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Essential key terms from the last week’s news headlines or between the lines categorised as per the relevance to the UPSC-CSE syllabus along with the MCQs followed.
Why in news?
— A NASA-led international satellite mission was launched from Southern California early on Thursday on a major Earth science project to conduct a comprehensive survey of the world’s oceans, lakes and rivers for the first time.
— Dubbed SWOT, short for Surface Water and Ocean Topography, the advanced radar satellite is designed to give scientists an unprecedented view of the life-giving fluid covering 70 per cent of the planet, shedding new light on the mechanics and consequences of climate change.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
— The satellite was designed and built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles. Developed by the U.S. space agency in collaboration with its counterparts in France and Canada, SWOT was one of 15 missions listed by the National Research Council as projects NASA should undertake in the coming decade.
— A Falcon 9 rocket, owned and operated by billionaire Elon Musk’s commercial launch company SpaceX, was set to liftoff before dawn on Thursday from the Vandenberg U.S. Space Force Base, about 170 miles (275 km) northwest of Los Angeles, to carry SWOT into orbit.
— If all goes as planned, the SUV-sized satellite will produce research data within several months.
— Nearly 20 years in development, SWOT incorporates advanced microwave radar technology that scientists say will collect height-surface measurements of oceans, lakes, reservoirs and rivers in high-definition detail over 90% of the globe.
— The data, compiled from radar sweeps of the planet at least twice every 21 days, will enhance ocean-circulation models, bolster weather and climate forecasts and aid in managing scarce freshwater supplies in drought-stricken regions, according to researchers.
“It’s really the first mission to observe nearly all water on the planet’s surface,” said JPL scientist Ben Hamlington, who also leads NASA’s sea-level change team.
— One major thrust of the mission is to explore how oceans absorb atmospheric heat and carbon dioxide in a natural process that moderates global temperatures and climate change.
— Scanning the seas from orbit, SWOT is designed to precisely measure fine differences in surface elevations around smaller currents and eddies, where much the oceans’ drawdown of heat and carbon is believed to occur. And SWOT can do so with 10 times greater resolution than existing technologies, according to JPL.
Looking for ocean’s tipping point
— Oceans are estimated to have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat trapped in Earth’s atmosphere by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
— Studying the mechanism by which that happens will help climate scientists answer a key question: “What is the turning point at which oceans start releasing, rather than absorbing, huge amounts of heat back into the atmosphere and accelerate global warming, rather than limiting it,” said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, SWOT’s program scientist at NASA in Washington.
— SWOT’s ability to discern smaller surface features also be used to study the impact of rising ocean levels on coastlines.
— More precise data along tidal zones would help predict how far storm-surge flooding may penetrate inland, as well as the extent of saltwater intrusion into estuaries, wetlands and underground aquifers.
— Freshwater bodies are another key focus SWOT, equipped to observe the entire length of nearly all rivers wider than 330 feet (100 meters), as well as more than 1 million lakes and reservoirs larger than 15 acres (62,500 square meters).
— Taking inventory of Earth’s water resources repeatedly over SWOT’s three-year mission will enable researchers to better trace fluctuations in the planet’s rivers and lakes during seasonal changes and major weather events.
— NASA’s SWOT freshwater science lead, Tamlin Pavelsky, said collecting such data was akin to “taking the pulse of the world’s water system, so we’ll be able to see when it’s racing and we’ll be able to see when it’s slow.”
— SWOT’s radar instrument operates at the so-called Ka-band frequency of the microwave spectrum, allowing scans to penetrate cloud cover and darkness over wide swaths of the Earth. This enables scientists to accurately map their observations in two dimensions regardless of weather or time of day and to cover large geographic areas far more quickly than before.
— By comparison, previous studies of water bodies relied on data taken at specific points, such as river or ocean gauges, or from satellites that can only track measurements along a one-dimensional line, requiring scientists to fill in data gaps through extrapolation.
“Rather than giving us a line of elevations, it’s giving us a map of elevations, and that’s just a total game changer,” Pavelsky said.
(Source: NASA to conduct first global water survey from space by Reuters)
Point to ponder: Climate change impact far greater, frequent and disruptive than previously understood. Discuss.
1. MCQ
With reference to SWOT, consider the following statements:
1. It is developed by the U.S. space agency in collaboration with its counterparts in France and Canada.
2. One major thrust of the mission is to explore how oceans absorb atmospheric heat and carbon dioxide in a natural process that moderates global temperatures and climate change.
Which of the following statements is/are true?
a) Only 1
b) Only 2
c) Both 1 and 2
d) Neither 1 nor 2
Why in news?
— In his PhD thesis published on December 15, Cambridge scholar Dr Rishi Rajpopat claims to have solved Sanskrit’s biggest puzzle — a grammar problem found in the ‘Ashtadhyayi’, an ancient text written by the scholar Panini towards the end of the 4th century BC. Experts are calling the discovery revolutionary, as it may allow Panini’s grammar to be taught to computers for the first time.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Panini, the ‘father of linguistics’
— Panini probably lived in the 4th century BC, the age of the conquests of Alexander and the founding of the Mauryan Empire, even though he has also been dated to the 6th century BC, the age of The Buddha and Mahavira.
— He likely lived in Salatura (Gandhara), which today would lie in north-west Pakistan, and was probably associated with the great university at Taksasila, which also produced Kautilya and Charaka, the ancient Indian masters of statecraft and medicine respectively.
— By the time Panini’s great grammar, the ‘Ashtadhyayi’, or ‘Eight Chapters’, was composed, Sanskrit had virtually reached its classical form — and developed little thereafter, except in its vocabulary — the Indologist A L Basham wrote in his 1954 textbook, ‘The Wonder That Was India’.
— Panini’s grammar, which built on the work of many earlier grammarians, effectively stabilised the Sanskrit language, Basham wrote. The earlier works had recognised the root as the basic element of a word, and had classified some 2,000 monosyllabic roots which, with the addition of prefixes, suffixes and inflexions, were thought to provide all the words of the language.
— The Ashtadhyayi laid down more than 4,000 grammatical rules, couched in a sort of shorthand, which employs single letters or syllables for the names of the cases, moods, persons, tenses, etc. in which linguistic phenomena are classified, Basham wrote. Later Indian grammars such as the Mahabhasya of Patanjali (2nd century BC) and the Kasika Vritti of Jayaditya and Vamana (7th century AD), were mostly commentaries on Panini.
“Though its fame is much restricted by its specialized nature, there is no doubt that Panini’s grammar is one of the greatest intellectual achievements of any ancient civilization, and the most detailed and scientific grammar composed before the 19th century in any part of the world,” Basham wrote.
What exactly was the problem?
— Written more than 2,000 years ago, the ‘Ashtadhyayi’ is a linguistics text that set the standard for how Sanskrit was meant to be written and spoken. It delves deep into the language’s phonetics, syntax and grammar, and also offers a ‘language machine’, where you can feed in the root and suffix of any Sanskrit word, and get grammatically correct words and sentences in return.
— To ensure this ‘machine’ was accurate, Panini wrote a set of 4,000 rules dictating its logic. But as scholars studied it, they found that two or more of the rules could apply at the same time, causing confusion. To resolve this, Panini had provided a ‘meta-rule’ (a rule governing rules), which had historically been interpreted as:
‘In the event of a conflict between two rules of equal strength, the rule that comes later in the serial order of the ‘Ashtadhyayi’ wins’.
— However, following this interpretation did not solve the machine’s problem. It kept producing exceptions, for which scholars had to keep writing additional rules. This is where Dr Rishi Rajpopat’s discovery came through.
An answer ‘lost in translation’
— In his thesis titled ‘In Panini We Trust’, Dr Rajpopat took a simpler approach, arguing that the meta-rule has been wrongly interpreted throughout history; what Panini actually meant, was that for rules applying to the left and right sides of a word, readers should use the right-hand side rule.
— Using this logic, Dr Rajpopat found that the ‘Ashtadhyayi’ could finally become an accurate ‘language machine’, producing grammatically sound words and sentences almost every time.
— The discovery now makes it possible to construct millions of Sanskrit words using Panini’s system—and since his grammar rules were exact and formulaic, they can act as a Sanskrit language algorithm that can be taught to computers.
( Source: ‘Grammar’s greatest puzzle’: What was the Sanskrit problem in Panini’s ‘Ashtadhyayi’, now solved by an Indian student? by Nayanika Mukherjee )
Point to ponder: Why Ancient India need to be recognised for their place in world history?
2. MCQ
The “dharma” and “rita” depict a central idea of ancient Vedic civilization of India, In this context, consider the following statements:(2011)
1. Dharma was a conception of obligations and of the discharge of one’s duties to oneself and to others.
2. Rita was the fundamental moral law governing the functioning of the universe and all it contained.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
a) 1 only
b) 2 only
c) Both 1 and 2
d) Neither 1 nor 2
Why in news?
— Alyssa, 13, is the first person in the world to benefit from base editing- experimental cancer treatment, when everything else had failed.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
— In May 2021, Alyssa was diagnosed with a particular type of blood cancer. Over the next six months, doctors tried every treatment that was available, but to little avail. By the time her birthday arrived in January, chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, traditional treatments for leukaemia, had failed to stop the growth of her aggressive cancer. The only option left would be to shift Alyssa to palliative care.
— Except, a medical miracle would soon change Alyssa’s life, and perhaps the lives of many future patients. In what has been described by scientists as “the most sophisticated cell engineering to date,” an experimental treatment would provide the teenager a new lease of life, defeating her seemingly incurable cancer.
What is base editing?
— According to a BBC report, “Bases are the language of life. Just as letters in the alphabet spell out words that carry meaning, the billions of bases in our DNA spell out the instruction manual for our body.”
— With advances in genetic technology, scientists have been able to zoom into a precise part of the genetic code to alter the molecular structure of just one base, effectively changing its genetic instructions.
— A team at the Great Ormond Street Hospital managed to use base-editing to create a new type of T-cell from a healthy donor that would not attack other cells in Alyssa’s body, not kill each other, survive chemotherapy and finally, hunt down all other T-cells in Alyssa’s body (healthy and cancerous). After this therapy worked in its initial stages, Alyssa was given another bone marrow transplant to restore her immunity.
What was the disease Alyssa suffered from?
— Alyssa was diagnosed with a kind of blood cancer known as T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL). T-ALL affects the stem cells in the bone marrow that produce a particular kind of white blood cells (WBC) called T lymphocytes (T cells). These cells provide a person immunity by killing cells carrying infections, activating other immune cells, and regulating the immune response.
— At least 20% of these WBC are atypical– as they accumulate in the bone marrow, they crowd out “good” WBCs and hence weaken the immune system. These unhealthy cells can also accumulate in other parts of the body like the liver, spleen and lymph nodes.
— While found in both children and adults, T-ALL’s incidence decreases with age.
How is T-ALL typically treated?
— Typical treatment for T-ALL is similar to that of any leukaemia– chemotherapy and stem cell/bone marrow transplant. Doctors will first administer multiple rounds of chemotherapy. This either kills the cancerous cells or stops them from further dividing. The exact schedule is guided by an individual’s age and general health.
— If this fails, and the individual is suitable, doctors will conduct bone marrow transplant. First the patient will undergo radiation therapy and/or chemotherapy that will kill the cancerous cells but also wreck an individual’s immunity system along with it. Thus, patients receive an infusion of healthy bone marrow cells that will hopefully multiply and restore immunity.
— Overall treatment for T-ALL is pretty effective– children have a survival rate of over 85 per cent after five years of receiving this treatment. Unfortunately, Alyssa lay in the unlucky 15 per cent of children where the treatment just did not work.
What is the experimental treatment Alyssa received?
— In May, Alyssa, from Leicester in UK, began a trial where she received a dose of healthy T-cells from a donor that would hopefully attack her cancerous cells without destroying each other. Known as CAR-T therapy, this principle has been around for a while, but Alyssa’s case was different.
— Traditionally, CAR-T therapy involves adding a gene to T-cells that causes them to seek out and destroy cancerous cells. The modified cells are known as CAR-T cells. First, an individual’s own T-cells are removed, which are then modified and reintroduced to the individual. The problem with such an approach (besides the expense) is that very often, when an individual is really sick, it is simply impossible to obtain enough healthy T-cells to create CAR-T cells.
— While donors can provide healthy T-cells to an individual, these T-cells from a foreign body are going to attack every single cell in that patient’s body, making the treatment counterproductive.
— Thus, scientists have resorted to what is known as base editing– through this technique of genetic editing, they make it possible for one donor to supply T-cells to multiple recipients, without the traditional risks associated with it. Thus, Alyssa received genetically modified cells that were programmed to specifically attack her cancer while leaving the rest of her body alone.
( Source: What is base editing, the groundbreaking tech that cleared a teenager’s cancer?)
Point to ponder: What is genome editing technology and how is it different from GM technology?
3. MCQ
Recombinant DNA technology (Genetic Engineering) allows genes to be transferred (2013)
1. Across different species of plants.
2. From animals to plants.
3. From microorganisms to higher organisms.
Select the correct Solution using the codes given below.
a) 1 only
b) 2 and 3 only
c) 1 and 3 only
d) 1, 2 and 3
Why in news?
— This year, the Geminids peaked around December 13-14, when, with a clear sky and away from bright city lights, you can watch scores of meteors streak across the sky.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
What causes meteor showers?
— Meteors are usually fragments of comets. As they enter the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed, they burn up, creating a spectacular “shower”.
— According to NASA, “Meteors come from leftover comet particles and bits from asteroids. When these objects come around the Sun, they leave a dusty trail behind them. Every year Earth passes through these debris trails, which allows the bits to collide with our atmosphere where they disintegrate to create fiery and colorful streaks in the sky.”
What makes the Geminids unique?
— NASA describes the Geminids as “one of the best and most reliable annual meteor showers”. If their peak coincides with the new moon, and if the weather is clear, the Geminids can produce approximately 100-150 meteors per hour for viewing. This year however, the moon is bright, and so only 30-40 meteors per hour will be visible in the Northern Hemisphere. “But the Geminids are so bright that this should still be a good show,” NASA says.
— The Geminids are unique because unlike most meteor showers, they originate not from a comet, but from an asteroid, the 3200 Phaethon. The 3200 Phaethon was discovered on October 11, 1983. It is named after the Greek mythology character Phaethon, son of the Sun God Helios. It takes 1.4 years to complete one round of the Sun. As the 3200 Phaethon moves close to the Sun while orbiting it, the rocks on its surface heat up and break off. When the Earth passes through the trail of this debris, the Geminids are caused.
Why are they called Geminids?
— That comes from the constellation Gemini, from whose location in the sky the meteor shower appears to originate. According to NASA, “The constellation for which a meteor shower is named only serves to aid viewers in determining which shower they are viewing on a given night. The constellation is not the source of the meteors. Also, you should not look only to the constellation of Gemini to view the Geminids – they are visible throughout the night sky.”
( Source: What is the Geminids meteor shower, and where can you watch it?)
Point to ponder: NASA’s DART mission: Safeguarding Earth, saving humanity. Discuss.
4. MCQ:
What is die difference between asteroids and comets? (2011)
1. Asteroids are small rocky planetoids, while comets are formed of frozen gases held together by rocky and metallic material.
2. Asteroids are found mostly between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, while comets are found mostly between Venus and Mercury.
3. Comets show a perceptible glowing tail, while asteroids do not.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
a) 1 and 2 only
b) 1 and 3 only
c) 3 only
d) 1, 2 and 3
Why in news ?
— Four revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement were hanged on December 17 (Rajendranath Lahiri) and December 19 (Ashfaqullah Khan, Ram Prasad Bismil, Thakur Roshan Singh) in 1927. This came two years after the Kakori Train Robbery, in which members of the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) had looted a train transporting money to the British treasury.
— After the event, the British authorities launched an intense manhunt, leading to the eventual arrest of several members of the HRA.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The founding of the Hindustan Republican Association
— In 1920, Mahatma Gandhi declared the launch of the Non-Cooperation Movement, a campaign which asked Indians to revoke their support from any activity that “sustained the British government and economy in India.” Gandhi had envisioned this movement to be non-violent, using his methods of satyagraha to eventually attain self-governance.
— However, an incident changed the movement’s trajectory in 1922. After police firing killed three protesting men in the town of Chauri Chaura in present-day Uttar Pradesh, a mob later set fire to the police station, burning 22 policemen to death. In his autobiography, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said this incident led to the “sudden” end of the Non-cooperation movement, with Gandhi calling it off despite significant internal disagreement within the Indian National Congress (INC).
— The HRA was thus founded by a group of young men who were disillusioned by Gandhi’s tactics and what they felt was zealous preaching of “non-violence.”
— Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqulla Khan, both of whom had a flair for poetry, were among the group’s founders. Others included Sachindra Nath Bakshi and trade unionist Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee. Figures such as Chandra Shekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh would also join the HRA. Their manifesto released on January 1, 1925, was titled Krantikari (Revolutionary).
— It proclaimed, “The immediate object of the revolutionary party in the domain of politics is to establish a federal Republic of United States of India by an organized and armed revolution.” The manifesto looked at these revolutionaries as “neither terrorists nor anarchists… they do not want terrorism for terrorism’s sake although they may at times resort to this method as a very effective means of retaliation.”
— Their envisioned republic would be based on universal suffrage and socialist principles, importantly, the “abolition of all systems which make the exploitation of man by man possible.”
What was the Kakori Train Action incident?
— The train robbery at Kakori was the HRA’s first major action, in August 1925. The Number 8 Down Train ran between Shahjahanpur and Lucknow. On a fateful day, it carried treasury bags meant to be deposited in the British treasury in Lucknow.
— The revolutionaries planned to rob this money, which they believed legitimately belonged to Indians anyway. Their objective was both to fund the HRA and garner public attention for their work and mission.
— On August 9, 1925, as the train was passing the Kakori station, about 15 km from Lucknow, Rajendranath Lahiri, a member of the HRA who was already seated inside, pulled the chain and stopped the train. Subsequently, around ten revolutionaries, including Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqullah Khan, entered the train and overpowered the guard. They looted the treasury bags (containing approx Rs 4,600) and escaped to Lucknow.
— Due to a misfiring Mauser gun, one passenger (a lawyer named Ahmad Ali) was killed during the robbery, harming the revolutionaries’ intentions to elicit a positive public reaction.
— The British authorities were enraged, undertaking a violent crackdown and soon arresting many members of the HRA. Bismil was arrested in October, supposedly after two members of the HRA betrayed him. Ashfaqullah escaped to Nepal and then Daltonganj (in present-day Jharkhand). He would be arrested a year later. Out of the forty men arrested by the British, four were handed death sentences, while others received lengthy prison terms.
— The only major leader of HRA at this time who evaded arrest was Chandrashekhar Azad.
What happened to the HRA afterwards?
— In 1928, a year after the execution of the Kakori Conspiracy accused, the HRA merged with various other revolutionary groups that had emerged in Punjab, Bihar and Bengal and became the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). Gradually it made its Marxist leanings more explicit, working with the Communist International and speaking of a revolution involving a struggle by the masses to establish “the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
— By the 1930s, the HSRA had lost steam with many of its prominent leaders either dead or in prison. However, over the latter half of the 1920s, the group was key in carrying out various acts of resistance against British rule, participating in protests against the Simon Commission, the subsequent assassination of assistant police commissioner J.P Saunders, and the bombing of Viceroy Irwin’s train, among others. In the 1930s it broke down into various regional factions.
Why did the Kakori incident elicit such strong reactions?
— The severity of the British response was somewhat surprising, especially the handing out of capital sentences.
— One way to view the Kakori incident is to see the symbolic message that it sent to the British Raj. While the sum stolen was paltry, such an act was unprecedented in the Raj where specifically money meant for the British treasury was looted. The revolutionaries did not touch anything else. The British response to Kakori was to set an example for future revolutionaries and restore British authority in the minds of the people.
— For Indians, the Kakori incident is remembered as one of many revolutionary activities that were undoubtedly brave but ended in tragedy.
( Source: Remembering the 1925 Kakori Train Action and its young revolutionary leaders by Arjun Sengupta)
Point to ponder: India got Swaraj in 1947. It must now strive for Suraj or good governance. Discuss.
5. MCQ
The Ilbert Bill controversy was related to the: (2013)
(a) imposition restrictions the Indians of certain to carry arms by Indians
(b) imposition of restrictions on newspapers and magazines published in Indian languages
(c) removal of disqualifications imposed on the Indian magistrates with regard to the trial of the Europeans
(d) removal of a duty on imported cotton cloth
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