GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

The 169th birth anniversary celebrations of Sree Narayana Guru has recently commenced at Chempazhanthy in Thiruvananthapuram.

• Sree Narayana Guru was born on 22nd August, 1856 to Madan Asan in a village near Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
• His family belonged to the Ezhava caste and was considered ‘avarna’ according to the social mores of the time.
• Right from his childhood he loved solitude and always indulged himself in deep contemplation.
• He was intensely drawn to worship at the local temples and composed hymns and several devotional songs.
• From an early age, he was drawn towards asceticism. He lived as a hermit in a forest for eight years.
• He learned Vedas, Upanishads, literature, logical rhetoric of Sanskrit, Hatha Yoga and other philosophies.
• In 1903, he established the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), a charitable society as the founder and president.
• The organisation continues to mark its strong presence to this day.
• In 1924, the Sivagiri pilgrimage was established to promote the virtues of cleanliness, education, devotion, agriculture, handicrafts, and trade.
• Philosophy of Sree Narayana Guru: He became one of the greatest proponents and re-evaluators of Advaita Vedanta, the principle of non-duality put forward by Adi Shankara.
• He also has many contributions during freedom struggle of India.
• He died on 20th September, 1928 and the day is observed as Sree Narayana Guru Samadhi in Kerala.

Important Works:

• Against Caste Injustice: He gave the famous slogan “One Caste, One Religion, One God for All” (Oru Jathi, Oru Matham, Oru Daivam, Manushyanu).
• In 1888, he built a temple dedicated to Lord Shiva at Aruvippuram which was against the caste-based restrictions of the time.
• In one temple he consecrated at Kalavancode, he kept mirrors instead of idols. This symbolised his message that the divine was within each individual.
• Against Conversions: He taught equality but felt the inequalities should not be exploited to carry out conversions and therefore generate strife in society.
• He organized an All-Region Conference in 1923 at Alwaye Advaita Ashram, which was reported to be the first such event in India.
• This was an effort to counter the religious conversions Ezhava community was susceptible to.
• Contribution to National Movement: A remarkable social reformer, he was in the forefront of the movement for universal temple entry and against the societal ills like the social discrimination of untouchables.
• Impetus for Vaikom Agitation: He provided the impetus for Vaikom agitation which was aimed at temple entry in Travancore for the lower castes. It drew nationwide attention and appreciation from Mahatma Gandhi.
• Unity through his Poems: He captured the essence of Indianness in his poems which highlighted the unity that lies beneath the world’s apparent diversity.

World Sanskrit Day, also referred to as International Sanskrit Day, Sanskrit Diwas and Vishwa Samskrita Dinam is observed on the day of Shravana Poornima, i.e. 31st August 2023 this year.

• World Sanskrit Day has a history that can be traced back, to 1969.
• It was during this year that the Indian Government decided to honor and celebrate the contributions of Panini, a figure, in the realm of Sanskrit language and linguistics.
• The declaration was made to commemorate Paninis work on the occasion of his birth anniversary. Since then this special day has been.
  
  

About the day:

• The purpose of this day is to raise awareness and promote Sanskrit, one of India’s oldest languages.
• Sanskrit holds importance as it serves as the foundation, for classical texts in disciplines such, as Literature, Philosophy, Mathematics and Science.
• Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages in the world, and it is considered to be the mother of all Indo-Aryan languages.
• It is a highly inflected language, with a complex system of grammar and morphology.

Significance of World Sanskrit Day

• To promote the ancient language Sanskrit, and highlight its historical, cultural, and intellectual value.
• World Sanskrit Day acknowledges the contribution of Sanskrit language in different fields like Literature, Science, Philosophy, and more.
• Currently, Sanskrit is not widely spoken in India. The purpose of World Sanskrit Day is to encourage people to study and use Sanskrit language.
• World Sanskrit Day focuses on highlighting the linguistic, literary, and cultural aspects of Sanskrit on a global level.

Recently, the third unit of the indigenously developed 700-megawatt electric (MWe) nuclear power reactor at the Kakrapar Atomic Power Project (KAPP3) in Tapi district of Gujarat has commenced operations at full capacity.

• The foundation of KAPP-3 happened in November 2010 and this unit was originally expected to be commissioned in 2015.
• State-owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) is responsible for construction and management of the plant.
• The reactor at the Kakrapar Atomic Power Project (KAPP) had started commercial operations on June 30 but was operating at 90 per cent of its capacity till now.

• KAPP-3 is the country’s first and the biggest indigenously developed variant of the Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR).
• A PHWR is a nuclear power reactor, commonly using unenriched natural uranium as its fuel that uses heavy water (deuterium oxide D2O) as its coolant and moderator.
• PHWR technology was started in India in the late 1960s with the construction of the first 220 MWe reactors, Rajasthan Atomic Power Station (RAPS-1).
• Significance:
• The new 700MWe unit addresses the excess thermal margins (thermal margin refers to the extent to which the operating temperature of the reactor is below its maximum operating temperature) — and also marks an improvement in the economies-of-scale, without significant design changes to the 540 MWe reactor.

The genetic mapping of almost the entire kakapo population has discovered some specific traits that will help conservation biologists in their efforts to save these parrot species.

• Kakapo, also called owl parrot, is a giant flightless nocturnal parrot of New Zealand.
• With a face like an owl, a posture like a penguin, and a walk like a duck, the extraordinarily tame and gentle kakapo is one of strangest and rarest birds on Earth.
• They only breed every few years, triggered by the availability of certain forest foods such as the fruits of the native rimu tree.
• They also have very little wings. So, Kakapo is flightless.
• These birds evolved to be flightless by filling a specific ecological niche on an island with no predators.

Threats to their population:

• kakapo suffer from diseases such as the fungal infection aspergillosis.
• There eggs are also infertile, due to less breeding.

Conservation status:

• The kakapo is critically endangered.

The Rimu fruit (Dacrydium cupressinum):

• The mature Rimu tree towers over the canopy with its weeping leaves and shedding bark.
• Rimu plays an integral role in the mating cycle of the kakapo.
• The periodic mast-seeding of Rimu every couple of years helps synchronise kakapo mating efforts.
• Unripe Rimu fruit acts as ‘kakapo viagra’ stimulating birds of both sexes into breeding, whereas the ripe fruit contains the perfect combination of nutrients and energy for growing chicks.

Polity and Governance  

Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)

After Hindenburg, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has again made allegations of stock manipulation against the Adani Group.

About the Organization:

• The OCCRP network first opened an office in Sarajevo.
• Over the years, the OCCRP has grown from six journalists working in five countries to more than 150 journalists in 30 countries.
• The idea is to have a global network of journalists with easy communication and information-sharing so that global networks of corruption and crime can be better understood and exposed.
• The OCCRP also collaborates with regional partners, including Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), Centro Latino Americano de Investigacion Periodistica (CLIP), and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). It is a member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network as well.
• The organisation has been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for its work “contributing to peace by unmasking political corruption and organized crime”.

Economy

International Finance Corporation

• Oncologist Ravi Kannan, a recipient of India’s fourth-highest civilian award Padma Shri and the director of Assam’s Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (CCHRC), has been named one of the four winners of the 2023 Ramon Magsaysay Award.
• Ravi Kannan’s contribution:
  • He got this award for Strong devotion to his medical profession, focusing on what medicine is truly for: pro-health and people-centred treatment.
• About the award:
  • The Ramon Magsaysay Award is often called the 'Nobel Prize of Asia'.
  • This year, in the ceremony's 65th edition, four Asians were given the Ramon Magsaysay Award.
• The award carries a certificate, a medallion bearing the likeness of the late President, and a cash prize of USD 50,000.
  
  

Concept in News

Backward evolution

The Ulas family in Turkey's Hatay has baffled scientists for quite a long time because some of its members walk on using all hands and legs. Turkish scientists have called the family as proof of 'backward evolution'.

What is backward evolution?

• Devolution, de-evolution, or backward evolution is the notion that species can revert to supposedly more primitive forms over time.
• One of the examples of this is Penguins, as their ancestors were able to fly, but they lost that ability quickly after the demise of the large dinosaurs.
• Research shows that, the increased evolution of selfless traits -- such as sharing food and keeping watch for one another -- is mathematically equivalent to the decreased evolution of individually beneficial traits.