Bongosagar exercise
Why in News
• The third edition of the bilateral naval exercise ‘Bongosagar’ between the Indian Navy (IN) and the Bangladesh Navy (BN) began at Port Mongla, Bangladesh.
Main point
• The harbor phase of the exercise is scheduled from May 24 to 25, followed by a sea phase in the North Bay of Bengal from May 26 to 27.
• The objective of the Bongosagar exercise is to develop a high level of interoperability and joint operational skills between the navies of the two countries through conducting a wide spectrum of maritime exercises and combat operations.
• Indian Naval Ship Kora, an indigenously built Guided Missile Corvette and an indigenously built offshore patrol vessel Sumedha are participating in the exercise.
• The Bangladesh Navy is represented by BNS Abu Ubaidah and Ali Haider, both guided missile frigates.
• The port phase of the Bongosagar exercise will include strategic level planning discussions on the conduct of the exercise at sea, besides professional and group interactions and friendly sporting activities.
• The sea phase of the exercise will facilitate the ships of both the navies to participate in intensive surface warfare exercises, weapon use, firing exercises, seafaring plan development and coordinated air operations in a strategic scenario.
Param Porul Supercomputer
Why in News
• Param Porul is a state-of-the-art supercomputer dedicated to the nation at NIT Tiruchirappalli.
About Param Porul Supercomputer
• A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between NIT Tiruchirappalli and Center for Development in Advanced Computing (C-DAC) on October 12, 2020 to set up this 838 Teraflops supercomputing facility under the National Supercomputing Mission.
• The system is equipped with a combination of CPU nodes, GPU nodes, high memory nodes, high throughput storage and high performance Infiniband interconnects to meet the computing needs of various scientific and engineering applications.
• The PARAM PORUL system is based on Direct Contact Liquid Cooling technology to achieve high power usage efficiency and thus reduce operating costs.
Benefit:
• Many applications from various scientific domains like weather and climate, bioinformatics, computational chemistry, molecular dynamics, materials science, computational fluid dynamics etc. have been installed on the system for the benefit of the researchers.
• This state-of-the-art computing system will prove to be very helpful for the researchers.
• NIT, Tiruchirappalli is conducting research in areas of social interest like health, agriculture, weather, financial services. The facility set up under NSM will strengthen this research.
• The new high-performance computational facility will help researchers solve large-scale problems in various fields of science and engineering.
• A part of the total computing power will also be shared with nearby academic and research institutions as per the norms of NSM.
• In addition, NSM has sponsored several application research projects using this supercomputing facility and involving researchers from other Indian institutions and industries.
• Overall, this supercomputing facility will give a huge boost to R&D initiatives in Indian academia and industries to reach a position of global acclaim.
• Importance
• Under NSM, so far 15 supercomputers with compute capacity of 24 petaflops have been installed across the country.
• All these supercomputers are manufactured in India and are working with indigenously developed software stack.
Army Aviation Corps
Why in News
• The Indian Army has recently got the first woman officer in the form of Army Aviation Corps.
Key point
• Captain Abhilasha Barak has been inducted into the Army as a Combat Aviator. She is the first woman officer to reach this position.
• According to the Indian Army, Captain Abhilasha Barak has successfully completed the training. Captain Abhilasha has since been inducted into the Army Aviation Corps as a Combat Aviator.
• According to the Indian Army, Captain Abhilasha has been awarded this prestigious wing along with 36 army pilots.
• According to the army, 15 women officers had expressed their desire to join Army Aviation.
• Air Force’s Flying Officer Avani Chaturvedi became the first Indian woman to fly a fighter aircraft in the year 2018.
What is the Army Aviation Corps?
• Army Aviation Corps was raised as a group on 01 November 1986.
• The Army Aviation Corps now attracts its officers and soldiers with all the weapons of the army.
• Army Aviation Corps candidates are trained at the Combat Army Aviation Training School in Nashik. This corps works in the major roles of battleground support, military survey in the Indian Army.
Supreme Court recognises sex work as a ‘profession’
Why in news
• In a significant order recognizing sex work as a “profession” whose practitioners are entitled to dignity and equal protection under law, the Supreme Court has directed that police should neither interfere nor take criminal action against adult and consenting sex workers.
Key point:
• “It need not be gainsaid that notwithstanding the profession, every individual in this country has a right to a dignified life under Article 21 of the Constitution,” the court observed.
• “Sex workers are entitled to equal protection of the law. Criminal law must apply equally in all cases, on the basis of ‘age’ and ‘consent’. When it is clear that the sex worker is an adult and is participating with consent, the police must refrain from interfering or taking any criminal action,”.
• A three-judge Bench led by Justice L. Nageswara Rao directed in an order which was passed after invoking special powers under Article 142 of the Constitution.
• The Bench ordered that sex workers should not be “arrested or penalized or harassed or victimized” whenever there is a raid on any brothel, “since voluntary sex work is not illegal and only running the brothel is unlawful”.
• A child of a sex worker should not be separated from the mother merely on the ground that she is in the sex trade, the court held. “Basic protection of human decency and dignity extends to sex workers and their children,” the court noted.
• Further, if a minor is found living in a brothel or with sex workers, it should not be presumed that the child was trafficked.
• “In case the sex worker claims that he/she is her son/daughter, tests can be done to determine if the claim is correct and if so, the minor should not be forcibly separated,” the court ordered.
Medico-legal care
• The court ordered the police to not discriminate against sex workers who lodge a criminal complaint, especially if the offence committed against them is of a sexual nature. Sex workers who are victims of sexual assault should be provided every facility including immediate medico-legal care.
• “It has been noticed that the attitude of the police to sex workers is often brutal and violent. It is as if they are a class whose rights are not recognised,” the court said, calling for sensitisation.
• The court said media should take “utmost care not to reveal the identities of sex workers, during arrest, raid and rescue operations, whether as victims or accused and not to publish or telecast any photos that would result in disclosure of such identities”.
• Voyeurism is a criminal offence, the court reminded.
• Measures taken by sex workers, like the use of condom, should not be construed by the police as evidence of their “offence”.
• The Centre and States must involve sex workers or their representatives to reform laws, the court suggested.