Super-Massive Black-Hole (SMBH) , Decarbonising Transport: Low-CO2 Mobility for India, “Bharat: A Cultural Treasure”, Ionospheric Irregularities detect by Scientists, “India as a Yoga Destination”
1. Super-Massive Black-Hole (SMBH) can provide clue to emission mechanism from its close vicinity
- Through 153 nights, 17 scientists from 9 countries in Europe and Asia including researchers from Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital, an autonomous institution of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India took 2263 image frames and observed the changes in a very high energy gamma-ray emitting blazar ‘1ES 0806+524’ using seven optical telescopes in Europe and Asia.
- The team studied in great details 1ES 0806+524’ flux, color, and spectral index variations within a day and long timescales of the blazer and explained the mechanism behind the variations.
- A blazar is a feeding super-massive black-hole (SMBH) in the heart of a distant galaxy that produces a high-energy jet viewed face-on from Earth.
- Blazars are one of the most luminous and energetic objects in the known universe with a jet composed of ionized matter traveling at nearly the speed of light directed very nearly towards an observer.
- They explained the large flares as the result of propagation of a shock in the relativistic jet that accelerates electrons to high energies followed by subsequent cooling. According to their study, the small amplitude changes can be understood to arise from small variations in the viewing angle, and hence in the Doppler factor, caused by either wiggling or helical jets or the motion of the most intense emitting region on a roughly helical trajectory within the jet.
- Variations on intra-day timescales can be explained by the turbulence expected in a relativistic plasma jet according to the study.
- In this age of multi-wavelength (MW) time-domain astronomy in which the transient astronomical sources are of great interest due to their rapid change in flux and polarization.
- Simultaneous MW observation of a particular transient source on an extended period of time is important for understanding the emission mechanism in different electromagnetic (EM) bands.
- Blazars are among one of the most favourite astronomical transient objects because they emit radiation in the complete EM spectrum, and their flux and polarisation are highly variable.
- A blazar is a feeding super-massive black-hole (SMBH) in the heart of a distant galaxy that produces a high-energy jet viewed face-on from Earth.
Black Hole:
- A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out.
- The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space.
- This can happen when a star is dying.
- Black holes can be big or small.
- Scientists think the smallest black holes are as small as just one atom.
- These black holes are very tiny but have the mass of a large mountain.
- Mass is the amount of matter, or “stuff,” in an object.
- Another kind of black hole is called “stellar.” Its mass can be up to 20 times more than the mass of the sun. There may be many, many stellar mass black holes in Earth’s galaxy. Earth’s galaxy is called the Milky Way.
- The largest black holes are called “supermassive.
- Stellar black holes are made when the center of a very big star falls in upon itself, or collapses.
- When this happens, it causes a supernova.
- A supernova is an exploding star that blasts part of the star into space.
2. Decarbonising Transport: International Project to Develop Pathway to Low-CO2 Mobility for India
- NITI Aayog in collaboration with International Transport Forum (ITF) will launch the “Decarbonising Transport in India” project on 24 June, with the intention to develop a pathway towards a low-carbon transport system for India.
- India has been a member of ITF, an intergovernmental organisation for transport policy, since 2008.
- The “Decarbonising Transport in India” project will design a tailor-made transport emissions assessment framework for India.
- It will provide the government with a detailed understanding of current and future transport activity and the related CO2 emissions as a basis for their decision-making.
- What: Launch of “Decarbonising Transport in India”
- The India project is carried out in the wider context of the International Transport Forum’s “Decarbonising Transport” initiative.
- It is part of the “Decarbonising Transport in Emerging Economies” (DTEE) family of projects, which supports transport decarbonisation across different world regions.
- India, Argentina, Azerbaijan, and Morocco are current participants. The DTEE is a collaboration between the ITF and the Wuppertal Institute, supported by the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.
3. "Bharat: A Cultural Treasure" under the Dekho Apna Desh series conversation with Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev
- Sadhguru is a helicopter pilot himself and belongs to the aviation family.
- The madness of flying came to him at an early age and once he had also built himself a hang glider.
- His fascination for birds drives his excitement of flying.
- Sadhguru was of the opinion that India should utilise helicopters more extensively so that the diverse terrains of India such as the Western Ghats, Himalayas, northeast, etc are made accessible to a greater number of tourists.
- He suggested that one must definitely visit the Himalayan and Western Ghats ranges if the terrains interests them and if one wants to acquire spiritual awakening there are multiple spiritual destinations that offers just that which is not available anywhere in the world. Tourism in India needs to be exploited in its right sense, is what the visionary believes.
- Despite such an honourable perception, the workforce of women in the Indian hospitality industry comprises just of 12%.
- Increasing the percentage of women workforce in hospitality industry needs a lot of cultural and economic changes, family situations, how we look at child bearing, etc that are deeply embedded in our culture and might take a long time to change, but surely things are changing with time and hopefully an increase in the percentage will be seen in the near future.
- He quoted that villages are the heartland of India and we’ve known from our textbooks that agriculture, farming and villages are the heart and soul of our country.
- The current situation and the pandemic have made it possible for us to understand the value of rural treasures of our country and encouraging us to take a massive step towards Dekho Apna Desh i.e. seeing our own country.
- He went on to understand Sadhguru’s opinion on how we can create a sustainable tourism movement bringing in opportunities for the farmers and tourists to go see the local villages and to inspire a tourism movement in such places while preserving the aesthetics and identities of such places.
- Comes from our education system that lacks the fundamentals of how to manage our thoughts and chemical reactions of our mind.
- Yogic system has an elaborate system to create the right chemistry of our body and mind.
- Yoga helps one to achieve a blissful chemistry which helps to control our external situation that can frequently fluctuate.
- Only when one does not have a fear of suffering one will be able to live the depth and dimensions of life.
- If you want to unleash human geniuses you must be free from the fear of suffering.
- The Dekho Apna Desh Webinar series, launched on 14th April 2020, till date has conducted 34 sessions showcasing the varied tourism products and experiences that India offers across the country.
- The National e-Governance Division (NeGD) created by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) has been playing a pivotal role in supporting the Ministry in conducting of the Dekho Apna Desh Webinars by providing technical assistance directly with a professional team thereby ensuring effective citizen engagement and communication with all stakeholders using the digital experience platform.
4. Ionospheric Irregularities detect by Scientists
- The Earth’s magnetic field lines are nearly horizontal over magnetic equator due to which equatorial ionosphere is a bed for a variety of plasma instabilities to cause plasma disturbances and plasma irregularities.
- These plasma irregularities pose severe problems to the communication and navigation systems and interfere with surveillance operations as well as disruption in detection and tracking of aircraft, missiles, and satellites.
- A multi-instrument based ionospheric study of space weather storms over India by the Scientists from the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG) an autonomous institute under the Department of Science & Technology (DST) have found that the occurrence of equatorial spread F (ESF) irregularities and GPS scintillations are significantly affected by the geomagnetic storms depending upon the time of the onset of the geomagnetic storm.
- The Equatorial Spread-F (ESF) caused due to the F region plasma irregularities is a complex phenomenon encompassing a wide range of scale sizes of irregularities in electron and ion densities as well as in electric fields.
- They also produce ionospheric scintillations in VHF and GPS receivers when radio wave traverses through the ionosphere.
- Also, during geomagnetic storms, partial enhancement in pre reversal enhancement (PRE) (an eastward electric field enhancement before turning the westward near the sunset hours in the equatorial ionosphere) in the zonal eastward electric field occurs during post-sunset resulting in around 30% increase in spread F instead of total inhibition during equinox and winter seasons.
- The PRE is believed to be produced by F region dynamo, where it causes F region of the ionosphere to rise to very high altitude due to sudden increase of the eastward electric field.
- The researchers observed pre-sunrise height enhancement mostly during winter, which caused ESF to occur at around 50%, followed by equinox and summer.
- Understanding the thermosphere‐ionosphere-magnetosphere interactions that control the electrodynamics behind dynamical evolution of ionospheric irregularities under disturbed periods like geomagnetic storms is most important in developing and maintaining communication and navigation systems.
- The scientists observed remarkable increase of virtual height of the ionosphere to as high as 560 km over magnetic equator with vertical drift of 70 m/sec due to strong eastward direct penetration electric field which caused intense Equatorial spread F (ESF) irregularities in ionosondes and L-band scintillations in the GPS receivers across Indian region on 17th March.
- Nocturnal thermospheric meridional winds, as estimated through the study using two ionosondes during this storm night, suggested the equatorward surge of gravity waves in a period of 2 hrs.
- The suppression of anomaly crest over Indian longitude on the next day of the storm is linked to the westward disturbance dynamo electric fields and disturbance wind effects.
- Besides, the scientists also found that enhanced winds during geomagnetic storms can either add or suppress the existing ion densities to produce either positive or negative stormsthat modify the electrodynamics of the ionosphere, thereby influencing navigation and communication that form a crucial part of our lives.
5. Ministry of Tourism presents 35th webinar titled 'India as a Yoga Destination' under Dekho Apna Deshwebinar series
- To showcase the fruitful benefits about our country’s ancient form of health science- Yoga and the potential of it as a tourism product, Ministry of Tourism presented a webinar on ‘India as a Yoga Destination’under Dekho Apna Desh webinar series.
- The webinar on the International Day of Yoga highlighted the current yoga landscape and how it can be leveraged to broad base and scale up tourism in India.Dekho Apna Desh Webinar Series is an effort to showcase India’s rich diversity under Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat.
- The date of 21 June to be recognized and celebrated as International Day of Yoga, as it is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and shares a special significance in many parts of the world.
- Therefore, the first International Day of Yoga is celebrated on 21st June, 2015 and since then our ancient and ancestral gift- Yoga has claimed global recognition.
- The theme for this year’s ‘International Day of Yoga is Yoga at home, Yoga with family’ considering the adverse effects of pandemic.
- Yoga is not just a physical exercise, it is a holistic approach to health and well-being which unveils the full potential of human beings.
- Yoga has four dimensions to a being that is physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.
- There are certain misconceptions about the physical dimension of yoga that it is a very gentle exercise and it can’t help in reducing body weight and keeping it in shape.
- These misconceptions are justified by Achal as he states that Yoga tests your body into three aspects- strength, balance and endurance.
- One can loose 300gm of his body weight in a session of Surya Namaskar for one hour.
- The ultimate objective of yoga exercises is to increase the energy levels.
- For example, Anulom-Vilom performed by contraction and expansion of breadth helps in increasing the energy level of lungs.
- Apart from increasing the energy levels, the yoga exercises and postures also helps in keeping the mind quiet and still.
- India has great mystics of Yoga like Patanjali which has stated some yoga sutras for keeping the mind still and quiet like ‘Stirsukham Asana’ which means stillness in body posture for a longer time to influence mind.
- It works behind the scientific principle of whatever happens to the body will also happens to the mind.
- If the body will be still then the mind will also become still. Another one is ‘Anant Sampati Brahma’ which means dropping your ego.
- It states that yoga is not about the physical limits, instead its about breathing in a certain posture for a longer time and deep breadth comes from the quietness of the mind.
- Coming to the yoga and wellness experiences in amalgamation to a destination, India has a large reservoir of ancient wisdom like yoga schools and institutes.
- There are two main branches of yoga schools in our country- Ashtangayoga and Hatha yoga.
- There are certain famous institutes in Rishikesh, Yoga Dharamshala in Goa, Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga in Delhi and many other premier knowledge centres spread across the nation. Apart from the institutes, our country has a lot of potential to provide yoga and wellness experiences. Khajurao, Pondicherry, Rajasthan and Sikkim are few states which are organic and close to culture and nature.
- Therefore, more yoga institutes and wellness centres should be developed in these locations to boost the wealth of wellness tourism in India.
- The benefits of yoga have been realized by the west first and in the present times they have a more organized structure in the wellness field but our country has realized the importance of its own culture of yoga and are working to make this sector more organized.
- This shows that our ancient wealth is being recognized on international level. So, we as the natives of our country should deep dig into our ancient culture and tradition of Yoga and wellness which could help us in attaining a better health and also in bringing a change in the tourism industry and its products after this pandemic.
- The National e-Governance Division (NeGD) created by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) has been playing a pivotal role in supporting the Ministry in conducting of the Dekho Apna Desh Webinars by providing technical assistance directly with a professional team thereby ensuring effective citizen engagement and communication with all stakeholders using the digital experience platform.
