Daily Prelims Notes 3 June 2020

June 5, 2020
Posted by: admin
Category: DPN

Table Of Contents

Subject: Geography

Context:

The ongoing Chinese army intrusion in Chumur and Demchok has left Changpa community cut off from large parts of summer pastures.

Concept:

The Changpa are a semi-nomadic people: they usually stay in one place for a few months in a row, near pastures where their sheep, yaks and Pashmina goats can graze
They are mainly found in the Changtang, a high plateau that stretches across the cold desert of Ladakh.
The process of migration from plain areas to pastures on mountains during summers and again from mountain pastures to plain areas during winters is known as transhumance.
The Pashmina goat is a breed of goat inhabiting the plateaus in Tibet, Nepal, parts of Burma and neighbouring areas of Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, India.
It is also known as ‘Changthangi’, ‘Changra”.
They are raised for ultra-fine cashmere wool, also known as pashmina once woven.

Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has published an Indian Standard for identification, marking and labelling of Pashmina products to certify its purity.
The certification will help curb the adulteration of Pashmina and also protect the interests of local artisans and nomads who are the producers of Pashmina raw material. It will also assure the purity of Pashmina for customers.

Additional information:

Chiru goat also known as the Tibetan antelope is a ‘near threatened’ species whose underfur isused for making the famous Shahtoosh shawls.

2. Coronal heating of sun

Subject: Science and tech

Context:

A group of scientists working at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), Pune, has recently discovered tiny flashes of light all over the sun
Concept:

These radio lights or signals result from beams of electrons accelerated in the aftermath of a magnetic explosion on the sun.
Though magnetic explosions are not seen, weak radio flashes that have been discovered are ‘smoking guns’ or the evidence for the same and hence bring closer to explaining the coronal heating problem
Tiny explosions take place all over the Sun all the time but collectively they have sufficient energy to heat the entire corona.
The breakthrough was possible due to availability of data from a new technology instrument, the Murchison Widefield Array, Australia

Structure of sun

The solar interior, from the inside out, is made up of the core, radiative zone and the convective zone.
The solar atmosphere above that consists of the photosphere, chromosphere, and the corona (solar wind is an outflow of gas from the corona).
The outer layers of the Sun, extending to thousands of km above the disc (photosphere) is termed as the corona. It has a temperature of more than a million degree Kelvin which is much higher than the solar disc temperature of around 6000K.
How the corona gets heated to such high temperatures is still an unanswered question in solar physics.

3. Electronics incentive schemes

Subject: Schemes

Context:

Government has announced three schemes for promotion of electronics manufacturing in India.

Concept:

Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI)for Large Scale Electronics Manufacturing shall extend an incentive of 4% to 6% on incremental sales (over base year) of goods manufactured in India and covered under the target segments, to eligible companies, for a period of five years subsequent to the base year
Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electronic Components and Semiconductors (SPECS) shall provide financial incentive of 25% on capital expenditure for the identified list of electronic goods,e., electronic components, semiconductor/ display fabrication units, Assembly, Test, Marking and Packaging (ATMP) units, specialized sub-assemblies and capital goods for manufacture of aforesaid goods
Modified Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMC 2.0)Scheme shall provide support for creation of world class infrastructure along with common facilities and amenities, including Ready Built Factory (RBF) sheds / Plug and Play facilities for attracting major global electronics manufacturers, along with their supply chains.

Background

India’s production of electronics grew from USD 29 billion in 2014 to USD 70 billion in 2019.
The growth in mobile phone manufacturing in particular has been remarkable during this period. From just 2 mobile phone factories in 2014, India now has become the 2nd largest mobile phone producer in the world.
India’s share in global electronics production has reached 3% in 2018 from just 1.3% in 2012.

4. Kohala hydroelectric power project

Subject: Geography

Context:

China under the multi-billion-dollar CPEC will set up a 1,124-megawatt power project in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) despite India’s objection to it

Concept:

Tripartite agreement has been finalised among China’s Three Gorges Corporation, the authorities in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the PPIB to implement the 1,124-megawatt Kohala hydroelectric power project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) framework.
The project will be built on the Jhelum River and aims at annually providing more than five billion units of clean and low-cost electricity for consumers in Pakistan.
The 3,000-km-long CEPC is aimed at connecting China and Pakistan with rail, road, pipelines and optical cable fiber networks. It connects China’s Xinjiang province with Pakistan Gwadar port, providing access to China to the Arabian Sea.
The CPEC passes through PoK, over which India has conveyed its protests to China.
Last month, India protested to Pakistan awarding a mega contract to build a construction of the Diamer-Bhashadam inGilgit-Baltistan, saying carrying out of such projects in territories under Pakistan’s illegal occupation was not proper.

5. MGNREGA

Subject:Economy

Context:

WITH THE lockdown sending lakhs of migrant labourers back to their villages, over 2.19 crore households utilised the rural job guarantee scheme in May, which is the highest for the month in the last eight years

Concept:

An analysis of data in this category available currently from 2013-14 on the MGNREGA portal shows that the number of households that worked in May was 7.10 lakh higher than the 2.12 crore during the same month last year.

MGNREGA, which is the largest work guarantee programmein the world, was enacted in 2005 with the primary objective of guaranteeing 100 days of wage employment per year to rural households whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
The act provides a legal right to employmentfor adult members of rural households. At least one third beneficiaries have to be women.
Employment must be provided with 15 days of being demanded failing which an ‘unemployment allowance’ must be given.

6. Arsenicum Album 30

Subject: Science and tech

Context:

A homoeopathic drug, Arsenicum album 30, has become a subject of debate after several states recommended it for prophylactic (preventive) use against Covid-19.

Concept:

The debate stems from the fact that there is no scientific evidence that the drug works against Covid-19, a fact stressed not only by medical scientists but also by some homoeopathic practitioners themselves.
Arsenicum album is made by heating arsenic with distilled water, a process repeated several times over three days.
The health hazards of arsenic contamination in water are well known: long-term exposure to the metal can cause skin cancer, pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases.

7. Sixth mass extinction

Subject: Environment/geography

Context:

Sixth mass extinction of wildlife accelerating, scientists warn

Concept:

Mass extinction refers to a substantial increase in the degree of extinction or when the Earth loses more than three-quarters of its species in a geologically short period of time.
So far, during the entire history of the Earth, there have been five mass extinctions. The sixth, which is ongoing, is referred to as the Anthropocene extinction.
The earlier five mass extinctions that took place in the last 450 million years have led to the destruction of 70-95 per cent of the species of plants, animals and microorganisms that existed earlier.
These extinctions were caused by “catastrophic alterations” to the environment, such as massive volcanic eruptions, depletion of oceanic oxygen or collision with an asteroid.

After each of these extinctions, it took millions of years to regain species comparable to those that existed before the event.
Further, attributing sixth mass extinction to humans, scientists said that one of the reasons that humanity is an “unprecedented threat” to many living organisms is because of their growing numbers.
The loss of species has been occurring since human ancestors developed agriculture over 11,000 years ago. Since then, the human population has increased from about 1 million to 7.7 billion.