DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

India had decided to formally join the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, an international scientific collaboration working to build the world’s largest radio telescope.

What is SKA?

SKA – It will be the world's biggest and most advanced radio telescope ever constructed.

• It will not be a single large telescope, but a collection of thousands of dish antennas operating as a single unit.

SKA Observatory Convention – The international treaty that established the facility as an intergovernmental organisation.

Objective – To create 1 square kilometre of effective area for collecting radio waves using radio telescopes.

Mission – To build and operate cutting-edge radio telescopes to transform our understanding of the Universe, and deliver benefits to society through global collaboration and innovation.

Headquarters– United Kingdom (UK)

Implementation – By installing 1000’s of smaller antennas in a specific array design that would make them function like a single radio telescope.

Budget – USD 2.4-billion project

Distribution of antennas – About 200 of them in South Africa and more than 130,000 in Australia.

In SKA Observatory, the South African array will focus on mid-frequency signals, while the Australian telescope will cover low-frequency ranges.

• Installation location – In sparsely populated areas in order to minimise signal interference from undesirable Earth-based sources.
• Consortium Members – It includes 16 member countries, such as Australia, South Africa, Canada, China, India, Japan, and several European nations.
• Significance – Once operational, it would be between 5 to 60 times more powerful than the most advanced existing radio telescopes functioning in comparable frequency ranges.

How does it work?

• The SKA telescopes will observe from 50 MHz to 15.4 GHz (with a goal of 24 GHz) in the radio frequency part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
• Working – It receive radio waves from space using antennas which are sent through a processing chain that enables the astronomical data ultimately to be turned into an image of the sky.

Advantage – Unlike optical telescopes, radio telescopes can be used even in cloudy skies, as the longer wavelengths can pass through clouds unhindered.

• They can detect invisible hydrogen gas, the most abundant element in the Universe, which emits in the radio band at 1420 MHz.
• They can also reveal areas of space that may be obscured by cosmic dust, as radio waves are can travel through these dust clouds.

Radio astronomy has led us to some amazing astronomical discoveries, such as pulsars, exoplanets and the cosmic microwave background (a remnant signal left over from The Big Bang).

What is the role of India in SKA?

Indian participation – India has been involved in the SKA project right from its inception in the 1990s.

• It is being led by Pune-based National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA).

India’s contribution – In design and development of the telescope and the main contribution has come in the development, and operation, of the Telescope Manager, the ‘neural network’ or the software that will run the entire facility.

Benefits – Though none of the SKA facilities would be located in India, there are immense science and technology gains to the Indian scientific community.

• It will promote research in radio astronomy where India is already taking leaps through
  • Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT)Pune
  • Other similar facilities in Ooty, Nainital and Bengaluru
• It will get preferential allocation of time on the radio telescope, roughly in proportion to their contribution to the project, and only limited time slots would be available through competitive bidding.

Most existing telescopes operate under an open-use policy which allows research groups from any country to get time on the facility through competitive bidding by making a scientific case.

• The SKA would work on highest-end technologies and the intellectual properties would be accessible to all the member countries.
• Indian scientists can use SKA for studying concepts relating to the evolution of the early universe and galaxies, neutron star physics, and solar sciences.
• It helps in capacity building and training opportunities.
• Future plans – To set up an SKA regional centre in the country that will be part of the global network to process and store data and make it available for the scientific community.

Recently, the 1^st Advance Estimates (FAEs) released by the government showed that India’s GDP will grow by 7.3% in the current financial year (2023-24), slightly faster than the 7.2% growth in 2022-23.

What is GDP?

Gross Domestic Product – GDP is defined as total market value of all final goods and services in an economy.

• It is used to assess the size of economy and the country’s performance can be measured across years.
• Growth of GDP can be either due to increase in actual production or due to increase in prices of goods and services or combination of both.

Nominal GDP – It is the value of GDP at the current prevailing prices.

Real GDP – It is the value of GDP at some constant set of prices which is calculated by removing the effects of price inflation from the nominal GDP by using a GDP or price deflator.

• Since these prices remain fixed, if the Real GDP changes, then it is due to the changes in volume of production.
  • Real GDP growth rate = Nominal rate – Inflation (GDP Deflator)

GDP deflator – It is the ratio of nominal to real GDP which gives us an idea of how the prices have moved from the base year to the current year.

• • GDP Deflator = GDP/gdp (GDP – nominal GDP; gdp – real GDP)

Base Year is the year whose prices are being used to calculate the real GDP. In 2015, India’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) introduced a new series which revised the base year from 2004-05 to 2011-12.

Gross National Product (GNP) takes into account the value of economic activities of those who are not residents of the country as well.

GNP = GDP + Net Income Property from abroad

What is contributing to India’s growth?

GDP is calculated by 3 different methods.

• GDP calculation in India – Calculated through income method and expenditure method.
• Data released by – National Statistical Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).

4 main engines of GDP growth – On basis of demand side.

• Private Final Consumption Expenditure (PFCE) – It is the spending by people in their individual capacity that accounts for almost 60% of India’s GDP.
• Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) – It is the spending towards investments in boosting the productive capacity of the economy which typically accounts for 30% of the GDP.
• Government Final Consumption Expenditure (GFCE) – It is the spending by governments to meet daily expenditures such as salaries which accounts for around 10% of GDP.
• Net exports – It is the net spending as a result of Indians spending on imports and foreigners spending on Indian exports.
• Since India typically imports more than it exports, it drags down GDP calculations, and shows up with a minus sign.
• As such, negative growth rates here are a good development and for the current year, this drag effect has grown by 144%.

What are Advance Estimates of National Income?

• They are indicator-based and are compiled using the benchmark-indicator method, i.e. the estimates available for the previous year (2022-23) are extrapolated using the relevant indicators reflecting the performance of sectors.
• Compiled by –MoSPI
• 1^st Advance Estimates (FAE) – They are presented at the end of the 1^st week of January every year, the 1^st estimates of growth for that financial year.
• Calculation of FEA – Based on the performance of the economy over the 1^st 7-odd months, and the data are extrapolated to arrive at an annual picture.
• Significance of the FAE – They are the last GDP data released before the Union Budget of any financial year and it constitute the base for the Budget numbers.

Union Budget is presented on February 1 every financial year. In the year of Lok Sabha elections like in 2024, a full-fledged Union Budget will not be presented.

Findings of FEA – By the end of March 2024, India’s GDP is expected to rise to almost Rs 172 lakh crore and on an annual basis, the growth rate estimated for 2023-24 is 7.3%.

2nd Advance Estimates – It is released by the end of February every year.

Provisional Estimates – It is released by the end of May.

Revised Estimates – The GDP estimates continue to be revised and in the coming 3 years, the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd Revised Estimates of this year’s GDP will be released.

Actuals – It is the final number of GDP.

Released by- International Labour Organisation

Publication- Annually

• Theme- The value of essential work.

About- It details the impact of economic slowdown on the global labour market.

2023 report- It calls for a revaluation of the work of key workers to reflect their social contribution and greater investment in key sectors.

• Key workers- Food system workers, health workers, retail workers, security workers, manual workers, cleaning and sanitation workers, transport workers, and technicians and clerical workers.

Recently ICD-11 was launched with the inclusion of Traditional Medicine Module 2.

ICD-11 – International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision, the global standard for diagnostic health information.

• Launched by – World Health Organisation (WHO).
• Prepared by – WHO in collaboration with Ministry of AYUSH.

Aim - To modernize Ayush medicine by integrating it with global standards in India as well as across the world.

Inclusion of – Data and terminology relating to diseases based on Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani Medicine.

Significance – It forms a link between traditional medicines with global standards and will expand India’s healthcare delivery system, research, Ayush insurance coverage, research & development, policy making system.

• These codes can also be used to formulate future strategies to control various diseases in the society.

Future prospects – Ministry of Ayush will prepare public health strategy in future, based on ICD-11, Module 2 and will implement it nationally and internationally.

Importance of ICD-11

• Legally mandated health data standard (WHO Constitution and Nomenclature Regulations).
• Integration of terminology and classification.
• End-to-end digital solution (API, tools, online and offline).
• It is accessible to everybody with up-to-date scientific knowledge.
• Comparable statistics and semantic interoperability for 150 years.
• ICD-11 enables, for the 1^st time, the counting of traditional medicine services and encounters.

• Cooperation ministry recently launched a portal through which farmers can sell tur dal to government procurement agencies at the minimum support price (MSP) or market price, whichever is higher.

Govt. Procurement agencies - National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (Nafed) or National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India (NCCF).

• Alvaro, the 1^st cyclone of 2024, made landfall near Morombe in Madagascar recently.
• Mozambique named the cyclone Alvaro.

Resilience and Preparedness to tropical cyclones across Southern Africa (REPRESA) is an international initiative that aims to improve community preparedness for tropical cyclones in Southern Africa.

• The Himachal Pradesh government made 2 major decisions recently.
• All government offices have been prohibited from purchasing petrol or diesel vehicles since January 1.
• Simultaneously, under another scheme, people will be paid Rs 20,000 per month if they donate 3 bighas of land for the construction of a solar power plant.

These decisions have been taken to make Himachal Pradesh a clean and green energy state by March 31, 2026.