Daily Current Affairs : 26th & 27th December 2021

Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE

1. Tai Khamti
2. Magnetar
3. National Plant Protection Organisation
4. Study on Institutional Deliveries
5. Facts for Prelims

1 . Tai Khamti

Context : Arunachal Deputy CM asks Centre to recognise battles against British in northeast

About Tai Khamti

• Khamti a Tai ethnic group found in Namsai district and Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh. 
• Tai Khamti people follow Theravada Buddhism
• The Tai-Khamti have their own script for their language, known as ‘Lik Tai’, which originated from the Shan (Tai) script of Myanmar
• Their mother tongue is known as Khamti language. It is a Tai language, closely related to Thai and Lao

Background

• During the troublesome period of Ahom King Gauri Singh (Muttok Rebellion), due to fear of religious imposition, Khampti supported by Singphoos of Ningru & Lakang ousted the Ahom Sadiyakhowa Gohain and installed Khampti chief “Chow Mu ngan Lung” son of Chowngi Luinkieng kham alias “Bura Raja” as Sadiyakhowa Gohain in 1794. Thus Sadiya went to the rule of Khamtis of Tengapani (Namsai). The weak successive Ahom kings didn’t have any options but to accept the Khampti chief as the Sadiyakhowa Gohain.
• As Khampti’s were enjoying supremacy in the region and the Muttoks were in the helm of Ahom affairs, singphoos did not enjoy such privileges and were not satisfied.
• The Burmese incursion of June 1824 prompted singphoos to attack Sadiya and Muttok Kingdom. They captured Sadiya and imprisoned the Sadiyakhowa Gohain.
• At this development, Bor-Senapati of Muttok and Sadiyakhowa Gohain requested the British for help who were fighting the Burmese at that time. The British-khampti-Muttok alliance proved disastrous for Singphoos.
• Most of the Singphoo chiefs came to an agreement with Governor General’s agent Mr David Scott when the later visited Sadiya and accepted the terms of agreement. Mr David Scott recognized “Chow Salan” the son of Khampti Sadiyakhowa Gohain as the lawful ruler of Sadiya and allowed him to collect poll tax from Assamese of Sadiya area. One British garrison with British officers was stationed at Sadiya to keep the unruly hill tribes at bay.

1835 – 1838

• The increasing dominance of British was not accepted by various tribes who till then were rule by their chiefs. In 1835 Khampti chief Chow Rang Pha Gohain succeeded his father.
• In this year a quarrel broke out between Bor Senapati of Muttok with Sadiyakhowa Gohain over a tract of land near Saikhowa. To set out the dispute the British Officer at Sadiya summoned both of them for arbitration.
• But the Khampti chief already annoyed with the functioning of British defied the orders. At this the British Officer removed Chow Rang Pha from Sadiyakhowa Gohainship and took over the control of Sadiya directly. Khampti chief was sent to Gauhati as interm.
• The Khamptee Chief lost the right of realizing taxes from non-Khamptee people in the Sadeeya region. But they were allowed to live under their own Chieftain with limited powers to control internal affairs.
• In 1836, the Khamptee helped the British with men and materials to suppress the Singphoo’s revolt, and accordingly succeeded the mission. The British authority was highly appreciated and fully satisfied with the services rendered by the Khamptees and in turn, the British permitted the Khamptee chief, Chou-Rang-Pha to return back to Sadeeya at his own arrangement
• Chou-Rang-Pha returned to Sadeeya, but he did not get the status as possessed formerly. These very attitudes of the Britishers towards the Khamptee’s chief, greatly resented not only of Khamptees but also all native inhabitants of Sadeeya region.

Famous war of Independence by Khampti’s in 1839

• Rumours’ of union of Khampti’s, singphoos, Muttoks, Mishimis, Khamiyangs against the British receives at Sadiya. Khampti chief Chow Rang Pha was summoned and warned of any such activity. The insult of their chief infuriated the Khampti’s. Accumulation of anger over repeated attacks on the pride of the institution and a sense of probable imposition of tax prompted them to teach a lesson to the British ruler at Sadiya.
• In January 1839, a revolt was designed by few Khampti chief – Chow Rang Pha Gohain, Tao Gohain, Kaptan gohain, Chow King Gohain etc.
• On 19th January 1839, Chow Pha Plung Lu Gohain the son of Chow Ai Noy Luinkieng Kham or Deka Raja led a troop of 500 Khampti warrior and attacked the Sadiya Poast. They killed Colonel Adam White, the British agent at Sadiya and 80 others.
• The Assam infantry at the post could not resort much counter attack.

Repression

• The news reached Dibrugarh and a punitive force was immediately dispatched to Sadiya. The Khampti’s retreated and sought refuge in Mishmi Hills and Singphoo villages. British troops searched every Khampti-Singphoo villages in Namsai (Ningroo) Tengapani (Chowkham), Noa-Dihing (Bordumsa) etc., even they burnt down entire village of Dirak Gohain Goan.
• The Khampti rebellion lasted till 1844 when the last Khampti group surrended who helped the Singphoo to attack Bisa Stockade. British with firm hand dealt the combined uprising of Bisa Gam, Ningrola, Lat Gam was pronounced guilty and imprisoned for life at Dibrugarh.
• With a sinister design to disintegrate the Khampti’s, British relocated them at various places.
• The main accused son of deka raja Chow Pha Plung Lu allies Ranuwa Gohain preferred to die like a hero while fighting with British troops and didn’t surrendered.
• Frans jenkin the agent of British East India company pronounced by an agreement of 1842 that whole of Noa-Dihing & Tengapani up to foothills fell under direct British Rule to be administered by political agent at Sadiya. This simultaneous move by British against Khampti’s, Singphoos and Muttoks proved to be the decisive blow to any attempt for dominance over Sadiya by the later.

2 . Magnetars

Context : An international group of researchers has succeeded in measuring for the first time the characteristics of a flare on a distant magnetar.

About Magnetars

• A magnetar is a rare compact type of neutron star teeming with energy and magnetism.
• Magnetars are relatively rare objects, with only about thirty having been spotted within the Milky Way so far. The present magnetar is only the second one to be studied which is located outside the galaxy and is also the furthest, at 13 million light years distance.

Details of the Study

• The magnetar they have studied is about 13 million light years away, in the direction of the NGC 253, a prominent galaxy in the Sculptor group of galaxies.
• The flare, which spewed within a few tenths of a second as much energy as the Sun would shed in 100,000 years, was captured accidentally on April 15, 2020, by the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor instrument (ASIM) of the International Space Station.
• This data was then analysed by the researchers over the period of a year to throw light into the structure of the flare, and thereby, into the nature of such magnetars. This is the first study to characterise such a flare from so distant a magnetar.

Formation

• During the course of their evolution, massive stars – with masses around 10-25 times the mass of the Sun – eventually collapse and shrink to form very compact objects called neutron stars
• A subset of these neutron stars are the so-called magnetars which possess intense magnetic fields.

Features

• These are highly dense and have breathtakingly high rotation speeds – they have rotational periods that can be just 0.3 to 12.0 seconds.
• Magnetars have high magnetic fields in the range of 1015 gauss and they emit energy in the range given by luminosities of 1037 – 1040 joules per second. Compare this to the luminosity of the sun which is in the order of 1026 joules per second – a factor of at least 1011 lower.
• These magnetars emit violent flares. The observed giant flare lasted approximately 160 milliseconds and during this time 1039 joules of energy was released. The flare spewed as much energy in a tenth of a second that our Sun will radiate in 100,000 years
• Eruptions in magnetars are believed to be due to instabilities in their magnetosphere, or “starquakes” produced in their crust – a rigid, elastic layer about one kilometre thick. This causes waves in the magnetosphere, and interaction between these waves causes dissipation of energy.
• Magnetars are very difficult to observe when they are silent. It is only during a flare that they can be observed, and these flares are so short-lived that it presents a formidable problem. “They are mostly observed or seen in active transient phases which are very short in duration and are very faint in general for any available instruments or telescopes

3 . National Plant Protection Organisation

Context : Alarm bells were set off in Kashmir, which produces 71% of the country’s apples, after the National Plant Protection Organisation (NPPO), a body under the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, wrote to Iran on December 7 about the incidence of two quarantine pests, Aspidiotus nerd and Aonidella aurantii, in many shipments of kiwis from Iran. The Indian government has already conveyed to Iran that “the phytosanitary certificates issued by the NPPO, Iran, for fresh kiwi fruits shall not be entertained from our end from December 8, 2021

About National Plant Protection Organization of India

• The Directorate of Plant Protection Quarantine and Storage located at Faridabad, Haryana is the National Plant Protection Organization of India.  It is headed by the Plant Protection Adviser to the Government of India. 
• The Directorate is responsible for the implementation of plant protection policies and programmes of Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture,  Government of India.
• Major activities are exclusion of exotic pests, surveillance and monitoring and control of locusts, registration of pesticides and monitoring of their availability and quality, promotion of integrated pest management approach in plant protection, development of the human resources in plant protection and monitoring of pesticide residues in agricultural commodities.
• Being the National Plant Protection Organization, the Directorate is responsible for implementation of the phytosanitary certification programme. More than 150 plant protection specialists from all over the country have been authorized by NPPO to issue Phytosanitary certificates, in accordance with the requirements of importing countries as per IPPC

Phytosanitary Certificate (PSC)

• The Phytosanitary Certificate (PSC) is an official document required for exporting/re-exporting plants, plant products or other regulated articles.
• PSC is issued to indicate that the consignments meet specified Phytosanitary import requirements of importing countries.

4 . Study on Institutional Delivery

Context : Poverty, education, and exposure to a community health worker are more important than age at marriage in determining whether a mother will be able to have a safe birth in a medical facility, according to a first-of-its-kind study on utilisation of institutional delivery in the country.

Details of the Study

• The study analyses data on State-level maternal mortality ratio (2016 to 2018), as well as the National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16).
• The study is unique in its exploration of socio-demographic factors as well as barriers in low coverage of institutional deliveries, which is a key intervention in averting the risk of maternal mortality due to childbirth-related complications.
• It focuses on nine low-performing States (LPS) with high burden of maternal mortality — Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
• These States constitute about half of the country’s population and contribute 62% of maternal deaths, 71% of infant deaths, 72% of under-five (years) deaths, and 61% of births in the country. They also account for 12% of global maternal deaths.
• India has a maternal mortality rate of 113 per 100,000, and the rate remains “alarmingly high” in these nine States at 161 deaths per 100,000 .

Importance

• The research comes at a time the government has proposed to raise the age of marriage for women to 21 in order to reduce maternal deaths — a decision that has come under heavy criticism for ignoring social realities such as poverty, education and access to health services that are said to play a bigger role in preventing child marriages.

Key Findings

• “As far as socio-demographic factors are concerned, poverty (1.4 to 3.5) is responsible more than twice as much as age at marriage (.78) in determining whether a woman will seek institutional delivery.
• Education (1.2 to 3.8) is 1.5 times more important than age at marriage. Among other factors, interaction with a community health worker (1.63) and awareness campaigns (1.1 to 1.3) had a greater impact than age at marriage.
• Distance to the health facility (.79) and age at marriage had almost similar influences on institutional deliveries
• “The influence of educational attainment appeared to be strongest in Assam and Chhattisgarh, where women with a higher level of education were about five times more likely to deliver in a health facility than women who had no education.
• In Assam, women from the richest wealth index were almost 14 times more likely to deliver in a health institution than those from the poorest wealth index.
• Similarly, the odds of delivering in a health facility among the richest women were about five to six-fold higher in States such as Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttarakhand than the poorest women,” according to the study.
• As far as barriers in accessing institutional deliveries were concerned, about 17% of women expressed distance or lack of transportation, and 16% cited costs, to be some of the challenges. Other reasons were facility closures (10%), poor service or trust issues (6%).

Recommendations

• The authors recommend State-specific interventions not only to increase the number of public health facilities but also to improve associated quality of care, underlining that inadequate clinical training and insufficient skilled human resources affected the quality of available maternity services resulting in low coverage of institutional deliveries.

5 . Facts for Prelims

Desmond Tutu

• Desmond Mpilo Tutu was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist.
• He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996, in both cases being the first black African to hold the position. Theologically, he sought to fuse ideas from black theology with African theology.
• He was popular among South Africa’s black majority and was internationally praised for his anti-apartheid activism, receiving a range of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize. He also compiled several books of his speeches and sermons.

Guru Teg Bahadur

• He was ninth of ten gurus of the sikh religion 
• Founded a new town called Anandpur Sahib 
• Executed by Auragzeb 

Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Water

• Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) represents the amount of oxygen consumed by bacteria and other microorganisms while they decompose organic matter under aerobic (oxygen is present) conditions at a specified temperature.
• Common lake or stream contain small amounts of oxygen, in the form of dissolved oxygen. Although the amount of dissolved oxygen is small, up to about ten molecules of oxygen per million of water, it is a crucial component of natural water bodies; the presence of a sufficient concentration of dissolved oxygen is critical to maintaining the aquatic life and aesthetic quality of streams and lakes.
• Certain environmental stresses (hot summer temperatures) and other human-induced factors (introduction of excess fertilizers to a water body) can lessen the amount of dissolved oxygen in a water body, resulting in stresses on the local aquatic life. One water analysis that is utilized in order to better understand the effect of bacteria and other microorganisms on the amount of oxygen they consume as they decompose organic matter under aerobic (oxygen is present) is the measure of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD).
• BOD is a measure of the amount of oxygen required to remove waste organic matter from water in the process of decomposition by aerobic bacteria (those bacteria that live only in an environment containing oxygen).

Trinco Deal

• Sri Lanka will ink the long-dragging deal with India to jointly develop the Trincomalee oil tank farms — a coveted project that has remained controversial for decades.
• During the Second World War, the British built the Trincomalee oil tank farms to serve as a refuelling station, adjacent to the Trincomalee port. The nearly century-old oil tanks need to be refurbished — at the cost of millions of dollars — if they are to be fit for use again.
• If the deal is finalised and signed next month, it will not only mark the culmination of India’s 16-month-long negotiation with the ruling Rajapaksa administration but will also give shape to a proposal envisaged 35 years ago, in the Indo-Lanka Accord. Despite the Accord — in its annexure — stating that “the work of restoring and operating the Trincomalee oil tank farm will be undertaken as a joint venture between India and Sri Lanka”, things barely moved until 2003, when the Indian Oil Corporation set up Lanka IOC, its Sri Lankan subsidiary.