Daily Prelims Notes 21 January 2023

January 21, 2023
Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
Category: DPN

Daily Prelims Notes

21 January 2023

Table Of Contents

1. Evidence of cooking 780000 years ago rewrites human history

Subject: Science and Technology

Section: Biotechnology

Context: A study shows that early humans were cooking much further back in history than previously thought. Around one to two million years ago, early humans developed taller bodies and bigger brains. The thinking is that calorie-rich diets, and cooking in particular, drove this change.

About the Study:

A new study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, suggests that early humans first cooked food around 780,000 years ago. Before now, the earliest evidence of cooked food was around 170,000 years ago, with early Homo sapiens and Neanderthals using fire to cook vegetables and meat.
The study team found their evidence in an archaeological site located in the northern Jordan Valley, in modern-day Israel. The site, called Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, is known to date back to around 780,000 years ago.
It is believed that Homo erectus communities of the so-called Acheulian culture lived in the region. The communities had a varied diet, including large game, fruit and vegetables, and freshwater fish from the nearby paleo-Lake Hula.
The study team analyzed the remains of fish teeth (from carp and barbel) found in the proximity of fireplaces at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. By analysing the crystal structure of the teeth, the team found that they had been cooked under 500 degrees Celsius.
Until now, no one could prove that Homo erectus cooked food. This is the first evidence that erectus had the cognitive ability to control fire and cook food.
People think that the evolution from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens must have been associated with a change in diet and the use of fire to cook food. There are changes in the jaw and skull anatomy that suggest this.
Cooking makes meat, fish, and vegetables easier to digest, enabling body and brain growth much more efficiently than eating raw food. It also makes food much safer to eat as it kills off pathogens.
Sites of settlements and early human activity are always found near freshwater. Fish are a rich source of protein and nutrients and, unlike game animals, are available to eat all year round.
According to the authors, the water in the wetlands was very shallow, so people don’t necessarily need technology like nets or rods to catch the fish. Authors think Homo erectus used their hands, like people still do with river fish today.

2. Programmable materials can now shape-shift with the push of a button

Subject: Science and Technology

Section :Msc

Context: Researchers at the Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence Programmable Materials (CPM), developed programmable materials and plans to bring them to the market with the help of industry partners.

About Programmable Materials:

Programmable matter is matter which has the ability to change its physical properties (shape, density, moduli, conductivity, optical properties, etc.) in a programmable fashion, based upon user input or autonomous sensing.
Programmable matter is thus linked to the concept of a material which inherently has the ability to perform information processing.
Programmable materials are true shape-shifters. They can change their characteristics in a controlled and reversible way with the push of a button, independently adapting to fit new conditions.
Programmable materials have the potential to initiate a paradigm change when handling materials because they replace technical systems consisting of many components and materials with a single, locally configured system. They thus allow smaller system sizes and reduce the complexity of the whole system as well as the dependability of large infrastructures.
Materials used: These include self-transforming carbon fiber, printed wood grain, custom textile composites and other rubbers/plastics, which offer unprecedented capabilities including programmable actuation, sensing and self-transformation, from a simple material.
Approaches:
- Programming could be external to the material and might be achieved by the application of light, voltage, electric or magnetic fields, etc. For example, a liquid crystal display is a form of programmable matter.
- The individual units of the ensemble can compute and the result of their computation is a change in the ensemble’s physical properties. An example of this programmable matter is claytronics.
Application: It is used in special applications such as medical mattresses, comfortable chairs, variable damping shoe soles, and protective clothing. Gradually they can be used everywhere, from medicine and sporting goods to soft robotics and even space research.

3. 12 cheetahs from South Africa may arrive in February

Subject : Environment

Section : Species in news

Context:

Speculations are running rife about the arrival of 12 more cheetahs to Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park, this time from South Africa.

Details:

Three of the 12 cheetahs have been housed in the Phinda quarantine boma (small enclosure) in KwaZulu-Natal province and nine others have been kept in the Rooiberg quarantine boma in Limpopo Province.

Metapopulation programme:

The Metapopulation Initiative is a wildlife conservation programme by the Endangered Wildlife Trust.
The EWT started the Cheetah Metapopulation Program in 2011.
Goal: To manage the southern African cheetah in a way that maximizes their genetic diversity and range expansion.

4. Alien plants growing together threatening tiger habitats: Study

Subject : Environment

Section : Biodiversity

Context:

Several alien invasive plants growing together can have a detrimental effect on the biodiversities in tiger habitats
The study is conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India.

Alien species as a threat to the Indian biodiversity:

The plants can put pressure on native forage plants and drive away wild herbivores — the food source for the big cats.
India’s biodiverse ecosystems are threatened by a variety of alien plants like Lantana Camara, Parthenium hysterophorous, Prosopis juliflora, etc, introduced during British colonisation.
Lantana alone has pervasively invaded 44 per cent of India’s forests.
Co-occurring invasive plants like Lantana, Ageratum conyzoides, Pogostemon benghalensis, etc, have a magnified cumulative impact than their individual impacts, causing ecological homogenisation in invaded regions.
Affects the soil nutrients.
Native wild herbivores like chital and sambhar did not prefer the commonly found plants in invaded areas.

What does the study suggest?

Reduced forage availability for herbivores like sambar and chital, which are major prey for tiger, leopard, and dhole in this landscape, threaten the sustenance of these carnivores in invaded regions.
It is indicative of an ‘invasion-centric forest ecosystem’.
It is necessary to prioritise restoration investments in the least invaded regions to retain native biodiversity and slowly upscale such restored habitats
The study highlighted the importance of investments in scientific restoration in India to mitigate the impacts of biological invasions.

5. Seeing fewer stars? LEDs might be increasing light pollution

Subject: Environment

Section : Pollution

Context:

The sky has been brightening by nearly 10 per cent annually in the last decade, dramatically reducing star visibility across the globe.

Details:

Consequently, 30 per cent of the global stargazers have been robbed of a good view of stellar bodies.
At this rate of change, a child born in a location where 250 stars were once visible would be able to see only around 100 by the time they turned 18.

What is light pollution?

Light pollution, also known as photo pollution, is the presence of anthropogenic light in the night environment.
It is exacerbated by excessive, misdirected or obtrusive uses of light, but even carefully used light fundamentally alters natural conditions.
As a major side-effect of urbanization, it is blamed for compromising health, disrupting ecosystems and spoiling aesthetic environments.

Causes of increased light pollution:

Increased light pollution is due to the growing population, expanding settlements and the use of new lighting technologies such as light-emitting diodes (LED).
- Global LED market share rose to 47 per cent in 2019 from under 1 per cent in 2011.
The transition from traditional light to LED has led to the use of more light for longer durations.
The sky brightness increased by 9.6 per cent yearly. This is much higher than satellite-based estimates, which show that the sky brightness has increased by 2 per cent a year between 2012-2016.

What are the consequences of Light pollution?

Light pollution has ecological consequences, with natural light cycles disrupted by artificial light introduced into the nighttime environment.
Increased sky glow can affect human sleep.
In addition to threatening 30 per cent of vertebrates that are nocturnal and over 60 per cent of invertebrates that are nocturnal, artificial light also affects plants and microorganisms.
It threatens biodiversity through changed night habits, such as reproduction or migration patterns, of many different species: insects, amphibians, fish, birds, bats and other animals.

Recommendation:

Using lights only when, where and in the amount needed and avoiding lights that have ultraviolet or very cold white (shades of blue) could help.

6. Killed in cold blood: Amphibians and reptiles are bearing the brunt of crop intensification

Subject : Environment

Section: Pollution

Amphibians and reptiles:

These cold-blooded animals, together referred to as herpetofauna, provide immense ecological services.
- Frogs and toads, for instance, act as biological control agents by feeding on crop pests.
- Several salamanders and tadpoles of frogs help in controlling mosquito and mosquito-borne diseases by feeding on the larvae.
- They also help improve soil quality and aeration, aid in the dispersal of seeds and in pollination—there are almost 40 species of lizards including skinks and geckos that are efficient pollinators.
Threats to this herpetofauna:
- increased use of pesticides and fertilisers,
- land conversion,
- changes in cropping systems and
- the reduced proportion of natural vegetation.
- 1,532 species of Anurans (frogs) and 825 species of reptiles in the world are critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable due to agriculture and its management practices.
They are most threatened in India followed by USA and China.

Why are they threatened?

Being cold-blooded they are extremely sensitive to microclimates (with a narrow range of soil humidity, moisture, light flux, acidity, air and soil temperature) and microhabitats (they have small habitats like grass cover and low dispersal range; maximum lifetime dispersal for frogs and toads is 12 km). This makes them particularly susceptible to agricultural intensification.
Researchers found that in areas where the diversity of the frog population is lesser, the numbers of beneficial arthropods have reduced due to intraguild predation—a phenomenon where more than one species feed on the same prey and therefore competitors feed on each other.

7. Trademark Violation

Subject : Science and Technology

Section: Intellectual Property Rights

Concept :

The Delhi High Court ruled last week, and dismissed a case of trademark infringement brought by the global fast food chain against Suberb, a Delhi-based restaurant.
The Delhi High Court has ruled that Subway cannot claim “exclusivity” or “monopoly” over “sub”, the first part of its trademark “Subway”, when used in the context of eateries which serve sandwiches and similar items.

Trademark

A trademark is a sign capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one enterprise from those of other enterprises.
Trademarks are protected by Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).
In India, trademarks are governed by the Trade Marks Act 1999, which was amended in 2010.
It legally differentiates a product or service from all others of its kind and recognizes the source company’s ownership of the brand.
The Act guarantees protection for a trademark that is registered with the Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trademarks, also known as the trademark registry.
A trademark is valid for 10 years, and can be renewed by the owner indefinitely every 10 years.
It serves as a badge of origin exclusively identifying a particular business as a source of goods or services.

What Constitutes a Trademark Violation?

Using a registered trademark without authorisation of the entity that owns the trademark is a violation or infringement of the trademark.
Trademark infringement in India is defined under Section 29 of the Trademarks Act, 1999.
There are several ways in which a trademark can be infringed such as Deceptive similarity, passing off (Say, a brand logo is misspelt in a way that’s not easy for the consumer to discern).
In such cases, courts have to determine whether this can cause confusion for consumers between the two.
In such cases, the infringing products need not be identical, but similarity in the nature, character and performance of the goods of the rival traders has to be established.
For example, Cadila Healthcare Limited vs Cadila Pharmaceuticals Limited.

There are two types of infringement – direct and indirect infringement.

Direct Infringement
Unauthorized person – this means a person who is not the owner or the licensee of the registered trademark.
‘Identical’ or ‘Deceptively similar ‘– the test for determining whether marks are identical or not is by determining whether there is a chance for a likelihood of confusion among the public. If the consumers are likely to get confused between the two marks, then there is an infringement.
Registered Trademark – You can only infringe a registered trademark. For an unregistered Trademark, the common law concept of passing off will apply.
Goods/ Services – In order to establish infringement even the goods/ services of the infringer must be identical with or similar to the goods that the registered Trademark represents.

Indirect infringement

Indirect infringement is a common law principle that holds accountable not only the direct infringers but also the people who induce the direct infringers to commit the infringement.
Indirect infringement is also known as secondary liability has two categories: contributory infringement and vicarious liability.
A person will be liable for contributory infringement in two circumstances:
- When a person knows of the infringement
- When a person materially contributes or induces the direct infringer to commit the infringement.
A person will be vicariously liable under the following circumstances:
- When the person has the ability to control the actions of the direct infringer.
- When a person derives a financial benefit from the infringement.
- When a person has knowledge of the infringement and contributes to it.

Delhi HC’s Ruling in the Case

The HC did not look into the issue of passing off, because the Subway would have to demonstrate that a “person of average intelligence” would be confused between the goods and services of Subway and Suberb.
Passing Off is a common law tort which protects the goodwill and reputation of trade mark holder against damage caused by misrepresentation by defendant.
“Sub” is used as an abbreviation for “submarine”, which represents a well-known variety of long-bodied sandwiches.
Therefore, Subway cannot claim “exclusivity” or “monopoly” over “sub”, the first part of its trademark “Subway”.
There was no similarity between the two other parts of the marks – “way” and “erb”. Hence, there was no likelihood of confusion to the public.
As the defendants had agreed to change the lettering, font and colour scheme, no case for deceptive similarity was made out.

8. PM Modi has distributed land title deeds to Banjaras

Subject : Governance

Concept :

Prime Minister Narendra Modi symbolically distributed Hakku Patra (land title deeds) to five families of the Banjara (Lambani) community, a nomadic Scheduled Caste group, at an event organised by the state Revenue Department at Malkhed, in the Kalaburagi district of Karnataka.

Hakku Patra

The word ‘Hakku’ means “the right”, and ‘Patra’ means a “paper” or “document”.
It is a legal document that states an individual’s rightful inheritance of a property.
It is issued to the nation’s underprivileged section, including scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, urban slum dwellers, handicapped, and other disadvantaged populations.
In most cases, the land on which the Hakku Patra is issued is government-owned with a specific set of conditions attached.

Hakku Patra distribution drive:

It is a part of the Ambedkar Rural Housing Scheme of Karnataka.
Under this, the government offers free registration of Hakku Patra land in the beneficiary’s name.
Any house built on the Hakku Patra land should be used as the beneficiary’s house and not for rental purposes.

Benefits of Hakku Patra:

It makes you the legitimate owner of your land or property by giving an up-to-date and official record of who owns the land.
It is a state-guaranteed document.
The title deeds enable owners to avail of bank loans with the said document.
Hakku Patra registration resolves all types of disputes regarding the ownership or rights over the land.
The document helps in preventing any encroachment via trespassing on the boundaries.

Banjara/Lambani Community

The Banjaras are a nomadic caste noted for their role as supply chains in earlier times. They traded in salt, bullocks and other essential items to various villages. The term ‘Banjara’ is from the words ‘vanaj’, meaning to trade and ‘jara’ meaning to travel.
They are settled mainly in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It is reported that the tribe originated in Marwar region of Rajasthan.

Sandur Lambani Embroidery

The Sandur Lambani Embroidery technique of the Banjara people is a GI tagged art form.
This style of textile embroidery is tagged to Sanduru in Bellary of Karnataka. Red and blue are the most common colors used in the embroidery.
It has about 30 different stitches and 10 motif design types. It includes decoration with shells, beads, mirrors, coins, etc.

9. SC declines to entertain petition on caste census

Subject : Polity

Section: Constitution framework

Concept :

Bench comprising Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Vikram Nath refused to entertain the petitions and asked the petitioners to approach the high court.
The pleas were submitted on the ground that the caste-based census “violated the basic structure of the Constitution”.

Caste Census

Caste Census is the demand to include the caste-wise tabulation of India’s population in the upcoming exercise.
Caste, a powerful cultural underpinning of Indian culture, was last included in the Indian Census in 1931.
The drill was carried out at the time by the Britishers. From 1951 to 2011, every census in independent India provided data on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes but not on other castes.
The Britishers ended the practice in the 1941 Census, citing cost restrictions. The lost parameter was not picked up by the Indian government.
In the absence of such a census, there is no reliable estimate of the number of OBCs, other categories within OBCs, and others.

How have details of the cast been collected so far?

While information on SC/STs is collected as part of the census, enumerators do not collect data on other castes.
The most common method is to self-declare to the enumerator about the backward class one belongs to.
Until now, backward classes commissions in various states have conducted their own census to determine the population of backward castes.
The Mandal Commission estimated 52 percent of the OBC population; other statistics are based on data from the National Sample Survey. Political parties create their own estimates for state, Lok Sabha, and Assembly seats during elections.

Difference between SECC and Caste Census

The Census presents a portrait of the Indian people, whereas the SECC is a tool for identifying state assistance recipients.
Because the Census is conducted in accordance with the Census Act of 1948, all data are deemed secret, however the SECC website states that “all personal information submitted in the SECC is open for use by Government agencies to award and/or restrict benefits to families.”

Socio-Economic and Caste Census :

The Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) was conducted in 2011 for the first time since 1931.
SECC is meant to canvass every Indian family, both in rural and urban India, and ask about their:
Economic status, so as to allow Central and State authorities to come up with a range of indicators of deprivation, permutations, and combinations of which could be used by each authority to define a poor or deprived person.
It is also meant to ask every person their specific caste name to allow the government to re-evaluate which caste groups were economically worse off and which were better off.

10. Endorsement Guidelines for Celebrities and Social Media Influencers

Subject : Governance

Concept :

The Central Government has released the endorsement guidelines for celebrities and social media influencers.
The guidelines mandate compulsory disclosure of monitory or material benefits of a product or a brand they are promoting through their social media platforms.
Failing to do so will attract a penalty up to Rs 50 lakh under the Consumer Protection Act.
Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has welcomed the government’s move.

What are new guidelines issued by the Central Government?

The Department of Consumer Affairs under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution released a guide ‘Endorsements Know-hows!’ for celebrities, influencers and virtual influencers on social media platforms.
The guide aims to ensure:
that individuals do not mislead their audiences when endorsing products or services and
that they are in compliance with the Consumer Protection Act and any associated rules or guidelines.
The major guidelines include –

Disclosures must be Prominent:

The guidelines specify that disclosures must be prominently and clearly displayed in the endorsement, making them extremely hard to miss.
This includes not only benefits and incentives, but also monetary or other compensation, trips or hotel stays, media barters, coverage and awards, free products, etc.
Endorsements must be made in simple, clear language and terms such as “advertisement,” “sponsored,” or “paid promotion” can be used.
They should not endorse any product or service and service in which due diligence has been done by them or that they have not personally used or experienced.

Penalty :

On non-compliance with the guidelines, endorsers may face penalties including a fine up to Rs 10 lakh, which can go up to Rs 50 lakh on recurring violations.
Influencers and celebrities can be debarred from endorsements on repeated infringements and may go to jail for six months, which can be extended to two years.

Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)

The Advertising Standards Council of India is a voluntary self-regulatory organization of the advertising industry in India.
Established in 1985, ASCI is registered as a non-profit company under the Company Act.
Objective – To maintain and enhance the public’s confidence in advertising.
Their mandate is that all material must be truthful, legal and honest, decent and not objectify women, safe for consumers – especially children and last but not the least, fair to their competitors.

How does ASCI take action against Advertisements?

Post receiving the complaints, ASCI processes them as per its normal complaint redressal procedure involving its Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) for adjudication.
If the complaint is upheld then the ad will need to be modified or pulled out as is applicable for all complaints.
Currently 100% of TV advertisements and over 80% print advertisements against whom a complaint is upheld by ASCI are modified or withdrawn.

11. Insurance sector needs 50000 Crores to double penetration

Subject: National Bodies

Concept:

The Insurance sector needs to infuse approximately Rs 50,000 crore of capital every year in order to double penetration in the country, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India chairman Debasish Panda said.
Panda also asked the insurance companies to come out with more products related to surety bonds where the market is huge.

Insurance Penetration

Insurance penetration measures the contribution of insurance premium to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country in percentage terms.
For instance, if a country generates a total insurance premium of say, USD10 billion and that country’s GDP for the same period is USD100 billion, insurance penetration translates to 10% (i.e USD10b/USD100b * 100).

Insurance Density

Insurance density, on the other hand, is the ratio of insurance premium to the total population.
It gives an indication of how much each of the people in a country spends on insurance in terms of premium.
In other words, it is the per capital premium for the country, calculated by dividing the total insurance premium by the population. For example, if the population of the country in the above example is 10 million people, the insurance density (per capital premium) would be USD1,000.

About IRDAI:

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) is an independent statutory body that was set up under the IRDA Act,1999.
It is under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Finance.
It is tasked with regulating and licensing the insurance and re-insurance industries in India.
Aim: To protect the interests of the insurance policyholders and to develop and regulates the insurance industry. It issues advisories regularly to insurance companies regarding the changes in rules and regulations.
The agency’s headquarters are in Hyderabad, Telangana, where it moved from Delhi in 2001.
Composition: IRDAI is a 10-member body including the chairman, five full-time and four part-time members appointed by the government of India.

12. Wayanad becomes first district to provide basic documents to all tribal people

Subject: Polity

Section: Constitution

Concept:

Kerala’s Wayanad becomes the first district in the country to provide basic documents and facilities such as Aadhaar cards, ration cards, birth/death certificates, election ID cards, bank accounts.
Apart from the basic documents, other services such as income certificates, ownership certificates, age certificates, and applications for new pensions are also provided at the camps.

Akshaya Big Campaign for Document Digitisation (ABCD) campaign.

The Wayanad district administration has attained the meritorious achievement by providing 1,42,563 services to as many as 64,670 tribal beneficiaries as part of the Akshaya Big Campaign for Document Digitisation (ABCD) campaign.
This includes ration cards to 15,796 families, Aadhar cards to 31,252, birth certificates to 11,300, voters’ identity cards to 22,488 and digital locker facilities to 22,888 persons through the ABCD campaign.
The drive was launched in November 2021 at Thondarnadu grama panchayat.
The campaign is aimed at ensuring basic documents to all citizens belonging to the Scheduled Tribes communities and these documents are digitalised and saved in DigiLocker accounts opened for them.

Concept –

Educational & Cultural Safeguards

15(4):-Special provisions for advancement of other backward classes(which includes STs);
29:- Protection of Interests of Minorities (which includes STs);
46:– The State shall promote, with special care, the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and in particular, of the Scheduled Castes, and the Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation.
350:-Right to conserve distinct Language, Script or Culture;
350:- Instruction in Mother Tongue.

Social Safeguard

23:- Prohibition of traffic in human beings and beggar and other similar form of forced labour;
24:- Forbidding Child Labour.

Economic Safeguards

244:-Clause(1) Provisions of Fifth Schedule shall apply to the administration & control of the Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes in any State other than the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura which are covered under Sixth Schedule, under Clause (2) of this Article.
275:-Grants in-Aid to specified States (STs&SAs) covered under Fifth and Sixth Schedules of the Constitution.

Political Safeguards

164(1):- Provides for Tribal Affairs Ministers in Bihar, MP and Orissa;
330:-Reservation of seats for STs in Lok Sabha;
337- Reservation of seats for STs in State Legislatures;
334:-10 years period for reservation (Amended several times to extend the period.);
243:-Reservation of seats in Panchayats.
371:-Special provisions in respect of NE States and Sikkim

Service Safeguards

(Under Art.16(4),16(4A),164(B) Art.335, and Art. 320(40).

13. Seshachalam Hills

Subject : Environment

Section : Protected Area in news

Concept :

Spot Bellied Eagle Owl was recently spotted in Seshachalam forest of Andhra Pradesh for the first time.
It was sighted twice earlier at Nagarjunasagar Srisailam Tiger Reserve(NSTR).

About Seshachalam Hills:

The Seshachalam Hills are a part of the Eastern Ghats in Andhra Pradesh.
They are a group of seven hills namely, Seshadri, Neeladri, Garudadri, Anjanadri, Vrishabhadri, Narayanadri and Venkatadri.
The ranges were formed during the Precambrian era (3.8 billion to 540 million years ago)
The Seshachalam hills consist of sandstone and shale along with limestone.
Tirupati which is considered as one of the major Hindu pilgrimage towns in India is located in the hills.
The Srivenkateshwara National Park is also located in this mountain range.
Seshachalam was designated as a Biosphere Reserve in the year 2010
It has large reserves of red sandalwood.
Tribes of Yanadis are the native population of the reserve.

Nagarjunasagar Srisailam Tiger Reserve

The Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam Tiger Sanctuary was declared officially in 1978 and has been recognized by the Project Tiger in 1983.
Nagarjunsagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve is the largest tiger reserve in India.
In 1992, it was retitled as Rajiv Gandhi Wildlife Sanctuary.
The Tiger reserve is spread over 5 districts in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The area consists mostly of the Nallamala Hills.
The multipurpose reservoirs- Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar are located in the reserve.
The Krishna River cuts the basin of this reserve.