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In the serene village of Pattanam in central Kerala lies the only multicultural archaeological site on the southwestern coast of the Indian subcontinent.
Often referred to as the ‘first emporium’ of the Indian Ocean, Muziris — of which Pattanam is part — is an example of the Greco-Roman classical age coming into direct contact with an ancient South Indian civilisation.
Excavations so far that have unearthed less than 1% of the site, point to a startling fact: there is no evidence that institutionalised religion existed in ancient Pattanam.
There was certainly no indication of the graded inequality embodied in the caste system that has characterised contemporary Kerala and most of the rest of India.
The technological, metallurgical, literary, and artistic advances of this phase bear witness to rigorous cultural and commercial exchanges.
The Pattanam excavations have unearthed over 45 lakh sherds (ceramic fragments); these include approximately 1.4 lakh belonging to the littoral regions of the Mediterranean, the River Nile, the Red Sea, the western and eastern Indian Oceans, and the South China Sea.
This wide span of locations confirms the existence of a thriving urban centre from the 5th century B.C. till the 5th century A.D., with its peak phase from 100 B.C. to A.D. 300.
Pattanam has not chosen to delight archaeologists with idols of gods and goddesses, or the remains of grandiose places of worship.
This iron-age and post-iron-age site was also bereft of sophisticated weaponry. This is in sharp contrast with some Pattanam-contemporary sites such as Berenike in Egypt and Khor Rori in Oman.
World
Pakistan posts highest-ever annual inflation; stampedes for food, aid kill at least 16 (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Consumer price inflation in Pakistan jumped to a record 35.37% in March from a year earlier, as at least 16 people were killed in stampedes for food aid.
The March inflation number eclipsed February's 31.5%, the bureau said, as food, beverage and transport prices surged up to 50% year-on-year.
Thousands of people have gathered at flour distribution centres set up across the country, some as part of a government-backed programme to ease the impact of inflation.
At least 16 people, including five women and three children, have been killed in stampedes at such centres in recent days.
Thousands of bags of flour have also been looted from trucks and distribution points, according to official records.
The Pakistani police on Saturday arrested eight people in the southern port city of Karachi after a stampede killed 12 people at a Ramzan food and cash distribution point a day earlier.
Hundreds of women and children rushed to collect free food and cash outside a factory in an industrial area of the city on Friday. Business owners during the Islamic holy month often hand out cash and food, especially to the poor.
Police say they issued and publicized an order saying that any person or organization planning to distribute food or other things to the poor must inform authorities in advance.
The chief minister of Sindh province, where Karachi is located, announced compensation for people injured in the stampede and relatives of the victims.
Science & Tech
Novel catalyst offers to make hydrogen more viable as fuel (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mandi, have developed a novel carbon-based catalyst to make water electrolysis more efficient, as well as being more stable and affordable than other catalysts that perform the same function.
The electrolysis of water — to split it into its constituent atoms using electricity — consumes a lot of energy. The traditional solution is to use a catalyst to induce the water molecules to split at a lower energy. Common catalysts are based on iridium and ruthenium, which are expensive and in great demand in other sectors.
In the new study, research groups of Assistant Professor Swati Sharma and Associate Professor Aditi Halder reported a porous carbon material containing nitrogen that functions both as a catalyst and as the anode in electrolysers, and could substitute the metal-based catalysts.
The researchers produced this material, called ‘laser carbon’, by exposing a sheet of a polyimide polymer to a laser beam, carbonising the exposed bits and leaving the remainder rich in nitrogen.
In an electrolyser, the nitrogen atoms drew electron clouds towards themselves, encouraging nearby carbon atoms to bond with atoms or molecules containing electron pairs. So, the location of these atoms became active sites for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER).
The OER is a stumbling block in electrolysis because it has many intermediate steps and proceeds slower than the rest of the reaction cycle, thus reducing the energy efficiency.
Marburg virus outbreak in two African countries (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
Early this year, Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania reported outbreaks of Marburg virus disease (MVD), the first-ever outbreak of the disease in these countries.
As the countries respond to the outbreaks through contact tracing and restricting movement across affected regions, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the risk of spread of the disease as “very high” across both countries.
The Marburg virus was first identified in 1967 during outbreaks in Germany and Serbia and is known to cause severe and fatal viral haemorrhagic fevers in humans.
The virus is closely related to another deadly virus, Ebola and is rated as a high-risk pathogen by the WHO. Marburg virus is transmitted to humans through contact with infected animals such as fruit bats, and further human-to-human transmission can occur through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected patient or contaminated surfaces resulting in outbreaks.
Since its initial detection in 1967, several outbreaks of Marburg virus have been detected between 1975 and 2023, with African countries being the most affected and often with high fatality rates up to 90%, depending on the early access to quality care.
In recent years, and for the first time, isolated cases have been reported in Guinea and Ghana in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
An outbreak of unknown haemorrhagic fever linked to a funeral ceremony was reported from Equatorial Guinea on February 7, 2023, which was later confirmed as Marburg virus on February 13 by the WHO.
A month later, Tanzania reported an outbreak of MVD on March 21, after the detection of eight suspected cases, five of which were fatal.
The genome sequence of a Marburg virus from Equatorial Guinea was quickly made available in public domain by researchers.
The sequence shows high similarity with Marburg virus genomes previously found in fruit bats, suggesting a potential zoonotic origin.
IACS’s novel compound treats drug-resistant kala-azar infection (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Experimental work undertaken in mice has shown a novel quinoline derivative to be effective in sharply reducing the load of Leishmania donovaniin both the spleen and liver of lab-grown mice.
The highlight of the work carried out by researchers at the Kolkata-based Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) is the potential of the quinoline derivatives to treat drug-resistant leishmaniasis, also called kala-azar (black fever).
The quinoline derivative is a potent inhibitor of an enzyme called topoisomerase 1 (LdTop1), which is essential for maintenance of DNA architecture in the parasites; this enzyme is distinct from the one found in humans.
Poisoning of LdTop1 imparts a significant level of cytotoxicity to both theLeishmaniaparasites found in gut of sandfly vectors (promastigotes) as well as the form found in the infected humans (amastigotes) of both the wild type and the antimony-resistant isolates without inducing any lethality to human and mice host cells.
Kala-azar is a vector borne (sandfly) neglected tropical disease caused by the protozoan parasites of the genus leishmaniathat afflicts the world’s poorest populations in over 90 countries.
Current annual estimates of kala-azar are about 1,00,000, with more than 95% of cases reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) from India and other tropical countries, most importantly co-infection with HIV, which leads to an immunocompromised state.
The four States endemic for kala-azar in India are: Bihar (33 districts), Jharkhand (4 districts), West Bengal (11 districts), and Uttar Pradesh (six districts).
The current treatment regimens against kala-azar use formulations that are toxic and induce high levels of drug-resistance.
FAQ
Can countries be sued over climate change? (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
On March 29, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution that asked the International Court of Justice at The Hague to provide an opinion on what kind of obligations countries have towards climate change reduction, based on the promises they have made to the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC).
What made it particularly important was that the resolution passed by consensus had been pushed through by one of the smallest countries in the world, the Pacific Island of Vanuatu, an island that was devastated in 2015 by the effects of Cyclone Pam, believed to have been spurred by climate change, that wiped out 95% of its crops and affected two-thirds of its population.
What are the legal consequences under these obligations for states where they, by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system, particularly for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and for people who are harmed.
The resolution refers to several international protocols including the Paris Agreement (2015), the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The entire process is expected to take about 18 months for the ICJ to deliberate and deliver its opinion.
India has thus far been cautiously silent about the move, although it is generally supportive of the need for climate justice, and holding the developed world accountable for global warming.
The government is understood to have referred the resolution to legal authorities in the country who will look into the implications and international ramifications of the ICJ opinion. India has updated its NDC (nationally determined contribution) commitments, as required by the 2015 Paris Agreement and has said it’s on its way to sourcing half its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
However, it is significant that India did not join the overwhelming majority of countries that co-sponsored the draft resolution. In the neighbourhood, the list of co-sponsors included Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and a number of island countries in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
India is also watching how global powers like the U.S. and China respond to the resolution, as without their support, it will be hard to implement.
Profiles
Plan for the paradise (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
In February 2021, India’s National Marine Turtle Action Plan mentioned Galathea Bay on the south-eastern coast of the Great Nicobar Island as one of the “Important Marine Turtle Habitats in India”.
Beaches on either side of the Galathea River are the most important nesting sites in the northern Indian Ocean for the Leatherback turtle, the world’s largest marine turtle.
The Action Plan says coastal development projects are major threats to turtle populations. But this kind of development is exactly what is planned for the future of Galathea Bay under the ₹72,000-crore mega project piloted by NITI Aayog for the “holistic development” of the Great Nicobar Island (GNI), situated at the southern end of the Andaman and Nicobar group of Islands in the Bay of Bengal.
The giant Leatherback is not the only species dotting this ecologically and culturally rich Island spanning over a little more than 900 sq. km, of which 850 sq. km is designated as a tribal reserve under the Andaman and Nicobar Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation, 1956.
The Island has been home to two isolated and indigenous tribes — the Shompen and the Nicobaris — for thousands of years.
The GNI was declared a biosphere reserve in 1989 and included in UNESCO’s Man and Biosphere Programme in 2013. It has an unparalleled array of microhabitats.
These habitats host numerous species, including marine animals, reptiles, birds, mammals and amphibians. Several of these, like the Nicobari Megapode, are endemic to GNI and found nowhere else in the world.
This unique ecological setting faces significant and imminent alterations as the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) late last year cleared the decks for the mega project, which ecologists, anthropologists, domain experts, and former civil servants have called an impending ecological disaster. NITI Aayog, however, says its plan is aimed at tapping the “largely unexplored potential” of the Island.
The plan has four components — a ₹35,000 crore transshipment port at Galathea Bay, a dual-use military-civil international airport, a power plant, and a township, to be built over 30 years on more than 160 sq. km of land, of which 130 sq. km is primary forest.
The northern end of the project falls in the biosphere reserve, which means a part of this protected region will have to be allotted to the project.