Topics Covered
- Issues related to Fake News
- New Horizon and Ultima Thule
- Tsunami in Indonesia
- Foot and Mouth Disease
- Bogibeel Bridge
1 . Issues related to Fake News Circulation
Context : The government has sought public comments on the proposed amendments to the IT Act that seek to make it mandatory for platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter to trace “originator” of “unlawful” information, while also removing such content within 24 hours after being notified.
What is Fake news : Fake news is news, stories or hoaxes created to deliberately misinform or deceive readers.
How is Fake News Spread in India
- According to a BBC research WhatsApp appeared to be the main driving force behind the spread of fake news in India. Fuelled by a distrust of mainstream news outlets, Indians are spreading information from alternative sources without verifying it. In doing so, they believe themselves to be promoting the real story
- Based on survey responses, the BBC found that many Indians relied on markers like the kind of images in a message or who sent it to them in order to decide if it was worth sharing.
- As a result, messages from close friends and family members were often assumed to be trustworthy, regardless of whether they actually were.
Consequences
- India has recently witnessed several shocking incidents of lynchings caused by the spread of rumours over WhatsApp.
- At least 32 people have been killed in the past year in incidents involving rumours spread on social media or messaging apps.
Government initiatives
- The Indian government has issued stern warnings to the Facebook-owned messaging service, which has limited the number of times a message can be forwarded in the country.
- Government has also asked the social media companies to monitor the spread of fake news
Conclusion
Fake news is becoming a malice in India but forcing companies to police content by blanket ban on apps that use end to end encryption is not a solution as it can weaken consumer privacy and cyber security, neither shutting down the services of these companies will help as it would limit the ability of millions of bona fide users to use the application. Some of the ways through which the issue can be resolved are given below :
- Digital Literacy in India : Previous research by the BBC has shown that nearly 72% of Indians struggled to distinguish real information from made-up stories. Put together, these results suggest the dire need for greater digital literacy in India. WhatsApp has taken early steps in this direction. It recently took out full-page ads in Indian newspapers providing tips to identify misinformation
- Govt of India could partner with local news groups to further educate citizens on how to identify real news from fake news
- GoI needs to do a better job enforcing its own laws and prosecuting the individuals carrying out attacks
Infographics
2 . New Horizon and Ultima Thule
Context : A NASA spacecraft is hurtling toward a historic New Year’s Day flyby of the most distant planetary object ever studied, a frozen relic of the early solar system called Ultima Thule. New Horizons was launched in 2006 and had its historic encounter with Pluto in 2015. Now the craft is in the Kuiper Belt, preparing to encounter its 1st object in this region, Ultima Thule
What is New Horizon
- First Mission to the Pluto System and the Kuiper Belt by NASA
- The mission is launched to find about:
- Atmosphere : What is its atmosphere made of, and how does it behave?
- Surface :What does the surface of Pluto look like?
- Geological Structures : Are there big geological structures?
- Interaction with the solar wind
- : How do particles ejected from the sun (known as the solar wind) interact with Pluto’s atmosphere?
What is Ultima Thule
- Meaning : Ultima Thule, a term used in medieval times to mean “beyond the known world.” (Thule was a location in far northern Europe hazily invoked by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Over the years, the term apparently referred to a number of different places, including Norway, Ireland and Iceland.)
- Ultima Thule has a reddish color, probably caused by exposure of hydrocarbons to sunlight over billions of years.
- Ultima Thule belongs to a class of Kuiper belt objects called the “cold classicals”, which have nearly circular orbits with low inclinations to the solar plane, and which have not been perturbed since their formation perhaps 4.6 billion years ago.
- Ultima Thule will therefore be the most primitive planetary object yet explored, and will reveal to us what conditions were like in this distant part of the Solar System as it condensed from the solar nebula.
Importance
- It is important to because this region of the solar system, being so far from the Sun, preserves the original conditions from four and a half billion years ago, So when New horizon fly by Ultima, it will reveal how things were back at the beginning.
3 . Tsunami in Indonesia
Causes
- The deadly tsunami in Indonesia was triggered by a chunk of the Anak Krakatau volcano slipping into the ocean
- Anak Krakatau had been throwing ash and lava for months before a 64-hectare (158-acre) section of its south-west side collapsed, this caused an underwater landslide and eventually caused the tsunami
- It was a localized tsunami which occurred due to a volcanic er
- uption leading to mudslide on the ocean bed.
Early warning System
- There is no technology available to detect Tsunamis occurring due to mudslides closer to the shore
- Current early warning system is available only for Tsunamis triggered by earthquake
Infographics
What Causes a Tsunami
- Earthquake
- Glacier calvings
- Landslides
- Volcanic eruptions
About Anak Krakato Volcano
- Anak Krakatau emerged around 1928 in the caldera of Krakatoa, a volcanic island that violently erupted in 1883.
- With subsequent lava flows it grew from a submarine setting to become a small volcanic island, with the cone now standing at an altitude of around 300m above sea level.Advertisement
- Since its birth, Anak Krakatau has been in a “state of semi-continuous eruptive activity”, growing bigger as it experiences eruptions every two to three years
- The island is part of the Ujung Kulon National Park,
Why Indonesia is affected by Earth quakes and Volcanoes
- Indonesia is at the meeting point of three major continental plates – the Pacific, the Eurasian and the Indo-Australian plates – and the much smaller Philippine plate.
- It also falls on the “Ring of fire”, a horseshoe-shaped area around the edges of the Pacific Ocean, from Australia to the Andes, along which 90% of all earthquakes occur.
- The archipelago has also been created by its location on the ring, with many of the country’s 17,000 islands forged out of the tectonic and volcanic forces pushing up land, frequently resulting in eruptions or magma and ash.
4 . Foot Mouth Disease
Context
- Breakout of Food and Mouth Disease in the state of Kerala
About Foot and Mouth Disease
- Foot and mouth disease is a highly communicable disease affecting cloven footed animals and is characterized by fever, formation of vesicles and blisters in the mouth, udders, and teats and on the skin between the toes and above the hooves.
- Animals recovered from the disease, present a characteristically rough coat and deformation of the hoof.
- In India, the disease is not serious for livestock and seldom progresses to a fatal issue, but it occurs practically all the year round and, being widespread, it assumes a position of importance in livestock industry.
- The annual economic loss on account of this disease is estimated to be about Rs. 2.5 crores. The disease affects mostly cattle and pigs of all breeds and ages. Imported cattle and cross-bred suffer more severely, with a mortality rate of 10 to 20 percent, against only 2 to 3 per cent in the local breeds.
- Although buffaloes, sheep and goats are also susceptible to the disease, they are seldom affected. Under experimental condition, goats have been found to be more susceptible than sheep.
How it spreads
- The disease spreads very commonly by direct contact or, indirectly, through infected water, manure, hay and pastures.
- It is also conveyed by cattle attendants through their clothes or through their hands when the latter have been recently used in milking affected animals. It is known to spread through recovered animals, field rats, porcupines and birds, while improperly sterilized canned meat may also be a vehicle of the infection. S
Control and prevention:
- Prevention is known to be the only dependable method of dealing with foot-and-mouth disease. In countries where the disease does, not exist or where its incidence is very low, legislatie action has been taken to make it obligatory to notify all suspected cases of foot-and-mouth disease.
- The usual measures adopted in these countries consist in the slaughter of all affected and in-contact animals, a thorough disinfection all utensils and clothes of attendants and a strict watch over animals in the neighboring areas.
- The slaughtered animals are buried lo a depth to list five feel in the ground and covered with lime and earth. The affected premises are not used for at least 30 days, and are tested for infectivity at the end of this period by allowing small groups of animals into them to commence with.
5 . Bogibeel Project
About Bogibeel Project
Benefits
