DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

Thiruvalluvar Day

• On Thiruvalluvar Day, Union Minister for Home and Cooperation extends warm greetings to the people.
• The way to a devout life has been illuminated for ages by the divine wisdom and life teachings imparted by Thiruvalluvar.
• The first Thiruvalluvar Day celebration took place on 17th-18th May 1935.
• It is currently celebrated as part of Pongal celebrations and is often observed in Tamil Nadu on either January 15 or January 16.

Regarding Thiruvalluvar:

• A Tamil poet-saint by the name of Thiruvalluvar, also known as Valluvar.
• He is revered by Tamils of all castes and religions as a cultural and moral figure.
• His family history, place of religious affiliation, and birthplace are all mostly unknown.
• It is thought that he once resided in Chennai's Mylapore neighborhood, which is now a town.
• According to some versions, he lived between the eighth and ninth centuries.
• Maraimalai Adigal, a Tamil orator, writer, and the founder of the Pure Tamil movement, estimated Valluvar's birth year to be 31 BC, whereas Kamil Zvelebil, a Czech expert on Indian literature and linguistics, estimated Thiruvalluvar's life span to be approximately 500 AD.
• Some refer to him as a Hindu, while others claim that he was a Jain. Dravidian communities see him as a saint since he rejected the caste system.

Works:

• Thirukkural, the main work of Thiruvalluvar, is composed of 1330 couplets (kurals), which are divided into 133 sections, each of which has ten couplets.
• Three sections of the text provide teachings on dharma, artha, and kama (virtue, wealth and love).

Social importance:

• Within the Mylapore Ekambareswarar temple complex, a temple with the name Thiruvalluvar was constructed at the beginning of the 16th century.
• One of the largest auditoriums in Asia can be seen inside Valluvar Kotam, a religious memorial that was constructed in Chennai in 1976.
• In Ulsoor, close to Bengaluru, a second statue of the renowned Tamil poet was unveiled in 2009.
• Additionally, a statue of Valluvar was placed in Russell Square, London, in front of the School of Oriental and African Studies.
• Kanyakumari also has a Thiruvalluvar statue that is 133 feet tall.
• The Thiruvalluvar University was founded by the Tamil Nadu government in the Vellore district in October 2002.

Exports of sugar

• Indian sugar mills have contracts to export 55 lakh tonnes of sweetness, according to the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA).
• In the marketing year 2022–2023, the government has permitted sugar mills to export 60 lakh tonnes of sugar through May. (October-September).
• About 50 million sugarcane farmers and about 5 lakh people who are directly engaged in sugar mills depend on the sugar industry, a significant agro-based sector, for their livelihood in rural areas.
• India becomes both the world's greatest producer and consumer of sugar as well as its second-largest exporter of sugar in (Oct-Sep) 2021–2022.

Areas that Produce Sugar:

In India, there are two distinct agroclimatic areas where sugarcane is mostly farmed.

• The states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Pondicherry, and Kerala are included in the tropical sugarcane region. The peninsular and coastal regions are also included.
• Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, and Punjab are included in the subtropical sugarcane growing region.

Geographical Factors Affecting Sugar Plant Growth:

• Temperature: hot and muggy with a range of 21–27°C.
• Rainfall: between 75 and 100 cm.
• The soil is a deep, rich loam.

Government Initiatives:

Fair and remunerative pricing (FRP) and price guarantee while making a purchase

• According to the law, mills must pay farmers for the cane they buy at a predetermined price.
• The basis of FRP is the extraction of sugar from the cane. Sugar recovery is the proportion of sugar made to cane crushed (and is expressed as a percentage). Some state governments further release State Advised Prices (SAP), which are more expensive than FRP.

Cane Reservation Area:

• Farmers within the "Cane Reservation Area" are required to deliver their harvests to sugar mills that purchase sugarcane.

ICT remedies:

• Nutrient management tools created by ICAR-SBI, Coimbatore, such as the Cane Advisor, are available as mobile applications.
• The Sugarcane Information System (SIS), developed by the government of Uttar Pradesh, was designed to make post-harvest activities including sales and procurement simpler.

Racial equality in the sugar sector:

• On the basis of the committee's recommendations, which were produced under Dr. C. Rangarajan's guidance, the sugar business experienced some lnnnnnnnnnnnnn in 2013. Following that, the sugar levy and limitations on free market sales were lifted.

Buffer Stocks for Sugar

• In order to assist the industry in coping with the problem of excess output and low sugar prices, the government built a buffer stock of sugar.

Challenges faced by the Sugar Industries

• Water-consuming crop: A crop that needs a lot of water is sugarcane. 1 kilogramme of sugar normally requires 1500–2000 kg of water. However, based on the way people are now using water, only about half of the demand will be met in 2030.
• Inefficient use of water: Water productivity is the amount of economic output generated per cubic metre of fresh water drawn. The economic water productivity (EWP) of sugarcane in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh is as high as Rs. 36 and Rs. 30 per cubic metre of irrigation water utilised, respectively.
• Modern technology is lacking in many Indian sugar mills, making it difficult for them to manufacture sugar effectively. Due to this, the sector finds it challenging to compete with other nations that produce sugar.
• Environmental Impact: Growing sugarcane takes a lot of water and insecticides, both of which can be harmful to the environment.

Way forward

• For the sugar sector to be financially stable and to avoid the problem of arrears, sugarcane pricing must be linked to sugar prices. The Revenue Sharing Formula (RSF) and a Price Stabilization Fund must be put into place in order to protect farmers from getting prices below the FRP.
• Despite sugarcane's significance in India's water, food, and energy systems, there aren't any trustworthy time series or contemporary sugarcane maps available.
• To map sugarcane lands, remote sensing technology must be used.
• Diversification: The Indian sugar business should expand its offerings by investigating other goods like biofuels and organic sugar.
• This would assist in lowering the risk brought on by price changes in sugar.

Solitary Wave in Martian Magnetosphere

• The Martian magnetosphere has been shown for the first time to exhibit discrete electric field variations or solitary waves, according to the department of science and technology.
• The study of these waves is essential because wave-particle interactions directly regulate particle energization, plasma loss, transport, etc.
• The identification of solitary waves was made possible by the utilization of high-resolution electric field data from NASA's MAVEN mission.

About the discovery:

• Our planet is a massive magnet, and the magnetic field it generates shields us from the solar wind, which is the Sun's continual emission of high-speed charged particles.
• Mars does not have an intrinsic magnetic field like Earth does. As a result, the high-speed solar wind can directly interact with the atmosphere of Mars.
• It has been proposed that regular instances of solitary waves can be seen even in a weak and shallow magnetosphere like that of Mars.
• But despite numerous expeditions to Mars, no one has ever before reported the existence of lone waves in the Martian magnetosphere.
• The waves were primarily observed on Mars in the morning and evening at altitudes of 1000-3500 km, and it is still unclear what exactly caused them.
• With the aid of high-resolution electric field data collected by the Langmuir Probe and Waves instrument on the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft of NASA, a research team from the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), has for the first time identified and reported the solitary waves in the Martian magnetosphere.
• The direct interaction of solar winds with the Martian atmosphere resulted in the formation of the magnetosphere, which is feeble yet extremely active.
• The team is investigating these waves' function in particle dynamics in the Martian magnetosphere and whether they have any bearing on the loss of atmospheric ions on Mars because it is known that they are responsible for the energization and transport of plasma in the Earth's magnetosphere.

How do Solitary Waves work?

• The discrete electric field fluctuations known as solitary waves (bipolar or monopolar) follow consistent amplitude-phase relationships.
• The propagation process has less of an impact on their size and shape.

Significance:

• It has been discovered that solitary waves have a substantial impact on the dynamics of a number of physical systems, including the magnetospheres of the Earth and Mars.
• They are known to be in charge of energizing and transporting plasma particles in the magnetosphere of the Earth, which has an impact on how satellites and other space-borne equipment behave.
• Their relevance in the Martian magnetosphere is still not fully understood, but it has been hypothesized that they might contribute to the loss of atmospheric ions on Mars.

About Mars:

• Being larger than only Mercury, Mars is the second-smallest planet in the Solar System and is located four planets from the Sun.
• It is often known to as the "Red Planet" because of the iron oxide on its surface, which gives it a reddish tint. It is named after the Roman god of war.
• Mars is a terrestrial planet that resembles the Moon's impact craters, Earth's valleys, deserts, and polar ice caps as well as having a thin atmosphere.
• Because of the similarity in rotational period and inclination of the rotation axis with respect to the ecliptic plane, the days and seasons on Mars are comparable to those on Earth.

Time on Mars:

• On Mars, a day lasts for 24.6 hours. It hardly exceeds the length of a day on Earth.
• On Mars, a year is equal to 687 days. One year on Mars is nearly twice as long as one on Earth.

Mars’ Neighbors:

• Moons orbit Mars twice. Phobos and Deimos are their names.
• The fourth planet from the Sun is Mars. Thus, Mars nearest neighbors are Earth and Jupiter.

About Mars Orbiter Mission:

• The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), sometimes referred to as "Mangalyaan," was launched on November 5, 2013, and it successfully entered Martian orbit on September 24, 2014, on its first try.
• MOM completes 4 years in its orbit on September 24, 2018, though the designed mission life of MOM was six months.
• It was launched on the PSLV C25 rocket with the intention of examining the Martian surface and mineral composition as well as searching for methane in its atmosphere (an indicator of life on Mars).
• Numerous accomplishments, including cost-effectiveness, rapid realisation, economical weight-budget, and the downsizing of five diverse science payloads, are attributed to MOM. Mars Colour Camera also captured images of Phobos and Deimos, two of Mars' moons.

National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA)

• From the current fiscal year, auditors of 1,000 big Indian publicly traded businesses will need to submit transparency reports to the National Financial Reporting Authority (NFRA) in the required manner.
• It will raise investor confidence in auditors and enhance their credibility.

About NFRA:

• NFRA was established by the Indian government in 2018 in accordance with section 132 (1) of the Companies Act, 2013. It is a regulator of audits.
• Background: After the role of auditors and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India came under scrutiny for alleged shortcomings in a number of corporate scandals, notably the one at the Punjab National Bank, the decision to establish the NFRA was made.
• Its members are a chairperson, who must be a distinguished individual with knowledge of accounting, auditing, finance, or law, chosen by the Central Government, and up to 15 additional members.

Duties and functions:

• It recommends that enterprises implement accounting and auditing procedures and standards for the Central Government's approval.
• Accounting and auditing standards compliance is monitored and enforced.
• Monitor the professionals responsible for making sure these criteria are followed and offer suggestions for ways to improve the quality of the services they provide.

Protect the public interest.

It has the following investigative authority over the following kind of organizations known as "public interest entities":

• Firms with securities listed on a stock exchange, whether inside or outside of India.
• Unlisted public enterprises with paid-up capital of at least Rs. 500 crore, annual revenue of at least Rs. 1,000 crore, or overall outstanding loans, debentures, and deposits of at least Rs. 500 crore as of March 31 of the previous fiscal year is eligible.
• Companies involved in the production or delivery of power, as well as insurance and financial firms.

If professional or other misconduct is established, it has the authority to issue an order for the imposition of:

• In the case of individuals, not less than one lakh rupees, but this amount may go up to five times the fees received; in the case of firms, not less than 10 lakh rupees, but this amount may go up to ten times the fees received.
• The India Comptroller and Auditor-General keeps an eye on its account.
• Its main office is in New Delhi.