Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE
Topics Covered
- Sustainable aviation Fuel
- Great Indian Bustard
- Nagara Style
- Facts for Prelims
1 . Sustainable aviation Fuel
Context: Airbus and CSIR-IIP to collaborate on producing sustainable aviation fuel.
About the news
- Airbus and the CSIR-Indian Institute of Petroleum (CSIR-IIP) have signed an MoU to develop new technologies and to test and qualify indigenous sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
- The collaboration will address Indian aerospace industry’s decarbonisation ambitions by supporting SAF production and commercialisation, using a new HEFA technology using locally sourced feedstocks. HEFA refines vegetable oils, waste oils, or fats into SAF through a process that uses hydrogenation.
- The entities will work on technical assessment, approvals, market access and sustainability accreditation for the production of SAF.
About Sustainable Aviation Fuel
- Sustainable aviation fuel is produced from sustainable feedstocks and is very similar in its chemistry to traditional fossil jet fuel.
- Using SAF results in a reduction in carbon emissions compared to the traditional jet fuel it replaces over the lifecycle of the fuel.
- Some typical feedstocks used are cooking oil and other non-palm waste oils from animals or plants; solid waste from homes and businesses, such as packaging, paper, textiles, and food scraps that would otherwise go to landfill or incineration. Other potential sources include forestry waste, such as waste wood, and energy crops, including fast growing plants and algae.
Sustainable Feedstocks for Producing SAF
An estimated 1 billion dry tons of biomass can be collected sustainably each year in the United States, enough to produce 50–60 billion gallons of low-carbon biofuels. These resources include:
- Corn grain
- Oil seeds
- Algae
- Other fats, oils, and greases
- Agricultural residues
- Forestry residues
- Wood mill waste
- Municipal solid waste streams
- Wet wastes (manures, wastewater treatment sludge)
- Dedicated energy crops.
Why is SAF important?
- Jet fuel packs a lot of energy for its weight and it is this energy density that has really enabled commercial flight. Today, there aren’t any other viable options for transporting groups of people quickly over very long distances, so we’re dependent on this type of fuel in aviation.
- A return flight between London and San Francisco has a carbon footprint per economy ticket of nearly 1 tonne of CO2e. With the aviation industry expected to double to over 8 billion passengers by 2050, it is essential to reduce aviation’s carbon emissions and SAF is one way to achieve it.
Significance
- Reducing Carbon Emissions : SAF gives an impressive reduction of up to 80% in carbon emissions over the lifecycle of the fuel compared to traditional jet fuel it replaces, depending on the sustainable feedstock used, production method and the supply chain to the airport.
- Extra Revenue for Farmers: By growing biomass crops for SAF production, American farmers can earn more money during off seasons by providing feedstocks to this new market, while also securing benefits for their farms like reducing nutrient losses and improving soil quality.
- Environmental Services: Biomass crops can control erosion and improve water quality and quantity. They can also increase biodiversity and store carbon in the soil, which can deliver on-farm benefits and environmental benefits across the country. Producing SAF from wet wastes, like manure and sewage sludge, reduces pollution pressure on watersheds, while also keeping potent methane gas—a key contributor to climate change—out of the atmosphere.
- Improved Aircraft Performance: Many SAFs contain fewer aromatic components, which enables them to burn cleaner in aircraft engines. This means lower local emissions of harmful compounds around airports during take-off and landing. Aromatic components are also precursors to contrails, which can exacerbate the impacts of climate change.
2 . Great Indian Bustard
Context: The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Centre to come clean by February on its plans to save the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard.
About the news
- A three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice of India said the government has to come out with a plan which would save the bird species from extinction largely due to collision with high-transmission power lines situated in areas in Gujarat and Rajasthan which also happen to be the natural habitat of the bustards.
- The court said the government’s plan ought to maintain a balance between the preservation of the bird species and India’s global commitments to shed its carbon footprints.
About the Great Indian Bustard (GIB)
- The Great Indian Bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps) is a large, endangered bird species found in India and some parts of Pakistan. It is a member of the bustard family, which includes the heaviest flying birds in the world
- The Great Indian Bustard (GIB) is the State bird of Rajasthan and is considered India’s most critically endangered bird.
- In India it is confined mostly to Rajasthan and Gujarat. Small populations occur in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
- The great Indian bustard can easily be distinguished by its black crown on the forehead contrasting with the pale neck and head. The body is brownish and the wings are marked with black, brown and grey.
- It is a flagship grassland species, representing the health of the grassland ecology.
- These birds are opportunist eaters. Their diet ranges widely depending on the seasonal availability of food. They feed on grass seeds, insects like grasshoppers and beetles, and sometimes even small rodents and reptiles.
- The Great Indian Bustard is a threatened species due to several factors. The loss and degradation of their habitat is the primary threat to the birds, as it reduces the availability of food and nesting sites. In addition, the birds are also threatened by accidental collisions with power lines and wind turbines, as well as hunting and poaching.
- Conservation status–
- Listed in Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection)Act, 1972, in the CMS Convention and in Appendix I of CITES, as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List and the National Wildlife Action Plan (2002-2016).
- It has also been identified as one of the species for the recovery programme under the Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.
Conservation Issues
- The biggest threat to this species is hunting, which is still prevalent in Pakistan.
- This is followed by occasional poaching outside Protected Areas, collisions with high tension electric wires, fast moving vehicles and free-ranging dogs in villages.
- Other threats include habitat loss and alteration as a result of widespread agricultural expansion and mechanized farming, infrastructural development such as irrigation, roads, electric poles, as well as mining and industrialization.
Project Bustard
- In 2012 the Indian government launched Project Bustard, a national conservation program to protect the great Indian bustard along with the Bengal florican (Houbaropsis bengalensis), the lesser florican (Sypheotides indicus), and their habitats from further declines.
- WWF-India has provided inputs in developing the ‘Guidelines for the State Action Plan for Resident Bustard Recovery Programme’. It has played an important role in raising awareness about the declining populations and highlighting the importance of implementing a focused bustard conservation programme at the national level.
- WWF-India, is also undertaking initiatives towards conservation of GIB in and around Desert National Park.
3 . Nagara Style
Context: The Ram temple in Ayodhya will be inaugurated on January 22. Chandrakant Sompura, 81, and his son Ashish, 51, have designed the complex in the Nagara style of temple architecture.
About Nagara Style
- The Nagara style of temple architecture emerged some time in the fifth century CE, during the late Gupta period, in northern India. It is seen in juxtaposition with the Dravida style of southern India, which too emerged in the same period.
- The use of the term ‘style’, however, is debated. “Nagara and Dravida may be called ‘styles’, but they cover vast areas and time spans,” Adam Hardy wrote in his highly influential The Temple Architecture of India (2007). Instead of ‘styles’, he refers to the two as “the two great classical languages of Indian temple architecture”.
- Nagara temples are built on a raised plinth, with the garbha griha (sanctum sanctorum) — where the idol of the deity rests — the most sacred part of the temple. Towering over the garbha griha is the shikhara (literally ‘mountain peak’), the most distinguishable aspect of Nagara style temples.
- As the name suggests, shikharas are human-made representations of the natural and cosmological order, as imagined in Hindu tradition.
- A typical Nagara style temple also comprises a circumambulatory passage around the garbha griha, and one or more mandapas (halls) on the same axis as it. Elaborate murals and reliefs often adorn its walls.
Five modes of Nagara architecture
- Depending on the period and geography, there is a large variation when it comes to what a shikhara looks like, or how it is used in a temple’s design. On this basis, Hardy identifies five modes of Nagara temple architecture — Valabhi, Phamsana, Latina, Shekhari, and Bhumija.
- The first two are associated with what scholars have classified as Early Nagara Style. “The Valabhi begins as a masonry rendering of the barrel-roofed [wooden] structure, simple or with aisles, familiar through chaitya halls [prayer halls, most associated with Buddhist shrines].
- A formalisation of multi-eave towers, wedded to a piling up of slabs, leads to the Phamsana.
- From these modes emerged the Latina — a shikhara which is a single, slightly curved tower with four sides of equal length. The mode emerged in the Gupta heartland, was complete with curvature by the early seventh century, and during that century spread across the entire breadth of northern India. For three centuries it reigned supreme, which is considered to be the peak of Nagara temple architecture.
- The tenth century onwards, composite Latinas began to emerge, giving rise to Shekhari and Bhumija styles. The Shekhari shape has attached sub-spires or spirelets, echoing the main shape. These may run up most of the face of the shikhara, and be of more than one size. The Bhumija, on the other hand, has miniature spires, in horizontal and vertical rows, all the way to the top, creating a grid-like effect on each face. The actual shikhara often approaches a pyramidal shape, with the curve of the Latina less visible.
- There is also immense variation within these modes. Temples can even contain multiple kinds of shikharas on top of a simple structure, with the tallest always being on top of the garbha griha.
Comparison to Dravida style
- The Dravida counterpart to the shikhara is the vimana. There exists, however, a fundamental difference.
- In the Dravida style temples, vimanas are typically smaller than the great gatehouses or gopurams, which are the most immediately striking architectural elements in a temple complex.
- Moreover, while shikharas are mentioned in southern Indian architectural sources, they refer to only the dome-shaped crowning cap atop the vimana.
- The existence of gopurams also points to another unique feature of the Dravida style — the presence of a boundary wall. Few Nagara style temple complexes are linedwith distinctive boundary walls that are a part of the temple’s design.
- This is one of Ayodhya’s Ram temple’s ‘hybrid’ features — although no elaborate gopuram has been built (citing paucity of space), a 732m long wall runs around the temple compound.
4 . Facts for Prelims
Sri Sri Auniati Satra
- The Auniati Satra was established in Majuli in 1653 A.D. by Ahom King Sutamla (1648–1663 AD).
- He was given the name Jayaddhwaj Singha after he adopted the Hindu Religion (Vaishnava) from the first Satradhikar of Auniati Satra Sri Sri Niranjan Deva.
- King Jayaddhwaj Singha endowed 81,650 bighas of land in two different categories namely Devotra and Brohmotra to be looked after and maintained by the Satra.
- Sri Sri Auniati Satra occupied the highest position amongst the various Satras of Assam in the eyes of the Ahom Kings.
- The slightly elevated land of Majuli, where this Satra was established, was full of Auni Paan (a kind of betel creeper plant).
- Ati means elevated place. Therefrom the name Auniati Satra came into being.
Senior Advocates
- There are two classes of advocates, namely, senior advocates and other advocates.
- An advocate may, with his consent, be designated as senior advocate if the Supreme Court or a High Court is of opinion that by virtue of his ability, [standing at the Bar or special knowledge or experience in law] he is deserving of such distinction.
- Senior advocates shall, in the matter of their practice, be subject to such restrictions as the Bar Council of India may, in the interests of the legal profession, prescribe.
- An advocate of the Supreme Court who was a senior advocate of that Court immediately before the appointed day shall, for the purposes of this section, be deemed to be a senior advocate.