Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
States
An aquatic weed native to some countries in Central and South America, including Peru, is threatening elephant habitats and foraging areas in Valparai, a Tamil Nadu hill station close to the Kerala boundary, and reviving the risk of human-elephant conflicts in the region.
Ludwigia peruviana, which grows fast along waterbodies, has infested the majority of the hill station’s swamps, locally known as vayals, where elephants used to find lush grass even in the summer.
However, the Forest Department says that most of these swamps are located on private estates, which are responsible for the tricky process of removing the weed; if not done correctly, trying to pull it out will help it spread even more.
The rapid large-scale spread of the weed — which was probably introduced as an ornamental plant for its tiny yellow flowers — has shaken the balance of these perennial foraging grounds, limiting the growth of grass and native plants that are palatable to elephants and animals including gaur.
News
INS Kirpan decommissioned from Indian Navy, handed over to Vietnam as a present (Page no. 6)
(GS paper 3, Defence)
Calling upon the Vietnam People’s Navy (VPN) to closely examine and explore the vast potential that the Indian shipbuilding industry holds, and stressing that it is the best value-for-money proposition they can find, Navy chief R. Hari Kumar said that India’s indigenous shipbuilding prowess is an “assurance to our friends and partners” that the Indian Navy is capable and ready to support collective security needs in the region.
He said this while speaking at the ceremony for decommissioning of the indigenous missile corvette INS Kirpan after 32 years in the Indian Navy, and was handed over to Cam Ranh, Vietnam.
The decommissioning and handing-over ceremony was presided over by Adm. Kumar and Rear Adm. Pham Manh Hung, Deputy Commander-in-Chief and Chief of Staff, VPN.
What makes this occasion even more significant is the fact that this is the first-ever occasion that India is offering a fully operational corvette to any friendly foreign country.
The transfer of INS Kirpan from the Indian Navy to the VPN symbolises the status of Indian Navy being the ‘Preferred Security Partner’ in the Indian Ocean Region and would definitely be a catalyst for enhancing the existing bilateral relations between the two navies.
Manned by 12 officers and 100 sailors, Kirpan is 90 metres long and 10.45 metres in width with a maximum displacement of 1,450 tonnes.
On June 19, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had announced the gifting of INS Kirpan to VPN during the visit of his Vietnamese counterpart General Phan Van Gang to India.
Russia accepts a para on Ukraine war (Page no. 8)
(GS paper 2, International Relation)
Indian G-20 negotiators have made some progress on building a consensus during the latest Ministerial meetings, as Russia has dropped its objections on one of the two paragraphs on the war in Ukraine that have been carried over from last year’s Bali Declaration.
While the two meetings — that of G-20 Labour Ministers held in Indore that ended on Friday and the G-20 Energy Transition Ministerial in Goa— failed once again to issue joint communiques, the footnotes marking Russia’s objections now only relates to one paragraph that is critical of Moscow’s role in the Ukraine war.
Russia accepted the second para, which deals more generally with the need to “uphold international law”. However, objections from China and now, South Africa have raised new worries for the negotiators.
According to the footnote in the Chair’s Summary part of the document released in Goa, Russia “expressed its distinct view on the situation in Ukraine, geopolitical tensions and sanctions during the meeting”, in an indication that while Russia removed objections to one paragraph, the differences in position were debated openly during the Ministerial.
The paragraph Russia is now comfortable with includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that “Today’s era is not of war”.
China, however, maintained its opposition to all “geopolitical issues” being included in the statements, indicating that the Ukraine war must not be mentioned.
China stated that G-20 is not the right platform to address security issues and opposed the inclusion of the geopolitical-related content,” the footnotes in both the Labour Ministers meet and the Energy Transition meet Chair’s summary read.
Another new concern has emerged as South Africa asked to include a footnote on the Ukraine paragraphs in the Labour Ministers’ meeting, indicating that the language over the war agreed to during the Bali summit may no longer be acceptable to all G-20 members.
Captive-bred vultures take wing in forest expanses (Page no. 8)
(GS paper 3, Environment)
In 2020, eight critically endangered oriental white-backed captive-bred vultures were released into the wild for the first time in India from the Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre in Pinjore, Haryana.
Close to three years later, five survive and two have paired and successfully nested, in the untamed habitat of the Shivalik range in the foothills of the Himalayas.
This has received a hurrah from wildlife enthusiasts working towards protecting the vultures that have been under threat of extinction since the 1990s.
There has been no report of deaths due to veterinary non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). This too is a relief for ornithologists, who had over the years been worried about the uncontrolled use of these drugs on cattle, especially the illegal use of the banned diclofenac. Vultures feeding on their carcasses die as the drugs are toxic to them.
Nesting is a very important milestone and an encouraging sign for the re-induction programme. Also, the fact that there has been no mortality is inspiring and indicates increasing vulture-safe zones.
After the release from Pinjore, 31 oriental white-backed vultures were released in batches in West Bengal in 2021. “All the birds fly every day and have started locating their own food. Our teams have been monitoring the released birds. Of the 31, as many as 29 are surviving.
In 1993, there was an estimated 40 million vultures in India, a BNHS study said. The population of three species — the oriental white-backed, the long-billed, and the slender-billed — has declined by over 97% since the 1990s.
The oriental white-backed vulture’s prevalence has gone down by an astonishing 99.9%. All three species are classified as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), composed of both government and civil society bodies. The species come under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, meaning they enjoy the highest level of protection.
Science
Genomic data throw light on demise of Copper Age (Page no. 10)
(GS paper 3, Science and Technology)
An analysis of ancient human genomic data suggests that Copper Age farmers and steppe pastoralists may have interacted 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.
The findings, published in Nature, may aid our understanding of the demise of the Copper Age and the expansion of pastoralist groups around 3,300 BC.
Previous analyses of ancient genomic data have suggested that two major genetic turnover events occurred in Western Eurasia; one associated with the spread of farming around 7,000-6,000 BC and a second resulting from the expansion of pastoralist groups from the Eurasian steppe starting around 3,300 BC.
The period between these two events, the Copper Age, was characterized by a new economy based on metallurgy, wheel and wagon transportation, and horse domestication. But what happened between the demise of Copper Age settlements (around 4,250 BC) and the expansion of pastoralists is not well understood.
According to the paper, the researchers analysed genetic data from 135 ancient individuals, dating to between 5,400 and 2,400 BC, from eight sites across southeastern Europe and the northwestern Black Sea region.
While there was genetic continuity between the Neolithic and Copper Age groups, from around 4500 BC groups from the northwestern Black Sea region carried varying amounts of ancestry from Copper Age and steppe-zone populations, the authors write.
They suggest that this finding shows that the groups had cultural contact and mixed nearly 1,000 years earlier. The transfer of technology between farmers and transitional hunters from different geographical zones was integral to the rise, formation and expansion of pastoralist groups around 3300 BC, the authors propose.
In AI’s unlimited potential, the benefits and the risks (Page no. 10)
(GS paper 3, Science and Technology)
On July 28, 2022, Google’s DeepMind released the structure of 200 million proteins, literally everything that exists. This is said to be the most important achievement of AI ever, namely a ‘solution’ to the protein-folding problem.
Proteins are composed of a linear chain of amino acids and their 3D structures determine their functions. Structure determination is laborious.
One way to know the optimal folded structure of the protein computationally is to sample all its possible configurations, composed of specific angles between peptide bonds.
However, this is an impossible task as a typical protein may have about 10,300 configurations and even if a million of them were examined per second, the overall time needed will be unimaginable. That helped save about 1,000 million man-years.
DeepMind’s AlphaFold made an important breakthrough in 2020. It accurately predicted the structures of about 100 proteins to atomic resolution, and no other solution came close to this feat. Many believe that the protein-folding problem is over.
Besides publishing the work in Nature, DeepMind also decided to place the research outcomes — source code, structures of unknown proteins — easily accessible so more discoveries can happen.
Already, this has assisted the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) in addressing deadly Chagas disease and Leishmaniasis.
Since drug discovery has become faster due to AlphaFold, new drugs for rare diseases, which are of little commercial interest to pharma companies, have become possible.
In 2020, a robotic synthesiser read a research paper and made the compound described in it. With giant advances in computational science and 3D protein structures, discovery labs will shrink to ‘AI synthesizers’.
Thousands of molecules or processes may be screened for specific functions rapidly. Robots will characterise them to ‘discover’ an optimised strategy, directed by non-human ‘agents’. This could change chemistry.
FAQ
Will G20 agree on a joint communique? (Page no. 11)
(GS paper 2, International Relation)
With about 50 days to go until the G20 Summit in New Delhi, Sherpas (senior members of the staff of the heads of state and government) and negotiators at various G20 ministerial meetings and working groups have been unable to issue a single joint communique thus far.
Instead, given the stand by Russia and China to oppose the paragraphs on the war in Ukraine contained in the statements that have been issued till now, India has been forced to issue a series of “Chairman’s Summary and Outcomes Documents” at the various meetings.
These include the three meetings of the all-powerful G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, to ones on Tourism, Education, Labour, Crime and Digital Security and even the Space economy.
Are there still chances of a joint communique or “Leaders Declaration” being issued at the G20 Summit in India on September 9-10?
Since its inception in 1999, and upgradation to a leader’s level summit in 2008, the G20 grouping of the world’s biggest economies has always managed to find a consensus within the countries and issue a joint declaration at the end of every summit.
If that doesn’t take place in New Delhi this September, it would be an ignoble first for the grouping, and could even raise questions over whether the G20 is sustainable in its present form.
After the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, G-8 leaders had suspended Russia, changing the grouping to G-7. However, the G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia that year managed to issue a joint declaration without mentioning the Crimean conflict, and even managed a “family photo” with all the leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In 2022, the Indonesian G20 presidency faced tense moments as the declaration was negotiated until the very last moment of the summit. Mr. Putin didn’t attend, and no “family photo” was allowed, but it managed to issue a document.
During its tenure as President, India wishes for the best possible outcome at the G20 summit, and hence its negotiators on the “Sherpa track”, who collate the final document, are putting sustained efforts into ensuring a resolution to the logjam over Ukraine.
Can new data panel improve India’s statistics? (Page no. 11)
(GS paper 3, Economy)
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has formed a new Standing Committee on Statistics (SCoS) to advise on official data generated by the National Statistical Office (NSO).
This panel, chaired by former National Statistical Commission chief and India’s first Chief Statistician Pronab Sen, will replace another committee headed by him that was formed in 2019 to advise on economic data.
The Standing Committee on Economic Statistics was mandated to review the framework for economic indicators such as those pertaining to the industrial and services sectors, along with labour force statistics.
This meant its focus was limited to reviewing high-frequency data like the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and the Consumer Price Index (CPI), apart from surveys and enumerations like the Economic Census, Annual Survey of Industries and the Periodic Labour Force Survey.
The SCoS, as per the order issued by the Ministry on July 13, has “enhanced terms of reference” that enable it to advise the Ministry not just on all existing surveys and data sets, but also identify areas where data gaps exist, suggest ways to fill them and carry out pilot surveys and studies to finetune new approaches for capturing better data. The new committee is also half the size of the 28-member panel that was reviewing economic data.
Mr. Sen is accompanied by seven academics, including former Institute of Economic Growth professor Biswanath Goldar, National Council for Applied Economic Research professor Sonalde Desai, and Mausami Bose, professor at the Indian Statistical Institute.
Traditionally, the NSO used to appoint committees to advise on design and methodology for Surveys,” said a veteran statistician.
What has to be done to get to Zero Hunger? (Page no. 11)
(GS paper 3, Economy)
The Global Report on the Food Crises (GRFC) 2023 released recently estimated that between 691 million and 783 million people in the world suffered from hunger in 2022.
While the two pandemic years did not record a growth in food insecurity, the data for 2022 shows levels far higher than pre-pandemic 2019.
This year’s report records the historic moments that had an impact on the assessment — a pandemic and ensuing economic crisis, a war (in Ukraine), soaring prices of food, and agricultural inputs.
The GRFC is produced by the Food Security Information Network in support of the Global Network against Food Crises, and involves 16 partners to achieve a joint consensus-based assessment of acute food insecurity in countries.
Food security is defined (from the World Food Summit of 1996) thus: “When all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active, and healthy life”.
The prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population is based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES).
The Global Report starts with a qualified assertion that hunger is no longer on an alarming path upwards at the global level, but still far above pre-COVID pandemic levels, and that the world is far off track towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 — Zero Hunger.
It sets the global contexts preceding and during the year under assessment, particularly paying attention to the increasing phenomenon of urbanisation, and its effects on food security.
New estimates of FIES, as per the report, “confirm that for 2022, no progress was made on food insecurity at the global level.
Following a sharp increase from 2019 to 2020, the global prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity remained unchanged for the second year in a row, but remained far above pre-COVID-19-pandemic levels.”
Business
Farmers may stop sowing cotton as yields and prices slump in Tamil Nadu (Page no. 13)
(GS paper 3, Economy)
Area under cotton cultivation in Tamil Nadu is likely to fall next sowing season as farmers harvesting cotton now struggle to get remunerative prices.
Selvakumar, who raised cotton on 1.5 acres in Tiruchengode area, said he spent ₹35,000 and earned just ₹15,000. The yield this year was just 200 kg an acre as against 11 quintals last year.
The price had also dropped from ₹120 a kg last year to ₹70 a kg now. We do not know if the fall in yield was due to pest attack or severe summer. But, at least 25% of farmers in our region will not sow cotton next year.
Kannan, a farmer from Tiruvarur district, said that on Saturday the average price for cotton in that area was ₹64 a kg. Even a week or 10 days ago, the price was ₹55 a kg or less.
According to data available with the Indian Cotton Federation, almost 1.65 lakh hectares of land was under cotton cultivation in the State and production was expected to be 6.5 lakh bales during the 2022-2023 cotton season (October to September).
An official of the CCI said that the new minimum support price (MSP) rates were declared for cotton season 2023-2024 and added that the Corporation would step in for MSP operations from day one (October 1), if necessary.
We have been told that at present, the prices are running at about ₹6,800 per quintal and in case of Cauvery delta region it was ₹6,400 to ₹ 6,500.
Ravichandra, a farmer from Nannilam, said the government should support them to form farmer producer organisations and set up ginning mills in the cotton growing areas so that they get better prices.
Further, the revised MSP that was implemented from October 1 should be advanced for the summer crop in Tamil Nadu where picking started in June.