20 June 2023

DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS

1 – National Time Release Study (NTRS) 2023 report: GS III – Indian Economy

Context:

• The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has released the National Time Release Study (NTRS) 2023 study.

Important details:

• The Time Release Study (TRS) is a performance measurement instrument.
• It makes an effort to quantify the cargo release time in terms of numbers.
• In the case of imports, the term “cargo release time” refers to the time between the arrival of the cargo at the customs station and its ultimate release for domestic clearance, whereas in the case of exports, it refers to the time until the carrier’s eventual departure.
• In NTRS 2023, the National Trade Facilitation Action Plan targets for each port category are presented, along with details on the effects of various trade facilitation efforts like “Path to Promptness” and the challenges of more swiftly reducing release time.
• NTRS 2023 recognises the distinction between physical clearance, which occurs after the logistical operations are complete and the carrier departs with the goods, and regulatory clearance, also known as customs release, which is accomplished with the issuance of a Let Export Order (LEO).

Source The Hindu

2 – VAIBHAV Fellowship Programme: GS II – International Relations & Education-related issues

Context:

• The VAIBHAV Fellowship Programme was introduced to link Indian STEMM diaspora with Indian higher education institutions.

Important details:

• The project for the Vaishvik Bhartiya Vaigyanik (VAIBHAV) fellowships will be carried out by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
• It will be awarded to outstanding NRI, OCI, and PIO scientists and engineers who are engaged in domestic research projects.
• The objective is to persuade scholars of Indian heritage to spend two months a year working at American universities.
• improving the research ecosystem of the country by building academic and research partnerships with the best universities in the world through the migration of researchers from foreign institutions to India.

Features:

• The fellowship enables NRI scholars to work in India for a research organisation or academic institution for a minimum of one month and a maximum of two months each year.
• The fellowship will also be open to researchers from universities ranked among the top 500 worldwide by QS.
• A fellowship would pay for the prize ($4,000 per month), housing, domestic and international travel, and unforeseen expenses.
• The VAIBHAV fellows are expected to collaborate with their Indian counterparts to establish fresh research projects at the host university in the most cutting-edge scientific and technological areas.

Source The Hindu

3 – Sea Slater/ Ligia Oceanica: GS III – Environmental Conservation related issues

Context:

• A species of woodlouse called a sea slater may become disoriented and unable to blend in as a result of diffuse light pollution from cities and towns.

Important details:

• Ligia oceanica, also referred to as the sea slater, is a woodlouse found in the littoral zone.
• It is present in temperate oceans.
• The sea slater is one type of crab.
• They are also known as sea roaches, and they live on rocky shores all around the United Kingdom.
• It is an omnivore that feeds at night and eats different kinds of seaweed, diatoms, and trash.
• They typically eat decaying plant and fungal materials, much like worms, and are essential for recycling.
• What a marine slater does
• Sea slaters are not a threatened or fragile species, but they are a crucial part of their local ecosystem.
• They function as a kind of “natural recycler” by decomposing rotting plant and animal waste.
• They might serve as a primary food source for a lot of seashore-dwelling birds.

Source The Hindu

4 – Space Industry Debris Mitigation Recommendations: GS III – Science and Technology

Context:

• The World Economic Forum makes suggestions for resolving the issue of growing space debris.

Important details:

• The World Economic Forum (WEF) came up with a list of suggestions to lessen the problem of space debris.
• The Space Industry Debris Mitigation Recommendations were developed by the WEF and the European Space Agency to address the problem of space debris.
• The main objective of the regulations is to stop the production of new space debris by managing traffic, exchanging data, and performing satellite end-of-life procedures.
• Because the recommendations are not truly regulations, they are not legally enforceable.

The guidelines:

Disposition following mission:

• The main focus of the rules is on how to destroy satellites after they have completed their job.
• The operators of satellites shall do their best efforts to have the satellites removed from low Earth orbit within five years of the completion of the mission.
• If operators are unable to keep control of the satellite and deorbit it to prevent it from becoming space garbage, they should look into other tried-and-true, affordable technologies.

Technology that prevents collisions:

• Operators of spacecraft should also make avoidance manoeuvres to attempt and reduce the possibility of satellite collisions.
• If missions’ orbit at or above 375 km in height, they should be able to actively control their orbits.
• Although propulsion-based systems are favoured by the recommendations, other technologies may be desirable in some situations.

Traffic management and data exchange:

• The regulations oblige all spacecraft operators to comply with any (reasonable and valid) requests for coordination of space traffic management.
• This might originate from many operators or entities.
• Additionally, each operator of a satellite should make an attempt to proactively collaborate with other operators and organisations to develop agreements for operational coordination and information-sharing on space situational awareness.
• The very minimum of information that needs to be shared is operator points of contact and ephemerides, which is a database of data comprising computed positions of spacecraft.
• Flexibility and the ability to move ideas around.

Long-range goals:

• It motivates subject matter experts to look into the population, evolution, and interactions of the orbiting objects.
• This might improve the ability to be aware of the situation in space.

Government’s role:

• The law set some ground rules that could be enforced by various governments, but the rest of it focused on what the sector itself could do.
• By the year 2030, all space missions should have the capability to deorbit satellites within five years of mission completion, it is being asked of governments.

Source The Hindu

5 – Landfall of a cyclone: GS I – Geography-related issues

Context:

• The process of Cyclone Biparjoy making landfall has started.

What occurs when a cyclone touches down on land?

• When a tropical cyclone crosses land after crossing water, it is said to have made landfall.
• When a tropical cyclone’s eye, or the storm’s centre, crosses a shoreline, it is said to have made landfall, according to the IMD.
• It’s important to distinguish between a landfall and a “direct hit,” which refers to a situation in which the storm’s eyewall or core may remain offshore but the brunt of its strong winds strikes the coast.
• It is possible for a tropical cyclone’s strongest winds to be felt over land even if landfall does not occur since the storm’s strongest winds are not exactly at its centre.

Source The Hindu

6 – NIRF Ranking: GS II – Education-related issues

Context:

• The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), developed in 2016 by the Ministry of Education, identifies the primary measures by which institutions’ performance may be evaluated.

What exactly is NIRF?

• The National Institute Ranking Framework, or NIRF, is the government’s inaugural attempt to rank higher education institutions (HEIs) across the country.
• Private organisations, in particular news publications, had a tendency to assess HEIs prior to the establishment of NIRF in 2016.
• Initially optional, membership in the NIRF became mandatory for all government-run educational institutions in 2018.

Institutions are rated by NIRF based on their overall score, which is determined by taking into account five main variables:

• The weighting for “Teaching, Learning, & Resources” is 30%.
• (30%) – Research and professional experience.
• Graduation results (20%).
• 10% – went to outreach and inclusivity.
• (10) – “Perception”

Concerns:

In the academic world, there have been concerns about:

• the framework as a whole, the transparency of the processes, and the design of these indicators.
• They focus heavily on bibliometric metrics, therefore the evaluation’s part on research and professional practises receives the lion’s share of their attention.

How does bibliometrics function?

• The term “bibliometrics” describes the measurable aspects of research, including the quantity of papers written, how frequently they are cited, and journal impact factors.
• The advantage of using bibliometrics as a tool for assessing research output is that it requires less time and resources than subject-specific experts’ qualitative evaluations, which are labour- and resource-intensive.
• Concerns with bibliometrics
• Bibliometric measurements fall short of accurately capturing the intricacy of scientific performance.

Bibliometrics and NIRF:

• Data on bibliometrics is obtained by the NIRF through for-profit databases including “Scopus” and “Web of Science.”
• These organisations, however, are not impervious to mistakes or mistreatment.
• One of the 50 journals that were recently delisted from “Web of Science,” which also had to do so, was a flagship publication of the publisher MDPI.
• The NIRF’s publication-metrics index solely considers research publications and disregards all other forms of intellectual output.
• As a result, the NIRF unintentionally encourages scientists to focus on work that is more likely to be published in journals, particularly international journals, and to overlook research that the NIRF isn’t likely to be interested in.

Transparency of NIRF:

• The NIRF is only partially transparent because it doesn’t provide a complete picture, while disclosing its methodology to the public.
• A methodology for assessment and grading has been created using bibliometric data.
• The labels they use for research quantity and quality could be different.
• The designations in question are ambiguous and possibly misleading.

Conclusion:

• There is always a degree of uncertainty in university rankings, no matter how precise the techniques.
• The NIRF’s emphasis on rankings could promote unhealthy competition among universities and foster a mentality that values measurements above instruction and research excellence.

Source The Hindu