Daily Prelims Notes 12 December 2021

December 12, 2021
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Daily Prelims Notes

12 December 2021

Table Of Contents

1. Tornadoes

Subject – Geography

Context – Tornadoes ripped through over five US states on Friday, killing dozens.

Concept –

Thunderstorms and tornadoes are severe local storms. They are of short duration, occurring over a small area but are violent.
A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground. It is a vortex of rapidly moving air.
Thunderstorms occur when denser, drier cold air is pushed over warmer, humid air, conditions scientists call atmospheric instability. As that happens, an updraft is created when the warm air rises. When winds vary in speed or direction at different altitudes–a condition known as wind shear–the updraft will start to spin.
These changes in winds produce the spin necessary for a tornado. For especially strong tornadoes, changes are needed in both the wind’s speed and direction.
Tornadoes in December are unusual, but not unheard of.
- There’s usually a lot of wind shear in the winter because of the big difference in temperature and air pressure between the equator and the Arctic.
- But usually, there’s not a lot of instability in the winter that’s needed for tornadoes because the air isn’t as warm and humid.
Tornadoes typically lose energy in a matter of minutes.

Tornadoes as well as cyclones both occur in India. However, unlike cyclones the frequency of tornado outbreak is very low.
Cyclones originate in the Bay of Bengal region as well as in the Arabian Sea region where as Tornadoes of weak strength occur in north-western and north-eastern region of the country causing significant damage to man and material.

What conditions led to storms of this scale in US?

Spring-like temperatures across much of the Midwest and South in December helped bring the warm, moist air that helped form thunderstorms.
Some of this is due to La Nina, which generally brings warmer than normal winter temperatures to the Southern US.

2. Covid-19 pandemic End

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – world deciding when the Covid-19 pandemic is over

Concept –

There’s no clear-cut definition for when a pandemic starts and ends, and how much of a threat a global outbreak is posing can vary by country.
The pandemic may be widely considered over when WHO decides the virus is no longer an emergency of international concern, a designation its expert committee has been reassessing every three months.
But when the most acute phases of the crisis ease within countries could vary.
Scientists expect Covid-19 will eventually settle into becoming a more predictable virus like the flu, meaning it will cause seasonal outbreaks but not the huge surges we’re seeing right now.

3. Asafoetida

Subject – Agriculture

Context – As Himalayan farmers grow the country’s first asafoetida plants, changing weather threatens to play spoilsport

Concept –

It is a herbaceous plant of the umbelliferae family. It is a perennial plant whose oleo gum resin is extracted from its thick roots and rhizome.
The plant stores most of its nutrients inside its deep fleshy roots.
It is endemic to Iran and Afghanistan, which are also the main global suppliers of it.
It is very popular in India and is used in cooking.
Climatic Condition: It thrives in dry and cold desert conditions. The plant can withstand a maximum temperature between 35 and 40 degree, whereas during winters, it can survive in temperatures up to minus 4 degree.
During extreme weather, the plant can get dormant.
Regions with sandy soil, very little moisture and annual rainfall of not more than 200mm are considered conducive for heeng cultivation.
Properties: It has medicinal properties, including relief for digestive, spasmodic and stomach disorders, asthma and bronchitis.
- The herb is used to help with painful or excessive bleeding during menstruation and premature labour.

India’s Heeng Cultivation Project

Heeng is not cultivated in India. India imports raw heeng worth from Iran, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
In June 2020, the CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (IHBT), Palampur inked a Memorandum of Understanding with the agriculture ministry of Himachal Pradesh to jointly cultivate the heeng.
The agriculture ministry has identified four locations in the Lahul-Spiti valley and has distributed heeng seeds to seven farmers in the region.
However, the challenge for the scientists is that heeng seeds remain under a prolonged dormant phase and the rate of seed germination is just 1%.

4. Neurocysticercosis (NCC)

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – Worms thriving in brains, Assam’s tea garden workers lose lives, livelihoods

Concept –

Neurocysticercosis (NCC) is a preventable disease that wreaks havoc among Assam’s pig-rearing communities among others.
The disease, which can result in adult-onset epilepsy, is caused when a human consumes meat from — or is indirectly in contact with — a pig infected with tapeworm.
The eggs of the tapeworm invade the muscles of the human body to make cysts. Sometimes these cysts get into people’s brains, triggering epileptic seizures, headaches, difficulty with balance and excess fluid around the brain.
Assam is the world’s largest tea growing region, with over 800 estates producing half of India’s tea.
The life cycle of a pork tapeworm (taenia solium) takes it from pigs to humans and vice-versa.
Tapeworm eggs are spread through food, water, or surfaces contaminated with faeces. Humans swallow the eggs when they eat contaminated food or put contaminated fingers in their mouth.
Humans are the only definitive host for the parasite to complete its life cycle. This spillover from pigs to humans and vice-versa makes NCC a zoonotic disease.

5. Vertical Launch Short Range Surface to Air Missile (VL-SRSAM)

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – The Vertical Launch Short Range Surface to Air Missile (VL-SRSAM) designed for Indian Naval warships was successfully flight tested earlier this week by India

Concept –

VL-SRSAM has been designed and developed jointly by three facilities of the Defence Research and Development Organisation for deployment of Indian Naval warships.
The missile has the capability of neutralising various aerial threats at close ranges including sea-skimming targets.
The tactic of sea skimming is used by various anti-ship missiles and some fighter jets to avoid being detected by the radars onboard warships.
For this, these assets fly as close as possible to sea surface and thus are difficult to detect and neutralise.
RDO officials have said its design is based on Astra missile which is a Beyond Visual Range Air to Air missile.
VL-SRSAM is a canisterised system, which means it is stored and operated from specially designed compartments.
- In the canister, the inside environment is controlled, thus making its transport and storage easier and improving the shelf life of weapons

6. Governor as Chancellor of the Universities

Subject – Polity

Context – Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan says he wants to quit as Chancellor

Concept –

Hon’ble Governor is ex-officio Chancellor of the State Universities.
As per the provisions of the Act of the concerned University, the Governor appoints the Vice Chancellor on the advice/ in consultation with the State Government.
As Chancellor, the Governor also presides over the Convocation of the State Universities, whenever present.
The Governor as Chancellor has absolute authority. The Governor chairs the Senate and the Syndicate meetings. In his absence the Vice-Chancellor officiates. As the visitor of the university he can inspect, order and command. The institution runs under his stewardship.
Chancellor also appoints his/her nominees on various bodies like Senate, Syndicate, Board of Management, Selection Committee and Academic Council of the State Universities.
The Chancellor has been entrusted with the powers to enquire into the affairs of the State Universities as per the provisions of the Act.

7. 5G Interfering With Aircraft

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – FAA to prohibit many flight operations due to risk of ‘5G’ wireless interference

Concept –

Altimeters are the instruments that pilots use to determine an aircraft’s altitude or height.
The airliners have two types of altimeters on board: a barometric altimeter and a radio altimeter.
- Pilots use the barometric altimeter almost exclusively, and it’s used to determine altitude above mean sea level.
- The other type of altimeter is called the radio (or radar) altimeter. This altimeter determines an aircraft’s precise height by bouncing radio waves off the terrain below. It only works from the ground up to a few thousand feet.
Pilots use radio altimeters when conducting approaches to airports in low visibility.
These approaches are predicated on a minimum height at which pilots must see at least the approach lighting system — it’s called the decision height. If they don’t see the lights or runway, they must execute a missed approach and wait until the weather improves, and if it doesn’t improve, must divert to an alternate airport.
For these types of low-visibility approaches, pilots use the radio altimeter to provide precise guidance on exactly how high they are, since they often won’t be able to see anything until seconds before touchdown.

The issue

A study conducted last year shows that 5G transmissions in C-Band spectrum interfere with radio altimeters on aircraft, saying there is a “major risk” that these systems “will cause harmful interference to radar altimeters on all civil aircraft.”
These radio altimeters operate in an adjacent spectrum to 5G C-Band and are susceptible to interference.
The Federal Aviation Administration views this as a major safety issue, and, formally published what’s known as an airworthiness directive, or AD — a formal order requiring operators to take action for safety reasons.
- This AD says that the FAA will publish Notices to Air Missions, or NOTAMs — important, time- and safety-critical information that’s related to operations at a specific airport — when it’s determined that 5G C-Band towers will be in the vicinity of an airport.
- Those NOTAMs will prohibit certain operations requiring radio altimeter data at those airports.
To be clear, the FAA is taking issue with 5G C-Band towers, and not passenger cell phones. While your personal phones should always be in airplane mode, and the captain can order all devices turned off if any sort of interference is detected, the FAA views towers as the threat, as they can’t easily be turned off like a personal device.

8. Rapid Action Battalion

Subject – IR

Context – Bangladesh reacted sharply to the U.S. Treasury’s decision to sanction a special military and police task force for alleged human rights violations

Concept –

Rapid Action Battalion or RAB, is an elite anti-crime and anti-terrorism unit of the Bangladesh Police.
It consists of members of the Bangladesh Police, Bangladesh Army, Bangladesh Navy, Bangladesh Air Force, Border Guard Bangladesh, Bangladesh Civil Service and Bangladesh Ansar.
The Rapid Action Battalion has been criticized by rights groups for its use of extrajudicial killings and is accused of forced disappearances.
Main activities and types of work done by RAB are:
- Counter-Terrorism
- Anti drugs
- Emergency help
- National common or annual needs

9. Chakma-Hajong

Subject – Governance

Context – PMO takes note of Chakma-Hajong census

Concept –

Chakmas and Hajongs were originally residents of the Chittagong Hill Tracts of erstwhile East Pakistan, who had to flee when their land was submerged by the Kaptai dam project,on the Karnaphuli River, Bangladesh, in the 1960s.
The Chakmas, who are Buddhist, and Hajongs, who are Hindus, also faced religious persecution in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
They are found in northeast India, West Bengal, Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Chakmas and Hajongs entered India through the then Lushai Hills district of Assam (now Mizoram).
Within the Chittagong Hill Tracts, the Chakmas are the largest ethnic group and make up half of the region’s population.
- The Chakma possess strong genetic affinities to Tibeto-Burman groups in Northeast India and to East Asian populations.
- In Assam Chakma people have scheduled tribe status.
- They also have high frequencies of mainland Indian genetic ancestry.
Hajong are the fourth largest ethnicity in Meghalaya.
- Hajongs are predominantly rice farmers and have the status of a Scheduled Tribe in India(Assam and Meghalaya).
While some stayed back with the Chakmas already in the district, the Indian government moved a majority of Chakmas and Hajong to the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), which is now Arunachal Pradesh.
At present, they do not posses citizenship and land rights, but are provided basic amenities by the state government.
In 2015, the Supreme Court directed the Centre to grant citizenship to Chakma and Hajongs who had migrated from Bangladesh in 1964-69.
They did not directly come into the ambit of the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) because Arunachal Pradesh is among the states exempted from the CAA since it has an Inner Line Permit to regulate entry of outsiders.
Currently, Chakmas and Hajongs are citizens by birth as per Section 3(1) of the Citizenship Act and the eligible portion of their population exercise the right to vote as citizens of India (they were given voting rights in 2004).

10. Gender Inequality in Global Earnings

Subject – Governance

Context – Men in India take 82% of labour income, says report

Concept –

Men in India capture 82% of labour income, while women earn just 18%, according to the first-ever estimates of the gender inequality in global earnings presented in the World Inequality Report 2022 released earlier this week.
The female share of the total labour income is the national aggregate labour income earned by women relative to the total aggregate of labour income within a country.
In a country with perfect equality between women and men, the female labour income share would be 50%.
Eastern Europe has the highest female labour income shares, with the average female share near 41%.
Moldova has the highest female labour income in the world at 45%.

11. Wildlife Crime Control Bureau

Subject – Environment

Context – Protecting wildlife: 2,054 cases registered in three years

Concept –

Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) is a statutory body established by the Government of India under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to combat organised wildlife crime.
The Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2006 provisions came in to force on 4 September 2006. It became operational in the year 2008.
WCCB won the prestigious 2010 Clark R. Bavin Wildlife Law Enforcement Awards for its outstanding work on wildlife law enforcement in the country.
UNEP has also awarded WCCB with Asia Environment Enforcement Award, 2018.
WCCB is also partnering with United Nations University and CIESIN-Earth Institute at Columbia University through the Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System Initiative.
The Bureau has its headquarters in New Delhi.
Wildlife Crime Control Bureau is designated nodal agency for CITES related enforcement.
Under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, WCCB is mandated to
- collect and collate intelligence related to organized wildlife crime;
- disseminate the same to State and other enforcement agencies so as to apprehend the criminals;
- to establish a centralized wildlife crime data bank;
- co-ordinate actions by various agencies in connection with the enforcement of the provisions of the Act;
- assist international organizations & foreign authorities to facilitate wildlife crime control;
- capacity building of the wildlife crime enforcement agencies;
- assist State Governments to ensure success in prosecutions related to wildlife crimes; and
- advise the Government of India on issues relating to wildlife crimes.
It also assists and advises the customs authorities in inspection of the consignments of flora & fauna as per the provisions of the Wild Life Protection Act, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and Export Import (EXIM) Policy governing such an item.

Some of the operations conducted by WCCB –

Operation “Save Kurma” from 2016-2017 to focus on the poaching, transportation and illegal trade of live turtles and tortoises.
“Operation Turtshield-I” from 2019-2020 and “Operation Turtshield-II” (2020-2021) was taken up to tackle the illegal trade of live turtles.
“Operation Softgold” was undertaken from 2018-2019 to tackle illegal trade in Shahtoosh shawls (made from Chiru wool).

12. Buxa Tiger Reserve

Subject – Environment

Context – Tiger in Buxa cheers wildlife enthusiasts

Concept –

Buxa Tiger Reserve is a tiger reserve in northern West Bengal, India.
In altitude, it ranges from Gangetic Plains to bordering the Himalayas in the north.
At least 284 bird species inhabit the reserve.Mammals present include Asian elephant, gaur, Sambar deer, clouded leopard, Indian leopard.
The fragile “Terai Eco-System” constitutes a part of this reserve.
- Buxa consists of moist, deciduous and evergreen forests.
The Phipsu Wildlife Sanctuary of Bhutan is contiguous to the north of BTR.
Located in the Buxa Hills of the southern hilly area of Bhutan.
Its northern boundary runs along the international border with Bhutan.

13. Digital Histopathology

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – AI tool to simplify identification of cancerous tissue in tumours

Concept –

Indian Institute of Technology Madras researchers use a combination of deep learning techniques and traditional machine learning to develop a tool that can diagnose cancer by looking at whole slide images of the tumour.
The tool has been tested on datasets of breast, liver and colon cancer tissue images.
It is economical in terms of the time required to process the images and analyse them.
Traditionally, histopathologists slice the tumour tissue into approximately 20-micron-thick slices which they put on slides.
- They look at enlarged images of the slides and go over it cell by cell to manually classify it as cancerous or otherwise.
- This is highly time-consuming, and it is to alleviate this burden that digital histopathology developed.
In this, after preparing the slides, the entire slide is scanned using a high-resolution microscope and digitised. This is then analysed using computerised tools.

14. Chaperones in Biology

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – chaperone proteins work to maintain normal cellular function

Concept –

DNA is a linear chain of nucleotides, portions of which are faithfully transcribed into linear messenger RNA. The message in this RNA is translated into strings of amino acids – proteins.
Proteins need to take a precise three-dimensional shape to become functional entities. This protein folding does not happen all by itself, at least most of the time.
A special bunch of proteins called molecular chaperones assist in correctly folding the protein.
Without chaperones, newly synthesised proteins would soon become a tangled mess of insoluble aggregates, hindering cellular processes.
Misfolding of proteins can cause a number of diseases. Alpha-synuclein protein, present in neurons, is wrongly folded in Parkinson’s disease.
- Brains of Alzheimer’s patients have plaques formed from aggregates of amyloid beta-peptide.
This accumulation of amyloid fibrils is toxic, leading to widespread destruction of neurons – a ‘neurodegenerative’ disorder.

15. Chondrules in Meteorites

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – Scientists with Chicago University have published an analysis of how beads in meteorites came to be

Concept –

Most meteorites contain tiny beads of glass that date back to the earliest days of the solar system, before planets formed.
Now, scientists with Chicago University have published an analysis of how these beads came to be, and what they can tell us about the early solar system.
The beads of glass inside these meteorites are called chondrules. But what exactly caused the formation of these chondrules remains unclear.
Scientists can find clues about the early days of the solar system by looking at the types of a given element in a rock.
Elements can come in several different forms, called isotopes, and the proportion in each rock varies according to what happened when that rock was born, how hot it was, whether it cooled slowly or was flash-frozen.
From there, scientists can piece together a history of likely events. Scientists at the University of Chicago measured the concentrations and isotopes of two elements that are depleted in meteorites, potassium and rubidium.
The team pieced together what must have been happening as the chondrules formed.
The elements would have been part of a clump of dust that got hot enough to melt, and then to vapourize. Then, as the material cooled at a rate of around 500 degrees C per hour, some of that vapour coalesced back into chondrules.
They theorise that massive shockwaves passing through the early nebula could have been sudden and violent enough to cause this extreme heating and cooling.

16. Galaxy with no Dark Matter

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – Astronomers led by researchers from the Netherlands have found no trace of dark matter in the galaxy AGC 114905

Concept –

Astronomers led by researchers from the Netherlands have found no trace of dark matter in the galaxy AGC 114905.
An ultra-diffuse dwarf galaxy, AGC 114905, is about 250 million light-years away. The word dwarf here refers to its luminosity (MNRAS).
The researchers collected data on the rotation of gas in AGC 114905 for 40 hours with the Very Large Array telescope.

Dark Matter

Dark matter, though never detected, is believed to be present in the entire universe, its existence presumed because a number of observable celestial phenomena could not be possible if the universe did not have much more matter in it than is seen.
It is believed to make up more than 95% of all universe.
Dark matter is composed of particles that do not absorb, reflect, or emit light, so they cannot be detected by observing electromagnetic radiation.
Its gravitational force prevents stars in our Milky Way from flying apart.
However, attempts to detect such dark matter particles using underground experiments, or accelerator experiments including the world’s largest accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), have failed so far.