UPSC Daily Current Affairs | Prelim Bits 28-03-2020

Tribal Lockdown Rituals

• Tribes in Arunachal Pradesh have revived indigenous lockdown rituals to contain the spread of COVID-19.
• It is to be noted that state of Arunachal Pradesh is geographically closest to China’s Hubei province where the COVID-19 outbreak began.
• The tribes which follow self-quarantine are as follows

 Galos Tribe

• The Galos, which are one of the 26 major tribes of Arunachal Pradesh that dominate West Siang district practised the Arr-Rinam ritual.
• The Galo community has been recognized as a Scheduled Tribe in the Amendment to the Constitution (ST), Order, 1950, Part-XVIII.
• Mopin is the main festival in Galos which is celebrated for the prosperity of the villages.
• The Galos perform Popir dance.
• Arr-Rinam is the Galo equivalent of lockdown imposed by consensus for 48 hours whenever an epidemic strikes.
• The Arr-Rinam follows the Ali-Ternam (the word Ali means epidemic and Ternam means forestall) ritual to ward off an epidemic.
• These rituals were last performed almost four decades ago when a water-borne disease had affected many members of the community.
• However, these rituals have been performed periodically for livestock, primarily the semi-wild animal mithun, that are prone to contagious diseases.
• This is for the first time in 30-40 years that the rituals were performed for the safety of humans.
• The Bos or deputy priests performed the Ali-Ternam under the guidance of a Nyibo (shaman).
• The ritual ended with the community leaders sealing five major entry points of the district.

 Adi Tribe

• The Adi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh is believed to have come from southern China in the 16th century.
• They are the Tibeto-Burman language speaking population.
• They reside in the far north inhabiting East Siang and Lower Dibang Valley districts of Arunachal Pradesh.
• The Adis are experts at making cane and bamboo items.
• Solung (harvesting festival where animal sacrifices and rituals are performed) and Aran ( a hunting festival where all the male members of the family go for hunting) are two major festivals of the Adi tribes.
• The Adi community perform lock down ritual called the motor or pator system in the Adi (tribe) dialect.
• This is a customary self-restriction, where the locals lock down several villages by erecting barricades to prevent the entry of outsiders.
• No person is allowed to enter or leave the villages.
• They believe that this ritual lets shamans with legendary powers to locate wild herbs to combat an epidemic.

 Nyishi Tribe

• Nyishi Tribes also called Bangni are the tribal people of eastern Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh (formerly North East Frontier Agency).
• Nyishi is a Scheduled Tribe.
• It is the single largest tribe of Arunachal Pradesh.
• They speak the Tibeto-Burman language of the Sino-Tibetan family.
• The Nyishi support themselves with slash-and-burn agriculture and with hunting and fishing.
• They live together in a longhouse without partitions but with a separate fireplace for each conjugal family.
• Aside from a patrilineal household there is no formal social organization or village government.
• Their religion involves belief in spirits associated with nature.
• In districts such as Papum Pare and East Kameng, the dominant Nyishi community observed Arrue involving self-quarantine.

Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram

• Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK) was launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) in 2014.
• It intends to ensure holistic development of the adolescent population.
• The RKSK programme defines an adolescent as a person within 10-19 years of age, in urban and rural areas, includes both girls and boys, married and unmarried, poor and affluent, whether they are in school or out of school.
• The programme also focuses on reaching out all adolescents including Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ).
• To guide the implementation of this programme, MoHFW in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has developed a National Adolescent Health Strategy.
• The six thematic areas of RKSK as well as that of the strategy are

1. Nutrition,
2. Sexual reproductive health,
3. Substance misuse,
4. Non - communicable diseases,
5. Mental health.
6. Injuries and violence.

• The programme envisages a paradigm shift from the clinic-based services to the promotion and prevention and reaching adolescents in their own environment, such as in schools, families and communities.
• The prime elements of the programme are:

1. Adolescent Friendly Health Clinics (AFHCs) across various levels of public health institutions in all the States.
2. Weekly Iron Folic Acid Supplementation (WIFS) Programme for school going adolescent boys and girls and out of school adolescent girls across the country.
3. Peer Educator Programme in select 200 districts, based on Composite Health Index and identified as High Priority Districts (HPDs).
4. The Menstrual Hygiene Scheme that provides funds to the States/UTs for procurement of sanitary napkins for Adolescent Girls (aged 10-19 years).

ICOIS

• INCOIS is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), headquartered at Hyderabad.
• It is mandated to provide the best possible ocean information and advisory services to society, industry, government agencies and the scientific community through sustained ocean observations and constant improvements through systematic and focused research.
• Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has developed the methodology for the generation of fishery advisories and transfer to Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) since 2002 as an operational service for providing Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) advisories.
• This INCOIS utilizes data on chlorophyll concentration (Chl) obtained from ISRO’s Oceansat-2 satellite and the sea surface temperature from National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA / USA satellites).
• The INCOIS uses these satellite datas to prepare the PFZ advisories on the potential rich fishing areas and provide to the sea faring fishermen in all states.
• PFZ advisories helped fishermen in avoiding the unwanted search for fish shoals, this reduces their fuel consumption.

OceanSat-2

• ISRO’s launched OceanSat-2 in 2009, to provide service continuity for the operational services of Oceansat-1 with enhanced application potential.
• Its main objectives are to study surface winds and ocean surface strata, observation of chlorophyll concentrations, monitoring of phytoplankton blooms, study of atmospheric aerosols and suspended sediments in the water.

Operation Namaste: Indian Army

• The Indian Army has code-named its anti-COVID-19 campaign as Operation Namaste to help the government in its fight against the pandemic.
• Soldiers are advised to follow the lockdown, wherever they do not have any operational role, and stay fit.
• Under the operation soldiers are assured that their families will be well taken care of.

Ilyushin 38 Sea Dragon

• Ilyushin 38 Sea Dragon (IL 38 SD) is a Long Range Maritime Reconnaissance (LRMR) aircraft.
• It is currently in service with the Russian Navy and the Indian Navy.
• These are maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircrafts designed by the Russia-based Ilyushin Aviation Complex.
• In India, these are based at Goa and can be deployed in surveillance, search and rescue, maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare operations.

INS Hansa

• INS Hansa is an Indian naval air station located near Dabolim in Goa.
• It was commissioned in September 1961.
• It serves as the Indian Navy's one of the largest air bases and has grown to become a full-fledged airfield that handles both domestic as well as international flights round the clock.

Source: PIB, Indian Express, the Hindu