Daily Current Affairs for UPSC IAS: 11th March 2023

Yuva Utsav India @2047:

The Youth Affairs Ministry has organized an event called ‘Yuva Utsav India @2047’ in all districts of India. The event will be held from March to June 2023, and it will have three levels.

• The first level of the ‘Yuva Utsav India @2047 will be a one-day district-level programme.
• It will take place in 150 districts from the 4th to 31st of March 2023.
• The aim of this event is to celebrate the power of youth in India and encourage young people to actively participate in the development of the country.
• The pan-India event is being organized in several places- Pratapgarh in UP, Dhar and Hoshangabad in MP, Hanumangarh in Rajasthan, Saraikela in Jharkhand, Jalgaon in Maharashtra, Karimnagar in Telangana and Palakkad in Kerala.
• It is organized in a 3-tier format.
• The 1st phase is organized by schools and colleges.

Captain Shaliza Dhami : First Woman Officer In The Indian Air Force

Group Captain Shaliza Dhami has made history as the first woman officer in the Indian Air Force (IAF) to be appointed as the leader of a frontline combat unit in the Western sector.

• She will be in charge of a missile squadron, marking a significant milestone in the IAF’s history.
• This achievement comes after the Indian Army recently began assigning women officers to command roles outside the medical stream, with approximately 50 women expected to lead units in operational areas.
• Group Captain Dhami has extensive experience as a helicopter pilot and a flight commander in the Western sector, having received commendations from the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief on two occasions.
• Her position as a Group Captain is equivalent to a Colonel in the Indian Army. She has over 2,800 hours of flying experience.
• She is also the 1st woman officer to be a qualified flight instructor in the IAF.

Inter-Village Tea Garden Cleanliness Competition: Initiative By Local MLA

Around 148 villages and 24 tea gardens in Assam’s Khumtai Assembly constituency are taking part in an “Inter-Village Tea Garden Cleanliness Competition.”

• Participating villages have to clear the plastic waste and improve cleanliness throughout the villages.
• The winning gets a one-km concrete road and other cash prizes worth lakhs for developmental activities from the MLA fund.
• Chief Minister of Assam will announce the winner.
• The idea behind the competition is to promote rural tourism in the region, as tourist footfall is an essential part of promoting economic growth in the area.

Women Icons Leading Swachhata (WINS) Awards 2023:

To highlight the impact of women in sanitation and waste management, the Union Ministry for Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) announced the ‘Women Icons Leading Swachhata’ (WINS) Awards 2023 on the eve of International Women’s Day.

• It aims to recognize celebrate and disseminate inspiring and exemplary initiatives in urban sanitation and waste management by women-led organizations and individual women.
• It aims to make make a transformational shift from ‘Women in Swachhata’ to ‘Women led Swachhata’
• Swachhatam Portal will be used for the selection of entries.
• In 2021, the integrated Swatchh Bharat Mission-Urban MIS portal Swachhatam and the state-of-art GIS platform were launched under SBM-U 2.0

Gene-Editing In Embryos:

A new study published in the journal Nature Communications has warned of the potential consequences of gene editing technology, which is still not fully understood.

Key findings:

• Using Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) to delete harmful disease-causing mutations could create more problems
• CRISPR could lead to extensive gene copying from one parent to another, potentially increasing the risk of diseases
• The extent of the DNA damage induced by CRISPR and how cells respond to it is still not fully known
• The technology used to test gene-edited embryos could reduce the accuracy of genetic testing, leading to the misdiagnosis of embryos.
• The researchers concluded that such limitations must be addressed before gene editing technology can be used.
• Previously, a Chinese scientist who announced the birth of gene-edited twins in 2018, had used CRISPR to make the embryos resistant to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Gene-editing:

• Genome editing (also called gene editing) is a group of technologies that allow genetic material to be added, removed, or altered at particular locations in the genome.

PALM-400 Drones : Tested Succcessfully

The Indian army has recently tested the prototype version of the PALM-400 drones successfully.

• The PALM 400 – acronym for ‘Precision Attack Loitering Munition’ is a long-range, high-precision loitering munition system.
• It is the result of a joint venture between AVision Systems (Israel), UVision Air Ltd, and Aditya Precitech Private Ltd (APPL).
• It is built to fly over areas where armored vehicles are concentrated or are anticipated.
• Each PALM 400 selects its targets when armored vehicles enter the kill zone and launch an armor-piercing projectile, penetrating it from the top where there is least protection.
• It can be discharged from a canister and fly 3000-4000 feet above a kill zone for up to 120 minutes.
• It has a range of more than 100 km and travels at a speed of 50 to 140 knots (90 to 260 km/h).
• It uses electro-optical/infrared stabilized cameras to detect and engage targets both during the day and at night.
• It uses complex navigational techniques that enable it to function even in environments where the GPS has been disabled.

What Is Glacial Retreat?

Recent studies on Himalayan glaciers show that the variability in retreat rate and mass balance in different sectors of the mountain range is primarily linked to topography and climate.

• A team from Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (Uttarakhand) studied two glaciers with different characteristics, the Pensilungpa Glacier (Ladakh) and the Durung-Drung Glacier, (Ladakh) for a comparative study of glacier fluctuations between 1971 and 2019.
• They quantitatively evaluated the influence of the debris cover on the loss of ice mass in summer and on the terminal recession of glaciers.
• Their study confirms that the glacier retreat rate is controlled by climate change and the topographic setting and morphology of the glacier.
• They also found that the thickness of the debris cover significantly alters the glacier response to climate forcing.
• Other factors such as snout geometry, glacier size, elevation range, slope, aspect, debris cover, as well as the presence of supra and proglacial lakes also influence the heterogeneous glacial dynamics
• Glacial retreat refers to the process of a glacier shrinking or receding in size over time due to a decrease in ice accumulation or an increase in ice melt.
• This can be caused by a number of factors, including rising global temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, or changes in the geography of the surrounding landscape.

Kinzhal Missile : Russia

Russia recently fired hypersonic Kinzhal missiles as part of a massive wave of strikes on Ukraine.

• The Kh-47M2, nicknamed “Kinzhal”  is a nuclear-capable, Russian air-launched ballistic missile.
• It was one of six “next generation” weapons unveiled by Russian President Putin during a speech in March 2018.
• The Kinzhal can reach speeds of up to Mach 10 (12,350 km/hr).
• It can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads with a payload of up to 480 kg and a thermonuclear option with a 10-50 kt warhead.
• It has a reported range of 1,500-2,000 km.
• The Kinzhal has a length of 8 m, a body diameter of 1 m, and a launch weight of approximately 4,300 kg.
• It is designed to be launched from MiG-31 fighter jets at altitudes of about 18 km (59,000 ft).
• This missile maneuvers during all stages of its flight to overcome hostile air defense systems.
• A hypersonic missile is a weapon system which flies at least at the speed of Mach 5e. five times the speed of sound and is manoeuvrable.
• These missiles are extremely fast and far harder for surface-to-air missile defence systems to target.

Multi-Angle Imager For Aerosols Mission:

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced on Wednesday that it is partnering with the Italian Space Agency ASI (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana) to build and launch the MAIA mission.

• It is a joint mission between NASA and the Italian Space Agency ASI.
• This will investigate the health impacts of air pollution in the world’s most populated cities.
• Its primary goal is to benefit societal health. Epidemiologists and public health researchers will be directly working on the development of a satellite mission.
• It will consist of the PLATiNO-2 satellite, which will be provided by ASI, and a science instrument that will be built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
• The MAIA mission will collect and analyse data from the observatory, sensors on the ground and atmospheric models.
• The JPL hosts a pointable spectropolarimetric camera which captures images from multiple angles in the ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared and shortwave infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
• During the course of the three-year mission, MAIA will focus on 11 primary target areas that include major urban centres across the world: Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston, Rome, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Barcelona, Spain, Beijing, Johannesburg, New Delhi, Taipei, Taiwan; and Tel Aviv.
• The MAIA observatory is set to launch before the end of 2024.

BIMSTEC Ministerial Meeting : Virtually

The Minister of State for External Affairs participated in the 19th The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Ministerial Meeting virtually from Bangkok.

• During the meeting, the Ministers approved several documents including rules of Procedure for Core BIMSTEC Mechanisms, Sectoral BIMSTEC Mechanisms and BIMSTEC’s External Relations for submission to the 6th BIMSTEC Summit.
• The meeting also approved the draft Host Country Agreement between India and the BIMSTEC Secretariat for establishing BIMSTEC Centre for Weather and Climate in India.
• The Meeting also approved the Terms of Reference for an Eminent Person’s Group on the Future Directions of BIMSTEC.
• The Terms of Reference were finalized under the special scheme for institution building.
• Besides BIMSTEC Bangkok Vision 2030 was also approved and will be launched at the 6th BIMSTEC Summit.
• The Meeting also gave its nod to the Administrative and Disciplinary Rules of the Secretariat and amended Financial Rules and Regulations of the BIMSTEC Secretariat.

BIMSTEC:

• It is a regional organization that was established on 06 June 1997 with the signing of the Bangkok Declaration.
• Member countries: Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal
• The Chairmanship of BIMSTEC rotates according to the alphabetical order of the English names of the Member States.
• During the Third BIMSTEC Summit, the Secretariat was established in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

TROPEX 2023:

Indian Navy’s major Operational level exercise TROPEX for the year 2023, conducted across the expanse of IOR for four months from Nov 22 – Mar 23, culminated this week in the Arabian Sea

Theatre Level Operational Readiness Exercise (TROPEX 2023):Nov 2022 to March 2023.

• This operational level exercise is conducted biennially and witnesses participation not only by all Indian Navy units but also of Indian Army, Indian Air Force and Coast Guard assets.
• It witnessed the participation of approximately 70 Indian Navy ships, six submarines and over 75 aircraft.
• As part of the exercise, all surface combatants of the Indian Navy including Destroyers, Frigates, and Corvettes as well as submarines and aircraft are put through complex maritime operational deployments.
• The overall exercise construct included the Coastal Defence exercise Sea Vigil and the Amphibious Exercise AMPHEX.