Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE
- International Court of Justice
- Mosaic mission
- Fingerprinting
- Solar Eclipse
- Miyawaki method
- NAPRT1
- Facts for Prelims – Borgeet
1 . International Court of Justice
Context : The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is expected to pronounce its verdict on July 17 in the case relating to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav, who is on death row in Pakistan
About International Court of Justice
- The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It was established in June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations and began work in April 1946.
- The seat of the Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague (Netherlands). Of the six principal organs of the United Nations, it is the only one not located in New York (United States of America).
- The Court’s role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies.
- The Court is composed of 15 judges, who are elected for terms of office of nine years by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council. It is assisted by a Registry, its administrative organ. Its official languages are English and French.
- The statute of the ICJ regulates the functioning of the Court. All members of the UN are automatic parties to the statute, but this does not automatically give ICJ jurisdiction over disputes involving them. The ICJ gets jurisdiction only on the basis of consent of both parties
Jurisdiction of ICJ related to India
- In September 1974, India declared the matters over which it accepts the jurisdiction of the ICJ. This declaration revoked and replaced the previous declaration made in September 1959.
- Among the matters over which India does not accept ICJ jurisdiction are: “disputes with the government of any State which is or has been a Member of the Commonwealth of Nations”, and “disputes relating to or connected with facts or situations of hostilities, armed conflicts, individual or collective actions taken in self-defence
- The declaration, which includes other exceptions as well, has been ratified by Parliament.
2 . Mosaic mission
Context : German icebreaker RV Polarstern, a hulking ship will set out for the Arctic packed with supplies and scientific equipment for a year-long mission to explore the planet’s frigid far north.
About the Mission
- The MOSAiC mission, which stands for Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate aims to study the impact of climate change on the Arctic and how it could affect the rest of the world.
- Scientist from 17 Nations will be participating in the Mission
Details of the Mission
- Scientists plan to sail the ship into the Arctic Ocean, anchor it to a large piece of sea ice and allow the water to freeze around them, effectively trapping themselves in the vast sheet of white that forms over the North Pole each winter. The organizers say that the project is unprecedented in scale and ambition.
- As temperatures drop and the days get shorter, they’ll race against time to build temporary winter research camps on the ice, allowing them to perform tests that wouldn’t be possible at other times of the year or by satellite sensing.
Importance of the Mission
- Scientists now believe that the cold cap that forms each year is key to regulating weather patterns across the Northern Hemisphere.
- Understanding the processes is crucial for world leaders to tackle climate change effectively.
3 . Fingerprinting
Context : Advertisers are increasingly turning to an invisible method fingerprinting that pulls together information about your device to pinpoint your identity.
About Fingerprinting
- Fingerprinting involves looking at the many characteristics of your mobile device or computer, like the screen resolution, operating system and model, and triangulating this information to pinpoint and follow you as you browse the web and use apps.
- Once enough device characteristics are known, the data can be assembled into a profile that helps identify you the way a fingerprint would.
How it works
- Fingerprinting takes advantage of a fundamental way that apps and websites talk to our devices.
- When you browse the web or install an app, your browser or the operating system automatically gives websites some information about your hardware. That’s partly because a website needs to know things like the resolution of your screen / type of phone etc so it can load a page in the correct screen size.
- Fingerprinting collects seemingly innocuous characteristics that are generally shared by default to make apps and websites work properly.
- With enough information gathered, fingerprinting can be very reliable.
Challenges
- The technique happens invisibly in the background in apps and websites. That makes it tougher to detect and combat than its predecessor, the web cookie, which was a tracker stored on our devices. The solutions to blocking fingerprinting are also limited.
- Privacy advocates say fingerprinting is abusive because in contrast to cookies, which people can see and delete, you generally cannot tell it is happening and cannot opt out of it.
4 . Total Solar Eclipse
What Is a Solar Eclipse?
- Sometimes when the moon orbits Earth, it moves between the sun and Earth. When this happens, the moon blocks the light of the sun from reaching Earth. This causes an eclipse of the sun, or solar eclipse. During a solar eclipse, the moon casts a shadow onto Earth.
- The first shadow is called the umbra. This shadow gets smaller as it reaches Earth. It is the dark center of the moon’s shadow.
- The second shadow is called the penumbra (pe NUM bruh). The penumbra gets larger as it reaches Earth. People standing in the penumbra will see a partial eclipse. People standing in the umbra will see a total eclipse.
- Solar eclipses happen once every 18 months. Unlike lunar eclipses, solar eclipses only last for a few minutes.
Types of solar eclipses.
- Total solar eclipse :
- A total Solar eclipse occurs when the moon comes between sun and the earth and casts darkest part of its shadow on the earth
- The darkest point of the eclipse is as dark as night. A total solar eclipse is only visible from a small area on Earth.
- The people who see the total eclipse are in the center of the moon’s shadow when it hits Earth.
- Partial solar eclipse
- Partial solar eclipse happens when the moon comes between sun and the earth but they dont align in a perfect straight line. Because of this moon only covers partially of the Sun’s disc
- The sun appears to have a dark shadow on only a small part of its surface.
- Annular solar eclipse
- An annular eclipse happens when the moon is farthest from Earth. Because the moon is farther away from Earth, it seems smaller. It does not block the entire view of the sun. The moon in front of the sun looks like a dark disk on top of a larger sun-colored disk. This creates what looks like a ring around the moon.
5 . Miyawaki method
Context : The Forest department has drawn up a plan to harness the popular technique, developed by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, to grow urban forests and expand the district’s green cover as well as to meet the stipulated plantation target under the TKHH, sources said.
About Miyawaki Method
- Miyawaki is a technique pioneered by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, that helps build dense, native forests.
- The approach is supposed to ensure that plant growth is 10 times faster and the resulting plantation is 30 times denser than usual.
- It involves planting dozens of native species in the same area, and becomes maintenance-free after the first three years.
- In contrast to conventional planting techniques, this method allows for planting more number of trees in small spaces. The trees grow faster too and are free of chemicals and fertilisers.
- The advantage of Miyawaki method is that the saplings need minimum maintenance
6 . NAPRT1
Context : After 18 years of research, Indian and Australian scientists have identified a new gene directly linked to schizophrenia.
About the Findings
- Study identified a gene called NAPRT1 that encodes an enzyme involved in vitamin B3 metabolism — researchers were also able to find this gene in a large genomic dataset of schizophrenia patients with European ancestry
- Studies aim to shed more light on what makes people susceptible to schizophrenia and possible treatments for the future
- Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves.
7 . Facts for Prelims
- Borgeet – Assam