Daily Current Affairs

New honeybee species, endemic to Western Ghats, found (GS Paper 3, Environment)

Why in news?

• Recently, a new species of endemic honeybee has been discovered in the Western Ghats.
• The new species has been named Apiskarinjodian and given the common name Indian black honeybee.

 

Apis indica:

• A new species of honeybee has been spotted from the Western Ghats after a gap of more than 200 years. The last honeybee described from India was Apis indica in 1798 by Fabricius.
• Although Fabricius named the Indian bee Apis indica, it was not considered a valid species till now.
• The research team restored the status of Apis indica based on a new measure for species discrimination in honeybees termed ‘Radio-Medial Index (RMI).’
• They obtained high resolution photographs of the type specimen from the Natural History Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark, to prove the distinct identity of Apis indica, which led to the discovery of the Apiskarinjodian.

 

Apiskarinjodian:

• Apiskarinjodian has evolved from Apiscerana morphotypes that got acclimatised to the hot and humid environment of the Western Ghats.
• Molecular analysis of mitochondrial DNA was also carried out and molecular sequence data available in the public open database NCBI-GenBank also helped confirm the species status of the new honeybee.

 

Habitat:

• The distribution of Apiskarinjodian ranges from the central Western Ghats and Nilgiris to the southern Western Ghats, covering the States of Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and parts of Tamil Nadu.
• Till date, only a single species, Apiscerana was noted across the plains of central and southern India and Sri Lanka as a ‘fairly uniform population’ in the Indian subcontinent.

 

IUCN List:

• The species has been classified as near threatened (NT) in the State based on the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria.

 

Significance:

• The research has given a new direction to apiculture in the country by proving that it has three species of cavity nesting honey bees viz., Apis indica, Apiscerana, and Apiskarinjodian, the last being visibly dark in appearance.
• The ability of the Indian black honeybee to produce higher quantities of honey, which is thicker in consistency, opens up new avenues for increasing honey production.
• The new find has increased the species of honeybees in the world to 11.

First amendment to the Constitution challenged

(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)

Why in news?

• Recently, the Supreme Court agreed to examine a plea challenging the expansion of restrictions to the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression that was made by the first amendment to the Constitution.
• The petitioner, who has challenged the law nearly seven decades after it came into force, argued that the amendment damages the basic structure doctrine.

What was the first amendment to the Constitution?

• Just over a year into the working of the Constitution, then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru introduced a Bill to amend the Constitution.
• On May 18, 1951, the amendment Bill was referred to a Select Committee which considered the issue for six days. The amendment officially came into effect on June 18, 1951.
• The Constitution (First Amendment) Bill sought to make several consequential changes, from exempting land reforms from scrutiny to providing protections for backward classes in the Constitution. Notably, it also expanded on the scope of the restrictions on the right to free speech.

 

What is the constitutional position on free speech?

• Article 19(1)(a) in Part III of the Constitution guarantees the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression. But this freedom is not absolute or unfettered. It is followed by Article 19(2), which lists exceptions or “reasonable restrictions” on that right.
• The text of Article 19(2) in the original Constitution read: “Nothing in sub-clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation of any existing law in so far as it relates to, or prevent the State from making any law relating to, libel, slander, defamation, contempt of Court or any matter which offends against decency or morality or which undermines the security of, or tends to overthrow, the State.”
• Following the amendment, Article 19(2) was changed to read as follows: “Nothing in sub clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation of any existing law, or prevent the State from making any law, in so far as such law imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub clause in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence…”

 

Thus, the first amendment made two key changes:

• First, it introduced the qualification “reasonable”to the restrictions that Article 19(2) imposed.
• The insertion of the term “reasonable” keeps the door open for the courts to step in and examine the legitimacy of the restrictions imposed by Parliament.
• Second, the amendment introduced into the Constitution the specific terms “public order” and “incitement to an offence”. This set of new, narrower terms in the provision were necessitated by two Supreme Court rulings in 1950 that went against the state’s power to curb free speech.

 

What were these two verdicts passed by the Supreme Court?

• Both these verdicts involved the press: Brij Bhushan v State of Delhi (March 1950), and Romesh Thappar v State of Madras (May 1950).
• It was the verdicts in these cases that essentially promoted the first amendment.

 

Romesh Thappar: 

• In 1949, the Madras government (Tamil Nadu had not been created then) had banned ‘Cross Roads’, a left-leaning magazine, for its criticism of the government’s foreign policy. This led to the first significant free speech ruling by the Supreme Court in Romesh Thappar v State of Madras.
• The petitioner had challenged Section 9(1-A) of the Madras Maintenance of Public Order Act, 1949 as unconstitutional. This provision authorised the government to impose restrictions for the wider purpose of securing “public safety” or the “maintenance of public order”.
• The court had to define the terms “public safety” and “public order”, and examine if they fell within the scope of the restrictions allowed in Article 19(2).
• The government argued that the words “undermining the security of the State” in Article 19(2) could be equated with “public safety” and “maintenance of public order.”
• In its majority opinion in the case, the court disagreed with the government and struck down the provision as unconstitutional. The court found a vast difference in degrees between the two provisions.
• Justice Fazal Ali dissented from the majority view and said that disrupting public order is a means to undermine the security of the State.

 

Brij Bhushan Case: 

• In 1950, the Chief Commissioner of Delhi issued a “pre-censorship order” on the RSS mouthpiece ‘Organiser’ which too was critical of the government.
• Its publisher Brij Bhushan challenged Section 7(1)(c) of the East Punjab Public Safety Act, which allowed pre-publication scrutiny of material “prejudicial to public safety or the maintenance of public order”.
• The issue in this case was essentially the same as the one in Romesh Thappar. And the verdict of the Supreme Court followed the same pattern as in the earlier case.
• Then Chief Justice of India Hiralal Kania, and Justices M Patanjali Sastri, Mehr Chand Mahajan, Sudhi Ranjan Das, B K Mukherjea formed the majority that struck down the law. Justice Fazal Ali again dissented.

The Falcon Heavy launch

(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)

Why in news?

• Recently, Elon Musk-owned SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy rocket into a geosynchronous Earth orbit from the Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, U.S.
• This is considered as a National Security Space Launch for the U.S. military.
• This is the fourth launch of the giant rocket system, and the first one in nearly three years since its last launch in 2019.

 

What is its current mission?

• The rocket is carrying satellites to space for the U.S. military in a mission named as U.S. Space Force (USSF)-44.
• The mission deployed two spacecraft payloads, one of which is the TETRA 1 microsatellite created for various prototype missions in and around the geosynchronous earth orbit.
• The other payload is for national defence purposes. It will place the satellites for the Space Systems Command’s Innovation and Prototyping.

 

Space Systems Command (SSC):

• Space Systems Command (SSC) is the oldest military space organisation in the United States Armed Forces.
• It is responsible for developing, acquiring, equipping, fielding and sustaining lethal and resilient space capabilities.
• SSC mission capability areas include launch acquisition and operations, communications and positioning, navigation and timing, space sensing, battle management command, control, and communications, and space domain awareness and combat power.

 

Boosters:

• The Falcon Heavy uses three boosters for added thrust and lift capacity. The centre booster plunged into the ocean as planned and the two side boosters landed on ground pads at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
• These two boosters will be refurbished for a subsequent U.S. Space Force mission later this year, according to a press release by the Space Systems Command.
• The boosters are reused on other missions to cut down on mission costs.

 

What are the specifications of the Falcon Heavy rocket?

• SpaceX claims Falcon Heavy to be the most powerful rocket in the world today by a factor of two. With a lifting capacity of around 64 metric tonnes into orbit, Falcon Heavy can lift more than twice the payload of the next closest operational vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy.
• The rocket has a height of 70 m, a width of 12.2 m and a mass of 1,420,788 kg.
• Falcon Heavy has 27 Merlin engines which together generate more than five million pounds of thrust at lift-off, equalling around eighteen 747 aircraft at full power. This makes it the most capable rocket flying.
• The rocket can lift the equivalent of a fully loaded 737 jetliner, complete with passengers, luggage and fuel, to orbit.
• Merlin is a family of rocket engines developed by SpaceX for use on its Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles.
• Merlin engines use RP-1 and liquid oxygen as rocket propellants in a gas-generator power cycle. These engines were designed for recovery and reuse.

 

When was the Falcon Heavy last launched?

• SpaceX last launched its Falcon Heavy rocket in June 2019 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. It carried 24 satellites as part of the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program-2.
• The satellites included four NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) technology and science payloads to study non-toxic spacecraft fuel, deep space navigation, “bubbles” in the electrically-charged layers of Earth’s upper atmosphere, and radiation protection for satellites.
• The mission was useful for smarter spacecraft design and benefitted the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration plans by providing greater insight into the effects of radiation in space.
• It also tested out an atomic clock that could change how spacecraft navigates and looked at how the space environment around the Earth affects us.

 

What about the other launches of Falcon Heavy?

• The Falcon Heavy debuted in 2018 when SpaceX CEO Elon Musk sent his personal red Tesla Roadster, an electric sports car with a dummy driver, into space as a test payload. The car is still in space, orbiting around the sun, travelling as far away as Mars’ orbit and, at times, as close as Earth’s orbit.
• SpaceX launched the other two Falcon Heavy missions in 2019.
• One carried a TV and phone service satellite to orbit for Saudi Arabia-based Arabsat, and the other carried experimental satellites for the U.S. Department of Defense.

 

Are there any future launches?

• The company is targeting early December to launch its giant Starship rocket system.
• These test flights of Starship are all about improving understanding and development of a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo on long-duration interplanetary flights, and help humanity return to the Moon, and travel to Mars and beyond.
• The Musk-owned company claimed Starship to be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, with the ability to carry an excess of 100 metric tonnes to Earth orbit.

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

(GS Paper 2, International Relation)

Context:

• India’s External Affairs Minister recently told the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that “connectivity projects should respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Member States and respect international law”, a reference to the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
• Pakistan’s Prime Minister  is, meanwhile, on a visit to China, the first foreign leader to travel to the country since President Xi Jinping won a historic third term as supreme leader.

What is the current status of the CPEC in terms of projects completed or abandoned?

• There are “big ticket” projects that have moved ahead much more slowly than planned or still haven’t been finalised, such as the major railway line upgrade known as ML-1.
• A lot of the energy projects were completed; some of the road projects have been completed, others not; the special economic zones were pared down to a smaller number than originally envisaged and have moved very slowly; most of the projects around Gwadar are far from completion.

 

How did the slowdown happen?

• Some of the energy projects were promoted very actively by the previous government and could be realised pretty quickly, the coal-fired power stations, in particular.
• The special economic zones ran into obstacles quite quickly from Pakistani businesses who were concerned that China would be given special benefits that would disadvantage domestic firms. There have been issues around land allocations. There have been issues around how much financing the Pakistani side would put in for certain projects, with the Chinese side often insisting that they have skin in the game.
• There were uncertainties about the economic feasibility of some of the larger projects; hydro-electric dams and railways, most notably. Gwadar is just very difficult as a location, in logistical and security terms.
• Pakistan’s overall financial situation was deteriorating by 2018, and combined with the political uncertainties for China, civil-military contention over control of CPEC, and the subsequent Chinese disputes with the PTI government under Imran Khan, CPEC never really found its feet again. Now security threats are creating major problems too.

 

CPEC under newly elected PM of Pakistan:

• China is certainly very positively disposed towards Shehbaz Sharif, one major CPEC project, the Lahore Orange Line, was virtually a personal favour to him.
• But it’s not clear how long this government will be in office, the economic situation facing Pakistan is bleak, and China has now priced in a lot more political volatility than they had been hoping for when CPEC launched.
• The security situation for Chinese nationals is also far worse than it was a few years back  with heightened threats from both the TTP and Baloch groups.

 

Gwadar port development:

• The new Pakistani government has released some progress assessments, which indicate that while some of the port infrastructure and planning work has been finished, and the Eastbay expressway is largely completed, most of the rest of it is very far off.
• The water supply, desalination plant, power projects, hospital, airport, support to local industry and other plans are still lagging behind or in some cases barely started.

The security situation there has also deteriorated markedly. So, for now, it’s still not much of a showpiece. Every few years, there is a claim that it is only another few years away from being viable.