Who is the Head of Chandrayaan-3 Project?
India’s third mission to the moon, the Chandrayaan-3, got a boost when Mr. P. Veeramuthuvel from Villupuram (Tamil Nadu) was appointed as the Project Director of the mission, which is likely to take flight by the end of 2020 or early 2021.
Mr. Veeramuthuvel, 41, will shoulder the responsibility of building a new rover and lander for the Chandrayaan-3 project of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). He replaced Ms. M. Vanitha, the Project Director of Chandrayaan-2, which failed to soft land on the moon.
Having joined ISRO in 2014, Mr. Veeramuthuvel will head the mission’s project management team, which will, as of December 2019, have 29 deputy directors for various aspects of the mission including landing on the moon.
Earlier, Mr. Veeramuthuvel was serving as Deputy Director in the Space Infrastructure Programme Office at the ISRO headquarters. Known for his technical acumen, he was the point of contact for ISRO while holding negotiations with NASA for cooperation on the Chandrayaan-2 mission.
Mr. Veeramuthuvel had his schooling in the railway school at Villupuram and did a diploma in mechanical engineering in a private polytechnic college. Then he completed his post-graduation at another private engineering college and joined IIT Madras for a PhD.
ISRO had faltered in Chandrayaan-2 mission in the last mile on September 7, 2019 when the Vikram Lander attempted a historic soft-landing on the uncharted moon’s South Pole.
How Section 144 CrPC Works ?
Section 144 CrPC empowers a District Magistrate, a Sub-Divisional Magistrate or any other Executive Magistrate specially empowered by the state government to issue orders to prevent and address urgent cases of ‘apprehended danger’ or ‘nuisance’.
Though the assembly of three or more people is prohibited under Section 144, the Section can be used to restrict even a single individual. The magistrate has to pass a written order directed against a particular individual, or persons residing in a particular place or area, or to the general public when visiting a particular place. In emergency cases, the order can be passed without prior notice to the individuals, against whom it is directed. Also, any person can be directed by the magistrate to abstain from a certain act or to take a certain order with respect to certain property in his possession or under his management. There is, however, a provision for a revision application to the magistrate. The aggrieved individual can also approach a High Court if his fundamental rights are at stake.
The provision for suspending telecommunication services includes interception of messages in the “interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India”. Section 144 is a useful tool to deal with emergencies. However, it gives almost unbridled powers to executive officers.
Orders under Section 144 can remain in force up to two months unless extended, but the extension cannot go beyond six months.
Why is unification of railway services needed ?
The Union Government has decided to merge eight different services of Indian Railways by restructuring
the current Railway Board on the lines of a company board. The decision will also lead to creation of a unified Indian Railways Management Service. The number of Railway Board members will reduce from the current eight to four, namely, (i) Finance, (ii) Operations and Business Management, (iii) Infrastructure, and (iv) Rolling Stock.
The need for this change was being felt for long, but it came into focus when Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi in October 2019 observed that there was rivalry among different cadres which specifically resulted in delaying the launch of the project ‘Train 18’. It was reported that infighting between electrical and mechanical cadres was responsible for the delay.
Unification of railway services was strongly recommended by four major railway reforms panels, namely, Prakash Tandon Committee (1994), Rakesh Mohan Committee (2001), Sam Pitroda Committee (2012), and Bibek Debroy Committee (2015). According to Railway Minister Mr. Piyush Goyal, this unification will “promote smooth working of the Railways, expedite decision-making, create a cohesive vision for organisation and promote rational decision-making.”
How vehicle emissions can be converted into useful energy ?
A significant chunk of carbon dioxide emissions come from the transportation sector. Researchers at EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, have developed a new technology that can reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from vehicles that use conventional fuel and convert it into useful energy. It is estimated that about 90% of the entire CO2 emissions from vehicles can be captured. Special absorbent materials developed at EPFL separate out cabon dioxide from other gases like nitrogen and oxygen. The heat from the vehicle’s engine is used to compress the carbon dioxide and turn it into liquid by high speed turbo compressors specially developed for this purpose. The liquid is stored in a tank for conversion into conventional fuel after removal of the water. The entire process is carried out inside a capsule kept in the vehicle itself. The weight of the capsule and the tank is merely about 7% of the entire weight of the vehicle.
The liquid carbon dioxide stored in the tank has to be delivered to the service station from where the fuel is purchased. It has been shown that a vehicle using 1kg of conventional fuel may produce about 3 kg of liquid CO2. The liquid CO2 is used as an important cryogenic cooling agent.
Why Data Protection is a matter of debate ?
There is currently a debate on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, which was tabled in Parliament on December 11, 2019. Cyber data is usually the information about the messages, social media posts, online transactions, browser services and online habits of people. The cyber data have not only become an important source of profit but also the potential avenue for invasion of privacy because it can reveal extremely personal aspects of people. Companies, governments and political parties can use it in various ways for their benefit.
To be made useful, data is processed by agencies and individuals, and it often changes hands. Thus, through this Bill, misuse is sought to be prevented by regulating who processes the data and where. The Bill requires individual consent for ordinary data transfer abroad. The sensitive data related to financial, health, sexual orientation, biometric, caste, religious belief, etc., will need to be stored compulsorily in India (data localisation). The data handling agencies will be required to give the government any non-personal data when demanded. Such data may relate to traffic patterns, demographic information, etc.
The government says that localisation will help law-enforcement by accessing the data for investigations, surveillance and against foreign attacks. This will prevent instances like the one in which WhatsApp accounts of some Indians were hacked by an Israeli software, Pegasus. Though many domestic companies support localisation, drawing parallel from China and Russia, some civil society groups as well as Facebook and Google hold that government access cannot be achieved by localisation, because even with locally stored data, the encryption key may still be out of reach of the national agencies.
The debate emanates from around the notion that through the Bill, the Government is not only seeking to access data but also collect it and then exploit it. The Bill is now being analysed by a Joint Parliamentary Committee in consultation with various groups.
Where in the world are the best counter-terrorism policies in place?
Terrorism poses grave threat to a host of countries, many of whom have or are bearing the brunt of this menace in the form of large scale death and destruction. However, there are still some countries who have vastly kept this threat at bay—thanks to their proactive, all-encompassing and responsive counter-terror policies. These are the UK and France in Europe, the USA and Canada on the American continent, and Singapore and Australia in the far east. Their multi-faceted and multi-pronged strategies include : (i) intelligence-led policing, supported by information from classified and open sources, (ii) strong focus on involvement of communities, (iii) instituting accountability for monitoring and controlling in state executive agencies, (iv) regular contact with the public, spreading awareness, (v) exposing the militant ideology and propaganda, and (vi) developing effective agency coordination. Such anti-terror strategies of these countries emanate from strong legislations for their respective enforcement agencies to monitor, identify, block and remove any malignant information that poses threat to national
security. The respective monitoring agencies need to be independent for justified action against extremist electronic propaganda without undermining the freedom of expression and net neutrality. Agencies need to develop counter-messages and campaigns against terrorists, promote awareness among general public and apply filtering tools and algorithms to track down digital interventions of radical nature