Black hole researchers get Nobel Prize for Physics
Paper:
Mains: General Studies-III: Technology, Economic Development, Bio diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management
Why in news?
Roger Penrose of Britain, Reinhard Genzel of Germany and Andrea Ghez of the U.S. won the Nobel Physics Prize for their research into what the Nobel committee called “one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the black hole”.
Key details
- Briton Roger Penrose received half of this year’s prize “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity,”.
- German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez received the second half of the prize “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of galaxy.”
- Ghez is fourth woman to receive the physics prize since 1901 when the first Nobel prizes were handed out.
- The first woman to win the prize was Marie Curie in 1903, who was also the first person to receive two Nobel prizes when she won the 1911 chemistry prize.
Roger Penrose’s contribution:
- Roger Penrose theoretical work which showed that black holes can form and exist as solutions of Einstein’s field equations.
- This was the theoretical discovery that made “black hole” an accepted concept in physics. The name was first used by American physicist Robert Dicke in 1960, it was popularised by John Wheeler.
Background:
What was the work done by Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez?
- Two independent groups of observational astrophysicists let by Prof Genzel and Prof Ghez respectively have been monitoring the centre of the Milky Way for nearly three decades.
- They were studying the compact radio source Sagittarius A* near the galaxy’s centre which now known as Supermassive Black hole.
- Saggittarius A* is 25,000 light years away.
The working hypothesis was this:
- The stars around the galactic centre appeared to be moving in orbits around some source.
- If this source was pointlike, they will move in Keplerian orbits – that is orbits similar to what planets like earth mars etc have around their stars.
- If the mass at the centre was spread out among many objects, the stars orbiting them will not have perfect keplerian orbits.
- They have to identify and track individual stars and not be distracted by interstellar dust.
- Yet they managed to keep tracking the stars using near infrared light telescopes and successfully proved that the mass was indeed concentrated at a centre – Sagittarius A*.
- They spotted stars which the teams named S2 and So2 which orbited Sagittarius A* in 16 years, taking elliptical orbit.
- The interpretation of this was that Sagittarius A* is indeed a supermassive black hole.
- The imaging of the black hole silhouette by the Event Horizon Telescope further establishes the existence of supermassive black holes, thereby validating the prize this year.
Blackhole
- A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing—no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from it.
- The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can deform spacetime to form a black hole.
- There are four types of black holes: stellar, intermediate, supermassive, and miniature.
- The most commonly known way a black hole forms is by stellar death.
- As stars reach the ends of their lives, most will inflate, lose mass, and then cool to form white dwarfs.
But the largest of these fiery bodies, those at least 10 to 20 times as massive as our own sun, are destined to become either super-dense neutron stars or so-called stellar-mass black holes.
Centre to fix jurisdiction of river boards
Paper:
Mains: General Studies- II: Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations
Why in news?
The Centre will determine the jurisdictions of the Krishna and Godavari river management boards (KRMB and GRMB).
Key details
- The Centre will go ahead with notifying the jurisdiction of both KRMB & GRMB.
- As per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, no consensus is needed.
- Both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana agreed to submit the Detailed project reports (DPRs) of all the projects taken up by their States.
- The headquarters of the KRMB would be located in Andhra Pradesh
Water Dispute Between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh
- Telangana and Andhra Pradesh share stretches of the Krishna and the Godavari and own their tributaries.
- The Andhra Pradesh government’s proposed to increase the utilisation of the Krishna water from a section of the river above the Srisailam Reservoir due to which Telangana government filed a complaint against Andhra Pradesh.
Krishna Water dispute
- The Krishna is an east-flowing river that originates at Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra and merges with the Bay of Bengal, flowing through Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
- A dispute over the sharing of Krishna waters has been ongoing for many decades, beginning with the erstwhile Hyderabad and Mysore states, and later continuing between successors Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
- In 1969, the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT) was set up under the Inter-State River Water Dispute Act, 1956, and presented its report in 1973.
Godavari river water dispute
- The Godavari is India’s second longest river after the Ganga. Its source is in Triambakeshwar, Maharashtra.
- The Andhra Pradesh Act, 1953, the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 and the bifurcation of Bombay into Maharashtra and Gujarat in 1960, brought about extensive jurisdictional changes in the Godavari basin and consequently the States of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa became the necessary parties to the dispute over sharing of waters of the Godavari basin.
- Government of India (GoI) constituted a common tribunal on 10 April 1969 to adjudicate the river water utilization disputes among the river basin states of Godavari and Krishna rivers under the provisions of Interstate River Water Disputes Act – 1956.
- The common tribunal was headed by Sri RS Bachawat as its chairman with Sri DM Bhandari and Sri DM Sen as its members.
- The Bachawat Tribunal gave its final award in 1980.
- Accordingly, each State was free to utilise the flow in Godavari and its tributaries up to a certain level.
Water in the Indian Constitution
Water is in the State List.
It is Entry 17 of the list and hence, states can legislate with respect to rivers.
Entry 56 of the Union List, however, gives the Central government the power to regulate and develop inter-state rivers and river valleys.
Article 262 also states that the Parliament may provide for the adjudication of any dispute or complaint with respect to the use, distribution or control of the waters of, or in, any inter-State river or river valley.
As per Article 262, the Parliament has enacted the following:
River Board Act, 1956: This empowered the GOI to establish Boards for Interstate Rivers and river valleys in consultation with State Governments. Till date, no river board has been created.
Inter-State Water Dispute Act, 1956: Under this act, if a state government or governments approach the Centre for the constitution of a tribunal, the government may form a tribunal after trying to resolve the dispute through consultations.
Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill, 2019
- The Bill tries to creates a permanent infrastructure.
- A pre-litigation dispute resolution process, which is attempted for a period of 18 months with the central government playing the role of arbitrator is present. And if the issue is not resolved within that period, it gets referred to the tribunal as a dispute.
- The Bill seeks to constitute a permanent tribunal, so there will be benches and one bench would be able to look at more than one issue/dispute. Hence, the process will be expedited.
- In the proposed Bill, some timelines have also been fixed.
- The Dispute Resolution Committee (DRC) will take one year extendable by six months to one and a half years.
- The main report will be prepared in two months, that means the entire deliberations and argumentation and all those will take two years extendable by one year, so a total of three years.
- And the clarification that is required has to be decided within one year extendable by six months.
Child should learn mother tongue: SC
Paper:
Mains: General Studies- II: Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International
Why in news?
A child has to learn his mother tongue to gain a foundation, the Supreme Court accosted Andhra government’s logic that children, without learning English, get ‘isolated’.
Key details
- The Andhra Pradesh government has approached the Supreme Court challenging its State High Court decision to strike down a government order of November 2019 which made English medium education compulsory from classes I to VI in primary, upper primary and high schools under all managements from 2020-21.
- It was to be gradually extended to each further class from the consequent academic years.
- The National Curriculum Framework of 2005 and Section 29 of the Right to Education Act of 2009 required the medium of instruction hall, as far as practicable, to be in child’s mother tongue.
Constitutional Provisions for Languages:
- Article 343 of the Indian constitution stated that the official language of the Union is Hindi in Devanagari script instead of the extant English.
- Later, a constitutional amendment, The Official Languages Act, 1963, allowed for the continuation of English alongside Hindi in the Indian government indefinitely until legislation decides to change it
- Article 345 Official language or languages of a State: Subject to the provisions of articles 346 and 347, the Legislature of a State may by law adopt any one or more of the languages in use in the State or Hindi as the Language or Languages to be used for all or any of the official purposes of that State;
- Provided that, until the Legislature of the State otherwise provides by law, the English language shall continue to be used for those official purposes within the State for which it was being used immediately before the commencement of this Constitution.
- Despite the misconceptions, Hindi is not the national language of India;
- The Constitution of India does not give any language the status of national language.
- The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists 22 languages, which have been referred to as scheduled languages and given recognition, status and official encouragement.
- In addition, the Government of India has awarded the distinction of classical language to Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu.
- Classical language status is given to languages which have a rich heritage and independent nature.
National Education Policy 2020
- In the NEP 2019, it was decided to push for the three-language formula, to promote multilingualism and national unity.
- It has restarted the debate over suitability of three language formulas all over India.
- The NEP 2020 recommends medium of instruction to be in the home language/mother tongue/local language or regional language in primary classes.
- In 2014, after a two-decade-old legal battle, the Supreme Court held that imposition of the mother tongue as the medium of instruction in primary classes in government-recognised, aided or unaided private schools was unconstitutional.
IMF chief says global economy less dire but long climb ahead
Paper:
Mains: General Studies-III: Technology, Economic Development, Bio diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management
Why in news?
The global economy is looking ‘less dire’ than it did in June and the International Monetary Fund will make a ‘small’ upward revision to its 2020 global output forecast.
Key details
- The global economy is coming back from the depths of this crisis. But this calamity is far from over. All countries are now facing ‘the long ascent’ — a difficult climb that will be long, uneven, and uncertain.
- The IMF had in June forecast that the coronavirus shutdowns would shrink global GDP by 9%, marking the sharpest contraction since the 1930s Great Depression, and called for more policy support.
- $12 trillion in fiscal support, coupled with unprecedented monetary easing has allowed many advanced economies, including the United States and the euro zone, to escape the worst damage and start to recover.
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 189 countries. Created in 1945, the IMF is governed by and accountable to the 189 countries that make up its near-global membership.
Aims:
- Working to foster global monetary cooperation
- secure financial stability
- facilitate international trade
- promote high employment and sustainable economic growth
- reduce poverty around the world.
- The IMF’s primary purpose is to ensure the stability of the international monetary system—the system of exchange rates and international payments that enables countries (and their citizens) to transact with each other.
- The Fund’s mandate was updated in 2012 to include all macroeconomic and financial sector issues that bear on global stability.
Services PMI shows slump easing, but job losses swell
Paper:
Mains: General Studies-III: Technology, Economic Development, Bio diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management
Why in news?
The pace of contraction in services sector activity eased considerably in September after the government lifted some COVID-19 restrictions, but demand continued to shrink, prompting firms to cut more jobs.
Key details
- Signs of stabilisation in services are likely to provide more comfort to policymakers after a sister survey last week showed India’s manufacturing expanded at its fastest pace in over eight years, suggesting business conditions were gradually returning to normal in Asia’s third-largest economy.
- The Nikkei/IHS Markit Services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) bounced to 49.8 in September from August’s 41.8, a touch below the 50 mark that separates expansion from contraction on a monthly basis.
- The services sector accounts for about 55% of India’s economy and almost a third of its jobs.
Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI)
- The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) is an index of the prevailing direction of economic trends in the manufacturing and service sectors.
- It consists of a diffusion index that summarizes whether market conditions, as viewed by purchasing managers, are expanding, staying the same, or contracting.
- The purpose of the PMI is to provide information about current and future business conditions to company decision makers, analysts, and investors.
- Purchasing Managers’ Index is based on five major indicators: new orders, inventory levels, production, supplier deliveries and the employment environment.
- An index value above 50 percent indicates a positive development in the industrial sector, whereas a value below 50 percent indicates a negative situation.