Daily Current Affairs : Date 31/12/2018

Topics Covered

1. Bioplastics
2. Glass Fibre Reinforced Gypsum building technology
3. Freedom of literature bill 2018
4. M-Stripes
5. Renaming Islands of Andaman and Nicobar
6. Gene Edited Babies
7. Chang’e 4 mission

1 . Bioplastics

What is Bioplastic

• Bioplastics are plastics derived from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, straw, woodchips, food waste, etc.
• Bioplastic can be made from agricultural by-products and also from used plastic bottles and other containers using microorganisms

Difference between bioplastics and regular plastics?

• Most plastics are made through petrochemical processes. In other words, they start out as the chemical byproducts of oil refining, which are turned into a variety of plastics through chemical processes that form long molecular chains known as polymers. These polymers give plastics their structure. 
• Bioplastics, on the other hand, are derived from plant-based sources. They can be made from cane sugar, corn, or from plant byproducts like wood bark and corn husks. Switchgrass is another great source for bioplastics – it grows pretty much anywhere, is drought resistant, and grows quickly. Since it isn’t a primary food source, using it for bioplastics won’t affect food prices.

Are they Biodegradable

• Some types of bioplastic are biodegradable, some aren’t. 

What is Bio plastic made of ?

Challenges 

• As bioplastics are made from food products they are comparatively expensive than conventional plastics
• Most of the bioplastics require industrial composting facilities to be disposed of. But most cities lack an adequate number of such facilities; this means the bioplastics end up on the streets and harm the environment just like normal plastics do.

2 . Glass Fibre Reinforced Gypsum building technology

Context :
Building technology developed by IIT Madras over the last decade is now being considered by the Kerala government for the housing needs of those whose homes were ravaged by the floods in August this year.

What is the Technology

• Glass Fiber Reinforced Gypsum (GFRG) Panel branded as Rapidwall is a building panel product, made of calcined gypsum, plaster, reinforced with glass fibers, for Mass-scale building construction, was originally developed and used since 1990 in Australia.
• The technology recycles gypsum — a major waste product of the fertilizer industry and coal fired power plants — to produce low-cost, environment-friendly housing which is also resistant to earthquake damage.
• Originally developed in Australia by Rapidwall Building Systems, the concept was enriched and enhanced by the IIT team of researchers who made a breakthrough in developing floors out of this material.

Benefits

• Comparing with conventional building, this technology is less costly and consumes less time to build
• It is suitable in mass scale building constructions

3 . Freedom of literature Bill 2018

Context : A Private member bill The Freedom of Literature Bill, 2018 was introduced by Dr Shashi Tharoor

What is Private Member bill

• A Member of the Parliament who is not a Minister (i.e. not a member of the Government) is regarded as a Private Member.
• A Bill introduced in either house of Parliament by any such Member of Parliament is called a Private Members’ Bill; Bills introduced by Ministers are called Government Bills. 
• In India, usually, alternate Friday afternoons during session time (generally between 2 pm and 6 pm) are reserved for discussions on Private Members’ Bills. 
• PMBs are drafted by MPs themselves, or their offices, and are checked for legal consistency by the Parliament Secretariat. 
• PMBs can deal with any issue; they can be also be Constitutional Amendment Bills or Money Bills.
• The only difference is in terms of the process followed outside Parliament. Government Bills are often deliberated upon and approved by the Council of Ministers before being introduced. This is not done for PMBs.
• Only 14 PMBs have become law since India’s independence, the last being passed in 1970. More recently, The Rights of Transgender Persons Bill, 2014 introduced by Mr. Tiruchi Siva was passed in the Rajya Sabha after a gap of 45 years since the passing of the last PMB.

About Freedom of Literature Bill 2018

• Aim of the bill is to check arbitrary ban on books
• The Bill put onus on the govt to explain why a book needs to be banned and removes the government’s right to ban books indefinitely.
• The purpose of the Bill is to amend and remove the existing provisions of the laws which can be misused to harass authors by vested interests
• The Bill envisages reading down Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code that provides for imprisonment of up to three years for “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs,” as well as Section 298, which is similar to 295A as it criminalises speech critical of religious organisations or religious figures, and therefore a major deterrent to free expression
• The bill also proposes amendment to the customs Act that allows governments to suspend the shipping in of books over an indefinite period 

Conclusion

• As a private member’s Bill, the legislation has hardly any hope of passing, but it reflects the contested terrain of freedom of speech and expression despite constitutional safeguards

4 . M -Stripes (Monitoring system for Tigers – Intensive Protection and Ecological Status)

Context : Better patrolling, technology helped foresters nab poachers

• M-Stripes is a software monitoring system built by the National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Institute of India
• The system consists of two components a) field based protocols for patrolling, law enforcement, recording wildlife crimes and ecological monitoring, and b) a customized software for storage, retrieval, analysis and reporting.
• Earlier law enforcement and ecological monitoring are being done, but the information generated is ad hoc and rarely available in a format for informed decision making.
• The “MSTrIPES” addresses this void and is a tool for adaptive management. The system uses a holistic approach by integrating ecological insights obtained through the standardized tiger, prey, and habitat assessment protocols (Phase I) to guide protection and management.
• It allows patrol teams to keep a better tab on suspicious activity while also mapping their own patrolling, location, routes and timings for better accountability.
• The system performs statistical computations of occupancy, precision, sample size, and assesses trends over desired time and spatial scales for tigers, other carnivores, prey populations, human impacts, illegal activities, and law enforcement investments.
• MSTrIPES produces easily interpretable reports and maps that are useful for management and policy decisions.
• The system reduces the response time to detrimental events like poaching or habitat degradation and becomes a comprehensive tool to keep the pulse of a tiger reserve.

National Parks / Wildlife Sanctuary in news

• Dudhwa National Park
• Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary
• Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary

5 . Renaming islands of Andaman and Nicobar

• The Ross Island was renamed Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Dweep,
• Neil Island as Shaheed Dweep
• Havelock Island as Swaraj Dweep

6 . Gene Edited Babies

Context : He Jiankui, a Chinese scientist, has claimed that he helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies — twin girls whose DNA he altered with a tool called CRISPR.

What is gene editing?

• Gene editing is a technique through which genes can be deleted or replaced from one’s genome. It is like removing a word in a sentence completely or replacing it with another related or unrelated word, but which would give a meaningful sentence
• The most widely used technique of gene editing is called CRISPR, which is an adaptation of methods that bacteria use to kill invading viruses.

​How does CRISPR work?

• When a virus invades a bacterial cell, it keeps a copy of a part of the virus gene within its own DNA. When a similar virus attacks the bacteria, it uses this copy to make a molecule called RNA, similar to the attacking viral gene, which will go and deactivate the virus.
• Scientists use similar RNA as a guide to a gene, and bind it with a protein — called Cas9 – which will cut the unrequired gene shown by the guide RNA. Once it is cut, the cell itself repairs the DNA. Or, scientists can place another piece of DNA there with a required function.

​Why is CRISPR so useful?

• It is a cheap, quick and easy way of editing genes. Many diseases are caused by a single defective gene, and they can in theory be cured by deleting or changing a single gene.

Benefits of Gene Editing

• It can correct the genetic errors that cause disease
• Can eliminate the microbes that cause disease

Arguments against Gene Editing

• Creating Designer babies
• Gene editing cannot guarantee success as it is still a developing field

Why does the scientific community condemn the work of the Chinese scientist?

• He Jainkui, a scientist working at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzen, edited embryos to provide babies immunity from HIV. He did it because the father had HIV infection.
• Biologists believe that he cannot guarantee that the procedure is safe, and so he has exposed future generations to defects inadvertently carried out during editing.
• This is unethical because informed consent is not possible from a future generation. They also think that there were other methods of making sure that the children do not get HIV.

7 .Chang’e 4  mission

Context –  Chinese space probe is moving into position to land on the dark side of the moon for the first time.The probe, the Chang’e-4, entered a planned orbit on Sunday “to prepare for the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon .

What is dark side of the moon?

• Dark side is the other side of the moon which is not visible from the earth as the moon is tidally locked to earth, rotating at the same rate that it orbits our planet due to this phenomenon the far side or dark side is never visible from earth
• Previous spacecraft have seen the far side of the moon, but none has landed on it.

Why the far side of the Moon?

• Chang’e-4 was originally a backup to Chang’e-3, launched in December 2013. When this succeeded, it allowed scientists to consider repurposing CE-4 for something more ambitious.
• The vast majority of the far side of the Moon never faces the Earth due to tidal locking, and humanity’s first glimpse of that hemisphere of our celestial neighbour did not come until the Soviet Luna 3 mission sent back images in 1959, and the Apollo 8 astronauts in 1968.
• Surprisingly it looks very different to the near side, with greater visible crater coverage and few of the mare, or dark basaltic ‘seas’ created by lava flows that we can see with the naked eye on the near side. Why this is so remains a mystery and the answers will help our understanding of the Moon’s history and even the development of the solar system.

About Chang’e 4 Mission

• China launched the Chang’e-4 probe earlier this month, carried by a Long March-3B rocket.
• It includes a lander and a rover to explore the surface of the moon.
• The tasks of the Chang’e-4 include astronomical observation, surveying the moon’s terrain, landform and mineral composition, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment on the far side of the moon.

Relay satellite for communications

• A lunar far side landing is unprecedented because, as noted above, that hemisphere cannot be viewed directly from the Earth, meaning innovative solutions are needed to facilitate communications for sending commands to the spacecraft and aiding landing, and receiving telemetry and the all-important science data.
• The mission is ready to proceed following the May launch of the Queqiao relay satellite, which in June established its intended halo orbit at the second Earth-Moon Lagrange point, some 65,000-80,000 kilometres beyond the Moon.
• From here will be able to simultaneously contact tracking stations on Earth and the spacecraft on the far side of the Moon and relay communications with its huge parabolic antenna.

Mini biosphere experiment

• Another science payload, chosen from around 200 submissions to a student contest to place an experiment on Chang’e-4, will see potato and arabidopsis seeds and silkworm eggs sent to the Moon in a ‘mini biosphere’to test photosynthesis and respiration in the low-gravity lunar environment.
• The 3-kg tin will also contain water, a nutrient solution and air, and a small camera and data transmission system.
• While there have been many experiments in low-Earth orbit and analogue studies, this will be unprecedented.