Daily Prelims Notes 20 January 2024

January 20, 2024
Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
Category: DPN

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Daily Prelims Notes

20 January 2024

Table Of Contents

1. Scientists Map Largest Deep-Sea Coral Reef Off Atlantic Coast

Subject : Geography

Section: Oceanography

Context:

For the first time, scientists have succeeded in mapping the largest deep-sea coral reef in the world, which runs hundreds of miles off the Atlantic coast of the United States.

More on news:

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this massive 6.4-million-acre reef is bigger than the state of Vermont.
It is evident that larger deep-sea reefs will be discovered in the future since only about 75% of the world’s ocean floor has been mapped in high-resolution.
Only 50% of US offshore waters have been mapped.
Both deep-sea coral reefs and tropical reefs are at risk from oil and gas extraction and climate change.

About the reef:

The reef extends for about 310 miles (499 kilometers) from Florida to South Carolina and at some points reaches 68 miles (109 kilometers) wide.
The total area is nearly three times the size of Yellowstone National Park.
The reef was found at depths ranging from 655 feet to 3,280 feet (200 meters to 1,000 meters), where sunlight doesn’t penetrate and waters are an average of 39 degrees Fahrenheit.
Scientists nicknamed the largest area of the reef “Million Mounds.”
It is made up mostly of stony corals.
Cold-water corals such as these grow in the deep ocean where there is no sunlight and survive by filter-feeding biological particles.
Cold-water corals are known to be important ecosystem engineers, creating structures that provide shelter, food, and nursery habitat to other invertebrates and fish, these corals remain poorly understood
For tropical coral reefs, photosynthesis is important for growth.
However, for corals this far down, must filter food particles out of the water for energy.
Deep coral reefs provide habitat for sharks, swordfish, sea stars, octopus, shrimp and many other kinds of fish.
Deep reefs cover more of the ocean floor than tropical reefs.

About coral reefs:

Coral reefs are some of the most diverse ecosystems in the world.
Vibrant and healthy reefs form when a coral and an algae — zooxanthellae — start a symbiotic relationship.
The coral provides protection and compounds zooxanthellae’s need for photosynthesis.
The algae produces carbohydrates and helps remove the coral’s waste.
Coral polyps, the animals primarily responsible for building reefs, can take many forms: large reef building colonies, graceful flowing fans, and even small, solitary organisms.
The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is the world’s largest tropical coral reef system which stretches for about 1,430 miles (2,301 kilometers).

About Coral Bleaching:

Warmer water temperatures can result in coral bleaching.
When water is too warm, corals expel the algae (zooxanthellae) living in their tissues causing the coral to turn completely white.
This is called coral bleaching.
When a coral bleaches, it is not dead.

Some reefs in news:

Ren’Ai reef is located in the South China sea.
- Ren’Ai reef is the Chinese name for what the Philippines call Ayungin Shoal and the US calls the Second Thomas Shoal, the site of multiple confrontations between the two countries’ ships in recent months.
Mischief reef is located in the South China Sea.
Conway reef is located in the Pacific Ocean.
Lyra reef is located in the Pacific Ocean.

2. Japan says spacecraft lands on moon, becomes world’s 5th country to do so

Subject: S&T

Section: Space Technology

Context:

Japan became the fifth country in history to reach the moon when one of its spacecrafts without astronauts successfully made a soft landing on the lunar surface early Saturday.

More on news:

Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM’s) small rovers were launched as planned and that data was being transmitted back to Earth.
Japan follows the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India in reaching the moon.
A landing of such precision would be a world’s first and would be crucial technology for a sustainable, long-term and accurate space probe system.

About SLIM nicknamed as “the Moon Sniper”:

SLIM was launched on a Mitsubishi Heavy H2A rocket in September.
It initially orbited Earth and entered lunar orbit on Dec. 25.
SLIM is aiming to hit a very small target
It is a lightweight spacecraft about the size of a passenger vehicle.
SLIM was carrying two small autonomous probes — lunar excursion vehicles LEV-1 and LEV-2
LEV-1 is equipped with an antenna and a camera and is tasked with recording SLIM’s landing.
LEV-2 is a ball-shaped rover equipped with two cameras, developed by JAXA together with Sony, toymaker Tomy and Doshisha University.
It was using “pinpoint landing” technology that promises far greater control than any previous moon landing.
Most previous probes have used landing zones about 10 kilometers (six miles) wide whereas SLIM was aiming at a target of just 100 meters (330 feet).

Other missions of Japan:

Hayabusa was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis.
Hayabusa2 is an asteroid sample-return mission operated by the Japanese state space agency JAXA. It is a successor to the Hayabusa mission, which returned asteroid samples for the first time in June 2010
The Artemis program is a Moon exploration program that is led by the United States NASA and was formally established in 2017 via Space Policy Directive 1.
The Artemis program is intended to reestablish a human presence on the Moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.

3. What is the Nagara style, in which Ayodhya’s Ram temple is being built

Subject: History

Section: Art and Culture

Context:

The Ram temple in Ayodhya which is to be inaugurated on January 22, has been designed in the Nagara style of temple architecture.

More on news:

Meru, Mandara and Kailasa are the first three names amongst the twenty types of temples described in the early texts as the names of the Mountain, which is the axis of the world.
One of Ayodhya’s Ram temple’s ‘hybrid’ features is that although no elaborate gopuram has been built in the temple , a 732m long wall runs around the temple compound.

About Nagara Style of temple architecture:

The Nagara style of temple architecture emerged sometime in the fifth century CE, during the late Gupta period, in northern India.
The Dravidian style of southern India also emerged in the same period.
Nagara and Dravida which are called ‘styles’ are also called “the two great classical languages of Indian temple architecture”.

Distinguished by a towering shikhara

Nagara temples are built on a raised plinth with the garbhagriha also known as “sanctum sanctorum” where the idol of the deity rests.
It is considered as the most sacred part of the temple.
Towering over the garbhagriha is the shikhara, referred to as ‘mountain peak’ and is considered as the most distinguishable aspect of Nagara style temples.
Shikharas are human-made representations of the natural and cosmological order, as imagined in Hindu tradition.
A typical Nagara style temple also comprises a circumambulatory passage around the garbhagriha meant for parikrama.
It has one or more mandapas (halls) on the same axis.
Elaborate murals and reliefs often adorn its walls.

Five modes of Nagara architecture

There are five modes of Nagara temple architecture —
- Valabhi,
- Phamsana,
- Latina,
- Shekhari, and
- Bhumija.
The first two i.e Valabhi and Phamsana are associated with what scholars have classified as Early Nagara Style.
The Valabhi begins as a masonry rendering of the barrel-roofed wooden structure, simple or with aisles, familiar through chaitya halls.
A formalization of multi-eave towers leads to the Phamsana style.
From these modes emerged the Latina where a shikhara is a single, slightly curved tower with four sides of equal length.
This mode emerged in the Gupta period and was complete with curvature by the early seventh century.
The tenth century onwards composite Latinas began to emerge and gave rise to Shekhari and Bhumija styles.
The Shekhari shape has attached sub-spires or spirelets echoing the main shape.
These may run up most of the face of the shikhara.
The Bhumija has miniature spires which are in horizontal and vertical rows and run all the way to the top, creating a grid-like effect on each face.
The actual shikhara often approaches a pyramidal shape, with the curve of the Latina less visible.
Temples can even contain multiple kinds of shikaras on top of a simple structure, with the tallest always being on top of the garbha griha.

Dravidian temple Architecture:

Basic features of the Dravida Style of temple architecture are as follows:

The tower in Dravida Style is known as ‘Vimana’ and is a pyramidal structure with sliding sides.
‘Vimana’ is not only created on the ‘Garbhagriha’ but also on the ‘Gopurams’.
‘Gopurams’ is an entrance gateway.
Boundary wall is a necessary feature.
Presence of water tank within the premise which is meant for religious ablutions.
They like the ‘Nagara’ style, also follow the ‘Panchayatan’ style and crucified ground plan.
At the entrance of ‘Garbhagriha’ images of ‘Dwarapala’ are placed to guard the temple.
In some temples images of embracing couples (mithun) are placed.
The ‘Garbhagriha’ is connected through a very small passage known as ‘Antaral’ to the ‘Mandapa’.

Comparison to Dravida style

The Dravida counterpart to the shikhara is the vimana.
In the Dravida style temples, vimanas are typically smaller than the great gatehouses or gopurams.
Gopurams are the most striking architectural elements in a temple complex.
Shikhar as mentioned in southern Indian architectural sources, refers only to the dome-shaped crowning cap atop the vimana.
The existence of gopurams also points to another unique feature of the Dravida style i.e. the presence of a boundary wall.
Few Nagara style temple complexes are lined with distinctive boundary walls that are a part of the temple’s design.

4. Chandrayaan-3 lander Vikram is now a landmark on Moon

Subject: S&T

Section: Space Technology

Context:

Chandrayaan-3 lander Vikram is now firmly established as a landmark on the Moon.

More on news:

A NASA spacecraft which is currently orbiting the Moon has sent laser beams to a tiny mirror-based instrument onboard Vikram.
It has successfully received the reflected beams, verifying the possibility of a new way to precisely locate objects on the Moon.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) performed the laser beam experiment on December 12 last year.
The beams were made to bounce off the Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA), a 2-inch wide dome-shaped instrument studded with eight finely-polished mirrors.
The mirrors are oriented in such a way that they can tap and reflect light coming in from any direction.
With this experiment all the seven payloads on Vikram, and the two on Pragyaan rover, have now been tested and verified to have functioned as designed.
This is not the first LRA to be deployed on the Moon as such instruments were placed by the Apollo missions as well.
One of these instruments revealed that the Moon was moving away from the Earth by a rate of about 1.5 inches a year.

About Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA):

Accommodated on Vikram as part of Chandrayaan3 mission, the LRA comprises eight retroreflectors on a hemispherical support structure.
This array facilitates lasers ranging from various directions by any orbiting spacecraft with suitable instruments.
The two-inch-wide LRA is designed to last for decades on the lunar surface.
It weighs only about 20 grams and does not require power or maintenance.
The instrument has no electronics and does not need power or maintenance and thus can remain useful for years, even decades
Since its lunar landing, Vikram has been accessible for measurements from the altimeter on LRO, called LOLA.
LRA on Chandrayaan-3 is the only one currently available near the lunar south pole and its applications as a location marker would benefit current and future lunar missions.
Measurements recorded using the LRA will help in the precise determination of the spacecraft’s orbital position and reveal insights into the moon’s dynamics, internal structure, and gravitational anomalies.

About Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO):

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a NASA robotic spacecraft currently orbiting the Moon in an eccentric polar mapping orbit.
Data collected by LRO have been described as essential for planning NASA’s future human and robotic missions to the Moon.
LRO was the first United States mission to the Moon in over ten years.
It was Launched on June 18th 2009 in conjunction with the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS).
LRO and LCROSS were launched as part of the United States’s Vision for Space Exploration program.

5. Warmer winter impacts ice hockey, Chadar trek in country’s coldest region of Ladakh

Subject: Geography

Section: India Physical Geography

Context:

Unusually warm weather in Ladakh this winter has affected extreme winter sports like ice hockey and the 105-kilometre Chadar trek.
In Ladakh’s Kargil town, ice hockey rinks faced challenges in forming a proper ice surface, prompting the use of electric fans to maintain safe playing conditions.
The warmer temperatures, deviating from the normal pattern by four to eight degrees, also impacted the Chadar trek, causing a delay in its start and a shorter route due to late ice formation on the Zanskar River.
- The Chadar trek is one of the extreme sports in the country and is held only when the temperature drops between -30 to -35 degrees.
The usual extreme conditions required for these activities were not met due to the warmer and deficient snowfall months of November and December.

About Chadar trek:

The Chadar Trek or the Zanskar Gorge Trek is a winter trail over the frozen Zanskar River, which lies in the Indian Union territory of Ladakh.
It is traditionally the only means of travel in the area during the harsh winter months. The trail has become popular with foreign adventure tourists.
The walls are near vertical cliffs up to 600 m high and the Zanskar River (a tributary of the Indus) flows in a narrow gorge that is only 5 metres (16 ft) wide in places.
The overall distance is approximately 105 kilometres (65 mi) – an average trekker walks 16 kilometres (10 mi) per day.

Zanskar River:

It is the first major tributary of the Indus River, equal or greater in volume than the main river, which flows entirely within Ladakh, India.
It originates northeast of the Great Himalayan range and drains both the Himalayas and the Zanskar Range within the region of Zanskar.
It flows northeast to join the Indus River near Nimo.

Source: TH

6. How do you plan to save the Great Indian Bustard, Supreme Court asks the government

Subject: Environment

Section: Species in news

Context:

The Supreme Court has instructed the Indian government to disclose its plans to protect the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard by February.

Details:

The directive emphasizes the need for a strategy to prevent the bird’s extinction, primarily caused by collisions with high transmission power lines in Gujarat and Rajasthan.
The Supreme Court issued the directive regarding the protection of the Great Indian Bustard in areas that are both natural habitats of birds and significant solar power producers.
The court acknowledged the challenge of balancing anti-carbon footprint commitments with bird preservation efforts.

About the Great Indian Bustard (GIB):

One of the heaviest flying birds endemic to the Indian subcontinent.
State Bird of Rajasthan.

Habitat:

Untamed, Arid grasslands.
Among the heaviest birds with flight, GIBs prefer grasslands as their habitats
A Maximum number of GIBs were found in Jaisalmer and the Indian Army-controlled field firing range near Pokhran, Rajasthan.
Other areas: Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Population:

As per the studies conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India, there are around 150 Great Indian Bustards left across the country which includes about 128 birds in Rajasthan and less than 10 birds each in the States of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
While the GIBs’ historic range included much of the Indian sub-continent, it has now shrunk to just 10 per cent of that.

Protection Status:

IUCN Status: Critically Endangered.
Listed in Wildlife Protection Act’s Schedule 1.

Significance of GIBs in the ecosystem:

Terrestrial birds spend most of their time on the ground, feeding on insects, lizards, grass seeds, etc. GIBs are considered the flagship bird species of grassland and hence barometers of the health of grassland ecosystems.

Why is the Great Indian Bustard endangered?

Among the biggest threats to the GIBs are overhead power transmission lines.
Due to their poor frontal vision, the birds can’t spot the power lines from a distance, and are too heavy to change course when close. Thus, they collide with the cables and die.
According to the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), in Rajasthan, 18 GIBs die every year after colliding with overhead power lines.

Source: TH

7. MNRE launches scheme to incentivise production of green hydrogen

Subject: Environment

Section: Species in news

Context:

The Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has recently published guidelines and incentives to promote the procurement of green hydrogen as part of the National Green Hydrogen Mission (NGHM).

Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition (SIGHT) programme:

Under the NGHM, Rs 17,490 crore has been set aside for the SIGHT programme, to bolster domestic electrolyser manufacturing and green hydrogen production. These incentives are designed to facilitate cost reduction and rapid expansion.
- Green hydrogen is essential for removing sulfur content in crude oil to produce petrol and diesel.
Implementation:
- Implemented under Mode-2B, a system adopted by the MNRE for the SIGHT scheme, this approach involves aggregating demand and soliciting bids for green hydrogen and its derivatives production and supply at the lowest cost through a competitive selection process.
Programme execution:
- Entrusted to agencies nominated by the Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG), primarily oil and gas companies, guided by the Centre for High Technology (CHT).
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation is reportedly constructing a 370 tonnes per annum green hydrogen plant at its Visakhapatnam refinery.
Who is eligible for incentives?
- To qualify for incentives under the scheme, bidders must meet the criteria outlined in the ‘National Green Hydrogen Standard’ as notified by MNRE.
- The scheme offers a direct incentive over three years from the beginning of production and supply, with rates of Rs 50 / kilogramme of green hydrogen in the first year, Rs 40 / kg in the second year and Rs 30 / kg during the third year.
- The net worth of the bidder as on the last date of the previous financial year, as specified in the tender document should be equal to or greater than Rs 15 crore per thousand MT per annum of quoted production and supply capacity of green hydrogen.
Monitoring committee:
- A scheme monitoring committee, co-chaired by the secretary of MoPNG, secretary of the MNRE, mission director of the National Green Hydrogen Mission, and other experts, will periodically review the implementation status and performance of capacities awarded or established under the scheme.
- The committee will also facilitate and recommend measures to address challenges.

Greenwashing concerns in Green Hydrogen production:

Environmental organisations have cautioned about potential land-use and water conflicts arising from the significant land and water resources required for green hydrogen production.
- Greenwashing is a deceptive practice where companies or even governments exaggerate their actions and their impact on mitigating climate change, often providing misleading information or making unverifiable claims. It is an attempt to capitalize on the growing demand for environmentally sound products.

Source: DTE

8. WHO releases guidelines for multi-modal generative AI in healthcare, resonates with recommendations for other sectors

Subject: S&T

Section: Awareness in IT

Context:

The World Health Organization (WHO) has released comprehensive guidance on the ethical use and governance of large multi-modal models (LMM) in healthcare.

Large multi-modal models (LLM):

LMMs, known for their ability to mimic human communication and perform tasks without explicit programming, have been adopted more rapidly than any other consumer technology in history.
Example: ChatGPT, Bard, Bert and Gemini.
The risk from LLMs: The generation of false, inaccurate or biased statements, which could misguide health decisions, the data used to train these models can suffer from quality or bias issues, potentially perpetuating disparities based on race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity or age, the accessibility and affordability of LMMs, and the risk of ‘automation bias’ in healthcare, leading professionals and patients to overlook errors, and cybersecurity.

About the Guidelines:

The guiding document identified five broad applications of LMMs in healthcare: Diagnosis and clinical care, such as responding to patients’ written queries; patient-guided use for investigating symptoms and treatments; clerical and administrative tasks in electronic health records; medical and nursing education with simulated patient encounters; and scientific research and drug development.
For developers, the WHO advises engaging a wide range of stakeholders, including potential users and healthcare professionals, from the early stages of AI development. It also recommends designing LMMs for well-defined tasks with the necessary accuracy and understanding of potential secondary outcomes.
It offers a roadmap for harnessing the power of LMMs in healthcare while navigating their complexities and ethical considerations.
This initiative marks a significant step towards ensuring that AI technologies serve the public interest, particularly in the health sector.
The six core principles identified by WHO are: (1) protect autonomy; (2) promote human well-being, human safety, and the public interest; (3) ensure transparency, explainability, and intelligibility; (4) foster responsibility and accountability; (5) ensure inclusiveness and equity; (6) promote AI that is responsive and sustainable.

WHO listed out concerns that called for rigorous oversight needed for the technologies to be used in safe, effective and ethical ways. These included:

The data used to train AI may be biased, generating misleading or inaccurate information that could pose risks to health, equity and inclusiveness;
Large language models (LLM) generate responses that can appear authoritative and plausible to an end user; however, these responses may be completely incorrect or contain serious errors, especially for health-related responses;
LLMs may be trained on data for which consent may not have been previously provided for such use, and LLMs may not protect sensitive data (including health data) that a user provides to an application to generate a response;
LLMs can be misused to generate and disseminate highly convincing disinformation in the form of text, audio or video content that is difficult for the public to differentiate from reliable health content; and
Policy-makers should ensure patient safety and protection while technology firms work to commercialise LLMs.

Key recommendations for governments include:

Investing in public infrastructure, like computing power and public datasets, that adhere to ethical principles
Using laws and regulations to ensure LMMs meet ethical obligations and human rights standards
Assigning regulatory agencies to assess and approve LMMs for healthcare use
Introducing mandatory post-release audits and impact assessments

Increased inequality due to generative AI:

The 2024 World Economic Situation and Prospects report indicates that while AI’s transformation of the labour market and productivity is underway, there is a concern about its unequal impact.
The report highlights a global shift toward mass adoption of generative AI technologies, such as ChatGPT, with a third of surveyed firms adopting it within six months.
However, worries are expressed about AI contributing to increased inequalities within and between countries, potentially diminishing the demand for low-skilled workers and adversely affecting disadvantaged groups, particularly women in roles with higher automation risks.
Additionally, challenges are emphasized for workers in low-income developing countries, who may experience fewer job disruptions from automation but are also less likely to benefit from AI-driven productivity gains, exacerbated by infrastructure gaps in digital education and internet access.

Disinformation and Misinformation:

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report for 2024 highlights AI-generated disinformation and misinformation, particularly through deep fakes, as a major global risk.
The report expresses concerns about potential threats to the legitimacy of newly elected governments, especially during significant upcoming elections worldwide.
In response to these concerns, the European Union passed the AI Act in December, aiming to ensure the safe and ethical use of AI systems within the EU while respecting fundamental rights.
The report also identifies quantum computing as a potential disruptor, emphasizing security concerns related to “harvest attacks” on encrypted data for future decryption using advanced quantum computers.

Source: DTE