India-Netherlands Virtual Summit
Why in News?
- Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and H.E Mr. Mark Rutte,Prime Minister of the Netherlands held a Virtual Summit.
Discussions
- During the Summit, the two leaders had a detailed review of the entire spectrum of bilateral engagements and exchanged views on further expanding and diversifying the relationship in trade and economy, water management, agriculture sector, smart cities, science & technology, healthcare and space.
- Also agreed on instituting a ‘Strategic Partnership on Water’ to further deepen the Indo-Dutch cooperation in the water related sector, and upgrading the Joint Working Group on water to Ministerial-level.
- The leaders also exchanged views on regional and global challenges such as climate change, counter-terrorism and Covid-19 pandemic and agreed to leverage the emerging convergences in new areas like Indo-Pacific, Resilient Supply Chains and Global Digital Governance.
- The two leaders reiterated their commitment to a rules-based multilateral order for ensuring international peace, stability and prosperity and looked forward to a successful India-EU Leaders’ Meeting in Porto, Portugal in May 2021.
PIB
NanoSniffer
Why in News?
- Union Education Minister launched NanoSniffer, the world’s first Microsensor based Explosive Trace Detector (ETD) developed by NanoSniff Technologies, an IIT Bombay incubated startup.
About
- This home-grown Explosive trace detector device (ETD) – NanoSniffer can detect explosives in less than 10 seconds and it also identifies and categorizes explosives into different classes.
- It detects all classes of military, conventional and homemade explosives. NanoSniffer gives visible & audible alerts with sunlight-readable color display.
- NanoSniffer has successfully passed Pune based DRDO’s High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL) testing and has also been tested by the country’s elite counter-terror force National Security Guard (NSG).
PIB
Non-uniformity of Himalayas foresees significantly large earthquake events
Why in News?
- Scientists have found that the Himalayas are not uniform and assume different physical and mechanical properties in different directions – a property present in crystals called anisotropy which could result in significantly large earthquake events in the Himalayas.
- The NW region of India, an area covering Garhwal and Himachal Pradesh, has been hit by four destructive moderate to great earthquakes since the beginning of the 20th century — the Kangra earthquake of 1905, the Kinnaur earthquake of 1975, the Uttarkashi earthquake of 1991, and the Chamoli earthquake of 1999.
- These seismic activities manifest large-scale subsurface deformation and weak zones, underlining the need for deeper insights into the ongoing deformation beneath these tectonically unstable zones.
Study Findings
- The joint study using seismic waves from 167 earthquakes recorded by 20 broadband seismic stations deployed in the Western Himalaya suggested that the major contribution of the anisotropy is mainly because the strain induced by the Indo-Eurasia collision (going on since 50 million years) and deformation due to the collision is found to be larger in the crust than in the upper mantle.
- The inhomogeneity along the Himalayas influences the stressing rate is because of variation in the geometry of the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT) system, and it controls the rupture size during the earthquake.
- This lack of homogenous physical and mechanical properties of the Himalayas could help explore new perspectives about deformations taking place at the Himalaya-Tibet crustal belt involved in the formation of the Himalayan Mountains.
PIB
New Physics in Neutrino experiments
Why in News?
- Sanjib Kumar Agarwalla, Associate Professor, Institute of Physics (IOP), Bhubaneswar, a Swarnajayanti Fellow of the Department of Science & Technology (DST) will unravel the fundamental properties of massive neutrinos and explore the interesting signals of New physics in upcoming high-precision neutrino oscillation experiments.
Till Now
- Over the last two decades, several world-class experiments have firmly established the phenomenon of neutrino flavor oscillation which implies that neutrinos have mass and they mix with each other.
- Since neutrinos are massless in the new particle physics, also called Basic Standard Model of particle physics, there is a need to invoke BSM physics to accommodate non-zero neutrino mass and mixing.
- Several interesting BSM scenarios such as sterile neutrinos, non-standard neutrino interactions, neutrino decays, dark matter – neutrino secret interactions, and so on may affect the production, propagation, and detection of neutrinos.
Sajib’s working on
- Sanjib will probe these BSM effects at very high (TeV-PeV) energies (beyond the reach of modern colliders) by detecting astrophysical neutrinos from cosmic distances using giant neutrino telescopes such as Ice Cube at the South Pole, future Ice Cube-Gen2, and KM3NeT in the Mediterranean Sea.
- Plans to investigate these BSM scenarios at low (MeV-GeV) energies using accelerator and atmospheric neutrinos travelling terrestrial distances.
- Future high-precision accelerator long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments such as DUNE in USA, T2HK in Japan, and atmospheric neutrino experiment at the upcoming India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) facility are supposed to measure the mass-mixing parameters with a precision of around a few %, and therefore, these upcoming experiments may be sensitive to various sub-leading BSM affects, which Sanjib is going to explore with his group at IOP.
- His research is global and in tune with the international research program in neutrino physics.
- He will investigate the role of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos detected by big neutrino telescopes to reveal new fundamental particles and interactions, probing energy and distance scales far exceeding those accessible in the laboratory.
- He will study how various BSM scenarios may affect the outcome of currently running and upcoming high-precision neutrino oscillation experiments.
PIB
Atal Tinkering Labs
Why in News?
- Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog’s flagship 295 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) were officially adopted by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) across the country in an ambitious step towards inculcating scientific research and innovation culture among students.
- CSIR will be nominating top research scholars and scientists who will mentor each of the ATLs and act as resource persons.
About Atal Tinkering Labs
- With a vision to ‘Cultivate one Million children in India as Neoteric Innovators’, Atal Innovation Mission, an initiative of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), Government Of India, is establishing Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATLs) in schools across India.
Objectives
- The objective of this scheme is to foster curiosity, creativity and imagination in young minds and inculcate skills such as design mind – set, computational thinking, adaptive learning, physical computing, rapid calculations, measurements etc.
- Young children will get a chance to work with tools and equipment to understand what, how and why aspects of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).
Key Features of ATL
- ATL is a work space where young minds can give shape to their ideas through hands on do-it-yourself mode; and learn innovation skills.
- Young children will get a chance to work with tools and equipment to understand the concepts of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).
- ATL would contain educational and learning ‘do it yourself’ kits and equipment on – science, electronics, robotics, open source microcontroller boards, sensors and 3D printers and computers. Other desirable facilities include meeting rooms and video conferencing facility.
- In order to foster inventiveness among students, ATL can conduct different activities ranging from regional and national level competitions, exhibitions, workshops on problem solving, designing and fabrication of products, lecture series etc. at periodic intervals.
PIB
NITI Aayog to Launch Online Dispute Resolution Handbook
Why in News?
- NITI Aayog—in association with Agami and Omidyar Network India and with the support of ICICI Bank, Ashoka Innovators for the Public, Trilegal, Dalberg, Dvara, NIPFP—will launch the first-of-its kind Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) handbook in India.
- The handbook is an invitation to business leaders to adopt ODR in India. It highlights the need for such a mechanism, the models of ODR that businesses can adopt and an actionable pathway for them.
- ODR is the resolution of disputes outside courts, particularly of small and medium-value cases, using digital technology and techniques of alternate dispute resolution (ADR), such as negotiation, mediation, and arbitration.
- While courts are becoming digitized through the efforts of the judiciary, more effective, scalable, and collaborative mechanisms of containment and resolution are urgently needed. ODR can help resolve disputes efficiently and affordably.
PIB
People are free to choose religion
Why in News?
- The Supreme Court on Friday said people are free to choose their own religion, even as it lashed out at a “very, very harmful kind” of “public interest” petition claiming there is mass religious conversion happening “by hook or by crook” across the country.
- A Bench l said people have a right under the Constitution to profess, practise and propagate religion.
- Bench said fundamental right under Article 25 of the Constitution to freely profess, practise and propagate religion, subject to public order, morality and health.
- Every person is the final judge of their own choice of religion or who their life partner should be. Courts cannot sit in judgment of a person’s choice of religion or life partner.
- Religious faith is a part of the fundamental right to privacy.
- Bench reminded of the Constitution Bench judgment which upheld inviolability of the right to privacy, equating it with the rights to life, of dignity and liberty.
THE HINDU
India protests against U.S. naval exercise sans consent
Why in News?
- India has protested the U.S. decision to conduct a patrol in the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the western Indian Ocean, rejecting the U.S.’s claim that its domestic maritime law was in violation of international law.
- Defending its actions, the Pentagon said it was in compliance with the international law.
U.S. issues statement
- Earlier, in a rare and unusual public statement, the U.S. Navy announced that its ship the USS John Paul Jones had carried out Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) in the Indian EEZ, adding that its operations had “challenged” what the U.S. called India’s “excessive maritime claims.”
- This FONOP upheld the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea recognised in international law by challenging India’s excessive maritime claims.
MEA response
- The Government of India’s stated position on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is that the Convention “does not authorise other States to carry out in the EEZ and on the continental shelf, military exercises or manoeuvres, in particular those involving the use of weapons or explosives, without the consent of the coastal state.”
- As per the annual FONOP reports released by the U.S. Department of Defence for each fiscal year, the U.S. has been regularly conducting FONOPs in Indian EEZ.
- The U.S. similarly carries out FONOPs against several other countries including its allies and partners.
- From 2007 onwards till 2017, the U.S. carried out multiple FONOPs every year challenging “excessive” Indian maritime claims.
- No FONOP was carried out in 2018 and 2020 and one FONOP in 2019, according to the annual reports.
- While India ratified UNCLOS in 1995, the U.S. has failed to do it so far.
THE HINDU
Fuel consumption falls 9.1% in FY21
Why in News?
- India’s fuel demand contracted by a massive 9.1% in the financial year ended March 31, the first in more than two decades, as a stringent lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the pandemic.
- This is the first time fuel consumption has contracted since 1998-99, the most historical year for which government data is available.
- The demand contraction was led by diesel, the most-consumed fuel in the country. Diesel consumption fell 12% to 72.72 million tonnes while petrol demand shrank 6.7% to 27.95 million tonnes.
THE HINDU
Skunk-like mammal
Why in News?
- A fossil of a skunk-like mammal that lived during the age of dinosaurs has been discovered in Chilean Patagonia, adding further proof to recent evidence that mammals roamed that part of South America a lot earlier than previously thought.
- A part of the creature’s fossilized jawbone with five teeth attached were discovered close to the famous Torres del Paine national park.
- Christened Orretherium tzen, meaning ‘Beast of Five Teeth’ in an amalgam of Greek and a local indigenous language, the animal is thought to have lived between 72 and 74 million years ago during the Upper Cretaceous period, at the end of the Mesozoic era, and been a herbivore.
- Prior to its discovery, and the teeth of the Magallanodon baikashkenke, a rodent-like creature, in the same area last year, only mammals living between 38 and 46 million years ago had been found in the southernmost tip of the Americas.
- The finds are critical to completing the evolutionary puzzle of the Gondwanatheria, a group of long-extinct early mammals that co-existed with dinosaurs.
THE HINDU
NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft
Why in News?
- NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft launched 20 years ago on April 7, has made it the oldest spacecraft still working at the Red Planet.
- The orbiter, which takes its name from Arthur C. Clarke’s classic sci-fi novel “2001: A Space Odyssey”, was sent to map the composition of the Martian surface in 2021 .
- The feasibility of humans traveling to Mars was also the focus of an instrument aboard Odyssey that measured how much space radiation astronauts would have to contend with before it stopped working in 2003.
- The most complete global maps of Mars were made using Odyssey’s infrared camera, called the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS.
AIR
Jupiter’s aurora activity
Why in News?
- Auroral displays continue to intrigue scientists, whether the bright lights shine over Earth or over another planet. The lights hold clues to the makeup of a planet’s magnetic field and how that field operates.
- Research done with a newly developed global magnetohydrodynamic model of Jupiter’s magnetosphere provides evidence in support of a previously controversial and criticized idea that put forward in a 2010 paper—that Jupiter’s polar cap is threaded in part with closed magnetic field lines rather than entirely with open magnetic field lines, as is the case with most other planets in our solar system.
- Open lines are those that emanate from a planet but trail off into space away from the sun instead of reconnecting with a corresponding location in the opposite hemisphere.
- On Earth, for example, the aurora appears on closed field lines around an area referred to as the auroral oval. It’s the high latitude ring near—but not at—each end of Earth’s magnetic axis.
- Within that ring on Earth, however, and as with some other planets in our solar system, is an empty spot referred to as the polar cap.
- It’s a place where magnetic field lines stream out unconnected—and where the aurorae rarely appear because of it.
- Think of it like an incomplete electrical circuit in our home: no complete circuit, no lights.
- Jupiter, however, has a polar cap in which the aurora dazzles.
- The arrival at Jupiter of NASA’s Juno spacecraft in July 2016 provided images of the polar cap and aurora.
- Research revealed a largely closed polar region with a small crescent-shaped area of open flux, accounting for only about 9 percent of the polar cap region. The rest was active with aurora, signifying closed magnetic field lines.
- Jupiter, it turns out, possesses a mix of open and closed lines in its polar caps.
- Jupiter’s aurorally active polar cap could, for example, be due to the rapidity of the planet’s rotation—once every 10 hours compared to Earth’s once every 24 hours—and the enormity of its magnetosphere.
- Both reduce the impact of the solar wind, meaning the polar cap magnetic field lines are less likely to be torn apart to become open lines.
Phys.org
‘Doomsday Glacier’
Why in News?
- For the first time, researchers have been able to obtain data from underneath Thwaites Glacier, also known as the “Doomsday Glacier.” They find that the supply of warm water to the glacier is larger than previously thought, triggering concerns of faster melting and accelerating ice flow.
- With the help of the uncrewed submarine Ran that made its way under Thwaites glacier front, the researchers have made a number of new discoveries.
- The submersible has, among other things, measured the strength, temperature, salinity and oxygen content of the ocean currents that go under the glacier.
Impacts global sea level
- The ice sheet in West Antarctica accounts for about ten percent of the current rate of sea level rise; but also the ice in West Antarctica holds the most potential for increasing that rate because the fastest changes worldwide are taking place in the Thwaites Glacier.
- Due to its location and shape, Thwaites is particularly sensitive to warm and salty ocean currents that are finding their way underneath it.
- This process can lead to an accelerated melting taking place at the bottom of the glacier and inland movement of the so-called grounding zone, the area where the ice transitions from resting on the seabed to floating in the ocean.
First measurements performed
- In the study, the researchers present the results from the submersible that measured strength, temperature, salinity and oxygen content of the ocean currents that go under the glacier.
- The results have been used to map the ocean currents underneath the floating part of the glacier.
- The researchers discovered that there is a deep connection to the east through which deep water flows from Pine Island Bay, a connection that was previously thought to be blocked by an underwater ridge.
Phys.org