Daily Current Affairs

The massive displacement in Congo (GS Paper 2, International Relation)

Why in news?

• Recently, the UN International Organization of Migration (IOM) reported that the number of people who have been internally displaced in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has risen to 6.9 million.
• In the eastern province of North Kivu, nearly a million people have been displaced due to the ongoing conflict with the rebel group, Mouvement du 23 Mars (M23).

 

What is the conflict in the DRC?

• The conflict in the DRC dates back to the 1990s when it went through two civil wars in 1996 and 1998.
• The conflict erupted in the wake of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 where ethnic Hutu extremists killed nearly one million minority ethnic Tutsis and non-extremist Hutus. Since then, the eastern DRC, bordering Rwanda, has been facing insurgency perpetrated by several rebel militant groups.
• According to the UN, besides M23, more than 120 insurgent groups are active in the eastern provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri and Tanganyika.
• The resurfacing of the Tutsi-led led-M23 rebel campaign in November 2021 worsened the security situation in the eastern provinces of DRC. The group carries out frequent attacks and has taken control of several towns.
• In November 2022, a ceasefire was mediated between the DRC and Rwanda; however, it failed after the M23 rebels announced non-compliance.
• The East African Force and the UN peacekeeping force which were deployed to oversee the withdrawal of the rebel groups failed to achieve their objectives. Since January 2023, M23 has been advancing in the region.

 

Who are the major actors?

• The prominent rebel groups besides M23 include the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and the Cooperative for Development of the Congo (CODECO).
• ADF, the Uganda-based rebel group, has been operating since mid-1999 in eastern DRC and have pledged their allegiance to the Islamic State in 2019.
• CODECO claims they aim to protect the interests of the ethnic Lendu against the Hemas and the Congo army. Then there is Rwanda who the DRC accuses of supporting the Tutsi-led M23 group.
• In contrast, Rwanda claims the DRC supports the Hutu militias who carried out the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and fled to eastern DRC. Both countries deny the other’s allegations.
• In November 2022, the East African Community (EAC) deployed its troops in eastern DRC to stem the violence. The forces were from Kenya, South Sudan, Burundi and Uganda.
• However, since August, widespread protests have been ongoing demanding the withdrawal of the EAC and UN peacekeeping forces.

 

Why has there been displacement?

Ethnic intolerance & insurgency:

• Following the Rwandan genocide, around two million Hutu refugees crossed Rwanda into North Kivu and South Kivu provinces of DRC. They organised ethnic militias in DRC fearing prosecution.
• Tensions intensified as Rwandan Tutsis organised militias against the Hutus who fled to the DRC. Subsequently, several ethnic and inter-ethnic groups who felt threatened started organising their militias against each other.
• The multiple rebel groups and several actors fighting in the region have carried out widespread killing, sexual violence and massive human rights atrocities.

 

Political uncertainty & lack of inclusive governance:

• President Felix Tsikedi came to power in 2019 through democratic elections. The country is to hold elections on December 20.
• Meanwhile, the peripheries of DRC are ruled by numerous ethnic chiefdoms which are recognised by the government.
• The grievances of these peripheries are not met inclusively as struggles for representation, power, territory and resources are being ignored.

 

Regional tensions:

• The armed groups have been supported by the governments of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi at various points, acting as proxies for each country’s interests in the region.

 

Humanitarian crisis:

• In 2023, 1,400 people were killed and over 600 attacks were reported in the region.
• According to the World Food Programme (WFP), the crisis has left more than 1.1 million people in need of food support across North Kivu, Ituri, and South Kivu.

 

Feeble international response:

• International actors have failed to make a considerable effort to address the crisis.
• According to organisations such as WFP and the Norwegian Refugee Council, lack of funding is a major challenge in assisting Congolese people facing hunger, starvation and humanitarian crises.

 

Understanding the fundamentals of how electricity is transmitted

(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)

Context:

• Any power supply system has three broad components: generation, transmission, and distribution. Electricity is generated at power plants as well as at smaller renewable-energy installations.
• Then it is transmitted using a distributed network of stations, substations, switches, overhead and underground cables, and transformers, among other elements.
• Finally, it is distributed to consumers in a standardised way, befitting the needs of various machines and applications.

What are the basics of transmitting electricity?

Transformers:

• In any conductor that transports electric current, the transmission efficiency is higher at lower current and higher voltage.
• This is because the energy loss during transmission increases as the square of the current, whereas the amount of voltage increase corresponds on a 1:1 basis with the amount of current decreased.
• That is, if voltage is increased by five units, the amount of current will drop by five units, but the amount of energy lost will be reduced by 25 units.
• The transformers increase the voltage and reduce the current before feeding into transmission lines, and the reverse when receiving current to be supplied to consumers.
• Transmission cables can be seen transporting current at 115 kV, 230 kV, etc. for this reason. However, more than 2,000 kV or so is infeasible because then air itself becomes conducting, causing the cable to ‘leak’ current.

 

Resistance & transmission:

• The cables that move the current still have some resistance, which results in some energy loss. The amount of loss can be controlled by adjusting the cable’s thickness: the thicker it is, the less energy is lost, but the cost increases. So when the cost of the cable’s material is high, the cables are thinner.
• The longer the distance of transmission, the lower the transmission cost.
• All these factors are further complicated by the use of alternating current (AC). AC can be modified more easily in transformers than direct currents (DC) and also has higher transmission efficiency.
• But when the AC frequency is higher, the amount of resistance the current encounters in the material increases.

 

What is AC power?

• The most common way to transfer electric power is in the form of three-phase AC. In AC, the voltage flips polarity. If one polarity urges the current to flow in one direction, the opposite polarity urges the current to flow the other way. The AC frequency is equal to the voltage flipping frequency.
• In a three-phase AC circuit, there are (at least) three wires. When current starts to follow in Wire A, the voltage is at 120°; in Wire B, it is 240°; and in Wire C, it is 360°. These are the three phases.
• All three wires transport AC power. Consumers, for example households, receive three such wires from where they can draw power for various appliances. These appliances are also designed to use AC because it is easier to control than DC.

 

How is power transmitted?

• In a three-phase AC circuit, each wire transmits an AC current in a different phase. From a power station, the wires are routed to transformers that step-up their voltage. Then, they are suspended from transmission towers, which must be stable and properly wired, as they travel long distances.
• Insulators in contact with the wires draw away some current if there is a surge in the line; circuit-breakers ‘break’ the circuit if there is too much.
• The towers are also grounded and equipped with arresters that prevent sudden increases in voltage from affecting the wires. Similarly, dampers prevent vibrations in the wires from affecting the towers’ stability. Switches are used to control the availability of current and to move currents between different lines.
• These wires eventually lead to and exit from different kinds of substations. For example, collectors collect power incoming from different sources and relay them to transmission substations. Converters modify the AC frequency.
• Distribution substations step-down the voltage in power lines and prepare them for consumption. Transmission substations merge or fork different lines and diagnose problems in different lines.
• All these centres require their own support and safety infrastructure, from electrical engineers to fire protection, from connections to computerised operations to facilities for staff. There are also many other elements and setups to perform various other functions, in keeping with the sophisticated needs of entire economic regions.

 

How do grids operate?

• The transmission is situated between production and distribution. A national grid includes all three components, and as a result transmission also has to account for the particulars of power production at different types of sources, at various locations, and how and where that power is consumed.
• For example, some sources can produce energy continuously, whereas renewable energy sources are intermittent. So grids also have storage facilities that store electrical energy when there’s a surplus supply and release it in times of deficit.
• They are also connected to sources like gas turbines that can provide power on short notice, such as during emergencies, as well as automated systems that ‘tell’ sources to increase or decrease their output in response to fluctuating consumer demand.
• Grids also need to respond to failure in different parts of the network and prevent them from carrying over to other parts, adjust voltages in response to demand (as well as manage demand), control the AC frequency, improve the power factor (the power drawn by a load versus the power available in a circuit), etc.

 

Wide-area synchronous grid:

• A grid becomes a wide-area synchronous grid if all the generators connected to it are producing an AC current at the same frequency.
• The world’s largest such grid covers Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, and Russia; the world’s most powerful is the North Chinese State Grid, with a connected capacity of 1,700 GW.
• India’s national grid is also a wide-area synchronous grid. Such grids result in lower power cost but also require measures to prevent cascading power-supply failures.

 

Where do domesticated silkworm cocoons get their wild colours from?

(GS Paper 3, Environment)

Context:

• Silk, the queen of fibres, is drawn or reeled from cocoons of the silk moth (Bombyx mori). Humans domesticated it more than 5,000 years ago in China, from the wild moth (Bombyx mandarina).
• The ancestral moth is today found in China, the Korean Peninsula, Japan, and far eastern Russia, whereas the domesticated moth is reared all over the world, including in India.
• In fact, India is the world’s second largest producer of raw silk after China.

 

Silkworms:

• Caterpillars, also known as silkworms, of both these species feed exclusively on leaves of mulberry plants (genus Morus).
• The domesticated moth is much larger than its wild progenitor, and thus extrudes a longer silk fibre to build its larger cocoon, up to 900 metres long. But it depends wholly on human care for its survival and reproduction.  
• Since having been domesticated, it has lost the ability to fly, and since its need for camouflage no longer exists, it has also lost its caterpillar and adult-stage pigmentation.

 

Wild silk:

• ‘Wild’ silks which include the muga, tasar, and eri silksare obtained from other moth species: namely, Antheraea assama, Antheraea mylitta, and Samia cynthia ricini.
• These moths survive relatively independently of human care, and their caterpillars forage on a wider variety of trees.
• Non-mulberry silks comprise about 30% of all silk produced in India. These silks have shorter, coarser, and harder threads compared to the long, fine, and smooth threads of the mulberry silks.
• The ancestral mulberry moth makes (boringly uniform) brown-yellow cocoons.

 

Colours in domesticated silk moth:

• In contrast, domesticated silk moth cocoons come in an eye-catching palette of yellow-red, gold, flesh, pink, pale green, deep green or white.
• Human handlers selected the differently coloured cocoons whenever they emerged, possibly in the hope of breeding for coloured silks.
• But they were disappointed: the pigments that coloured the cocoons are water-soluble, so they gradually fade away. The coloured silks seen in the market are instead produced by using acid dyes.

 

Carotenoids and flavonoids:

• The cocoon’s pigments are derived from chemical compounds called carotenoids and flavonoids, which are made by the mulberry leaves.
• Silkworms feed voraciously on the leaves, absorb the chemicals in their midgut, transport them via the hemolymph, arthropods’ analogue of blood to the silk glands, where they are taken up and bound to the silk protein.
• Mature caterpillars then spin out the silk proteins and associated pigment into a single fibre. The caterpillar wraps the fibre around itself to build the cocoon.

 

Mutant strains:

• The differently coloured cocoons arise from mutations in genes responsible for the uptake, transport, and modification of carotenoids and flavonoids.
• The mutant strains have become a valuable resource for scientists to study the molecular basis of how, in a relatively short span of 5,000 years, artificial selection generated such spectacular diversity.

• The researchers in Southwest University in Chongqing, China, proposed a model to explain how different combinations of mutations give rise to the different colours of the cocoons.
• They found that the formation of a yellow-red cocoon requires the Y gene, which encodes a protein that transports the carotenoids from midgut to the silk glands.
• Other genes (C, F, Rc, and Pk) encode proteins that selectively absorb specific carotenoids. Mutations in one or more of these genes produce the yellow, flesh-coloured, rusty, and pink cocoons. If the Y gene is mutated, the flavonoids are absorbed but the carotenoids are not, resulting in green cocoons.
• Further, whether the green is dark or light depends on whether genes for other proteins that enhance flavonoid uptake are normal or mutated.
• If both carotenoids and flavonoids are not taken up, the cocoons remain white. The researchers showed that a cluster of five closely related genes was responsible for the uptake of flavonoids.

 

Hybrid moths:

• Domesticated and ancestral mulberry silk moths can be interbred to produce hybrid offspring. Earlie researchers created such hybrid moths and then specifically mutated either their B. mori- or B. mandarina-derived copy of a gene called apontic-like.
• The hybrid caterpillars, like their wild parent, made the pigment called melanin. But when the B. mandarina-derived copy of apontic-like was mutated, the hybrid failed to make melanin.
• The implication was that the domesticated silkworm’s apontic-like gene had lost the ability to support melanin production.
• Both versions of the apontic-like gene make the same protein. Therefore, the difference between them was attributable to differences in sequences that regulate when and where the gene was turned ‘on’ or ‘off’.

 

Way Forward:

• Silk is an acme of domestication, comparable in its success to basmati rice, alphonso mangoes, and the golden retriever.
• Today, the tools are at hand for scientists to make and compare genetically identical hybrid silk moths that differ only in which of a gene’s two parental versions is inactivated: domesticated or ancestral.