Of a bygone era: excavations reveal Buddhist monastery complex at Bharatpur of Bengal (GS Paper 1, Culture)
Why in news?
- Recent excavations at Bharatpur in West Bengal’s Paschim Bardhaman district have revealed the presence of a Buddhist monastery.
- The Kolkata Circle of the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) started excavating the site and a structural complex of a monastery has now been partially exposed.
Details:
- The site was initially excavated almost fifty years ago between 1972 and 1975 when archeologists from ASI and from Burdwan University found a Buddhist stupa at the site.
- The archeologists working at Bharatpur will be able to ascertain more details about the monastery complex and its date of construction once the excavation progresses.
Key Highlights:
- What makes the site unique in terms of Buddhist sites in the State is the presence of a large stupa along with a monastery complex and black and red ware pottery from the Chalcolithic or Copper Age.
- In other sites across West Bengal, such as Karnasubarna in Murshidabad, Moghalamari in Paschim Medinipur and Jagjivanpur in Malda, archeologists have found only smaller votive stupas.
- A Buddhist stupa is a commemorative monument usually housing sacred relics associated with the Buddha or other saints or priests, whereas votive stupas have similar significance but are smaller structures originating in eight cylindrical structures.
- When archeologists excavated the site in the 1970s, they found black and red ware pottery, associated with the Chalcolithic Age which predates any Buddhist structures.
Early village settlements:
- The site was important for two main reasons: one, because it is an early village settlement on the bank of the river Damodar which could date to around 2000 BCE; and two, the Buddhist monastery complex.
- The site could have been a nucleus of an early village farming site from where sites radiated to other areas along the other bank of the Damodar and other rivers like Ajoy and Darakeshwar.
- There are early village farming sites at Dihar and Pakhanna on the other bank of the Damodar in the State’s Bankura district.
- The excavation is an attempt to trace the cultural continuity of the site where settlements could have been located for thousands of years.
Background:
- In the 1970s when the site was excavated along with the stupa, five beautiful seated sculptures of the Buddha in Bhumisparsha Mudra, with all five fingers of the right hand extended to touch the ground were found.
- These miniature sculptures, each about 30 cm in height, were most likely used for worship in the monastery.
Way Forward:
- Almost all the Buddhist sites have been found in the Rarh Bengal region, which is the south-western part of the State.
- The ongoing excavation at Bharatpur, also in the same region, has the potential to reveal interesting aspects about the extension of Buddhism in the region.
India’s plan to eradicate measles, rubella
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Context:
- India had set a target to eliminate measles and rubella (MR) by 2023, having missed the earlier deadline of 2020, due to a variety of reasons, exacerbated by disruptions due to the pandemic.
- An earlier target that was set for 2015 was also missed.
- It was in 2019 that India adopted the goal of measles and rubella elimination by 2023, anticipating that the 2020 goal could not be reached.
Why is this target crucial?
- The measles virus is one of the world’s most contagious human viruses that kills more than 1,00,000 children every year globally, and rubella is a leading vaccine-preventable cause of birth defects, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Both measles and rubella can be prevented by just two doses of a safe and effective vaccine.
- Over the past two decades, the measles vaccine is estimated to have averted more than 30 million deaths globally.
- In both diseases, the symptoms are a rash and fever.
- While measles has a high fatality rate, rubella infection in a pregnant woman will have an impact on the foetus, resulting in birth defects.
Outbreak in 2022:
- From October 2022, an outbreak of measles in Maharashtra, particularly Mumbai, had the authorities worried.
- As per media reports at least 15 children died among several hundreds who contracted the infection. Coming at the cusp of a year in which India had a crucial target to achieve, it perturbed authorities.
- The 2022 outbreak was like epidemiological compensation. However, experts aver that this outbreak will contribute to ramping up herd immunity in the population which along with a robust vaccination programme will help achieve the necessary targets.
What has India done to achieve targets?
- During 2010–2013, India conducted a phased measles catch-up immunisation for children aged 9 months–10 years in 14 States, vaccinating approximately 119 million children.
- Mission Indradhanush was launched in 2014 to ramp up vaccinating the unvaccinated population.
- During 2017–2021, India adopted a national strategic plan for measles and rubella elimination, and introduced rubella-containing vaccine (RCV) into the routine immunisation programme, besides launching a nationwide measles-rubella supplementary immunisation activity (SIA) catch-up campaign.
- It also transitioned from outbreak-based surveillance to case-based acute fever and rash surveillance, and more than doubled the number of laboratories in the measles-rubella network.
Way Forward:
- A well-oiled machinery rests in place, and it is possible to be free of the disease as some other countries have recently demonstrated, including Sri Lanka, the Maldives and South Korea.
- It is important to provide full support to the ground level staff who implement the programme — the village health nurses, ASHA (accredited social health activists) workers, anganwadi and ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) workers.
- The WHO has expressed hope that India could indeed reach the target.
What led to unusually low temperature at Ooty’s Fingerpost?
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Context:
- Recently, on a day before Pongal dawned on Udhagamandalam, a local temperature gauge measured a frigid ground temperature of –6.3 degree Celsius in the Fingerpost locality.
- The ground in other parts of Udhagamandalam had reached subzero temperatures as well. The lowest ambient temperature in the day was a tolerable 1.7 degree Celsius.
What had caused the mercury to dip so low in Fingerpost?
- The answer is related to the equatorial Pacific Ocean.
- This is a La Niña winter. This means heady winds blow warm water on the sea surface away from the South American mainland, roughly off the coast of Ecuador.
- This heat movement across the Pacific has global consequences. Over India, the La Niña can intensify summer monsoons, bring excess rainfall, and cause colder winters.
- In early 2022, the World Meteorological Organisation said the ongoing La Niña is the first in the 21st century to span three consecutive winters. But in a break from convention, the coldness is deeper in the south. This reveals the second driver.
La Niña:
- La Niña is the opposite of El Niño, in which equatorial waters off the South American coast become unusually warmer. One effect is that in winter, the subtropical westerly jet over North India is pushed southward, allowing the western disturbance to create cold winters in the north.
- But in La Niña years, there is a ‘highway’ of chill wind coming southward from the Siberian High, a cold, high-pressure block that is occupying the central Asian region and affecting winds coming into India.
Anomalously strong:
- The Siberian High is responsible for the bitter-cold of the tundra and has been known to affect the weather from Italy to the Philippines. But this time it is “anomalously strong”.
- It’s harder to simulate or predict hyperlocal conditions, but by and large, the La Niña winter plus a very strong Siberian High conspired to create a cooler-than-normal winter in South India.
- The temperature further dropped in Tamil Nadu’s interior areas, due to the withdrawal of the northeast monsoons from January 12, which allowed the cooler dry-land winds to strengthen.
- Taken together, Udhagamandalam, a hill station, normally has lows of 5-10 degree celsius but on January 14, it experienced a low of 1.7 degree celsius and a ground temperature lower than 0 degree celsius in some parts.
Low pressure trough:
- Unlike the El Niño-driven cold air that sweeps India between the southeast and the northwest, in La Niña years the winds mostly tend to come from the north and zip down the pressure trough far into peninsular India.
- So they cover more area and affect more people.
Way Forward:
- Scientists expect climate change to affect El Niño and La Niña, but the precise mechanisms are under study.
- Predictions of the seasonal weather over India are further complicated by the temperature of the Indian Ocean, the monsoons, local wind systems, and the fate of the Himalayan glaciers, among others.
