UPSC News Diary Today: 07-10-2022

Table of Contents

‘UPSC News Diary Today” is every day published in the evening between 6-7 PM and contains all current affairs articles from the day on a single platform. ”UPSC News Diary Today” covers various topics from UPSC Syllabus and is very helpful and time managing for UPSC Aspirants. The framing of this daily current affairs compilation article is easy to read and understandable also.

In the ”UPSC News Diary Today” article, we focus on both UPSC Preliminary and Mains exam-oriented current affairs & prepare a gist of daily important news articles from leading National Newspapers, PIB, and other various official sources.

Sirimanotsavam

Why in news?

Vizianagaram in Andhra Pradesh is gearing up for the annual Sirimanotsavam, which will be held on October 11.

Key Points

It is a major festival of the presiding deity of Vizianagaram town Sri Pydithalli Ammavari Jatara.
Traditionally, Sirimanotsavam Jatara is celebrated on the first Tuesday after the Dussehra festival every year.
This annual fete is also known as Sirimanu Panduga.
Devotees witness the spectacle of the priest sitting atop a long pole (made of a tree trunk, Sirimanu) in regal robes which is taken around the Fort in Vizianagaram. The priest blesses devotees, and the chariot covers the thoroughfares of Vizianagaram.
The major tribal- folk Festival in North coastal Andhra Pradesh remained a low-key affair in the past two years due to Covid- 19.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2022

Why in news?

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has gone to Sweden’s Svante Paabo for his work on human evolution.

What Prof Paabo did?

In the 1990s, research on working out the human genetic code was taking place at pace. But that relied on fresh samples of pristine DNA.
Prof Paabo’s interest was in the old, degraded and contaminated genetic material from our ancestors. Many thought it was an impossible challenge. But he was, for the first time, able to sequence DNA from a 40,000-year-old piece of bone.
Those results showed that Neanderthals – who mostly lived in Europe and Western Asia – were distinct from both modern-day humans and chimpanzees.
His work focused on hominins – the group of modern humans that includes us, Homo sapiens, but also our extinct relatives.
”By revealing genetic differences that distinguish all living humans from extinct hominins, his discoveries provide the basis for exploring what makes us uniquely human”, the Nobel committee said.

Meghnad Saha

Why in news?

Yesterday (October 06, 2022) was the birth anniversary of Sri Meghnad Saha.

Key Achievements

Meghnad Saha (6 October 1893 – 16 February 1956) was a pioneer in Astrophysics in India. He made a remarkable contribution to the field of Astrophysics.
His study of the thermal ionisation of elements led him to formulate what is known as the Saha equation. This equation is one of the basic tools for the interpretation of the spectra of stars in astrophysics.
By studying the spectra of various stars, one can find their temperature and from that, using Saha’s equation, determine the ionisation state of the various elements making up the star.
He also invented an instrument to measure the weight and pressure of solar rays and contributed to the construction of several scientific institutions, including Allahabad University’s Physics Department and the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Calcutta.
He founded the journal Science and Culture and served as its editor until his death.
He was the driving force behind the formation of several scientific societies, including the National Academy of Science (1930), the Indian Physical Society (1934), and the Indian Institute of Science (1935). During 1953-1956, he was the Director of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. The Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, founded in 1943 in Kolkata, is named after him.
Saha was an active parliament member in education, refugee and rehabilitation, atomic energy, multipurpose river projects and flood control, and long-term planning.
He was India’s chief architect of river planning, and he created the original Damodar Valley Project plan.
It was Saha who first started the teaching and training in nuclear physics in the country.
The first cyclotron in the country was built with Saha’s initiatives.

Nobel Prize in Literature 2022

Nobel Prize in Literature 2022- Relevance for UPSC Exam

GS Paper 2: Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, Literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.

Nobel Prize in Literature 2022 in News

Nobel Prize in Literature 2022 was awarded to French author Annie Ernaux, known for her deceptively simple novels drawing on personal experience of class and gender.
Nobel Prize in Literature 2022 was awarded to Ernaux “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory”.

Who is Annie Ernaux?

Annie Ernaux is a French national. Annie Ernaux is 82 years old. Ernaux was born in 1940 and grew up in a working-class Catholic family in Yvetot, a small town in Normandy where her parents had a grocery store and cafe.
She has authored more than 20 books, many of which have been school texts in France for decades.
Her writings offer one of the most subtle, insightful windows into the social life of modern France.
Personal experiences are the source for all of Ms. Ernaux’s work and she is the pioneer of France’s “autofiction” genre, which gives narrative form to real-life experience.
The experiences she wrote about in the 1980s and 1990s- an unwanted pregnancy and abortion, her love affairs, her ambivalence about marriage and motherhood- were considered shocking by some social conservatives, but resonated deeply with a broad readership.

Nobel Prize in Literature

The prestigious international Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded annually for outstanding work in literature.
Nobel Prize in Literature was first given in 1901 by members of Swedish learned societies.
- It was first won by Sully Prudhomme, “in special recognition of his poetic composition, which gives evidence of lofty idealism, artistic perfection and a rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect”.
Interestingly, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded 114 times to 118 Nobel Prize laureates between 1901 and 2021 for an entire body of work and not just one work.

List of Previous Nobel Prize in Literature Winners

Nobel Prize in Literature 2021: It was awarded to Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”.
Nobel Prize in Literature 2020: American poet Louise Gluck won the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature.
- According to the jury, Louise Glück won it “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”.
Nobel Prize in Literature 2019: he Nobel Prize in Literature 2019 was awarded to Peter Handke “for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience”.
Nobel Prize in Literature 2018: It was awarded to Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk “for a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life”.
Nobel Prize in Literature 2017: It was won by Japanese-American writer Kazuo Ishiguro.
- Jury said that his works have come to be a “great emotional force, and has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world”.
Nobel Prize in Literature 2016: It was awarded to American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.
Nobel Prize in Literature 2015: Svetlana Alexievich won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”
Nobel Prize in Literature 2014: It was awarded to Patrick Modiano “for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation”
Nobel Prize in Literature 2013: it was won by Alice Munro. The jury statement noted that she is the “master of the contemporary short story”.
Nobel Prize in Literature 2012: Chinese writer Mo Yan won The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012. According to the Swedish Academy, the writer “with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary”.

Medicine Nobel for Work on Human Evolution

International Year of Millets 2023

International Year of Millets 2023- Relevance for UPSC Exam

GS Paper 2: International Relations- Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

International Year of Millets 2023 in News

Recently, a MoU was signed between the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and the NAFED in New Delhi to boost the initiative visioned by the Prime Minister to promote Millets towards celebration of the International Year of Millets 2023.
Both organizations will work together for the promotion and marketing of millet-based products, keeping in view the initiative of “International Year of Millets (IYOM)-2023”.

International Year of Millets 2023

About: International Year of Millets 2023 was proposed by the Government of India to the United Nations, which is to be celebrated across the world.
- The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) approved India’s proposal in 2018 and the United Nations General Assembly has declared the year 2023 as the International Year of Millets.
- The International Year of Millets 2023 was adopted by a United Nations Resolution for which India took the lead and was supported by over 70 nations.
Objective: The International Year of Millets 2023 aims to promote millets as a key component of the food basket. The International Year of Millets stands to provide a unique opportunity-
- To increase global production,
- Ensure efficient processing and consumption,
- Promote a better utilization of crop rotations, and
- Encourage better connectivity throughout food systems
Significance: The International Year will-
- Elevate awareness of the contribution of millets for food security and nutrition
- Inspire stakeholders on improving sustainable production and quality of millets; and
- Draw focus for enhanced investment in research and development and extension services to achieve the other two aims.

Benefits of Millets

Due to its ability to be easily preserved for a long time even under ordinary conditions, coarse grain is considered a storehouse in times of famine.
Millets have been among the oldest eatables in the country. It is a crop grown from small seeds which can be grown well in dry areas or even on lands with deficient and low fertility thus is known as the superfood of India.
Due to their short growing season, millets can develop from seeds to ready-to-harvest crops in just about 65 days and this characteristic of the millets is of vital importance in thickly populated regions of the world. If stored properly, millets can keep well for two years or beyond.
There is a need to mainstream millets to improve India’s nutrition outcomes.
The major millets producing states in India include Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

Nutritional benefit of millets

They are rich in minerals and B-complex vitamins, as well as proteins and antioxidants, making them an ideal choice for improving the nutritional outcome of children.
However, despite such benefits, consumption of millets remains low due to lack of awareness and availability.
As per National Family Health Survey-IV, 38 per cent of children under five years of age are stunted and 59 per cent of children are suffering from anaemia.
Among one of the series of initiatives, to reduce malnutrition and anaemia, the Government is laying emphasis on consumption of millets.
NITI Aayog has also been advocating the need to introduce millets in the mid-day meal programme, moving away from rice and wheat.
Moreover, in 2019, NITI Aayog had released a report showing the benefits of millets based on a study among adolescents in four Karnataka schools.

Government steps to increase millets production

Government of India has already revised the guidelines to facilitate the movement of the surplus production of millets to other states.
The provision of inter-state transportation of surplus millets through the Food Corporation of India (FCI) is incorporated to cater for advance demands placed by consuming states before the start of procurement.
India is now the 5th largest exporter of millets globally.
2023 will be the international year of millets that will create value generation and promotion of sustainable products in food choices.

Millets in Mid Day Meal Scheme

Medicine Nobel for Work on Human Evolution

Medicine Nobel for Work on Human Evolution: Relevance for UPSC Exam

General Studies III- Science and Technology

In News

Swedish scientist Svante Paabo won the Nobel Prize in medicine for his discoveries on human evolution that provided key insights into our immune system and what makes us unique compared with our extinct ancestors.

Svante Paabo: His work, explained

Svante Paabo’s seminal discoveries provide the basis for exploring what makes us uniquely human.
Hominins refer to the now-extinct species of apes that are believed to be related to modern humans, as well as modern humans themselves.
Paabo found that gene transfer had occurred from these now extinct Hominins to Homo sapiens following the migration out of Africa around 70,000 years ago.
This ancient flow of genes to present-day humans has physiological relevance today, for example affecting how our immune system reacts to infections.
Paabo established an entirely new scientific discipline, called paleogenomics that focuses on studying the DNA and genetic information of extinct hominins through reconstruction.

What is the relation between evolution and biology?

Paabo’s discoveries have established a unique resource, which is utilized extensively by the scientific community to better understand human evolution and migration.
We now understand that archaic gene sequences from our extinct relatives influence the physiology of present-day humans.

How did Paabo establish the linkage?

Paabo extracted DNA from bone specimens from extinct hominins, from Neanderthal remains in the Denisova caves of Germany.
The bone contained exceptionally well-preserved DNA, which his team sequenced.
It was found that this DNA sequence was unique when compared to all known sequences from Neanderthals and present-day humans.
Comparisons with sequences from contemporary humans from different parts of the world showed that gene flow, or mixing of genetic information among a species, had also occurred between Denisova and Homo sapiens – the species of modern-day humans.
This relationship was first seen in populations in Melanesia (near Australia) and other parts of South East Asia, where individuals carry up to 6% Denisova DNA.
The Denisovan version of the gene EPAS1 confers an advantage for survival at high altitudes and is common among present-day Tibetans.

What are the challenges in carrying out such research?

There are extreme technical challenges because with time DNA becomes chemically modified and degrades into short fragments.
The main issue is that only trace amounts of DNA are left after thousands of years, and exposure to the natural environment leads to contamination with DNA.

Neanderthals were humans like us, but they were a distinct species called Homo Neanderthalensis.
Together with an Asian people known as Denisovans, Neanderthals are our closest ancient human relatives. Scientific evidence suggests our two species shared a common ancestor.
Current evidence from both fossils and DNA suggests that Neanderthal and modern human lineages separated at least 500,000 years ago. Some genetic calibrations place their divergence at about 650,000 years ago.
The best-known Neanderthals lived between about 130,000 and 40,000 years ago, after which all physical evidence of them vanishes.
They evolved in Europe and Asia while modern humans – our species, Homo sapiens – were evolving in Africa.

Global News Forum 2022

Global News Forum 2022- Relevance for UPSC Exam

GS Paper 2: Governance, Administration and Challenges
- Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Global News Forum 2022 in News

Recently, the Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Dr L. Murugan delivered the keynote address at Global News Forum 2022 meeting in New Delhi.
He also said that it is in times of crises television news channels must become prudent and truth and trust must become the maxim to abide by.

Global News Forum 2022

About: Global News Forum 2022 is the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU)’s flagship three days annual NEWS event hosting around 80 foreign participants from the field of Media & Journalism from different broadcasting organizations.
- The Global News Forum was held from 3rd to 5th October 2022.
Theme: Global News Forum 2022 theme is “Truth and trust at times of crisis”.
Key Activities: Discussions are being held on various important broadcasting and journalism related issues prevailing across the globe in relevance to the theme of this year event.
Organizer: The Global News Forum 2022 was organized by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU).

Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU)

About: Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) was established in 1964 as a non-profit, non- governmental, non-political, professional association.
- Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) is currently Headquartered at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Mandate: Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) was established with mandate to assist the development of broadcasting organisations in the region.
Key Role: ABU promotes the collective interests of television and radio broadcasters as well as key industry players and also facilitate regional and international media cooperation for members.
Members: It has over 253 members in over 67 countries in Pacific region, Asia (South east, North, South, Central), Middle East, Europe, North Africa and North America, reaching a potential audience of about 2 billion people.
India and ABU: Doordarshan (DD) & All India Radio (AIR) both are Full Members of ABU.
- All India Radio was a founding member of the ABU in the year 1964 while Doordarshan joined ABU in the year 1976.