GM mustard, India abstains on UNSC resolution, Pahari community, Space force mission, Laika, Lightning disaster

SC orders status quo on GM mustard

The Supreme Court 3 November 2022 put a status quo on planting genetically modified (GM) mustard and conducting its trials and demonstrations in India. The decision comes days after the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), a body of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change gave a green nod to environmental clearance for GM mustard.

What

1. The Centre had taken the decision after the GEAC, in a meeting 18 October 2022, recommended the environmental release of the seed for trials, demonstrations and seed productions.
2. Dhara Mustard Hybrid (DMH-11) is a hybrid seed variety that has stirred a storm between scientists, farmers and activists over its commercialisation.
3. It is the first GM crop to be commercially released and grown by farmers in India.
4. The Coalition of GM Free India, an informal network of organisations and individuals campaigning and advocating to keep India GM-Free, had opposed the move claiming it to be unscientific and alleged that no biosafety protocols were followed in the process.
5. The Supreme Court already had pending cases on the matter of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in general and GM mustard in particular that the activists had filed as public interest litigations.
6. The Coalition of GM Free India has also alleged that no trials were conducted and that the GMO was also changed after the approval of the tests, making it a flawed process.

Flashback

1. Scientists at Delhi University’s Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants (CGMCP) have developed the hybrid mustard DMH-11 containing two alien genes isolated from a soil bacterium called Bacillus amyloliquefaciens.
2. The CGMCP scientists have deployed the barnase-barstar GM technology to create what they say is a robust and viable hybridisation system in mustard.
3. This system was used to develop DMH-11 by crossing a popular Indian mustard variety ‘Varuna’ (the barnase line) with an East European ‘Early Heera-2’ mutant (barstar).
4. DMH-11 is claimed to have shown an average 28% yield increase over Varuna in contained field trials carried out by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

India abstains on UNSC resolution

India has abstained on yet another resolution involving Ukraine, this time a motion sponsored by Russia at the UN Security Council (UNSC). Only China voted with Russia on the resolution calling for an inquiry into what Moscow alleged was a joint bio-warfare programme run by the US and Ukraine in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).

What

1. All the 10 non-permanent members abstained and the only negative votes from the US, Britain and France did not amount to vetoes because the resolution automatically failed without getting the minimum of nine votes.
2. Explaining India’s abstention, Counsellor Asokan Amarnath cited the absence of “an effective, universal and non-discriminatory verification mechanism” for implementing the provisions of the BWC.
3. India is one of the 184 signatories to the convention that bans the use, manufacture, distribution and stockpiling of biological weapons.
4. This was at least the 11th time India had abstained on a substantive resolution at the Security Council and the General Assembly involving Ukraine.
5. India emphasised the importance of the BWC’s Article X which gives nations the right to participate in research and share biological information, materials and equipment for peaceful purposes.
6. India “underlines that biological-related activity for peaceful purposes that are fully consistent with the Convention’s obligations should not be undermined”.
7. The US has dismissed Russia’s allegations about the bioweapons programme saying that under its Cooperative Biological Threat Reduction programme it had only assisted Ukraine in destroying any material left in that country by the Soviet Union when that country became independent.
8. Russia has claimed that biological weapons were being developed in Ukrainian laboratories with US funding and help and circulated what it said were documents regarding the alleged cooperation that it seized after invading Ukraine.

Pahari Community Added To ST List Of Jammu And Kashmir

• Recently, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) has cleared the way for the inclusion of the ‘Pahari ethnic group’ in the Scheduled Tribes list of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
• The proposal also called for the inclusion of the “Paddari tribe”, “Koli” and “Gadda Brahman” communities to be included in the ST list of J&K.
• The suggestion for inclusion had come from the commission set up for socially and educationally backward classes in the Union Territory, headed by Justice (Retd.) G.D. Sharma.

Who are the Paharis?

• Paharis are sociolinguistic groups primarily found in the hilly areas of the Poonch-Rajouri area, Mirpur, and some areas of the Kashmir Valley, such as Baramulla, Kupwara, and Uri.
• They represent around 20% of the total population in Jammu & Kashmir.
• Their native speech, Pahari, is a dialect of the Pothwari language with its own distinct culture.
• They frequently live in rural areas and are heavily interested in cattle and agricultural operations.
• The bulk of Paharis lives in areas that are underdeveloped socially and economically.
• They have struggled in the area over the years and have been ignored.

Why are Gujjars and Bakerwals opposing the ST tag for Paharis?

• After Kashmiris and Dogras, the Gujjars and Bakerwals make up Jammu and Kashmir’s third-largest ethnic group, and they disagree with the Paharis on the ST designation.
• The Gujjars and Bakerwals obtained the ST classification in 1991, and as a result, they were eligible for 10% reservation in government employment and entrance to educational institutions.
• The Paharis argue that as they also reside in the difficult and underdeveloped Pir Panjal region, in addition to the Baramulla and Anantnag districts, along with the Gujjars and Bakerwals, they should also be given the ST designation.
• The Gujjars and Bakerwals, however, argue that Paharis should not be classified as ST because they are a collection of many religious and linguistic communities rather than an ethnic group.
• This is due to the fact that nine seats in the new 90-member Assembly that will be constituted in J&K following the delimitation process will be designated for tribal members.

Inclusion of new communities in the ST list

• According to the modalities followed by the Union government for the inclusion of new communities in the ST list, once the NCST and the Office of the RGI have approved the proposal for inclusion, all that remains to be done is for the Union Cabinet to give the final nod.
• The Ministry of Tribal Affairs will therefore be needed to introduce a bill in Parliament to alter The Constitution (Jammu and Kashmir) Scheduled Tribes Order, 1989 in order to include the newly added STs in J&K.
• The addition will then be completed once the amended schedule has been officially announced by the President of India in accordance with Article 342 of the Indian Constitution.

National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST)

• The Constitution (89th Amendment) Act of 2003 amended Article 338 and added a new Article 338A, establishing the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST).
• The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) and National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) were established as independent commissions with effect from February 19, 2004, replacing the former National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
• The term of office of the Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson, and each member is three years from the date of assumption of charge.
• The Vice-Chairperson has the level of a Minister of State, the Chairperson has the rank of a Union Cabinet Minister, and the other members have the rank of a Secretary to the Government of India.

Functions

• To investigate & Monitor matters relating to Safeguards provided for STs under the Constitution, other laws, or Govt. Order, to evaluate the working of such Safeguards.
• To inquire into specific complaints relating to the Rights & Safeguards of STs;
• To participate and Advise in the Planning Process relating to the Socio-economic development of STs, and to Evaluate the progress of their development under the Union and any State;
• To submit a report to the President annually and at such other times as the Commission may deem fit, upon/ working of Safeguards, Measures required for effective implementation of Programmers/ Schemes relating to Welfare and Socio-economic development of STs;
• To discharge such other functions in relation to STs as the President may, subject to the provisions of any law made by Parliament, by rule specify;

Space Force mission launched

Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the first Falcon Heavy mission in over three years, a towering rocket that is the most powerful currently in operation. The secretive USSF-44 mission, the first operational national security mission for Falcon Heavy, is being launched by SpaceX’s rocket for the American Space Force.

What

1. The Space Test Program-2 (STP-2) mission, launched in June 2019, carried experimental satellites on a test flight for the Pentagon.
2. The rocket was lifted off from a launchpad at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
3. To achieve the Space Force’s high-performance criteria for this mission, the corporation only plans to land the side pair of the three rocket boosters, with the centre core falling into the ocean as typical rockets do. Falcon Heavy’s base is reusable.
4. The corporation has only accomplished three Falcon Heavy launches since the rocket made its debut in February 2018, primarily attributable to its clients’ preparedness about its timeline.
5. This USSF-44 mission was initially planned for late 2020, and two additional Falcon Heavy flights, one for NASA and the other for the Space Force are also awaiting customer payloads. Falcon Heavy still has roughly a dozen missions on the backlog.

Remembering Laika after 65 years

On 3 November 1957, the Soviet Union launched ‘Sputnik 2’ and made history — for carrying the first-ever living creature to orbit the Earth, a dog named Laika. The flight, which was meant to test the safety of space travel for humans, ended up as a one-way trip for Laika.

Who was Laika and why was she chosen?

1. Laika was a stray dog picked up from the streets of Moscow just a week before the launch of Sputnik 2.
2. Laika was a female part-Samoyed terrier originally named Kudryavka (Little Curly). She was later renamed Laika, which is Russian for “Husky” or “Barker.”
3. The mission wanted female dogs as they were considered anatomically better suited for close confinement.
4. It was not just the Soviet Union that experimented with animals. Before humans actually went to space, one of the theories was that humans might not be able to survive long periods of weightlessness.
5. According to US space agency NASA, “American and Russian scientists utilised animals — mainly monkeys, chimps, and dogs — in order to test each country’s ability to launch a living organism into space and bring it back alive and unharmed.”
6. The mission ended up providing scientists with the first data on the behavior of a living organism orbiting in the space environment.

The Lightning disaster

According to the ‘Annual Lightning Report 2020-2021’, India has experienced an increasing loss of human lives, property, and livelihoods due to the rising frequency and intensity of lightning and thunderstorms.

• As per the report, India witnessed 18.5 million lightning strikes between April 2020 and March 2021, marking 34 percent more strikes than the previous year.
• Madhya Pradesh experienced the highest number of lightning-related deaths (162), followed by Maharashtra (121), Gujarat (72), Bihar (70), Rajasthan (49), and Chhattisgarh (40).

About Lightning:

• Lightning is a giant spark of electricity in the atmosphere between clouds, the air, or the ground.
• In the early stages of development, air acts as an insulator between the positive and negative charges in the cloud and between the cloud and the ground.
• When the opposite charges build up enough, this insulating capacity of the air breaks down and there is a rapid discharge of electricity that is known as lightning.
• The flash of lightning temporarily equalizes the charged regions in the atmosphere until the opposite charges build up again.
• Lightning can occur between opposite charges within the thunderstorm cloud (intra-cloud lightning) or between opposite charges in the cloud and on the ground (cloud-to-ground lightning).

Major Causes lightning:

• Lightning is an electrical discharge caused by imbalances between storm clouds and the ground, or within the clouds themselves.
  • During a storm, colliding particles of rain, ice, or snow inside storm clouds increase the imbalance between storm clouds and the ground, and often negatively charge the lower reaches of storm clouds.
• Objects on the ground, like steeples, trees, and the Earth itself, become positively charged creating an imbalance that nature seeks to remedy by passing current between the two charges.
• This heat causes surrounding air to rapidly expand and vibrate, which creates the pealing thunder heard a short time after seeing a lightning flash.
• When the positive and negative charges grow large enough, a giant spark – lightning – occurs between the two charges within the cloud.
• Most lightning happens inside a cloud, but sometimes it happens between the cloud and the ground.
• A build-up of positive charge builds up on the ground beneath the cloud, attracted to the negative charge in the bottom of the cloud and the ground’s positive charge concentrates around anything that sticks up – trees, lightning conductors and even people.
• The positive charge from the ground connects with the negative charge from the clouds and a spark of lightning strikes.

Impacts of lightning:

• Tragic tolls due to lightning strikes:
  • Between 1972 and 2019, around 90,632 people were killed due to lightning strikes, followed by floods and rain (77,724), heatwaves (34,925), landslides (26,980), cold waves (26,167), cyclones (23,315).
  • Besides the loss of human life, lightning adversely impacts the agriculture, aviation, power, and communication sectors.
• Impact on rural areas:
  • Mainly, rural and forest areas are the most vulnerable due to lighting because of the presence of water bodies and tall trees and almost 96 percent of deaths occurred in rural areas due to lightning compared to the urban area.
  • Regarding deaths due to lightning, the population in rural areas is more vulnerable than in urban areas.
• Impact on farmers:
  • Frequent lightning strikes adversely affect small and marginal farmers.
  • Around 77 percent of farmers are killed due to lightning as they work in agricultural fields during the Kharif cropping season in the monsoon period.
• Impact on tribal population:
  • The Annual Lightning Report 2020-2021 has confirmed that 60-70 percent of deaths occurred in tribal populations due to lightning in Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, and other states.

Issues related to mitigation of lightning related casualties:

• There is no national-level policy to tackle lightning fatalities except for providing a lump-sum ex-gratia to the kin of the deceased person.
• The Odisha government provides 4 lakh per deceased person to the next of kin from SDRF.
• Other State governments provide lump sum Ex-gratia to the deceased person’s family.
• These policies are not adequate to minimise deaths due to lightning.

Way Forward:

• Inclusion of lightning as a natural disaster:
  • The Centre should include lightning as a “natural disaster” to minimise lightning-related deaths.
  • This would help States prepare long-term mitigation through coordinated efforts with local agencies and reconstruction activities to build disaster-resilient infrastructure.
• Hazard Mapping and targeted public interventions:
  • In addition, some critical measures where public intervention is an absolute necessity include mapping vulnerable populations with potential lightning hotspots, improving early warning systems, and installing lightning detection systems in the local areas.
• Frequency database of lightning strikes:
  • Moreover, the government should prepare a database related to the frequency of lightning strikes, gender-wise lightning deaths, and occupation-wise fatalities at the district, state and central levels for devising an action plan against lightning strikes.
  • These targeted public interventions can reduce human casualties due to lightning.
• Training and community awareness programs:
  • More than 70 percent of deaths from lightning occurred amongst people standing under tall trees; therefore, training and community awareness programs are essential measures to minimise deaths due to lightning.