Prelim Bits 09-04-2024 | UPSC Daily Current Affairs

Quick Facts

Palestine

• Palestine, area of the eastern Mediterranean region, comprising parts of modern Israel and the Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
• Palestine was among former Ottoman territories placed under UK administration by the League of Nations in 1922.
• All of these territories eventually became fully independent States, except Palestine.
• The British Mandate incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917, expressing support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.
• The UN proposed terminating the Mandate and partitioning Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem.

Types of Solar Eclipse

Total Solar Eclipse

Annular Solar Eclipse

• A total solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, completely blocking the face of the Sun.
• The sky will darken, as if it were dawn or dusk.
• People in the path of a total solar eclipse can see the Sun’s corona, the outer atmosphere, which is otherwise usually obscured by the bright face of the Sun.
• A total solar eclipse is the only type of solar eclipse where viewers can momentarily remove their eclipse glasses.

• An annular solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, but when it is at or near its farthest point from Earth.
• Because the Moon is farther away from Earth, it appears smaller than the Sun and does not completely cover the Sun.
• As a result, the Moon appears as a dark disk on top of a larger, bright disk, creating what looks like a ring around the Moon.

Partial Solar Eclipse

Hybrid Solar Eclipse

• A partial solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth but the Sun, Moon, and Earth are not perfectly lined up.
• Only a part of the Sun will appear to be covered, giving it a crescent shape.

• Because Earth's surface is curved, sometimes an eclipse can shift between annular and total as the Moon’s shadow moves across the globe.
• This is called a hybrid solar eclipse.

Types of Lunar Eclipses

Penumbral Eclipse

Partial Lunar Eclipse

• The Moon travels through Earth’s penumbra, or the faint outer part of its shadow.
• The Moon dims so slightly that it can be difficult to notice.

• An imperfect alignment of Sun, Earth and Moon results in the Moon passing through only part of Earth's umbra.
• The shadow grows and then recedes without ever entirely covering the Moon.

Total Lunar Eclipse

• The Moon moves into the inner part of Earth’s shadow, or the umbra.
• Some of the sunlight passing through Earth’s atmosphere reaches the Moon’s surface, lighting it dimly.
• Colors with shorter wavelengths, the blues and violets, scatter more easily than colors with longer wavelengths, like red and orange.
• Because these longer wavelengths make it through Earth’s atmosphere, and the shorter wavelengths have scattered away, the Moon appears orangish or reddish during a lunar eclipse.
• The more dust or clouds in Earth’s atmosphere during the eclipse, the redder the Moon appears.

Other Important Topics

Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT)

The Supreme Court (SC) said that petitions seeking 100% verification of Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips would be taken up soon.

• Voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) or verifiable paper record (VPR) is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballot less voting system.
• VVPAT was introduced in 2013.
• VVPAT is attached with the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).
• VVPAT provides visual verification for the vote cast by a voter by printing a slip of paper with the voter’s choice on it.
• This slip of paper, containing the candidate’s serial number, name, and party symbol, is displayed in the machine behind a glass window, giving the voter 7 seconds to verify her vote.
• No voter can take the VVPAT slip back home.
• It is later used to verify votes cast in five randomly selected polling booths.
• The VVPAT was used for the first time in all 21 polling stations of the Noksen Assembly constituency of Nagaland in 2013.
• By June 2017, there was 100% adoption of VVPATs.

Electronic Trading Platforms (ETPs)

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor raised concerns over unauthorized forex trading platforms and asked banks to maintain vigil against such illegal activities.

• Electronic Trading Platform (ETP) are electronic systems that constitute other than a recognised stock exchange.
• In ETP transactions in eligible instruments like securities, money market instruments, foreign exchange instruments, derivatives, etc. are contracted.

Maasai- Mara Ecosystem in Kenya

• Maasai Mara Ecosystem is a vast grassland savannah in the south of Kenya, home to approximately 25% of Kenya’s wildlife.
• The perennial flowing Mara River flows across the ecosystem and the river drains into Lake Victoria in Tanzania.
• The ecosystem bisects the Mara National Reserve and the Mara Triangle.
• The Mara-Serengeti migration of wildebeest is the most species diverse migration to occur year on year.

Maasai Mara National Reserve

• It is located in Kenya along the border of Tanzania and is contiguous with the neighboring Serengeti National Park. 
• It was established in 1974.

Sitars and Tanpuras

The sitars and tanpuras of Miraj, a small town in Maharashtra have been awarded the Geographical Indication (GI) tags.

• Sitars and tanpuras are traditional Indian musical instruments.
• Sitars – It is a stringed instrument with a long neck and a gourd-shaped body.
• Sitar is used in Hindustani classical.
• Tanpuras – It is a long-necked string instrument that provides a drone accompaniment in Indian classical music.
• It looks like the sitar, it is missing a top gourd and does not have any frets.
• These frets allow for the Sitar to tune the sympathetic strings, which the Tanpura does not have.

TSAT-1A Satellite

India's first private sub-metre resolution earth observation satellite, TSAT-1A is launched by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket in the U.S.

• TSAT-1A is a sub-metre high-resolution earth observation satellite carried into space as part of the Bandwagon-1 rideshare mission.
• Launched by – Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL), India, in collaboration with Satellogic.
• It will provide high-resolution satellite images, boasting increased collection capacity, dynamic range, and low-latency delivery through its multispectral and hyperspectral capabilities.

Bandwagon-1 mission

• It is a rideshare mission organized by SpaceX to launch multiple small satellites into orbit.
• The mission is named Bandwagon-1 as it allows smaller satellite operators to jump on the bandwagon and share a ride to space, reducing costs and increasing access to space.

Anti-dumping duty on sodium cyanide

• The Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) recommended imposition of anti-dumping duty on sodium cyanide (NaCN) imported from China, the European Union, Japan and Korea.
• The revised definitive anti-dumping duties on the import of sodium cyanide is for a period of 5 years.
• Sodium cyanide is used
  1. In the extraction of gold and silver from their respective ores
  2. In electroplating and the heat treatment of metals, and
  3. In manufacturing insecticides, dyes, pigments, and bulk drugs, etc.

• Sodium cyanide releases hydrogen cyanide gas, a highly toxic chemical asphyxiant that interferes with the body's ability to use oxygen.
• Exposure to sodium cyanide can be rapidly fatal.

India Flora Online

 A professor of Indian Institute of Science (IISc) launched India Flora Online.

• India Flora Online is an online platform that provides information and resources related to the flora and plant life of India.
• It is most comprehensive attempt to document the plant wealth in India.
• It includes a record of plants from Afghanistan, Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Pakistan.
• It is the fourth such plant database initiative following Digital Flora of Karnataka, Digital Flora of Eastern Ghats, and Flora of Peninsular India.

Digital Flora of Eastern Ghats and Flora of Peninsular India, both released in 2019, list 4,097 & 10,210 species, while the most recent, India Flora Online–has details of a whopping 15,349 plants found across India.

Lesotho Highlands Water Project

• The Lesotho Highlands are formed by the Drakensberg and Maloti mountain ranges in the east and central parts of the country of Lesotho, in Africa
• It is a large-scale water supply scheme in which water is diverted from the highlands of Lesotho to South Africa’s Free State and the greater Johannesburg area, launched in 1998.
• It is developed in partnership with the governments of Lesotho and South Africa.
• It involves the construction of a series of dams, reservoirs and tunnels throughout Lesotho.
• These all deliver water to the Vaal River system in South Africa.

Harappan settlement in Gujarat

Archaeologists discovered 5,200-year old Harappan settlement at Padta Bet in Kachchh district, Gujarat.

• Findings - The excavated remains included the remains of a circular structure and other rectangular structures of varying sizes and made of locally available sandstone and shales.
• The presence of plenty of pottery, artefacts, and a few animal bone fragments from these areas are indicative of the occupation of Harappan people in the region.
• Spanning from the Early Harappan to Late Harappan periods, i.e. 3200 BCE to 1700 BCE.
• The evidence of ceramics also indicate the presence of Early Harappan, Classical Harappan, and Late Harappan types.

Jalyukta Shivar Yojana

• It is a flagship initiative launched by the Government of Maharashtra in 2014.
• Aim - To make the state drought-free and water-abundant by creating cement barrages as well as deepening, widening and de-siltation of water bodies.