Economic revival from the economic recession

Introduction

• After two-quarters of a sharp contraction, India’s economy is estimated to have rebounded out of a ‘technical recession’ to record feeble growth in the October-December 2020 period, with GDP rising by 0.4% and GVA by 1%.

Reboot in production lines

The ‘unlocking phase’ that was largely complete by late September, brought back a semblance of normalcy, with pent-up and festival demand spurring spending, and helping reboot production lines.

• Agriculture sector: Agriculture remained the resilient bulwark in the third quarter as well, with farm GVA rising by 3.9% after being the sole sector to clock growth in the preceding two quarters.
• Manufacturing and construction sector: Manufacturing and construction resurfaced from a collapse to expand 1.2% and 6%, respectively.
  • Both these sectors had been under stress even before the pandemic, posting contractions starting from the second and third quarters of 2019-20.
• Public Spending: Despite the Centre’s push on government spending, public administration, defence and other services contracted 1.5% last quarter.
  • However, investment demand is estimated to have rebounded, with fixed capital formation posting positive momentum after several quarters, driven perhaps by public spending.
• Service Sector: Most worryingly, retail, trade, hotels, transport and communication contracted by 7.7%.

Macroeconomic data

• Wider contraction of GDP in 2021-22: Despite the Q3 uptick, the second advance estimates of national income for the year project an 8% contraction in the GDP, wider than the – 7.7% estimated in January.
  • This may partly be due to the NSO revising the first quarter’s GDP shrinkage to 24.4%, from the 23.9% calculated earlier.
• Real GDP growth: Like the growth rate for 2019-20 was revised from 4.2% to 4% in January, the real GDP growth for the third quarter of the last fiscal has been scaled down to 3.3%, from 4.1%.

Conclusion

• Growth numbers alone may still not be capturing the tumult faced by swathes of informal and micro-enterprises, nor do they reflect a recovery in the job market.
• The continuing stress in employment- and contact-intensive services sectors is a worry, and the government must consider support measures.

Achievements of Indians in S&T

C.V.Raman

• Raman was an Indian physicist who carried out ground-breaking work in the field of light scattering.
• Raman led an experiment with K. S. Krishnan, on the scattering of light, when he discovered what is called the Raman effect.
• It gave proof of the quantum nature of light.
• He won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics “for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the Raman effect”.
• He was the first Asian and first non-white to receive any Nobel Prize in the sciences.
• In 1933, Venkatraman became the first Indian director of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).
• In 1943, he started a company called Travancore Chemical and Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (now known as TCM Limited) which manufactured potassium chlorate for the match industry.
• Raman retired from the IISC in 1948 and established the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore in 1949.
• His works-

Raman Effect: Raman conducted research about light scattering in gases, liquids and solids. When light meets particles that are smaller than the light’s wavelength, the light spreads in different directions. This occurs when photons encounter molecules in a gas.

• In 1928 C.V.Raman discovered that a small portion of the scattered light acquires other wavelengths than that of the original light.
• This is because some of the incoming photons’ energy can be transferred to a molecule, giving it a higher level of energy.
• They observed the effect in gases, crystals and glass. In Raman’s work, the light scattered by liquids was polarized, which Ruled Out the possibility of Fluorescence.

This phenomenon which came to be known as the Raman effect – a colour change accompanied by polarization, had never been seen before.

• The inelastic scattering was a very strong confirmation of the quantum theory.
• Raman Spectroscopy (1929): Raman showed that the energy of photons scattered inelastically serves as a ‘fingerprint’ for the substance the light is scattered from. Raman spectroscopy is now commonly used in chemical laboratories all over the world to identify substances.
• It is also used in medicine to investigate living cells and tissues, even detecting cancers without causing harm.

Meghnad Saha

• He was an Astrophysicist noted for his development in 1920 of the thermal ionization equation.
• This equation has been widely applied to the interpretation of stellar spectra, which are characteristic of the chemical composition of the light source.
• Used to determine either the temperature of the star or the relative abundance of the chemical elements investigated.

Satyendra Nath Bose

• He was a Bengali Indian physicist, specializing in mathematical physics.
• He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, providing the foundation for Bose-Einstein statistics and the theory of the Bose-Einstein condensate.
• Bosons, a class of elementary subatomic particles in particle physics were named after Satyendra Nath Bose to commemorate his contributions to science.
• Although seven Nobel Prizes were awarded for research related to S N Bose’s concepts of the boson, Bose-Einstein statistics and Bose-Einstein condensate, Bose himself was not awarded a Nobel Prize—the latest being the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics, which was given for advancing the theory of Bose-Einstein condensates.
• SN Bose’s work on particle statistics, which clarified the behaviour of photons (the particles of light in an enclosure) and opened the door to new ideas on statistics of Microsystems that obey the rules of quantum theory, was one of the top ten achievements of 20^th century Indian science and could be considered in the Nobel Prize class.

Janaki Ammal

• Indian botanist who worked on plant breeding, cytogenetics and phytogeography.
• Her work involved studies on cytogenetics of a range of plants and co-authored the Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants (1945) with C.D. Darlington.
• She also took an interest in ethnobotany and took an interest in plants of medicinal and economic value from the rain forests of Kerala, India.
• She was awarded a Padma Shri.
• To honour her work in plant breeding, the Royal Horticultural Society, Wisley, U.K.named a variety of Magnolia she created as Magnolia Kobus Janaki Ammal.

Asima Chatterjee

• Indian organic chemist noted for her work in the fields of organic chemistry and phytomedicine.
• Her most notable work includes research on vinca alkaloids, the development of anti-epileptic drugs, and the development of anti-malarial drugs.
• She also authored a considerable volume of work on medicinal plants of the Indian subcontinent.
• She was the first woman to receive a Doctorate of Science from an Indian university.
• She won the C.V Ramen award, P.C Ray Award, and the S.S Bhatnagar award. She was nominated by the President of India as a Member of the Rajya Sabha from February 1982 to May 1990.
• She was conferred Padma Bhushan and became the first female scientist to be elected as the General President of the Indian Science Congress Association .

Bibha Chowdhry

• She was an Indian physicist.
• She worked on particle physics and cosmic rays.
• The IAU has re-christened the Star HD 86081 as Bibha (a yellow-white dwarf star in the constellation Sextans south of the celestial equator) after her.
• First to discover mesons using nuclear emulsion.
• Identifying new particles by studying their tracks in cloud chambers and on photographic plates.
• KGF Experiments: Energetic muons experiments at Kolar Gold Fields.
• Her life was described in the book, A Jewel Unearthed: Bibha Chowdhuri.

Gagandeep Kang

• She is an Indian virologist.
• She is executive director of the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, Faridabad, an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India.
• Her research focusses on viral infections in children, and the testing of rotaviral vaccines.
• She also works on other enteric infections and their consequences when children are infected in early life, sanitation and water safety.
• In 2019, she became the first Indian woman to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.
• She was on the Life Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2020.

Himalayan Serow

• A Himalayan Serow has been spotted in Manas Tiger Reserve, Assam.
• It is a mammal that is somewhere between a goat and an antelope, which is a high-altitude dweller found 2,000-4,000 metres above sea level.
• International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species Status - ‘Vulnerable’.
• It is listed under Schedule I of The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, which provides absolute protection.
• A black-necked crane (Near-threatened) and white-bellied heron (Critically Endangered) were also recently sighted in Manas.

Manas National Park

• This national park is located at the foothills of the Bhutan-Himalayas, Assam and is one of the first tiger reserves under Project tiger in 1973.
• It extends from the Sankosh River in the west to the Dhansiri River in the east.
• 1985 - Manas Wildlife Sanctuary became UNESCO World Heritage Site.
• 1989 - Manas acquired the status of a Biosphere reserve.
• River Manas flows into the National Park from the gorges of Bhutan.
• Manas is the only landscape in the world where Terai Grasslands merge with the Bhabar grasslands interspersed with habitats ascending to Semi-Evergreen forests and then to Bhutan Himalayas.
• The last population of the Pygmy Hog survive in the wilds of Manas and nowhere else in the world.

Nag River

• The Nag River Pollution Abatement Project has been approved under the National River Conservation Plan.
• It will be implemented by the National River Conservation Directorate.
• The Nag River, which flows through Nagpur city, is now a highly polluted water channel of sewage and industrial waste.
• Origin - Western weir of Ambazari Lake in west Nagpur.
• Nag River is the main river along with the other, River Pili Nadi.

Black-browed Babbler

• After a long time, a solitary black-browed babbler was spotted in south-eastern Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo.
• This small brown-grey songbird was stout, with a relatively short tail and a robust bill with a black eye stripe running all the way around its head.
• This bird is often called 'the biggest enigma in Indonesian ornithology.'
• IUCN Red List - “Data Deficient” category.

Al Ula Summit- Gulf Cooperation Council

It is a regional political and economic alliance of 6 Gulf States i.e Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

• HQ - Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
• Its aim is to achieve ever closer union between the energy-rich Gulf countries.
• Established in 1981
• GCC promotes economic, security, cultural and social cooperation between the 6 states.
• Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE and Egypt have imposed an air, land and sea blockade on Qatar since June 2017.
• The blockading countries have accused Qatar of supporting terrorism.

Al-Ula Accord

• The Al-Ula Accord was signed on 5 January 2021 at the conclusion of the 41st GCC Summit in Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia.
• Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt (known as the Arab Quartet) signed an accord with Qatar during a summit of Gulf Cooperation Council leaders.
• This ends the Arab Quartet’s diplomatic boycott and a total land, sea and air embargo of Qatar.