27 June 2023

DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS

1 – National Florence Nightingale Awards: GS I – Indian Culture

Context:

• The President of India will present the National Florence Nightingale Awards in 2022 and 2023.

In relation to the awards:

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare established the National Florence Nightingale Award in 1973 as a mark of respect for the notable services rendered to society by nurses and nursing professionals.
• This award is presented each year on May 12 in observance of Florence Nightingale’s birthday.
• A medal, a diploma, and a monetary award of Rs. 50,000 make up the prize.
• The National Florence Nightingale Nurses Award is also available to nurses working for for-profit, missionary, and private companies.

Source The Hindu

2 – Upanishads: GS I – Indian Culture

Context:

• The Indian prime minister sent the American president a copy of The Ten Principal Upanishads, which were published in 1937.

About the Upanishads:

• The Ten Principal Upanishads were translated from Sanskrit by both the Irish poet WB Yeats and the Hindu scripture authority Shri Purohit Swami.
• The 1937 publication of an English translation of the Indian Upanishads was co-written by WB Yeats and Shri Purohit Swami.
• It was one of Yeats’ final works.

Hindu scriptures can be divided into the following groups:

• Hindu sacred texts can be divided into one of two groups:
• Shruti: The phrase “the revealed” is all-inclusive.
• The first category, which is thought to be the most trustworthy, consists of the four Vedas (Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva), as well as other texts.
• The Upanishads, Aranyakas, and Brahmanas are a few examples of them; they are, respectively, intellectual, ritualistic, and “forest” or “wilderness” writings.
• Smriti, also referred to as “the remembered.”
• The second category of Hindu scriptures has less validity.
• They are seen as having many similarities to the first but are more well-known.
• All post-Vedic scriptures, the great epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Dharmashastras, and the Puranas are among these.

What are the Upanishads, exactly?

• The Upanishads are sometimes referred to as the Vedanta since they represent the end of the entire Veda.
• It establishes assumptions about the ontological relationships between the universe and humanity.
• They have attracted much more attention than the Vedas itself because they form the foundation of several Hindu doctrinal schools.
• The Upanishads feature concepts like transmigration, which are now central to Hindu theology. It is thought that they were written between 800-500 BC.
• Hindu philosopher Adi Shankara gave the Upanishads great prominence in Hindu religion by combining the Advaita Vedanta school in the eighth century.
• Upanishads’ guiding principles:
• This non-dualistic philosophy has become the most significant intellectual force in Hindu thought in contemporary times, having an impact on philosophers like Swami Vivekananda and S. Radhakrishnan.
• The brahman, according to this ideology, is the only thing that is completely genuine and places a significant emphasis on the illusion that surrounds us.
• The relationship between the brahman, the universe’s fundamental reality, and the atman, each person’s unique, eternal self, is a significant theme in the Upanishads.

Upanishad values:

These are the ten main Upanishads:

• The Esha Kena Katha
• Purna Mundaka
• The Mandukya Taittiriya
• Chandogya Aitareya
• Brihadaranyaka

Who was WB Yeats?

• William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) is among the most significant writers of modern English literature.
• B. Yeats is one of the best modern English poets and the most well-known Irish poet of the 20th century.
• He was a significant contributor to what has been referred to as the Irish Literary Revival and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923.

Source The Hindu

3 – Lab Grown Diamonds: GS III – Biotechnology-related issues

Context:

• During his first official visit to the United States, the Prime Minister of India presented a 7.5 carat lab-grown diamond to the Bidens, the American President and his wife.

In relation to lab-grown diamonds:

• Lab-grown diamonds (LGDs) are diamonds that have been created in a laboratory using specialized technology that simulates the geological processes that give origin to genuine diamonds.

Qualities of LGDs:

• Lab-grown diamonds have approximately comparable chemical, optical, and physical properties to those of natural diamonds, in addition to having the same crystal structure.
• Like real diamonds, they are made of tightly packed carbon atoms.
• They respond to light similarly to natural diamonds and are just as hard.
• The primary differences between lab-grown and natural diamonds are found in the diamond’s place of origin.
• Because they are created under controlled circumstances, many of their properties can be enhanced for a number of uses.

Differentiating LGDs from simulations:

• LGDs are not the same as diamond simulants since they are difficult to identify from lab-grown materials due to how closely they mimic diamond in terms of chemistry, physics, and optics.
• Simulants, which include Moissanite, Cubic Zirconia (CZ), White Sapphire, and YAG among others, look and feel like diamonds but lack their brilliance and tenacity, making them conspicuous.
• It is challenging to discern between an Earth Mined Diamond and an LGD, and specialist tools are required for the job.

The development of LGDs:

HPHT strategy:

• The most popular and affordable method is the “High pressure, high temperature” (HPHT) approach.
• For this process, incredibly strong presses that can generate pressures of up to 730,000 psi at temperatures of at least 1500 °C are required.
• Graphite is commonly used as the diamond seed, and when subjected to these extreme conditions, it turns into diamond.

Vaporization of Chemicals:

• Explosive production and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) are used to create detonation nanodiamonds.

Advantages:

• The younger generation is becoming more rational and reasonable in their purchasing decisions.
• Real diamonds are only affordable to top strata-rich populations, however lab-grown diamonds can be acquired by mid-sized to income-based households.

India gains from this:

• The growing demand for sustainable diamonds in India has helped a rival.
• It will soon be a hub for lab-grown markets, competing with India in a number of breakthroughs.
• The LGD business could perhaps hit the milestone of Rs 40,000 crore in the upcoming five years.
• Consumer luxury preferences have been completely replaced, undermining the dominance of natural diamonds in the market.

Challenges:

• One of the few challenges faced by the lab-grown diamond industry is the ridicule of public opinion.
• Since lab-grown diamonds are usually regarded as inferior and debased to natural diamonds, this is a dangerous deception.

Conclusion:

• As natural diamonds become fewer and less common, LGDs are gradually replacing them in the jewellery industry.
• Furthermore, LGDs undergo the same cutting and polishing processes that give real diamonds their recognizable brilliance.
• As a result, it is doubtful that the expansion in the production of LGDs will have an influence on the current diamond industry in India, which serves these purposes.

Source The Hindu

4 – Summer solstice: GS I – Geography-related issues

Context:

• For everyone who lives north of the equator, June 21—the summer solstice—is the longest day of the year.

Information on the Summer Solstice:

• Solstice is the Latin word for “sun stands still”.
• In particular, it occurs when the sun is directly above the Tropic of Cancer at 23.5 degrees north latitude.
• Because of how Earth rotates on its axis, the Northern Hemisphere experiences more direct sunlight each day between March and September.
• For those who live in the Northern Hemisphere, it means that this is summer.
• Throughout the rest of the year, the Southern Hemisphere is exposed to more sunlight.
• During the solstice, the Earth’s axis’ tilt causes the North Pole to be tilted toward the Sun and the South Pole to be away from it.
• Every day, the world completes one full rotation around Axis.
• This imaginary axis, which passes through the planet’s center from top to bottom, is always tilted at 23.5 degrees with respect to the Sun.
• Thus, the solstice marks the time of year when the North Pole faces the Sun directly, which is never more so than at this time of year.
• The solstice occurs at the same time worldwide, although at different periods in other countrie

What happens during the solstice?

• Today, the Sun is sending more energy to the Earth than usual.
• The Northern Hemisphere normally receives the greatest sunlight on June 20, 21, or 22.
• The Southern Hemisphere receives the greatest sunlight on December 21, 22, or 23, while the northern hemisphere experiences the longest night or the winter solstice.
• The amount of light that a site receives at the Northern Hemisphere summer solstice depends on its latitudinal position.
• The summer solstice does not always fall on an earlier or later sunrise or sunset, though.
• That depends on the latitudinal position of the nation.

Source The Hindu

5 – INDUS X: GS II – International Relations

Context:

• The India-United States Defense Acceleration Ecosystem (INDUS X) was unveiled in Washington, D.C.

About the INDUS X:

• The strengthened India-US strategic and defense cooperation is referred to as INDUS-X.
• Goal: To improve collaboration between the Indian and US defense innovation sectors.
• The initiative aims to look at possibilities for joint manufacture of jet engines, long-range artillery, and army vehicles.
• Focus areas: Creating cooperative opportunities for high-tech research, development, and production in the military industry will be a top priority for INDUS-X.

Indian-American relations:

Financial transactions:

• Bilateral trade in goods and services between the two nations has increased by almost twofold since 2014, topping US$ 191 billion in 2022 and projected to reach US$ 500 billion by 2025.
• In contrast to the US, which currently ranks India as its seventh-largest trading partner, India’s top export market and trading partner is the US.
• The US is also the third-largest investor in India, with a total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow of USD 56,753 million from April 2000 to September 2022.
• 2018 saw the signing of a bilateral Strategic Energy Partnership between the US and India.

Strategic collaborations:

• The “Strategic Partnership” agreement from 2005 would change to a “Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership” agreement in 2020.
• The framework for India-US defense cooperation is the “New Framework for India-US Defence Cooperation,” which was renewed for another ten years in 2015.
• All four “Foundational Defense Agreements” have been approved, making India a “Major Defense Partner.”

These include:

• The General Security of Military Information Act (GSOMIA), which was passed in 2002, was created.
• 2016, the Logistics Exchange Agreement (LEMOA), and 2018, the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA).
• the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) in 2020.
• Defence exchanges and bilateral military exercises are essential, including the triservice Tiger Triumph, Red Flag, PASSEX, and MALABAR multilateral exercises, Yudh Abhyas (Army), Vajra Prahar (Special Forces), and Yudh Abhyas (Army).
• The “123 Agreement” or “Civil Nuclear Agreement” was signed in 2008 by American and Indian enterprises to cooperate in each other’s civil nuclear energy sectors. It is a bilateral agreement for peaceful nuclear co-operation.
• 2+2 Beginning in 2019, there will be yearly ministerial dialogues: It is under the control of the foreign and defense ministers of India and the United States.
• iCET stands for the US-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies. 2022: It is administered by the national security councils of the two countries. The initiative’s six focal points for partnership are innovation, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and scientific research and development.
• India and the United States signed the Cyber Security Framework in 2016.
• India and the US renewed a 2005 agreement on scientific and technological cooperation for a further ten years in 2019.

International affairs:

• India joined the Quad alliance in 2004.
• It underlined their common objective of a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific region. The three specific areas of cooperation are the improvement of climate action, affordable access to the Covid 19 immunization for the Indo-Pacific region, and vital and developing technology.
• Indian-American Counterterrorism Cooperation Initiative of 2010 It aims to boost cooperation, capacity building, and information sharing in counterterrorism.

In 2022, India joined I2U2:

• A minilateral has been established between India, Israel, the US, and the UAE. They describe their cooperation as an ad hoc, informal, issue-specific, and geoeconomic initiative.

Ties to the diaspora:

• There is a substantial Indian diaspora in the US, numbering 4.5 million, or around 1% of the entire population. Most of them are in positions of power in both the political and technological realms.

How to Proceed:

• On a strong basis of common principles, devotion to democracy, the rule of law, transparency, freedom, etc., the two countries’ comprehensive and strategic partnership is created.
• The 5Ts (talent, technology, tradition, trade, and trusteeship) are additional factors that can improve connections between the US and India.
• Both countries must put their differences behind them and enhance collaborative research and development while ensuring technological transfer for mutual benefit and the achievement of both national and individual goals.

Source The Hindu