Awareness in space.

KANISHKBIOSCIENCE E -LEARNING PLATFORM - Help you think beyond the issue but relevant to the issue from UPSC prelims and Mains exam point of view. These linkages provided in this ‘hint’ format help you frame possible questions in your mind that might arise(or an examiner might imagine) from each current event. InstaLinks also connect every issue to their static or theoretical background. This helps you study a topic holistically and add new dimensions to every current event to help you think analytically.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiDqLyxXg_CtLFZoWTFOWjw  

 

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 What is the Sentinel-6 satellite, and why is it important?

Context:

The Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite is designed to monitor oceans.

• It was recently launched from California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
• This is a part of the next mission dedicated to measuring changes in the global sea level.

What is the mission?

• The mission is called the Jason Continuity of Service (Jason-CS) mission.
• It is designed to measure the height of the ocean, which is a key component in understanding how the Earth’s climate is changing.
• It has been developed jointly by the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA, European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (Eumetsat), the USA’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the EU, with contributions from France’s National Centre for Space Studies (CNES).

What will the satellite do?

• Provide measurements of global sea-level rise.
• Send pulses to the Earth’s surface and measure how long they take to return to it, which will help scientists measure the sea surface height.
• Measure water vapour along this path and find its position using GPS and ground-based lasers.

Significance of the Mission:

This data will allow improvements in both short-term forecasting for weather predictions in the two-to-four-week range (hurricane intensity predictions), and long-term forecasting, for instance for seasonal conditions like El Niño and La Niña.

Why is it important to measure the height of the ocean?

1. With this, it is possible to observe the height of the oceans on a global scale and monitor critical changes in ocean currents and heat storage only from space.
2. It helps scientists foresee the effects of the changing oceans on the climate.
3. In order to measure and track changes in the oceanic heat budget, scientists need to know the ocean currents and heat storage of the oceans, which can be determined from the height of the sea surface.

Other satellites that have been launched since 1992 to track changes in the oceans on a global scale include:

• The TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1 and OSTN/Jason-2, among others.
  

  Prelims Link:

• Objectives and significance of the mission.
• About: TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1 and OSTN/Jason-2.
• What are ocean currents? How are they generated?

Mains Link:

Discuss the significance of the Jason Continuity of Service (Jason-CS) mission.

Sources: Indian Express.

 Kerala’s new 118A law:

Context:

Kerala Government has introduced Section 118A in the Kerala Police Act, to penalise ‘offensive,’ ‘abusive,’ and ‘threatening’ social media posts.

    This has been introduced through the ordinance route.

According to the new law:

“Whoever makes, expresses, publishes or disseminates through any kind of mode of communication, any matter or subject for threatening, abusing, humiliating or defaming a person or class of persons, knowing it to be false and that causes injury to the mind, reputation or property of such person or class of persons or any other person in whom they have interest shall on conviction, be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with fine which may extend to ten thousand rupees or with both.”

    This means that a person can face three years in jail and a fine of Rs 10,000 for any social media post that is considered “offensive” or “defamatory”.

 

• This is not just for writing or creating such a post, but those who share that post or opinion will also face the same kind of punishment.

Need for:

A similar law was repealed by the Supreme Court in 2015 along with Section 66A of the IT Act — Section 118(d) of the Kerala Police Act —  for being a threat to free speech.

• Therefore, this new law has been brought in to ‘fill the gap’ left by the repealing of the two laws, which leaves current laws ‘inadequate’ to prevent crimes online which have ‘caused considerable distress to the women in our society’ and cyber attacks that are ‘turning into a threat to privacy’.

Why is the law being criticised?

Experts have called this law as draconian because:

1. It is being seen as an attempt to stifle not only dissent but also freedom of speech and expression.
2. It has resurrected the “same legal vices” the Supreme Court had “trashed” by scrapping Section 66 A of the IT Act.
3. The law is unspecific and indistinct and can be indiscriminately misused by individuals or even the government and the police, who may use it against those whom they simply disagree with.
4. Though the Kerala government claims it is to fight cyber crimes against women, that has not found any mention in the law either.
5. It restricts speech without any domain limitation, it restricts Article 19 of the Constitution in an active way and is not protected by Article 19(2).
6. It will effectively be a DDOS attack (denial-of-service attack) on the police functioning on the state, as well as on the police. There will be a huge rush of FIRs filed against all kind of issues between people.
7. It gives power to the police to file suo-motu cases against anyone.

Sources: the Hindu.

    Security challenges and their management in border areas; linkages of organized crime with terrorism.

Frontier Highway project:

Context:

Since the Ladakh stand-off between the Indian and Chinese armies in May, Arunachal Pradesh has been pushing for the ambitious Frontier Highway project along the “India-Tibet border” for facilitating faster movement of troops if a war-like situation arises.

About the Frontier Highway Project:

1    It is also called as the Arunachal Frontier Highway and Mago-Thingbu–Vijaynagar Border Highway.
2    The 2,000-kilometre-long road follows the McMahon Line.
3    It accompanies the Trans-Arunachal Highway (through the middle) and the Arunachal East-West Corridor (in the foothills along the Assam border) as major highways spanning Arunachal Pradesh, pursuing the Look East connectivity concept.
4    The highway will intersect with the proposed East-West Industrial Corridor Highway in the foothills of Arunachal Pradesh from Bhairabkunda, the tri-junction of Bhutan, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh to Ruksin in East Siang district.
5    The highway will cross the Dibang Wildlife Sanctuary, which may raise environmental issues.

Need for:

1    The highway will generate employment and increase tourism in these hard-to-reach areas.
2    The highway will check Chinese incursions into Indian territory. China has built an extensive road and railway network on its side, posing a security risk to India as the region is relatively inaccessible on the Indian side.


Prelims Link:

 1   About the Frontier Highway Project.
2    About the Trans-Arunachal Highway.

Mains Link:

Why do we need the Frontier Highway project? Discuss.

Sources: the Hindu.

 Facts for Prelims:

SITMEX-20:

1    It is a trilateral naval exercise between India, Thailand and Singapore.
2    The latest edition was held in the Andaman sea.
3    The exercise was conducted as a ‘non-contact, at sea only’ exercise in view of COVID-19 pandemic.
4    It highlights growing synergy, coordination and cooperation in the maritime domain between the three friendly navies and maritime neighbours.

Global Conference on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies:

 1   4th Global Conference on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies was held recently virtually.
2    Organised by the Interpol, Europol and the Basel Institute.
3    Participants: Representatives from law enforcement and the judiciary, Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs), international organisations and the private sector.

Background:

The conference is an initiative of the Working Group on Cryptocurrencies and Money Laundering established in 2016.

Launched with an objective of strengthening knowledge, expertise and best practices for investigations into financial crimes and intelligence on virtual assets and cryptocurrencies.
National Newborn Week 2020:

1    Observed every year from 15 to 21 November.
2    Theme for 2020: ‘Quality, Equity, Dignity for every newborn at every health facility and everywhere’.
3    The main purpose of the week is to reinforce the importance of newborn health as a key priority area of the health sector and reduce the infant mortality rate by improving healthcare conditions for babies in the neonatal period.
4    In 2014, India became the first country to launch the India Newborn Action Plan (INAP), in alignment with the Global Every Newborn Action Plan towards eliminating preventable deaths of new-borns and stillbirths.

Awas Diwas and Awas Week:

To commemorate the launch of the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G), which aims to provide “Housing for All” by 2022, it was decided to celebrate 20th November every year as “Awaas Diwas”.

    The program envisages the completion of 2.95 crore PMAY-G houses with all basic amenities by the year 2022.

{ With input from news agency language)

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