Latest News
12th March 2021
Bamiyan Buddhas
Recently, the Bamiyan Buddhas have been brought back to life in the form of 3D projections in an event called “A Night with Buddha”.
- In March 2001, the Taliban began blowing up two monumental Buddha statues in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley.
- The Bamiyan Buddhas were great examples of a confluence of Gupta, Sassanian and Hellenistic artistic styles.
- The Bamiyan Buddhas are said to date back to the 5th century AD and were once the tallest standing Buddhas in the world.
- Salsal and Shamama, as they were called by the locals, rose to heights of 55 and 38 metres respectively.
- The Salsal means “light shines through the universe” and the Shamama is “Queen Mother”.
- Bamiyan is situated in the high mountains of the Hindu Kush in the central highlands of Afghanistan.
- The valley, which is set along the line of the Bamiyan River, was once integral to the early days of the Silk Roads.
- Bamiyan became a major trade, cultural and religious centre when the Buddhist Kushan Empire spread.
- The Kushans were able to develop a syncretic culture because China, India and Rome sought passage through Bamiyan.
- It started in 2013 as a way of creating a bridge between different cultures and in memory of Afghanistan’s pre-Islamic heritage.
- It featured a projection of Salsal, the taller of the two Buddhas, into the niche where it once stood.
- Uttarakhand shares a 350-km border with China and a 275-km boundary with Nepal.
- Chamoli and Uttarkashi share boundaries with China, whereas Udham Singh Nagar and Champawat have common boundaries with Nepal.
- Pithoragarh is strategically more sensitive as it shares boundaries with both China and Nepal.
- In Uttarakhand, tourists have to obtain ILP for locations near China border, at least in the three districts of Uttarkashi, Pithoragarh and Chamoli.
- The withdrawal of ILP system is aimed for better border management and expansion of tourism and other economic activities in villages located there.
- It is colonial-era concept of separating the tribal-populated hill areas in the Northeast from the plains.
- It has its origin from the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation Act (BEFR), 1873.
- During the British rule, the BEFR prohibits an outsider’s i.e. “British subject or foreign citizen”, entry into the area beyond the Inner Line without a pass and his purchase of land there.
- After Independence, the Indian government replaced “British subjects” with “Citizen of India”.
- Its aim is to prevent settlement of other Indian nationals in the States where ILP regime is prevalent, in order to protect the indigenous/tribal population.
- It is valid in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur.
- It is issued by the concerned state governments.
- It is an inner line area (India-China border) opened to domestic tourists only during the day.
- The ITBP and the Army are deployed in the two villages of Nelang Valley i.e. Nelong and Jadong.
- The foreign tourists are prohibited in this area while domestic tourists are allowed entry with ILP.
- The maximum number of people allowed is 24 in a day and they cannot stay there at night.
- It is in Joshimath in Chamoli district.
- It is the last populated village before China border.
- The foreign tourists can travel to Niti village after obtaining ILP from Joshimath for a single-day visit, but night stay remains prohibited.
- The domestic tourists can travel to the village any time in the year by producing any identity proof.
- It is first-of-its-kind research project in India.
- It is a project of National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) in Panaji.
- The project has been undertaken at a cost of Rs 25 crore and will take three years to complete.
- The vessel Sindhu Sadhana will course the Indian Ocean from India’s east coast, to Australia, then towards Port Louis in Mauritius and up to the border of Pakistan.
- The project is aimed at gathering samples for genome mapping of microorganisms in the Indian Ocean.
- The mapping of the Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and Ribonucleic acid (RNA) will show the nutrients present in the bacteria, microbes found in the ocean.
- It is aimed at understanding the biochemistry and the response of the ocean to climate change, nutrient stress and increasing pollution.
- The project will help scientists understand the internal working of the ecosystem of the Indian Ocean.
- The research will enable scientists to identify the factors controlling the changes in RNA, DNA in the oceans, and various stressors impacting them.
- The genome mapping will show the presence of which the microbes have adapted to, in addition to their reaction to atmospheric carbon dioxide.
- The ocean has several micronutrients like nitrates, sulphates and silicates, minerals like iron ore and zinc, and trace metals like cadmium or copper.
- The project will help in identifying which part of the ocean has a greater concentration of which mineral or element.
- The large pool of RNA, DNA library of the oceans will be utilised for using the Indian Ocean to human benefit in the future.
- It will enable an increase in the growing number of commercial biotechnology applications, extending from multiple anticancer treatments to cosmetics and industrial enzymes.
- It will result in new insights into taxonomy and adaptive capacity that can help optimize conservation efforts.
- The government announced a strategic sale/disinvestment policy for four strategic sectors in the Budget 2021-22.
- The sectors include are banking, insurance and financial services.
- The Centre has lined up minority stake sale through various routes including offer for sale (OFS) and IPO.
- The Budget has announced privatisation of two public sector banks and one general insurance company in the upcoming fiscal.
- The increase in the FDI limit in insurance from 49% to 74% is expected to lead to an unprecedented expansion of the insurance sector.
- The progress on privatisation plans of BPCL, Shipping Corporation of India and CONCOR has led to a big rally in their shares.
- The investors bet that the new management and private ownership would bring in higher efficiency leading to higher profits.
- The patient investors can pick and choose the companies they want to bet on because privatisation will be a long-drawn process over 5-10 years.
- The existing companies being put on the block could be the starting point, while investors can wait for clarity to emerge on which banks and insurance company will be privatised.
- It has downgraded India from “the world’s largest democracy” to an “electoral autocracy”.
- The report highlighted the reasons for such a downgrade are “muzzling” of the media, and overuse of defamation and sedition laws.
- India has moved from the top 50% of the 180 countries analysed by V Dem to thebottom 50%.
- In 2019, India was last among the 90 countries in the top 50% but in 2020, it is ranked 97th, falling into the bottom 50%.
- India’s score was at an all-time high at 0.57 (on a scale of 0-1) in 2013 but it had declined to 0.34 by the end of 2020.
- India has been regarded as autocratic as is Pakistan, and worse than both its neighbors Bangladesh and Nepal.
- The report highlighted that the use of defamation “frequently used to silence journalists” and the use of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) have placed constraints on civil society.
- The report notes that civil society is being increasingly muzzled while organisations aligned with the “Hindutva movement” have gained freedom.
- It claims to produce the largest dataset on democracy with almost 30 million data points for 202 countries from 1789 to 2020.
- It summarizes the state of democracies of the world against the backdrop of developments that have taken place over the past decade.
- The V-Dem Institute is an independent research institute based at the University of Gothenburg.
- It has published data-heavy worldwide democracy reports since 2017.
- The report finds that liberal democracies have diminished over the past decade from 41 countries to 32 countries.
- The global decline during the past decade is steep and continues in 2020, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.
- It notes an accelerating wave of autocratisation engulfing 25 nations, home to one-third of the world’s population.
- It highlights that the number of democratizing countries has dropped by almost half to 16, hosting a mere 4 per cent of the global population.
- It is considered to be a product, a company, or a technology that has been deemed safe by the government of a country for use in crucial and critical infrastructure.
- The classification of telecom products and their sources is done by a new National Security Directive under the categories of ‘trusted’ and ‘non-trusted’.
- The list of products telecom companies will be allowed to use in their network would be approved by the National Cyber Security Coordinator.
- It will make its decision based on the approval of a committee headed by the deputy National Security Advisor (NSA).
- The new norms included defence and national security as parameters for the purchase of trusted telecom products and from trusted equipment sources.
- It implies that the designated authority can, citing these two aspects, order telecom companies to not to use the products which it has deemed unsafe.
- The new norms restrict the use of any products that do not appear on the trusted telecom equipment source list or the trusted telecom product list.
- The telecom company, aspiring to expand its network, has to take prior permission from the National Cyber Security Coordinator if the equipment or product is not from a trusted source.
- The Chinese telecom equipment vendors will find it difficult to supply equipments to Indian telecom players in the future.
- The state-run telcos are likely to be impacted because BSNL and MTNL have equipment from Chinese vendors in their 3G and older networks.
- It is commissioned by the energy conglomerate National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC).
- It is being set up at Ramagundam thermal power plant reservoir near Peddapalli district.
- It will be single location largest floating solar plant in the country as of now.
- It has a capacity of 100 MW which is estimated to cost around Rs 423 cr will have 4.5 lakh photovoltaic panels.
- The NTPC's efforts to set up floating solar power projects are being aimed at reducing its carbon footprints and accelerate its green energy production to 30 per cent of its capacity.
World's largest solar plant
- The world's largest solar power plant with 600 MW capacity is being set up on Omkareshwar Dam on Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh.
- The project costing Rs 3,000 cr is expected to start power generation only by 2022-23.
- South Korea is building the largest dam-based floating solar power plant in the world with a capacity of 41MW.
- The project will be set up at Hapcheon dam.
POSTED ON 12-03-2021 BY ADMIN
Next previous 
General Studies
Political Science and International Relations
Some Reference Essays
List of previous year essay topics (1997-2019)
IAS GOOGLE is googled by the team of Raja Sir’s Cracking IAS Academy. Sources include The Hindu, Indian Express, pib.nic.in, Down To Earth, Economic Times, Vigyan Prasar, AIR and the like. IAS GOOGLE has been prepared in pace with emerging UPSC Trends.