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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) completed the Lunar-Orbit Insertion (LOI) to successfully put the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into the moon’s orbit.
The LOI manoeuvre, which commenced at 7 p.m., was performed from the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru.
“Chandrayaan-3 has been successfully inserted into the lunar orbit. A retro-burning at the Perilune was commanded from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX), ISTRAC, Bengaluru.
The insertion was carried out by retro-burning at the Perilune for 1,835 seconds, starting at 7. 12 p.m. IST,” the space agency said. “The manoeuvre resulted in an orbit of 164 x 18,074 km as intended.
After the completion of the crucial manoeuvre, ISRO posted on social media platform X, “Chandrayaan-3 Mission: MOX, ISTRAC, this is Chandrayaan-3. I am feeling lunar gravity.”
Clouded leopards play hide-and-seek in woods (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Two scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) have found that the clouded leopard in western Assam’s Manas National Park and Tiger Reserve seems to play a mysterious game of hide-and-seek in the tropical canopy forests.
The mainland clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) is often likened to the Ice Age sabretooth because it has the largest canines in proportion to its skull size among all cat species. It also has rotating rear ankles that enable it to climb down head first from trees, unlike the other felines.
The duo — carnivore ecologist Salvador Lyngdoh and research scholar Urjit Bhatt, both from the Department of Landscape-level Planning and Management at WII — also observed that the cat with cloud-like spots on its hide does not follow any specific pattern of operating in a certain space, unlike other carnivores.
They seemed to go wherever they pleased without worrying about other predators, primarily because of their ability to climb trees, even hang upside down from large branches. The clouded leopards are basically the ninjas of the forest.
News
Organ shortage continues to cost lives (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
With a waiting list of over three lakh patients and at least 20 persons dying each day waiting for an organ, India’s paucity of organ donations, especially cadaver donations, has been exacting a steep toll.
Health Ministry data show that the number of donors (including cadavers) grew from 6,916 in 2014 to only 16,041 in 2022.
Vivek Kute, secretary, Indian Society of Organ Transplants, said that India’s deceased organ donation rate had been under one donor per million population for a decade now.
“India needs to increase this to 65 donations per million population and for that to happen, public sector healthcare must step up.
The country has about 600 medical colleges and over 20 AIIMS. Even if we get one donation each from them every year we will be in better shape.
Even worldwide, only 10% of patients needing organs get them in time. Spain and the U.S. have better organ donation systems, clocking 30-50 donations per million.
The need of the hour is to train trauma and ICU doctors to help patients’ families to come forward and donate. In India, living donors comprise 85% of all donors.
Data from 2022 show India’s poor record in cadaver donations.
The country registered 1,589 kidney, 761 liver and 250 heart transplants in the deceased category that year. Kidney and pancreas transplants grew from three in 2014 to 22 in 2022.
In contrast, living donor kidney transplants rose from 4,884 in 2014 to 9,834 in 2022.
Liver transplants in this category grew from 1,002 to 2,957.
World
Lula to host S. American meet to save the Amazon (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will host a regional summit next week with planetary stakes, as leaders of the countries that share the Amazon seek a roadmap to save the world’s biggest rainforest.
The meeting of the eight-nation Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation in Belém, capital of the Amazon state of Para, will serve as something of a dress rehearsal for the COP-30 UN climate talks, which the city will also host in 2025.
It is the 28-year-old organisation’s first summit since 2009, as Mr. Lula seeks to deliver on his pledge that “Brazil is back” in the fight against climate change after a period of surging destruction in the Amazon under his far-right predecessor.
With its hundreds of billions of carbon-absorbing trees, the Amazon is a key buffer against global warming. But scientists warn deforestation is pushing it dangerously close to a “tipping point,” beyond which trees would die off, with catastrophic consequences for the climate.
Already, carbon emissions from the Amazon increased by 117% in 2020 compared to the annual average for 2010 to 2018, according to the latest figures from researchers at Brazil’s national space agency.
Science
A 340-tonne whale species lived 39 million years ago (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The newly discovered Perucetus colossus, an ancient species of whale, is thought to be one of the largest and heaviest animals on record, as per a study published in Nature. Estimates of its size and weight, based on a partial skeleton, rival those of the blue whale, which was previously thought to be the heaviest animal ever to exist.
The findings suggest that the trend towards gigantism in marine mammals may have begun earlier than previously thought.
Giovanni Bianucci from the Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy and others note that the ancient whale species displays the highest degree of bone mass increase known to date, an adaptation associated with shallow diving.
“The estimated skeletal mass of P. colossus exceeds that of any known mammal or aquatic vertebrate,” they write. The basilosaurid whale substantially pushes the upper limit of skeletal mass in mammals, as well as in aquatic vertebrates in general.
According to the authors, the early whale combines a gigantic size and the strongest degree of BMI known to date, thus potentially representing the heaviest animal ever described.
The animal is modelled from a partial skeleton, including 13 vertebrae, 4 ribs and 1 hip bone, discovered in Southern Peru and estimated to be approximately 39 million years old.
It is predicted that the skeletal mass would be two-three times that of a 25-metres-long blue whale. The authors estimate that P. colossus had a body mass between 85 and 340 tonnes.
The estimated body mass equals or exceeds the body mass of the blue whale, and the new species would challenge the latter’s status as the heaviest animal ever to exist.
The enigmatic Indian eagle-owl (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The Indian eagle-owl was classified as a species only in recent years, thus distinguishing it from the Eurasian eagle-owl. The Indian species is an imposing bird.
The slightly larger female can reach a total length of two and a half feet, with a wingspan of six feet. Prominent ear tufts that look like horns are seen to project from its head.
One theory holds that these have evolved to impart a threatening look that keeps away predators. If so, the horns are indeed successful at imparting an aura of menace.
Its nocturnal habits have meant that very little is known about this bird. The widespread range — the entire Indian peninsula — would seem to indicate that it is a stable population.
But nobody knows for sure, as it is not a very common bird. Their total numbers have never been estimated.
Many bird species face decline today as the total forested area in our country has suffered a decline. But the Indian eagle-owl does not have a dependency on forests.
The regular items on their menu, such as rats, bandicoots, and even bats and doves are best hunted over open scrubland and agricultural tracts. Nearby rocky perches and crags provide ideal settings for its nests.
Near human settlements, they prefer mango trees. In rural India, many superstitions surround this bird and its loud double-hoot calls. They are considered bearers of ill omens.
The noted ornithologist Salim Ali documented folklore in which an eagle-owl, when trapped and starved, would speak in a human voice and portend the future of its listeners.
This is in line with myths in many cultures, ranging from the Greeks to the Aztecs, of the presaging powers of owls in general.
FAQ
What is the Data Protection Bill of 2023? (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The journey towards a data protection legislation can be traced back to 2017 when an expert committee was constituted by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY).
The major development came in December 2021 when the Data Protection Bill, 2021 (DPB, 2021) was released. However, it was withdrawn in Parliament by Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw on August 3, 2022.
On November 18, 2022, a draft of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 (DPDPB, 2022) was released for public consultation. The submissions made under this consultation process were not made public.
The request to publicly release the submissions was also denied in a Right to Information application. One year on, the 2023 Bill has been tabled in Parliament without clarifying how and on what basis these changes were incorporated.
In a first, the new Bill introduces duties and penalties on a data principal (DP). Clause 11 of Chapter III states that the DP has the right to request from the data fiduciary (DF), a summary of the personal data being processed, identities of all the DF with whom its personal data has been shared and so on, subject to a few exceptions.
Under Clause 12, users can seek correction, completion, update and erasure of their personal data. Interestingly, the provision which allowed a DF to reject this request has been removed.
Users have also been given the right of grievance redressal (Clause 13) and the right to nominate another individual in the event of death or incapacity to exercise their rights (Clause 14).
While the impetus for a data protection legislation must be to protect a DP’s personal data from being unwittingly exploited, the Bill appears to be designed in a manner that this protection is compromised. Interestingly, the Bill further goes on to impose duties and penalties on the DP.
Profiles
On a mission to reshape Israel (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Israelis are out on the streets over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul plans. Since returning as Prime Minister, Mr. Neyanyahu has shown a willingness to go to any length to pass these laws that will, in effect, remove the only check on executive power.
The judicial overhaul was not demanded by any segment of the electorate. Yet, in a pattern that has been documented in democracies around the world, it is a think tank — in this case, the Kohelet Policy Forum — that has been working behind the scenes to push for, and literally draft, the Bills aimed at clipping the wings of the Israeli judiciary.
Founded in 2012 by Moshe Koppel, an Israeli-American computer scientist who shifted from New York to the West Bank, Kohelet’s stated objective is to “secure Israel’s future as the nation-state of the Jewish people” and “to broaden individual liberty and free market principles in Israel”.
Known for keeping a low profile, both Kohelet and Mr. Koppel hit the limelight earlier this year when Israeli protesters converged at its Jerusalem office, blocking its entrance with sandbags and barbed wire. It has since become common knowledge that Kohelet is the brain behind the judicial overhaul legislation.
Naturally, once its role in national law-making became clear, the spotlight shifted to its donors. It has emerged that Kohelet is a part of an influential network of right-wing think tanks and lobbying groups funded by libertarian Jewish American billionaires.
It draws inspiration from, and is part of, a set of neoconservative hubs that includes the likes of Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation, to name a few.
Two of its biggest donors are Arthur Dantchik, 65, the billionaire co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, a privately held financial services firm, and Jeff Yass, 67, Mr. Dantchik’s partner at Susquehanna.
Mr. Yass, whose net worth is $28.5 billion, is the 48th richest man in the world and a high profile Republican contributor.
Business
Cabinet clears ₹1.39-lakh-cr. funding to scale up BharatNet (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Union Cabinet approved an outlay of ₹1.39-lakh crore for BharatNet, a project to provide last-mile connectivity across 6.4 lakh villages.
The sources said while about 1.94 lakh villages have already been connected, the rest are expected to be connected in the next 2.5 years.
The Cabinet has approved ₹1, 39, 579 crore fund for providing last-mile optical fibre-based connectivity to homes in all the villages of the country. “We have decided to scale it up in a significant way.”
BharatNet is one of the biggest rural telecom projects in the world, implemented in a phased manner in all 2.5 lakh gram panchayats (GPs) in the country for last-mile broadband connectivity.
The project was first approved by the Cabinet in October 2011 and executed by Bharat Broadband Network Ltd. (BBNL). Phase-II was approved in 2017 and funding in both phases was ₹42,068 crore.
BBNL, which is an arm of state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) now, will be partnering village level entrepreneurs (VLEs) to provide the connectivity.