UPSC Daily Current Affairs | Prelim Bits 05-01-2021
iasparliament
January 05, 2021
Kolar Leaf-Nosed Bat
Karnataka Forest Department, along with the Bat Conservation India Trust (BCIT), is on a war footing to save these bats from extinction.
The natural habitats of these bats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and caves.
It is endemic to India and is found in only one cave in Karnataka.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) status of this species is Critically Endangered.
Dzukou Forest Fire
A forest fire occurred in Nagaland’s Dzukou range, in which the Dzukou valley (a tourist hot spot) is located.
This valley is located at the border of states of Nagaland and Manipur.
It is a sanctuary for the endangered Blyth's tragopan - Nagaland's State Bird.
It is famous for its wide range of flowers in every season. Rare Dzükou Lily is found only in this valley.
This valley is ‘Valley of flowers’ of the Nagaland State.
Quantum Random Number Generator
It was developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation Young Scientist Laboratory for Quantum Technologies (DYSL-QT).
It has the ability to detect random quantum events and convert them into a stream of binary digits.
DYSL-QT has developed a fiber-optic branch path based Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG).
Branch path-based QRNG relies on the principle that if a single photon falls on a balanced beam splitter, it will take either of the beam-splitter output paths randomly.
As the path chosen by the photon is random, the randomness is translated to a sequence of binary digits, also called bits.
As Quantum mechanics has the potential of providing true random numbers, it has become the preferred option for scientific applications requiring randomness.
QKD Technology
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) technology of the DRDO underwent a successful trial between two laboratories in Hyderabad, where security was validated for a range of 12 km long over a fibre optic channel.
QKD is primarily a mechanism to undertake secure communication, which utilises a cryptographic protocol involving various components of quantum mechanics.
It enables two communicating sides to come up with random secret keys shared by both of them and known exclusively to them.
Only they can use it to encrypt and decrypt messages, thus achieving highly secure communication.
KSTAR
Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) reached an ion temperature of over 100 million degrees Celsius for 20 seconds.
By comparison, the KSTAR was able to achieve a temperature of over 6.6 times more than that of Sun’s (which is, 15 million degrees Celsius).
The newly developed Internal Transport Barrier Mode was crucial to achieve this record-breaking time.
KSTAR, often referred to as South Korea’s artificial sun, is South Korea’s magnetic fusion device.
It is placed at the Korean Institute of Fusion Energy.
It is a part of joint research conducted with Seoul National University and Columbia University of the US.
Lithium Import
India’s state-owned Khanij Bidesh India Ltd., (KABIL) inked a pact with an Argentine firm to jointly prospect lithium in Argentina.
[Lithium is a crucial building block of the lithium-ion rechargeable batteries that power electric vehicles (EVs), laptops and mobile phones.]
Khanij Bidesh India Ltd.
It is a state-owned joint venture company that was set up in 2019.
It was set up by three Central Public Sector Enterprises namely National Aluminium Company Ltd. (NALCO), Hindustan Copper Ltd. (HCL) and Mineral Exploration Company Ltd. (MECL).
The equity participation of these companies is in the ratio of 40:30:30.
KABIL was set up with a specific mandate to acquire strategic mineral assets such as lithium and cobalt abroad.
It will ensure a consistent supply of these minerals to Indian market.
Limiting TFA
Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has capped the amount of Trans Fatty Acids (TFA) in oils and fats to 3% for 2021 and 2% by 2022 from the current permissible limit of 5%.
This was done through an amendment to the Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restriction on Sales) Regulations.
This revised regulation applies to edible refined oils, vanaspati (partially hydrogenated oils), margarine, bakery shortenings, and other media of cooking such as vegetable fat spreads and mixed fat spreads.
It was in 2011 that India first passed a regulation that set a TFA limit of 10% in oils and fats, which was further reduced to 5% in 2015.
Trans fats are associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has called for global elimination of trans fats by 2023. Based on this, FSSAI revised the regulations.
