery is to be published on August 25 in the journal Nature.

Informally designated Proxima b, the planet revolves around its star once every 11.2 days and is located at a distance of nearly 7 million kilometres from its star. This is only about 5 per cent the Earth-Sun distance. The mass of the planet is believed to be about 1.3 times that of the Earth. It could contain water and it is estimated that surface temperatures could be close to – 40 degrees C.

Put together, all these factors hint at the tantalising possibility that Proxima b can support life or is habitable.

The first exoplanets were spotted in 1995, and today there are over 3,000 known exoplanets. Yet this system is special for being close and lending itself to easy observation.

The star Proxima Centauri is about 4.2 light years away from the sun – a distance that it would take 4.2 years to traverse if you were travelling at the speed of light – a fact that looks very attractive when contemplating interstellar travel. The Breakthrough Starshot project announced by Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner and also supported by Mark Zuckerberg aims to send thousands of nanocraft into the space to study Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri. Pete Worden of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation announced at the press conference organised by the ESO that the first mission would be to push these nanocraft at 20 percent the speed of light to reach the planet in 20 years from the time of launch. He unveiled the plan of a flyby past the planet Proxima b within the next generation. The cost of such a mission which could be borne by a combination of public and private funds, would be close to that of the Large Hadron Collider, he said.

The star, Proxima Centauri, is not very bright and cannot be tracked with the naked eye, especially as it is very close to the brighter binary star pair Alpha Centauri AB. So the astronomers used the HARPS spectrograph to observe it on the European Southern Observatory’s 3.6-metre telescope at La Silla in Chile and also other telescopes around the world. These observations which took place in the first half of 2016 have been dubbed the Pale Red Dot campaign.

Guillen Anglada-Escude of Queen Mary University of London who led the team of astronomers says in the press release announcing this discovery, “The first hints of a possible planet were spotted back in 2013, but the detection was not convincing. Since then we have worked hard to get further observations off the ground.”

Red dwarfs such as Proxima Centauri can also vary in brightness which can mislead the observer into thinking they are observing a planet. This possibility was ruled out by monitoring its changing brightness carefully.

Astronomers also deduce that its climate would be markedly different from the Earth’s, due to its manner or rotation – it appears unlikely the planet will have any seasons.

Guillem Anglada-Escude said, “Many exoplanets have been found… but searching for the closest potential Earth-analogue and succeeding has been the experience of a lifetime for all of us… the search for life on Proxima b comes next.”

China to send probe, rover to Mars in 2020

China’s attempts to send an exploratory probe to Mars, called Yinghuo-1, had failed in 2011, as it was declared lost and later burnt during re-entry

China has unveiled the designs of its Mars probe and rover to be launched in 2020 as it looks to catch up with India, US, Russia and EU to reach the red planet.

China plans to send a spacecraft to orbit Mars, land and deploy a rover in July or August 2020, official media here quoted Zhang Rongqiao, chief architect of the Mars mission as saying.

“The challenges we face are unprecedented,” Ye Peijian, one of China’s leading aerospace experts and a consultant to the programme, said.

The 2020 mission will be launched on a Long March-5 carrier rocket, the work horse for China’s space missions.

It will be launched from the Wenchang space centre in south China’s Hainan province.

The lander will separate from the orbiter at the end of a journey of around seven months and touch down in a low latitude area in the northern hemisphere of Mars, where the rover will explore the surface.

Images displayed at Tuesday’s press conference showed a device with six wheels, powered by four solar panels, two more than the rover sent to the moon.

Weighing around 200 kg, it is designed to operate for three Martian months, Sun Zezhou, chief designer of the probe, was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency.

The probe, for its part, will carry 13 payloads including a remote sensing camera and a ground penetrating radar which could be used to study the soil, environment, and atmosphere of Mars, as well as the planet’s physical fields, the distribution of water and ice, and its inner structure.

A public competition for the name and the logo of the 2020 mission was also launched on Tuesday.

Though China space programme has achieved several milestones like landing a rover on the Moon, successfully manning space missions as well as building a space station which is currently underway, Mars eluded it.

Mangalyaan Mars mission accomplished with a low budget of USD 73 million caught the attention and imagination of Chinese as India reached the red plant well ahead of China.

India became the fourth country after US, Russia and EU to successfully send probes to Mars.

China’s attempts to send an exploratory probe called Yinghuo—1, in a Russian spacecraft in 2011 failed as shortly after the launch it was declared lost and later burnt during re-entry.

This is the first time China revived its Mars mission since then.

This artist's rendering by the lunar probe and space project center of Chinese State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, shows a concept design for a Mars rover and lander. Photo: Xinhua via AP

Cabinet approves introduction of the "Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016"

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has given its approval for introduction of the "Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016".

The Bill will regulate surrogacy in India by establishing National Surrogacy Board at the central level and State Surrogacy Boards and Appropriate Authorities in the State and Union Territories. The legislation will ensure effective regulation of surrogacy, prohibit commercial surrogacy and allow ethical surrogacy to the needy infertile couples.

All infertile Indian married couple who want to avail ethical surrogacy will be benefited. Further the rights of surrogate mother and children born out of surrogacy will be protected. The Bill shall apply to whole of India, except the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The major benefits of the Act would be that it will regulate the surrogacy services in the country. While commercial surrogacy will be prohibited including sale and purchase of human embryo and gametes, ethical surrogacy to the needy infertile couples will be allowed on fulfilment of certain conditions and for specific purposes. As such, it will control the unethical practices in surrogacy, prevent commercialization of surrogacy and will prohibit potential exploitation of surrogate mothers and children born through surrogacy.

No permanent structure is proposed to be created in the Draft Bill. Neither there are proposals for creating new posts. The proposed legislation, while covering an important area is framed in such a manner that it ensures effective regulation but does not add much vertically to the current regulatory structure already in place at the central as well as states. Accordingly, there will not be any financial implications except for the meetings of the National and State surrogacy Boards and Appropriate Authorities which will be met out of the regular budget of Central and State governments.

Background:

India has emerged as a surrogacy hub for couples from different countries and there have been reported incidents concerning unethical practices, exploitation of surrogate mothers, abandonment of children born out of surrogacy and rackets of intermediaries importing human embryos and gametes. Widespread condemnation of commercial surrogacy prevalent in India has also been regularly published in different print-and electronic media since last few years highlighting the need to prohibit commercial surrogacy and allow ethical altruistic surrogacy. The 228th report of the Law Commission of India has also recommended for prohibiting commercial surrogacy and allowing ethical altruistic surrogacy to the needy Indian citizens by enacting a suitable legislation.

How to win medals in Olympics

Across India, clusters of excellence by sport can be developed based on natural inclinations and heritage that are visible, such as boxing in Haryana and badminton in Hyderabad

One more Olympics has gone by. A total of 974 medals were won by 87 countries; 54 countries won at least one Gold. The U.S. flew home with the best medal tally of all time for that country with 121 medals. Notwithstanding the individual brilliance and the face-saving medals of P.V. Sindhu and Sakshi Malik, India’s performance is the poorest among all big countries.

The discourse on this is an unhappy one: there has been a lot of hand-wringing, blame on the Sports Ministry and sports administrators, complaints about lack of facilities, grumbles about corruption being the villain, and so on. India says the same things, once in four years, during and after every Olympics. It should instead look for simple lessons, develop a strategy to win medals and execute it diligently. No, I don’t believe that India should be planning for the Olympics scheduled eight or twelve years from now. While long-term thinking is good, any leader will tell you that it is too slow. We should aim to win a lot more medals in Tokyo in 2020. But how?

Numbers tell different stories

The final medals tally by country (see https://www.rio2016.com/en/medal-count-country) tells all sorts of stories. The top 22 countries — those with a double-digit medals tally with a minimum of three gold medals — took home a total of 702 medals, or 72 per cent of all medals. The top ten suggests that only the established West (the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Australia) along with Russia, Japan and South Korea will continue to dominate. The emergence of China is explained as “you know the Chinese can dictate anything, so they are not comparable.” It is often implied that wealth and size are the reasons for the success of these countries. They have the facilities and programmes in place. They are bound to wi

Across India, clusters of excellence by sport can be developed based on natural inclinations and heritage that are visible, such as boxing in Haryana and badminton in Hyderabad

This logic should be probed further. Olympics medals are won by people between the ages of 15 to 29, with a few exceptions on either side of this age band. I looked at the number of medal wins in relation to the population in the age group 15 to 29 in each country, for which data is available. This was juxtaposed with the medals won, to calculate the numbers of medals won per lakh of population in this age group. The story changes dramatically.

The graphic shows the medals won per one lakh of population in the 15-29 age group, for the same 22 countries. Tiny New Zealand (total population 4.6 million) emerges on top, with 1.8 medals per one lakh in the relevant age group, followed by Jamaica with 1.57 medals and Croatia with 1.43 medals. New Zealand won an astonishing 18 medals and has mostly gone unheralded, overshadowed by the enjoyable theatrics of Usain Bolt and others. These countries are not the richest, they do not have size and muscle, their small size restricts the depth of internal competition, they don’t have superior sports administrators or the best of facilities. So what gives?

What are the lessons?

New Zealand won 10 of its medals in rowing, sailing and canoeing, all based on its rich marine heritage, a natural strength for the country. Jamaica won in athletics, specifically in running, in which it has built a super cluster. Croatia is a mixed bag winning in athletics and water-related sports. Further analysis of winners shows a similar cluster strength, where an individual country, no matter how small or economically weak, wins a number of medals in specific sports — Italy won 7 medals in shooting, 4 in fencing; Cuba 6 in boxing; Kazakhstan 5 in weightlifting; Iran 5 in wrestling; Kenya 13 in athletics (mostly running) and so on.

Clearly building clusters of excellence by sport is the way to go. Fortunately we have several in place. Pullela Gopichand has single-handedly built a cluster for badminton in Hyderabad. Can this be further developed to field a large number of players, in order to dominate this sport in Tokyo? Haryana is a cluster of excellence for boxing and wrestling. This should be given a thrust with the intent to win big in these two sports. The Northeast has shown remarkable energy in sports, with the likes of Mary Kom and Dipa Karmakar. Focussing on sports there is a sure-fire way of bringing the region into the mainstream, a huge political agenda. Kerala is big in boat racing and martial arts, a natural place to develop capabilities in canoeing and sports like judo and taekwondo. Mallakhamb is big in Maharashtra, and gymnastics is a natural extension for this.

Across India, clusters of excellence by sport can be developed, based on natural inclinations and heritage that are visible. We can win our fair share of medals with this focus. We must start tomorrow.n. So goes the argument and acceptance.

PM’s speech on the occasion of ‘Transforming India’ Lecture

His Excellency Shri Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore
My Fellow Ministers,
Chief Ministers,
Invited speakers and friends,

There was a time when development was believed to depend on the quantity of capital and labour. Today we know that it depends as much on the quality of institutions and ideas. Early last year, a new institution was created, namely, the National Institution for Transforming India or NITI. NITI was created as an evidence based think tank to guide India’s transformation.

One of NITI’s functions is:

- to mainstream external ideas into Government policies, through collaboration with national and international experts;

- to be the Government’s link to the outside world, outside experts and practitioners;

- to be the instrument through which ideas from outside are incorporated into policy-making.

The Government of India and the State Governments have a long administrative tradition. This tradition combines indigenous and external ideas from India’s past. This administrative tradition has served India well in many ways. Above all, it has preserved democracy and federalism, unity and integrity, in a country of glorious diversity. These are not small achievements. Yet, we now live in an age where change is constant and we are variables.

We must change for both external and internal reasons. Each country has its own experiences, its own resources and its own strengths. Thirty years ago, a country might have been able to look inward and find its own solutions. Today, countries are inter dependent and inter connected. No country can afford any longer to develop in isolation. Every country has to benchmark its activities to global standards, or else fall behind.

Change is also necessary for internal reasons. The younger generation in our own country is thinking and aspiring so differently, that government can no longer afford to remain rooted in the past. Even in families, the relationship between the young and old has changed. There was a time when elders in a family knew more than those who were younger. Today, with the spread of new technology, the situation is often reversed. This increases the challenge for government in communicating and in meeting rising expectations.

If India is to meet the challenge of change, mere incremental progress is not enough. A metamorphosis is needed.

That is why my vision for India is rapid transformation, not gradual evolution.

• The transformation of India cannot happen without a transformation of governance.

• A transformation of governance cannot happen without a transformation in mindset.

• A transformation in mindset cannot happen without transformative ideas.

We have to change laws, eliminate unnecessary procedures, speed up processes and adopt technology. We cannot march through the twenty first century with the administrative systems of the nineteenth century.

Fundamental changes in administrative mindsets usually occur through sudden shocks or crisis. India is fortunate to be a stable democratic polity. In the absence of such shocks, we have to make special efforts to force ourselves to make transformative changes. As individuals, we may absorb new ideas by reading books or articles. Books open the windows of our minds. However, unless we brainstorm collectively, ideas remain confined to individual minds. We often hear of new ideas and understand them. But we do not act upon them, because it is beyond our individual capacity. If we sit together, we will have the collective force to convert ideas into action. What we need is a collective opening of our minds, to let in new, global perspectives. To do this, we have to absorb new ideas collectively rather than individually. It requires a concerted effort.

As many of you know, ever since taking office, I have personally participated in structured brainstorming sessions with bankers, with police officers and with Secretaries to Government, among others. The ideas coming from those sessions are being incorporated into policy.

These efforts have been to tap ideas from inside. The next step is to bring in ideas from outside. Culturally, Indians have always been receptive to ideas from elsewhere. It is said in the Rigveda – “आ नो भद्राः क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वतः”, which means, let us welcome noble thoughts flowing in from all directions.

This is the purpose of the Transforming India Lecture Series. It is a series which we will attend, not as individuals but as part of a team who can collectively make change happen.

We will draw the best from the wisdom and knowledge of eminent persons, who changed, or influenced change in the lives of many, to make their nation a better place in the planet.

This lecture will be the first in a series. You have all been given a feedback form. I look forward to your detailed and frank feedback to help us improve this process. I request you to suggest names of experts and panelists from inside and outside India. I also request all Secretaries to Government to conduct a follow up discussion in a week’s time, with the participants from their Ministries. The purpose is to convert ideas that emerge in today’s session into specific action points relevant to each group. Wherever possible, I request the Ministers also to participate in these sessions.

One of the greatest reformers and administrators of our time was Lee Kuan Yew, who transformed Singapore to what it is today. It is therefore fitting that we are inaugurating this series with Shri Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore. He is a prolific scholar and public policy maker. Apart from being Deputy Prime Minister, he is also the Coordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies, Minister of Finance and Chairman of Monetary Authority of Singapore. In the past, he has served as the Minister of Manpower, Second Minister of Finance and Minister of Education.

Shri Shanmugaratnam was born in Nineteen Fifty Seven and is of Sri Lankan Tamil ancestry. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Economics at the London School of Economics. He has a Master’s degree in Economics from Cambridge University. He has another Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University. At Harvard, he was honoured with the Littauer Fellow award for his outstanding performance.

Shri Shanmugaratnam is one of the world’s leading intellectuals. I would like to give you an example of the range and sweep of his ideas. Today, Singapore’s economy depends a lot on transshipment. But if global warming melts the polar ice caps, new navigation routes may open and possibly reduce Singapore’s relevance. I am told he has already started thinking about this possibility and planning for it.

Friends. The list of achievements and honours received by Shri Shanmugaratnam is long. But we are all eager to listen to him. Therefore, without further delay, it is with great pleasure that I welcome Shri Tharman Shanmugaratnam to this stage and request him to enlighten us on the subject of India in the Global Economy.

Arjun awards 2016

National Sports Awards: P V Sindhu , Dipa Karmakar, Jitu Rai & Sakshi Malik to get Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award 2016

National Sports Awards 2016: Six sports coaches will be honoured with Dronacharya Awards.

National Sports Awards 2016: 15 sports persons have been chosen for Arjuna Awards

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23 August 2016

New evidence for northern movement of eastern Himalayan syntaxis

New evidence for northern movement of eastern Himalayan syntaxis
The region is ideal to study the effects of erosion on tectonics.

The eastern Himalayan syntaxis (convergence of mountain ranges, or geological folds), a gorge along the Parlung river in Tibet, is tectonically active. The coincidence of high mountains and strong rivers that cause erosion makes it a good place to study the role of surface activity, such as erosion, in controlling tectonics. A recent study, published on August 18 in Science, finds that the syntaxis is moving northwards.

This contradicts a belief that the surface erosion due to the powerful river and other factors would pin the high-erosion zone to its location. For this purpose the researchers use a new technique called Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) thermochronometry.

In general, the topography of mountain ranges comes to be as a result of various factors such as tectonics, climate and surface processes. In this context, the study contributes to a debate about the relevance of surface processes such as river erosion and other activities to tectonics. Georgina King, Head of the Cologne Luminescence Laboratory, University of Cologne, and the lead author of the paper, explains in an email: “The control of tectonics by surface processes was thought to be demonstrated by pinning of a high erosion zone by the very erosive rivers. Our new data show that this zone was not pinned, but rather continued to migrate northwards.”

The eastern Himalayan syntaxis is an ideal location to study the effects of erosion on tectonics — very tall mountains over 7,000 metres high and powerful rivers. Because the surface processes are so intense, the erosion is rapid. As Dr. King puts it, “If surface processes are able to control tectonics, we would expect to be able to record it here.” The researchers used a new technique to measure the migration of the fold of land known as OSL thermo chronometry. As rocks get “exhumed,” or rise to the surface from the earth’s crust, they start cooling down. At specific temperatures, the minerals such as quartz contained in the rocks start capturing electrons while continuing to rise, and they cool correspondingly. By observing the history of concentrations of electrons, the researchers estimate the temperature profile against the time and then translate this into knowledge of the depth as a function of time. This gives them an understanding of the rate at which the rocks rose to the surface.

The researchers made their measurements at five regions along the Parlung River which were across the northern end of the exhuming area, and three regions to the south. While the samples from the northern regions were in the range of 30 to 150 thousand years, the ones from the south yielded ages of about 200,000 years. This variation was crucial in inferring the drift.

Dr King explains, “We contrasted our new OSL data with data from existing studies, based on other thermochronometers. Our new data showed that the rate of erosion had increased in the last 1 million years, to rates which could not be explained simply by river incision. Instead we needed tectonic uplift as well to explain our data. We looked at previous studies on the wider geological context, which indicate continued northward migration of the dome, which our data are consistent with.”

Miles to go before we reap

When India won six medals at the 2012 London Olympics, it was considered a watershed moment. The significance of this accomplishment lay in the fact that until then the country had earned a sum total of just seven individual medals. The performance was expected to provide a springboard for future successes. Four years hence, on the back of heightened expectations and hopes of a double-digit tally, how should a return of two medals from the Rio Olympics be assessed? An outright dismissal signifying a certain regression may be too simplistic, for there were a few near-misses — Dipa Karmakar and Abhinav Bindra both finishing fourth, Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna losing the bronze medal match, the women’s archery team coming close, and men’s hockey showing substantial improvement. Yet, it was no doubt underwhelming from the largest contingent of Indian athletes at the Olympics ever. This leads to questions about the lack of a ‘sporting culture’. Does India have the infrastructure and coaching facilities to produce medal winners consistently?

India’s lone individual gold-medallist Bindra, alluding to the vastly improved performance by the British athletes backed by massive funding, says one must not “expect much until we put systems in place”. However, developing a sporting culture means more than improving facilities. It demands that people cease to see sport in archaic terms, of being nothing more than a pastime. While it is true that it cannot be a substitute for life-subsistence needs of the disadvantaged, the disdain for it transcends classes. It is important to understand that modern-day sport is professional at its core and helps in creating jobs and businesses. It is also an important tool for human resource development. In fact, the success of P.V. Sindhu and Sakshi Malik is representative of what a good sporting culture can achieve. In addition to shooting, badminton and wrestling enjoy more patronage than other Olympic sporting events. But it is also enabled by parents and coaches willing to show faith and patience in their wards. It can be safely assumed that the careers of Malik and Sindhu wouldn’t have been considered as failures even in the event of their not winning a medal. After an Olympics in which Usain Bolt sprinted towards sporting immortality, Michael Phelps further stretched the all-time record medal haul, and Mohammed Farah completed his second 5,000m and 10,000m double, India needs to purposefully chart the journey from aspirations to their realisation.

దేశం
1 United States	46	37	38	121
2 Great Britain	27	23	17	67
3 China	26	18	26	70
4 Russia	19	18	19	56
5 Germany	17	10	15	42
6 Japan	12	8	21	41
7 France	10	18	14	42
8 South Korea	9	3	9	21
9 Italy	8	12	8	28
10 Australia	8	11	10	29
67 India	0	1	1	2