Daily Prelims Notes 27 February 2024

Daily Prelims Notes

27 February 2024

Table Of Contents

1. Ayurvedic Nutrition for Adolescent Girls
2. Sebi cautions investors against fraudulent trading platforms offering stock mkt access via FPI route
3. Congress alleges I-T Dept withdrew 65cr from its accounts: Do political parties have to pay Income tax?
4. Modi to inaugurate three ISRO facilities today
5. Tanzania switches on the first turbine of the hydro unit in World Heritage site
6. Water of Ganga, 21 other rivers in Bihar unfit to even bathe in, finds state pollution control board
7. Will ‘colour molecules’ make quantum computers accessible?
8. Record drop in Suez Canal transits due to Houthis’ attacks
9. India-specific AI model to and gestational age developed

1. Ayurvedic Nutrition for Adolescent Girls

Subject: Schemes

Section: Health

Context:

• A national event on collaboration between the Ministry of Women and Child Development and the Ministry of Ayush for nutritional improvement in adolescent girls took place at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi today (26 February, 2024).

More on news:

• A  Memorandum of Understanding was signed on the occasion for implementation of a project to control anemia among adolescent girls through Ayurvedic interventions in the five districts under ‘Mission Utkarsh’ between the Ministry of Ayush and the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
• The Union Minister for Women and Child Development announced that the Ministry will also take up a joint venture with Ministry of Ayush and ICMR for effective interventions like Yoga in Polycystic Ovarian Disease (PCOD) among adolescent girls

About Mission Utkarsh:

• Under this Mission Utkarsh program, over 94,000 adolescent girls between the age group of 14-18 years registered under Poshan Tracker at approximately 10,000 Anganwadi Centres will be benefited in the 12 months period of the program
• The coordinating agency for the project will be the Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS). 
• Classical Ayurveda medicines (Drakshavaleha and Punarnavadi mandoor) for better nutrition to improve the health of the anemic adolescent girls will be provided for a period of 3 months.
• The districts to be covered include; Dhubri, Bastar, Paschimi Singhbhum, Gadchiroli and Dhoulpur from the states of Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Rajasthan respectively.
• This project is being jointly funded by both the Union Ministries and will be executed in the five districts through Central Ayurveda Research Institute, Guwahati; All India Institute for Ayurveda, New Delhi; CARI, Bhubaneshwar; Regional Ayurveda Research Institute, Nagpur and National Institute Ayurveda, Jaipur. Public Health Foundation of India’s IIPH, Delhi will also play an important role by assessing the outcomes of this project.

2. Sebi cautions investors against fraudulent trading platforms offering stock mkt access via FPI route

Subject: Economy

Section: Financial market

Context:

• Capital markets regulator Sebi has cautioned investors against fraudulent trading platforms, claiming to facilitate stock market access to Indians through Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) route.

More on news:

• The cautionary statement came after Sebi received a number of complaints regarding fraudulent trading platforms.

Key findings:

• Sebi noted that fraudsters are enticing victims through online trading courses, seminars, and mentorship programs in the stock market.
• Under the rule, FPI investment route is unavailable to resident Indians, with limited exceptions as outlined in the Sebi’s FPI Regulations.
• There is no provision for an “Institutional Account” in trading, and direct access to the equities market requires investors to have a trading and demat account with a Sebi-registered broker and depository participant respectively.
• SEBI has not granted any relaxations to FPIs regarding securities market investments by Indian investors.

About Foreign portfolio investment (FPI):

• Foreign portfolio investment (FPI) refers to investing in the financial assets of a foreign country, such as stocks or bonds available on an exchange.
• This type of investment is at times viewed less favorably than direct investment because portfolio investments can be sold off quickly and are at times seen as short-term attempts to make money, rather than a long-term investment in the economy.
• Portfolio investments typically have a shorter time frame for investment return than direct investments.

3. Congress alleges I-T Dept withdrew 65cr from its accounts: Do political parties have to pay Income tax?

Subject: Polity

Section: Elections

Context:

• The Congress party alleged that the Income Tax Department instructed banks to transfer over Rs. 65 crore from the accounts of the Congress, the Youth Congress (IYC) and the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI).

Are political parties required to pay income tax?

• The Income Tax Act, 1961, exempts political parties registered by the Election Commission under the Representation of the People Act, 1951 from paying income tax, with some conditions.
• Section 13-A of the Act, pertains to special provision relating to incomes of political parties,
• These provisions say that  any income under the heads of income from house property, income from other sources, capital gains and income from voluntary contributions shall not be included in the total income of the previous year of the party.
• This is the case, provided that the party maintains books of account and other documents that would enable the Assessing Officer to “properly deduce its income”; maintains a record of all contributions above Rs. 20,000 each; has its accounts audited by an accountant; and does not accept any donation above Rs. 2,000 each in cash.
• The exemption is valid as long as the treasurer of the party or any other person authorized by the party submits a declaration of its donations to the Election Commission before the due date of filing Income Tax returns.

Are political parties required to file Income Tax returns?

• Parties are required to file their returns if their total income, before taking into account the exemptions under Section 13A, is higher than the income tax exemption limit.
• Section 139 (4B) says if the total income in respect of which the political party is assessable (the total income for this purpose being computed under this Act without giving effect to the provisions of section 13A) exceeds the maximum amount which is not chargeable to income-tax, furnish a return of such income of the previous year in the prescribed form.

4. Modi to inaugurate three ISRO facilities today

Subject: Science and tech

Section: Space sector

Context:

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to review the progress of the Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme and inaugurate three significant facilities of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.

Details:

• The Gaganyaan mission, slated for 2025, aims to demonstrate India’s capability in human spaceflight by orbiting astronauts and safely returning them to Earth.
• The three facilities are: The Trisonic Wind Tunnel at the VSSC, PSLV integration facilities at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, and the Semi-cryogenic Integrated Engine and Stage Test Facility (SIET) at the ISRO Propulsion Complex in Tamil Nadu.
• The Trisonic Wind Tunnel:
  • A first in India, it spans 170 meters in length with a 1.2 m test section for assessing aerodynamic properties of rocket and aircraft models, capable of generating speeds from subsonic to four times the speed of sound. These facilities are expected to bolster self-reliance in the design of future launch vehicles.
• PSLV Integration Facilities (PIF) at Sriharikota:
  • It will give the ISRO the capability to increase the number of PSLV missions in a year to 15. At the new facility, the PSLV rocket will be integrated parallelly with the refurbishment of the launch pad.
• Semi-cryogenic Integrated Engine and Stage Test Facility (SIET):
  • It will give the ISRO the capability to test the SCE-2000 semi-cryogenic engine which uses refined kerosene (named ISROSENE) and liquid oxygen as propellants and the rocket stage. The facility is at the ISRO Propulsion Complex in Mahendragiri.

Source: TH

5. Tanzania switches on the first turbine of the hydro unit in World Heritage site

Subject: Environment

Section: Protected Area

Context:

• Tanzania has switched on the first turbine of a new hydroelectric plant set to double power generation capacity but which has drawn stiff opposition from conservationists because of its location in a U.N.-designated World Heritage Site.

Details:

• 2,115 megawatt (MW) Julius Nyerere Hydropower Plant is located on the Rufji River basin in the Selous Game reserve– a UN-designated World Heritage Site.
• Selous Game Reserve:
  • Now renamed as Nyerere National Park.
  • The reserve is among the largest protected areas in Africa, harbouring one of the most significant concentrations of animals including African bush elephant, south-central black rhinoceros, hippopotamus, lion, African wild dog, African buffalo, Masai giraffe, plains zebra and Nile crocodile.

Key facts about Tanzania:

• It is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region.
• It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to the south; Zambia to the southwest; and Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west.
• Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, is in northeastern Tanzania.

Source: ThePrint

6. Water of Ganga, 21 other rivers in Bihar unfit to even bathe in, finds state pollution control board

Subject: Geography

Section: Indian geography

Context:

• The Bihar State Pollution Control Board’s (BSPCB) annual report for 2023-24 has declared the water quality of 22 rivers in Bihar, including the Ganga, as unfit for bathing.

Details:

• Despite this, many people continue to use the river for holy dips and rituals, rejecting concerns over water quality.
• The BSPCB’s findings are based on water quality monitoring at 98 locations, revealing high levels of bacterial contamination, such as faecal and total coliforms, across rivers like Ganga, Son, Punpun, and others.
• The rivers whose water quality was examined are: Ganga, Son, Punpun, Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Ghaghra, Bagmati, Kosi, Sikrahna, Mahananda, Ram Rekha, Harbora, Parmar, Manusamar, Lakhandei, Kohra, Ghaunsh, Daha, Kamala, Gangi, Harha and Sirsia.
• This pollution primarily stems from the discharge of untreated sewage and wastewater into these rivers.
• In Patna, six sewage treatment plants (STPs) were set up under the Namami Gange project but are not fully operational, contributing to the pollution.
• The capacity of these STPs is insufficient to handle the city’s effluent discharge.
• The situation is exacerbated by the direct release of sewage, domestic, and biomedical waste into the Ganga, with about 20 major drains contributing to the pollution.
• The number of polluted rivers in Bihar has risen from six in 2018 to 22, with thousands continuing to use the contaminated water, posing significant health risks.

Source: DTE

7. Will ‘colour molecules’ make quantum computers accessible?

Subject: Science and tech

Section: Awareness in IT and computer

Context: 

• Many Physical systems qualify for qubits but most of them work at very low temperature.
• To overcome this researcher are working on alternative technologies to reduce cost and make quantum computers commercially feasible.

A classical computer:

• It is collection of information storage units (bits) has two states each, denoted 0 and 1.
• Any computation by computer is essentially result of the manipulation of the states of bits.

Quantum computers: 

• A qubit is the fundamental physical component of a quantum computer.
• A qubit can exist in one of the two states (0 or 1) or unlike classical computers- a superposed state with contributions from both states.

Principle of Superposition: 

• Superposed states (coherent superpositions) are important in quantum information-processing protocols.
• Superpositions are fragile due to interaction between the qubit and other systems.
• In more number of interaction channels, the superposition occurs faster  and the qubit obtain one of the two states.

Problems in the process of quantum devices: 

As a group of qubits are required to make a quantum device and thus qubits need to satisfy certain basic requirements:

the qubits should be identical but can’t be guaranteed due to manufacturing and some imperfections is possibility.

It should be relatively easy to integrate several qubits that can be operated controllably.

Overall the qubit system should be robust enough to function at room temperature without losing quantum features for reasonably long durations.

Available qubits : 

• Many physical systems are suitable for realising qubits.Such options include superconducting junctions, trapped ions, and quantum dots. But these systems operate as qubits only at very low temperatures or in a high vacuum or both.
• In some cases low temperature is required for qubits to work while in others it is for superposition.

Commercial viability : 

• Quantum computers based on such technologies are expensive that in long run will not be economically viable.
• Recently researchers in Japan, realised qubits at room temperature in a metal-organic framework (MOF).

Metal-Organic framework (MOF):

• A MOF is a network of repeated molecular arrangements.
• Repeating structure has a metal atom or ion with organic molecules attached to it.
• Each tentacle attaches to another metal atom, and the structure repeats itself to make up the MOF.

What are colour molecules and role of these in qubits devices:

• A chromophore is an organic molecule or a part of a larger molecule that absorbs light of some specific colour.
• An object containing such molecules thus appears to have some dominant colour.
• Since the presence of chromophores is responsible for the colouration, they are called “colour molecules”.

Example:

• The leaves of many plants appear green since the chromophore chlorophyll predominantly absorbs red and blue colours from sunlight.

Singlet : 

• In lowest energy state (ground state) a chromophore molecule has a pair of electrons in a special configuration called a singlet.
• Every electron has inherent spin property. The spin of an electron points in two opposite directions having distinct quantum state.

Excited state: 

• The chromophore molecule absorbs light and move to a higher energy level (i.e. an excited state).
• In a singlet, the spins of two electrons are in opposite directions.
• If two electrons, a lower energy and a higher energy, have spins in opposite directions, called as a singlet excited state.
• If the two electrons on different steps of the energy and have spin in same direction (say, +1 and +1), the configuration is triplet excited state.

Deexcitation:

• Release of extra energy by an excited molecular system
• is called deexcitation.

Singlet fission:

• Energy released in deexcitation of higher energy singlet excited state  into a lower energy triplet excited state, excite a neighbouring chromophore molecule in a singlet ground state to jump to a triplet excited state.
• This generates two triplet excited chromophores from a singlet excited state chromophore is called singlet fission.

Singlet Induced Superposition:

• The very porous MOF networks allows the chromophores to rotate by a small degree and this rotation change the interaction strength between two adjacent chromophores.
• The interaction between the chromophores prepares the two pairs of electrons (in triplet state) in a superposition.
• The rotation-induced modulation ensures the long-lived superposition of triplet states by singlet fission.

Room temperature and very low temperature are necessary condition to long-lived coherence:

• According to Japanese team, even at room temperature, the coherence of the superposition of two four-electron states survived up to a fraction of a micro second (a long duration in the current context. This is a significant achievement.
• Other qubit systems require an extremely low temperature for coherence to last this long.

8. Record drop in Suez Canal transits due to Houthis’ attacks

Subject: IR

Section: Places in news

Who are Houthis?

• The Houthis are an Iranian-backed, Shiite Muslim armed religious and political movement in Yemen.

Recent activities of Houthis

Houthis attacked ships traversing the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians caught in the Hamas-Israel war.

Impact of Houthis’ attack:

• It disrupted trade through the critical waterway that connects Asia and Europe. (Suez Canal)
• Companies are re-routing ships to avoid the Suez Canal and opting for the longer route (8900 km more) around the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa.

Recent route shift: 

• As per UNCTAD report ,Suez Canal handled 12%-15% of global trade in 2023.
• But since attack,container tonnage crossing the canal fell by 82% this year.
• While container tonnage passing around the Cape of Good Hope increased by 60% and sbout 621 container ships were rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope.

Disruption in Panama Canal: 

• The Panama Canal is under stress due to low water levels due to drought.
• Disruption in Red Sea also come at this time.

What is Suez Canal: 

• The Suez Canal was established in 1896 is 120 miles long from the city of Port Said (Mediterranean Sea) in the north to the city of Suez ( Egypt, Red sea , Indian Ocean )  in the south.
• It separates the African continent from the Sinai Peninsula.
• Importance:
• It is a crucial international shipping route, allowing vessels to navigate between Europe and Asia without having to circumnavigate the African continent.

What is Cape of Good Hope: 

• The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa
• It joins Eastern Asia and Europe to southern parts of Africa.

What is Panama canal?

The Panama Canal is an artificial 82-kilometre waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean, cutting across the Isthmus of Panama, and is a conduit for maritime trade.

Analysis of recent happenings: 

• Monthly transits went down by more than 40% in the Suez Canal only recently due to attack and by 50% in the Panama Canal due to drought in last two years compared to their peak.
• Attack led to re-routing from Suez Canal to Cape of Good Hope that increased the distance travelled. An oil tanker starting from the port of Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia to Rotterdam in the Netherlands will have to travel 10,358 km through the Suez Canal route. The alternative journey around the Cape of Good Hope is 17,975 km.
• This means that the Suez Canal cut the distance by 42%.
• Also, according to UNCTAD report, today there is no ideal alternative to the Suez Canal, especially for Asia–Europe and Asia–North Africa trade.
• The extra distance travelled led to higher shipping costs. Container freight rates for Asia-Pacific to Europe routes have increased.

Impact on India:

India is also impacted by such attacks in following manner: 

• Russia — the source of most of India’s oil — sends its oil containers through the Suez Canal. As of now, domestic fuel prices have not impacted.
• India’s petroleum products export to European countries, especially the Netherlands is also through the Suez Canal route.
• Other routes increase export cost making it unviable.

9. India-specific AI model to and gestational age developed

Subject: Schemes

Section: Health

Context:

Researchers have developed an India-specific artificial intelligence model to precisely determine the gestational age of a foetus in the second and third trimester of pregnancy.

• BRIC-THSTI Faridabad and IIT Madras researchers have developed an India-specific model to determine the age of a foetus in a pregnant woman in the second and third trimesters precisely.
• The Garbhini-GA2 is th first late-trimester GA estimation model to be developed and validated using Indian population data.
• Currently, the age of a foetus (gestational age, GA) is determined using a formula developed for Western populations and are likely to be erroneous when applied in the later part of pregnancy due to variations in the growth of the foetus in Indian population.
• The newly developed second and third-trimester GA formula, Garbhini-GA2, accurately estimates the age of a foetus for the Indian population, reducing error by almost three times.
• Accurate GA is necessary for the appropriate care of pregnant women and for determining precise delivery dates, thus reducing maternal and infant mortality rates.
• Technological advancements yield tangible benefits in the clinical realm lies in the end-to-end partnership between clinicians and data scientists. 
• Such collaboration ensures that the development of solutions is not only technically sound but also clinically relevant and seamlessly integrated into healthcare workflows.

Why needed?

Ultrasound dating in early pregnancy is the standard of care for determining GA. However a major proportion of women in India have their first ultrasound done in their second and third trimester of pregnancy. In these women, the application of Indian population-specific GA formulae, with better accuracy, can potentially improve pregnancy care leading to better outcomes. This accurate dating will also enhance the precision of epidemiological estimates for pregnancy outcomes in the country. Once validated in prospective pan-India cohorts, this Garbhini-GA2 can be deployed in clinics across India, improving the care delivered by obstetricians and neonatologists, thus reducing maternal and infant mortality rates in India.