ART AND CULTURE

1. Culture Ministry launches science museum vans for 'aspirational districts'         

2. ‘Indus Valley settlers had a distinct genetic lineage’                                               

POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Election Commission to Law: Extend postal ballot cover to non-govt voters on duty during polls                                                                                                          

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. PM Modi launches ‘Act Far East’ policy to boost India’s engagement with Russia’s Far East                                                                                                         

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

1. ISRO Loses Connection with Vikram Lander                                                            

SECURITY

1. 28TH Indo–Thai CORPAT                                                                                            

2. Russia proposes joint development of submarines with India                             

Culture Ministry launches science museum vans for 'aspirational districts'

GS PAPER - 01 ART AND CULTURE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors

Context :

• Union Minister Prahlad Singh Patel on Thursday flagged off a mobile science exhibition van in Leh, the first such vehicle in the region.

• Union Culture and Tourism Minister of State (independent charge) Prahlad Singh Patel flagged off the science museum bus in Leh

Mobile science exhibition Van  :

• These mobile exhibition museums-on-wheels will travel to schools in the 115 “aspirational districts”, as named by the Centre.

• The program has been fully funded by Ministry of Culture.

• Mobile Museums aim to take science education to students in areas without access to such services.

• The buses will travel to schools in aspirational districts throughout the year except during the vacations and will aim to create a scientific awareness among the rural children.

• Each specially designed bus contains 20 interactive exhibits and other demonstrations related to children and rural life.

• The exhibitions cover topics like measurement, machines in everyday life, food and health, chemistry and life with focus on water, energy, hygeine and sanitation and space science for human welfare.

Mobile Science Exhibition Programme :

• The Mobile Science Exhibition (MSE) programme was originally launched as the Mobile Science Museum (MSM) in 1965

• Mission: 'If the people cannot visit the museum, let the museum visit the people at their doorsteps'.

• It is the largest and the longest running outreach programme of National Council of Science Museums (NCSM).

                                                                                                                       Source :- The Hindu

‘Indus Valley settlers had a distinct genetic lineage’

GS PAPER - 01 ART AND CULTURE - Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, Literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.

Context :

• A study of DNA from skeletal remains excavated from the Harappan cemetery at Rakhigarhi argues that the hunter-gatherers of South Asia- people from Indus Valley Civilisation, who then became a settled people, have an independent origin.

Key Findings :

• The researchers had successfully sequenced the first genome of an individual from Harappa and combining it with archaeological data, found that hunter-gatherers of South Asia had an independent origin, and authored the settled way of life in this part of the world.

• The finding also negates the hypothesis about mass migration during Harappan times from outside South Asia.

• The researchers who conducted the study contend that the theory of the Harappans having Steppe pastoral or ancient Iranian farmer ancestry thus stands refuted.

• They do not contain genome from either the Steppe region or ancient Iranian farmers. The genetic continuity from hunter gatherer to modern times is visible in the DNA results.

• The study finds that the same hunter-gatherer communities developed into agricultural communities and formed the Harappan civilisation.

• The researchers also suggest that there was a movement of people from east to west as the Harappan people’s presence is evident at sites like Gonur in Turkmenistan and Sahr-i-Sokhta in Iran.

• As the Harappans traded with Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Persian Gulf and almost all across South Asia, there was bound to be movement of people resulting in a mixed genetic history. India had a heterogeneous population right from the beginning of settled life.

• There was a hint that settled life and domestication went from South Asia to West Asia.

Origins of farming:

• In Europe, ancient-DNA studies have shown that agriculture tended to spread through an influx of people with ancestry in Anatolia, in modern day Turkey.

• The new study shows a similar dynamic in Iran and Turan (southern Central Asia), where the researchers found that Anatolian-related ancestry and farming arrived around the same time.

• In South Asia, however, the story appears different.

  • Researchers found an absence of Anatolian-related ancestry.

  • They saw that Iranian-related ancestry in South Asians comes from a lineage that separated from ancient Iranian farmers and hunter-gatherers before those groups split from each other, nearly 9,000 years ago.

• The researchers, therefore, concluded that farming in South Asia was not due to the movement of people from the farming cultures of the west and that local foragers adopted it.           

                                                                                                                              Source :- The Hindu

POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

Election Commission to Law: Extend postal ballot cover to non-govt voters on duty during polls

GS PAPER - 02 POLITY - Salient features of the Representation of People's Act.

Context :

• The EC has sent a proposal to the Union Law Ministry seeking changes to the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961,

  • To extend the facility of postal voting to people who cannot vote in person “on account of compulsion of their service conditions.

Key proposal :

• Election Commission (EC) has proposed to allow voters on duty in the aviation sector, shipping sector, trains, fire services, medical services, traffic, long-distance road transport corporation buses, the aged, the physically challenged, and journalists covering elections to vote by post.

• This will require an amendment to the Representation of the People’s Act, 1951 (RP Act), and the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961.

Present  Postal Ballot system :

• Currently, only service voters (armed forces, the armed police force of a state and government servants posted abroad), voters on election duty and

  • Those in preventive detention are allowed to cast their votes through postal ballot.

  • The exception is provided in Section 60 of the RP Act, 1951.

• Under this method, ballot papers are distributed electronically to electors and returned via post.

• The remaining eligible voters are expected to cast a vote in person at designated polling stations.        

Way Forward :

• In the case of the aged and physically-challenged voters, the postal ballot papers can be delivered to them at home and collected back then and there, in a controlled, safe and secure environment.

                                                                                                                                                    Source :- Indian Express

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS  

PM Modi launches ‘Act Far East’ policy to boost India’s engagement with Russia’s Far East

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests

Context :

• PM Modi unveiled the “Act Far East” policy to boost India’s engagement with Russia’s Far East region.

More in the news:

• PM announced a $1 billion line of credit for the development of the resource-rich region.

• Modi appreciated Mr. Putin’s vision for the welfare for Russia’s Far East, saying the President had opened up investment opportunities for India in the region.

• India’s connection to Russia’s Far East go back a long way. Indian firms have invested over $7 billion in taking stake in Russian oil and gas fields.

Why India is so interested in Russian Far East?

• This is a region situated in the cold Siberian climate but more significantly, it shares borders with China, Mongolia, North Korea and Japan (maritime).

• On its own, it could be the eight largest – just behind India – in terms of area, and fourth least densely populated country.

• Both China and the US have been competing to have an upper hand in this region.

• Realising its geostrategic significance, India opened a consulate in Vladivostok in 1992.

• India was the first country to have a resident consulate in Vladivostok then.

• An understanding for Vladivostok-Chennai sea link was reached in 2018 when late Sushma Swaraj visited Russia as foreign minister.

• This Vladivostok-Chennai sea link is somewhat a counter to China’s Maritime Silk Route (MSR) plan as part of One Belt One Road project. China’s ambitious MSR plan is about establishing and hence directly controlling Asia-Africa sea route.

• Vladivostok-Chennai shipping link is likely to pass through or very close to the South China Sea, which China has turned into an international geostrategic hotspot by claiming exclusive control over the resource-rich maritime zone in the Pacific Ocean. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims over the sea.

• There is an alternate possibility as well that Vladivostok-Chennai link would become an extension of existing India-Japan Pacific to Indian Ocean Corridor, which China considers as a challenge to its maritime OBOR plan in the region.

• Russian Far East is a resource rich region in a hostile climate. It is rich in oil, natural gas, timber, gold and diamond among other resources. India requires all of them.

• A busy Vladivostok-Chennai link means India strengthening its checks and balances equation with China.

                                                                                                                    Source :- Business Standard; India Today

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

ISRO Loses Connection with Vikram Lander

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Awareness in the field of Space

Context :

• India's attempt to create history by becoming the first nation to land close to the south pole of the Moon might have turned to despair after Chandrayaan 2's lander 'Vikram' lost communication

More in the news:

• The Chandrayaan-2 approached the Moon as normal until an error occurred about 2.1km (1.3 miles) from the surface, seconds before the ship was expected to land.

• The descent hoped to reduce its speed from 6048 km per hour to about 7 km per hour or lower to enable a soft landing.

• India would have been the fourth nation to make a soft landing on the Moon if Chandryaaan-2 mission had gone successfully.

• However, according to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), only 5% of the mission has been lost (Vikram the lander and Pragyan the rover ), as Chandrayaan 2 orbiter - is orbiting the moon successfully.
   

  • The mission life of the Orbiter is one year.

  • The Orbiter is meant to map the lunar terrain, examine the intensity of solar radiation and the presence of major elements such as Magnesium, Aluminium, Silicon, Calcium, Titanium, Iron, and Sodium etc.

  • It will also conduct a quantitative estimation of water-ice in the polar regions of the Moon.

                                                                                                                              Source :- Indian express

SECURITY  

28TH Indo–Thai CORPAT

GS PAPER - 03 SECURITY - Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate

Context :

• 28th edition of India-Thailand Coordinated Patrol (Indo-Thai CORPAT) between the Indian Navy (IN) and the Royal Thai Navy (RTN) is being conducted from 05 – 15 September 2019.    

Indo - Thai CORPAT :

• The Objectives of the Indo-Thai CORPAT are

  • To ensure effective implementation of United Nations Conventions on Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS) which specify regulations regarding protection and conservation of natural resources, conservation of marine environment, prevention and suppression of illegal, unregulated fishing activity/ drug trafficking/ piracy, exchange of information in prevention of smuggling, illegal immigration and conduct of Search and Rescue operations at sea.

• The 28th cycle of Indo-Thai CORPAT is poised to further enhance strong bilateral ties and maritime cooperation between India and Thailand.

•  The CORPAT is truly reflective of the strong desire for a peaceful Indian Ocean safeguarded through good maritime order in the region.

                                                                                                                                                               Source :- PIB

Russia proposes joint development of submarines with India

GS PAPER - 03 SECURITY  - Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate;  Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests

Context :

• Russia has offered India joint design and development of conventional submarines through an Inter Governmental Agreement (IGA)

More about the proposal :

• The proposal includes joint design and development of a conventional submarine with Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) through an IGA as per the Indian Navy requirements with full access to technology and Intellectual Property Rights [IPR]

• The Indian side will fully acquire all the necessary technological capabilities for constructing submarines of this type.

• The procurement is through the Strategic Partnership (SP) model of the defence procurement procedure

• Under Project 75(I), India plans to indigenously construct six submarines for the Indian Navy at a cost of over Rs. 40,000 crores and the Navy has issued an Expression of Interest (EoI).

• The indigenous AIP being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) could be incorporated in the submarine.

• India has signed a series of mega defence deals with Russia in the last few years through the IGA route.

• India has ordered $14.5 billion worth of weapons from Russia, an announcement was made by Moscow after the 20th India Russia summit.

                                                                                                                                 Source :- The Hindu

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