In News

India and Australia have decided to strengthen their partnership in the field of projects and supply chains for critical minerals.

About the News

• Australia confirmed that it would commit A$5.8 million to the three-year India-Australia Critical Minerals Investment Partnership.
• Based on their individual needs and strategic considerations, different countries create their own lists.
• Supply risks exist for these minerals due to rare availability, growing demand and complex processing value chain.
  • Many times the complex supply chain can be disrupted by hostile regimes, or due to politically unstable regions.

What are Critical Minerals?

• Critical Minerals mostly include graphite, lithium and cobalt, which are used for making EV batteries;
  • Rare earths that are used for making magnets
  • Silicon which is a key mineral for making computer chips and solar panels.
• Aerospace, communications and defence industries also rely on several such minerals as they are used in manufacturing fighter jets, drones, radio sets and other critical equipment.
• As countries around the world scale up their transition towards clean energy and digital economy, these critical resources are key to the ecosystem that fuels this change.

How are Countries dealing with Critical Minerals?

• India has set up KABIL or the Khanij Bidesh India Limited, a joint venture of three public sector companies, to “ensure a consistent supply of critical and strategic minerals to the Indian domestic market”. 

• • KABIL would ensure mineral security of the nation, it would also help in realizing the overall objective of import substitution.
• USA has t has shifted its focus on expanding domestic mining, production, processing, and recycling of critical minerals and materials.
• The UK has recently unveiled its new Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre to study the future demand for and supply of these minerals.
• In the year 2021, the US, Canada and Australia had launched an interactive map of critical mineral deposits with an aim to help governments to identify options to diversify their critical minerals sources.

Source:

• Explained: What are critical minerals, the centerpiece of a new India-Australia collaboration?

In News

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has recently proposed amendments in the Environment Protection Act,1986.

• • Incidentally, the current EPA provisions will govern the penalties in case of the single-use plastic ban that has come into effect recently.

Key Amendments Proposed in Act

• The Ministry has proposed the decriminalisation of the existing provisions of the EPA,1986 in order to weed out fear of imprisonment for simple violations.
  • It involves removal of imprisonment as a penalty for the "less severe’’ contraventions.
  • However, serious violations of EPAwhich lead to grievous injury or loss of life shall be covered under the provision of the Indian Penal Code.
• Failure or contravention or non-compliance of the provisions of EPA such as submitting reports, furnishing information etc. will now bedealt by imposing a monetary penalty through duly authorised Adjudicating Officer.
• Instead of imprisonment, the amendments propose the creation of an Environmental Protection Fundin which the amount of penalty imposed by the Adjudicating Officer after adjudicating the damage to the environment shall be remitted.
  • The Central Government may prescribe the manner in which the Protection Fund shall be administered.

Current Status of Offences and Penalties under EPA

• Non-compliance or Contravention to any of the provisions of the Act is considered as an offence.
• Cognizance of Offences: No Court shall take cognizance of any offenceunder this Act except on a complaint made by:
  • The Central Government or any authority on behalf of the former.
  • A person who has approached the Courts after a60-day notice has been furnished to the Central Government or the authority on its behalf.
• Penalty:
  • In case of any non-compliance or contravention of the current provisions of the EPA,or of the rules under this Act, the violator can be punished with imprisonment up to 5 years or with a fine up to Rs 1,00,000, or both.
  • In case of continuation of such violation, an additional fine of up to Rs 5,000 for every day during which such contravention continuesafter the conviction for the first such contravention can be levied.
  • If the violation continues beyond a period of one year after the date of conviction, the offender can be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years.

Source:

• MoEF proposes amendments in Environment Protection Act, to decriminalize provisions
• Centre dilutes penal rules in air, water pollution and eco protection laws

In News

The world’s most powerful particle collider- the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), has been put back in action for its third run after a three-year break for upgrades.

About the News

• The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) has announced that the LHC will run 24 hours a day for almost four years at a record energy level near 13.6 trillion electronvolts.
• Scientists will record and analyse the data, which are expected to throw up evidence of “new physics” or physics beyond the Standard Model of Particle Physics, which explains how the basic building blocks of matter interact, governed by four fundamental forces.

All about the Large Hadron Collider:

• What is it? It is a giant, complex machine built to study particles that are the smallest known building blocks of all things.
• Working: Its work will involve sending beams of protons, which are positively charged particles present in the nucleus of atoms, speeding towards each other at nearly the speed of light in the 27-kilometre ring of the LHC.
  • Scientists will record and analyse the collisions of the particles in the two beams as part of a set of experiments, which will be used to study dark matter, dark energy and other mysteries of the universe.

Significant Features:

• The largest and most complex machine ever built:
  • LHC was built to study miniscule sub-atomic particles which are the smallest known units of matter and the building blocks of all things.
  • But the collider itself is the largest and most complex machine ever built by man.
  • The machine lies in a more than 100-metres deep tunnel with a circumference of 27 kilometres.
  • It was built by CERN between 1998 and 2008.
• 6 billion collisions a second:
  • At full power, trillions of protons will race around the LHC accelerator ring more than 11,245 times a second, since they travel at 99,999% the speed of light.
  • When the machine initially began operations, that meant it could engineer about 600 million collisions every second.
  • But this time, the proton beams will be narrowed to less than 10 microns, which is about the width of ten bacterial cells, to increase the rate of collisions.
  • With the thinner beam, scientists are aiming at delivering 1.6 billion collisions per second.
• Many times hotter than the sun:
  • The collision of the two beams generates temperatures more than 100,000 times hotter than the hottest part of the sun, which is the core.
  • But that heat will be concentrated in a very small space.
  • Even though such temperatures are being generated, the machine’s accelerator ring will be kept at a cool minus 271.3 degrees celsius using superfluid helium.
• Massive amounts of data:
  • CERN’s DATA Centre stores more than 30 petabytes of data per year from LHC experiments.
  • This is enough data to fill 1.2 million Blu-ray discs or 250 years of HD video. The Data Centre has over 100 petabytes of this data permanently archived on tape.

Significance:

• LHC is the biggest and most complex machine in the world and it may have paved the way for some of the most important scientific discoveries in recent times, including the Higgs Boson.
• However, CERN has plans for a future machine that will dwarf the LHC and this is called the Future Circular Collider.
  • It will have a 100-kilometre-circumference Future Circular Collider.
  • Compared to the 13.6 trillion electronvolts energy level of LHC, the Future Circular Collider will work at energy levels of up to 100 trillion electronvolts.

Source:

• Explained: What is the Large Hadron Collider, now readying to seek answers to fundamental questions of particle physics?
• 5 things you need to know about the Large Hadron Collider

Image source:

• Large Hadron Collider

On July 6, 1986 Jagjivan Ram breathed his last. Jagjivan Ram, the pinnacle of modern Indian politics, was respectfully addressed as ‘Babuji’. His dedication and loyalty to the nation in his parliamentary life of nearly 50 years are unmatched. His entire life has been full of political, social activism, and distinguished achievements. The legal provisions made by Jagjivan Ram to protect the fundamental rights of Dalits, workers, exploited, and oppressed for centuries are historical.

Jagjivan Ram was such a personality who never compromised with injustice and always struggled for the honor of Dalits. From student life, he raised his voice against injustice. Babu Jagjivan Ram has a great contribution to the development of parliamentary democracy in India. He died on 6 July 1986 in New Delhi.

Sources:

• CMs of Telugu states pay tributes to Jagjivan Ram:
• 6 July in Indian and World History:

• Context: The government has left the interest rates on small savings schemes unchanged for the July-September quarter.
• Small Savings Schemes are a set of savings instruments managed by the central governmentwith an aim to encourage citizens to save regularly irrespective of their age.
• They are popular as they provide returns higher than bank fixed deposits, sovereign guaranteeand tax benefits.

• They are classified into three categories:
  • Postal Deposits (that include savings account, recurring deposits, time deposits of varying maturities and monthly income scheme).
  • Savings Certificates:National Small Savings Certificate (NSC) and Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP).
  • Social Security Schemes: such as Sukanya Samriddhi Scheme, Public Provident Fund (PPF) and Senior Citizens‘ Savings Scheme (SCSS).
• Since 2016, the Finance Ministry has been reviewing the interest rateson small savings schemes on a quarterly basis.
• All deposits received under various schemes are pooled in the National Small Savings Fund.
• The moneyin the fund is used by the Centre to finance its fiscal deficit.

Source:

• No hike in small savings rates
• Explained: What unchanged small savings rates mean for banks, savers

• Context: The Union Minister of State for Science & Technology has recently inaugurated TiHAN at IIT Hyderabad.
• TiHAN (Technology Innovation Hub on Autonomous Navigation) is India’s first Autonomous Navigation facility.
• It has been developed at a budget of Rs. 130 crores by the Union Ministry of Science & Technology.
• It is a multidisciplinary initiative that will make India a global player in the futuristic and next generation ‘smart mobility’ technology. 

• It was launched to assess autonomous vehicle performance in India.
• TiHAN Testbed includes simulation platforms that allow for non-destructive testing of algorithms and prototypes.
• Several real-world scenarios can be emulated on the testbed.
• In terrestrial systems, a few examples of these scenarios are Smart Cities, Signalised Intersections, Autonomous Vehicle Interactions with Cyclists and Pedestrians, Wireless Networking among vehicles and Road-Side Units, etc.
• It will provide a unique platform for high quality research between academia, industry and R&D labs both at the national and international level, thus making India a global leader in autonomous navigation technologies.

Source:

• India’s first autonomous navigation facility, TiHAN, launched at IIT Hyderabad
• UPSC Essentials: One word a day- TiHAN

Image source:

• India’s first autonomous navigation facility, TiHAN, launched at IIT Hyderabad

• Context: Surveillance and preventive measures have intensified in Kerala’s Thrissur district as anthrax has been confirmed in wild boars found dead in the area.
• Anthrax, also known as malignant pustule or woolsorter’s disease, is a rare but serious disease caused by the rod-shaped bacteria known as Bacillus anthracis.
• It occurs naturally in soil and, according to the WHO it is primarily a disease of herbivores, with both domestic and wild animals being affected by it.
• It is a zoonotic disease, meaning that it is naturally transmissible from animals (usually vertebrae) to humans.

• People can get the disease through contact with infected animals or animal products that are contaminated with bacteria.
• Anthrax bacteria survivein the environment by forming spores.
• People get infectedwith anthrax when spores get into the body. When spores get inside the body, they can get activated which cause the bacteria to multiply, spread, produce toxins and cause severe illness.
• Anthrax is generally regarded as non-contagious. However, person-to-person transmission rarely occur.
• Symptomsof the disease include black sore, headaches, fever, breathing difficulties, vomiting of blood, diarrhoea.
• Anthrax responds well to antibiotictreatment but vaccines are necessary as the infection can cause death within two-three days leaving no scope for diagnosis and treatment.

Source:

• Explained: What is Anthrax, the infectious disease found in Kerala?
• Kerala on high alert after anthrax cases detected in Athirapally area

Image source:

• Anthrax

• Context: India’s largest floating solar plant has now become fully operational at Ramagundam in Telengana’s Peddapalli district. 
• Floating Solar Panels are Photovoltaic (PV) modules mounted on platforms that float on water reservoirs, lakes, and where conditions are right seas and oceans.
• These platforms are typically moored on calmer bodies of water, such as ponds, lakes or reservoirs.

• They are relatively quick to construct, silent to run and require no land levelling or removal of vegetation.
• Ramagundam Project is endowed with advanced technology and Environment-friendly features.
• It spreads over 500 acres of the reservoir, divided into 40 blocks, each having 2.5 MW.
• Each block consists of one floating platform and an array of 11,200 solar modules.
• The solar modules are placed on floaters manufactured with HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene) material.
• The entire floating system is anchored through special HMPE (High Modulus Polyethylene)rope to the dead weights placed in the balancing reservoir bed.
• This project is unique as all the electrical equipmentincluding inverter, transformer, HT panel, and SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) are also on floating Ferro cement platforms.

 Source:

• Explained: Why Telangana’s floating solar plant is greener than ground-mounted ones
• India's largest floating solar plant commissioned in Telangana. See here

Image source:

• India’s largest floating Solar Plant

Essence: The article discusses the recent Assam floods and how a negative dipole situation led to a heavy downpour in this area. Megaflood frequency is influenced by factors like heavy rainfall and severe embankment breakdown. The article goes on to describe how important floods have been to Assam's ecology. However, the ability of flood plains to absorb water and transport sediments has been hampered by growing human footprint. Because of the quick changes in rainfall patterns and flooding patterns, it is imperative to increase people's resilience. At the same time, the demands brought on by the climate change necessitate new paradigms for early-warning and response systems as well as for safeguarding economies and livelihoods.

Why should you read this article?

• To comprehend how the Assam floods this year differ from those in years past and what causes such differences.
• To understand what actions may be made to lessen the impact of such situations in the future.

Source:

• Making sense of Assam floods: Why rivers turned violent in the 20th century and how climate change is making them more unpredictable:

Essence: Reforms of 1991 guided by P.V.Narasimha Rao propelled India to a competitive market economy with promise of more rational government regulations and more space to the private sector. While other sectors prospered, the aviation industry struggled to take off because of multiple reasons like domination of mega airports, lack of efficient regulation and high price of aviation fuel. Policy makers have to understand that for passenger airlines to grow, there have to be reforms in all areas of aviation, i.e., air cargo, airports, aviation fuel taxes and Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO).

Why should you read this article?

• To understand hurdles in the growth of the Indian aviation industry.
• To understand some of the solutions to these problems.

Source:

• Indian aviation needs a strong and steady tailwind:

Background

• Burning plastic is common in winters among poverty- stricken people.
• But these people are unaware of the hazards they are exposing their children to.

About an initiative that takes Plastic waste as fees

• To solve the problems of illiteracy and plastic pollution, a couple started a school which accepts plastic waste as fees.
• This unusual school— Akshar, is tucked away in the pristine woods of Pamohi, Assam, where students bring polythene bags full of plastic waste as the only form of fee that the school accepts.
• unlike traditional schools, Akshar does not have age-specific standards or grades; instead, it’s based entirely on the knowledge level of students.
• The student will then have to perform well to climb up the levels. This is to ensure that the quality of education is continually improving.
• Thus, the school provides education that is socially, economically and environmentally relevant for these children.

Source:

• This Couple’s Unique School in Assam Accepts Plastic Waste as School Fees!: