Daily Current Affairs for UPSC IAS: 3rd January 2023

Aymanam : Model Responsible Tourism

Aymanam is a model Responsible Tourism (RT) village in Kottayam (Kerela), where about 80% of the work – including accommodation, food and community tours, is being managed by women

• Responsible Tourism is about “making better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit.”
• Responsible Tourism requires that operators, hoteliers, governments, local people and tourists take responsibility, and take action to make tourism more sustainable.
• It is a part of the Kerala government’s initiative to create a women-friendly tourism network in the State.
• It will redress the gender balance in the tourism sector by showcasing women’s talent.
• Turn the village into a hub of women-friendly destinations
• It will give women an equal voice in the tourism
• Help empower women at the grassroots level by highlighting what they do and sell.

WALLABY : Radio Telescope In Western Australia

WALLABY, or the Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind survey, is a radio telescope in Western Australia that is helping astronomers build a three-dimensional map of the night sky, mapping galaxies as far as a billion light years away.

• Radio astronomy involves tracking the signals from radio waves and helps detect and trace stellar objects that cannot be traced by light.
• It Provide pictures of where galaxies are actually located in relation to one another in three-dimensional space.
• It will be able to tell apart galaxies that appear clustered together but are actually millions of light years apart.
• The aim of WALLABY is to use the powerful widefield phased-array technology of ASKAP(Australian SKA Pathfinder) to observe three-quarters of the whole sky in the 21-cm line of neutral hydrogen (or HI) at 30-arcsec resolution, thereby detecting and imaging the gas distribution in hundreds of thousands of external galaxies in the local Universe.
• This will allow astronomers to gain a much improved understanding of the processes involved in galaxy formation and evolution, and the role of stellar and black hole feedback, gas accretion and galaxy interactions in these processes.

K9-Vajra : Procurement

The Defence Ministry has started the process for the procurement of 100 more K9-Vajra tracked self-propelled howitzers.

• The 100th gun was delivered to the Army in 2021
• The K9 Vajra is a 155 mm, 52-calibre tracked self-propelled howitzer (a short gun for firing shells on high trajectories at low velocities) built in India by Larsen & Toubro (L&T) with technology transferred from South Korean defence major Hanwha Defense based on its K9 Thunder.
• The K9 Thunder platform is made of all-welded steel armour protection material.
• The K9 gun has been developed under the ‘Buy Global’ programme of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) where foreign companies are allowed to participate.
• The K9 Vajra was mainly bought for use in deserts, but the India-China standoff prompted them to be deployed in the mountains as well.
• To ensure that these systems performed optimally in the extreme cold weather conditions of the mountains, the Army also procured winterisation kits for the regiment deployed.

What Is SAIME Initiative?

Under Sustainable Aquaculture In Mangrove Ecosystem (SAIME) initiative, farmers have taken up cultivation of shrimp at 30 hectares in West Bengal.

• The community-based initiative of sustainable shrimp cultivation is being conceived by NGOs- Nature Environment and Wildlife Society (NEWS) and Global Nature Fund (GNF), Naturland, Bangladesh Environment and Development Society (BEDS).
• Additionally, they are restoring mangroves.
• The mangrove ecosystem is integrated with shrimp cultivation, but when fisheries were expanded inwards, the mangrove ecosystem was excluded.
• Fishing, particularly shrimp cultivation, is one of the key occupations of the people of Sundarbans, which is a complex network of rivers and low-lying islands that face a tide surge twice a day.
• Shrimp cultivation is practised in about 15,000 to 20,000 hectares of the unique ecosystem in India.

International Year Of Millets 2023:

India has shared the vision to make International Year of Millets 2023 a ‘People’s Movement’ alongside positioning India as the ‘Global Hub for Millets’.

• India’s proposal to observe an International Year of Millets in 2023 was approved by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in 2018 and the United Nations General Assembly has declared the year 2023 as the International Year of Millets.
• This was adopted by a United Nations Resolution for which India took the lead and was supported by over 70 nations.
• Objectives:
  • Awareness of the contribution of millet to Food Security and nutrition.
  • Inspire stakeholders to improve sustainable production and quality of millets.
  • Focus on enhanced investment in research and development and extension services to achieve the other two aims.

Millet:

• Millet is a collective term referring to a number of small-seeded annual grasses that are cultivated as grain crops, primarily on marginal lands in dry areas in temperate, subtropical and tropical regions.
• Some of the common millets available in India are Ragi (Finger millet), Jowar (Sorghum), Sama (Little millet), Bajra (Pearl millet), and Variga (Proso millet).

Indian Rupee Depreciated By 10% Against The US Dollar:

The Indian Rupee depreciated by around 10% against the US dollar and the rupee was the worst-performing Asian currency in 2022.

• This decline was mainly on account of appreciation in the US currency on safe haven appeal amid fears of recession and inflation across many parts of the world and Russia-Ukraine war.
• During the year, the rupee fell to a lifetime low of 83.2 against the dollar. Compared to rupee, depreciation of other Asian currencies was to a lesser extent.
• During the year, the Chinese Yuan, Philippine Peso and Indonesian Rupiah fell around 9%. South Korean Won and Malaysian Ringgit declined by nearly 7% and 6%, respectively.
• However, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) heavily intervened in the forex market to defend rupee. Since the beginning of 2022, the country’s foreign exchange reserves have fallen by USD 70 billion.
• It stood at USD 562.81 billion as of 23rd December 2022.

King Penguin : Threatened By Climate Change

A recent study in the Antarctic reveals that king penguins are threatened by climate change.

• They are the 2nd largest penguin species.
• Habitat: They live on Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands. Major colonies are found on Crozet, Prince Edward Island, Kerguelen Island, Heard Island, South Georgia and Macquarie Island.
• King penguins don’t make a nest and they carry their egg around with them at all times on top of their feet by taking turns.
• Conservation Status: According to IUCN it is under the category of Least Concern.
• Threats: Climate change, habitat shifting and southward shifting of the Antarctic Polar Front.

Conservation Of The Nilgiri Tahr:

The Tamil Nadu government launched an initiative for the conservation of the Nilgiri Tahr at Rs 25 crore.

• Under The Nilgiri Tahr project, the Tamil Nadu government plans to:
  • Develop a better understanding of the Nilgiri Tahr population through surveys and radio telemetry studies
  • Reintroduce the Tahrs to their historical habitat
  • Address proximate threats
  • Increase public awareness of the species
• The project is to be implemented for 5 year period from 2022 to 2027.
• Nilgiri Tahr is the only Caprinae species found in the tropical mountains of southern
• They are endemic to the Western Ghats and used to inhabit a large part of the Western Ghats between Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• IUCN – Endangered

108th Indian Science Congress:

Prime Minister will inaugurate inaugural session of the 108th Indian Science Congress through video conferencing on January 3, 2023.

• Indian Science Congress, the annual gathering of researchers in the country is organised by the Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA).
• Theme: “Science and Technology for Sustainable Development with Women Empowerment.”
• The first meeting of the Congress was held from January 15-17, 1914 at the premises of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta.
• There are fourteen sections which includes Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Earth System Sciences, Engineering Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Medical Sciences etc.

Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA):

• Established in 1914, ISCA is a professional body under Department of Science & Technology, Ministry of Science & Technology.
• ISCA owes its origin to the foresight and initiative of two British Chemists, namely, Professor J. L. Simonsen and Professor P.S. MacMahon.

Dinesh Kumar Shukla : New Chairman Of AERB

Dinesh Kumar Shukla, former Executive Director of AERB & Distinguished Scientist assumed the charge as Chairman, AERB on 31st December 2022.

• The AERB was constituted on November 15, 1983, by the President of India by exercising the powers conferred by the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 to carry out certain regulatory and safety functions under the Act.
• The regulatory authority of AERB is derived from the rules and notifications promulgated under the Atomic Energy Act and the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
• The Mission of the AERB is to ensure the use of ionizing radiation and nuclear energy in India does not cause undue risk to the health of people and the environment.
• The total number of members including the Chairman and Member-Secretary shall not exceed five. The Board shall be responsible to the Atomic Energy Commission.
• The Board shall consist of full time and part time members. The Board shall have a full time Chairman and a full time Member-Secretary.
• The AERB shall have authority to administer the provisions of the Factories Act, 1948, the industrial safety for the units of Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) as per Section 23 of the Atomic Energy Act,1962.
• The executive functions of the AERB shall be vested in Chairman, AERB.
• The DAE will provide the necessary administrative support to the AERB in this regard to its budget, parliamentary work and establishment and accounts matters.

Birth Anniversary Of Satyendra Nath Bose:

The 129th birth anniversary of Satyendra Nath Bose has been celebrated On Jan 1 2023

• Satyendra Nath Bose was a Mathematician and physicist from India. Born on January 1, 1894, Bose collaborated with Einstein to develop what we now know as the Bose-Einstein statistics.
• He was appointed to the position of Reader in Physics at the University of Dhaka.
• It was here that he made his most significant contributions to physics.
• Bose designed equipment for setting up an X-ray crystallography laboratory at the university, and wrote several papers on a range of subjects, such as ‘D2 Statistics’, and ‘Total Reflection of Electromagnetic Waves in the Ionosphere’.
• In 1945, he left Dhaka to return to his alma mater, the University of Calcutta, as the Khaira Professor of Physics.
• He retired from the University of Calcutta in 1956 and spent a year as the Vice Chancellor at the Viswa-Bharati University.
• Bose was awarded Padma Vibhushan, one of the highest civilian awards in the country, by the Indian government in 1954.
• He served as president of many scientific institutions, which include the Indian Physical Society, National Institute of Science, Indian Science Congress, and the Indian Statistical Institute.
• He also acted as an advisor to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, and later became a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Remote Electronic Voting Machine:

The Election Commission of India (ECI) recently said that it was ready to pilot remote voting for domestic migrants through newly devised remote electronic voting machines (RVMs).

Remote Electronic Voting Machine:

• The new RVM prototype will enable a voter, who is listed in constituencies, to exercise voting rights from a single machine.
• The multi-constituency remote EVM, developed by a public sector undertaking, can handle up to 72 constituencies from a single remote polling booth.
• Migrant voters would not need to travel to their home districts to exercise their franchise if the remote electronic voting machine is implemented properly.
• The remote e-voting machine will be a standalone device which doesn’t need connectivity to operate.
• The Representation of the People Act, The Conduct of Election Rules and The Registration of Electors Rules will need to be amended to introduce remote voting.
• The RVMs will have the same security system and voting experience as the EVM, with the modification of an electronic ballot display with candidates and symbols instead of a fixed ballot paper sheet.
• When the voter scans his/her constituency card in the presence of the Presiding Officer at the station, their respective constituency and candidate list will appear on the RVM display.
• As for counting the votes, the electronic system will also count and store the votes for each candidate in a constituency.