Syllabus subtopic: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.

Prelims and Mains focus: about the Brahma brain template; its need and significance

News: A team of scientists led by senior scientist Pravat Mandal at the Nueroimaging and Nuerospectroscopy Laboratory (NINS) of the National Brain Research Center (NBRC), in Manesar, Haryana, has developed a brain template, Brahma, which will show intrinsic details about the anatomy of the Indian brain.

Background

This comes close on the heels of Mandal in December leading a team that had developed a technology that uses the brain’s stress levels and pH for early identification of brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, depression and schizophrenia.

What is a brain template?

• Brain template is a gross representation from various brain images to understand brain functionality in diseased conditions.
• Studies have so far been conducted to develop a standard brain template that is compatible to different populations, though the human brain is highly different in shape and size between individuals and basic demographies, according to scientists. Research was focused to develop the population specific brain template to understand this variability.

Significance of Brahma

• Brahma will be a crucial guide for Indian brain scientists as doctors have so far relied solely on US and Canadian brain templates for anatomical details for surgery and treatment of Indian patients. However, the American template may differ from the Indian one.

About the Brahma project

• The project, funded by the department of science and technology (DST), took more than two years to complete.
• The research was conducted taking volunteers from across India, from all states, for true representation of an Indian brain template. The critical data was generated at NBRC using the state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans using 3T Philips Scanner.
• Brahma can be used for research and later can be validated for clinical use for surgical procedure. This template will be available for academic use free of charge.

Signficance of Brahma

• Brahma will be a crucial guide for Indian brain scientists as doctors have so far relied solely on US and Canadian brain templates for anatomical details for surgery and treatment of Indian patients. However, the American template may differ from the Indian one.

• How Brahma is important is simple to understand. If we want to go to any part of India, we use Google maps and we reach there. Similarly, for any brain study or surgical procedure in India, scientists and clinicians previously used US or Canadian MNI (Montreal Neurological Institute) template to analyse the data or plan surgery as there was no detailed template from Indian brains.

• The brain has huge complexity and brain functionality is not completely understood till date. It will be immensely important to conduct multimodal brain study to understand psychiatric disorders such as depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. The development of the Indian brain template will be helpful to achieve more accurate and precise allocation of brain regions in neurosurgery.

Air defence command plan on

Syllabus subtopic: Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate

Prelims and Mains focus: about the move and its significance; CDS: mandate and functions

News: In his first meeting with the officials of the Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff, the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, outlined priorities toward creating an air defence command and common logistics support pools as part of measures to create jointness and synergy among the three services.

• The areas identified for jointness and synergy include the creation of common logistics support pools in stations where two or more services have their presence.

• Gen. Rawat directed various branch heads to come up with recommendations for inter­service synergy and jointness in a time-bound manner.

• Emphasising the collegiate system of functioning, he directed that all three services and the Coast Guard must be consulted and their views obtained in a time-bound manner. Decisions will, however, be taken to ensure the optimisation of resources.

• Efforts will be made to cut out infructuous ceremonial activities, which are manpower intensive.

Significance of the move and concerns associated

• The air defence command and common logistics support pools are steps toward creating theatre commands in future, which is also in the mandate of the CDS. However, there is no consensus among the services on theatre commands and the Indian Air Force (IAF) has been especially opposed to the move.

• On this issue, Gen. Rawat stated after assuming charge on Thursday that “we are copying western methods and what others have done” and “we have to find a system which suits India.”

• Defence officials said a joint services Act is also being worked out which is being formulated by the Army Adjutant­General’s branch in coordination with the Navy and the IAF. The three services are currently guided by their respective Service Acts.

Mandate of CDS

The broad mandate of the CDS includes bringing about jointness in operations, logistics, transport, training, support services, communications, repairs and maintenance of the three services, within three years of the first CDS assuming office.

Syllabus subtopic: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Prelims and Mains focus: about the tiger population stats across the country; about NTCA: functions and significance

News: For the first time in the past three years, the number of tiger deaths in a year in the country has been less than 100.

Context:

• According to data from the Ministry of Forest Environment and Climate Change (MoEFCC), there were 84 cases of tiger deaths in the country and 11 cases of seizures (in which a tiger is presumed dead on the basis of body parts seized by authorities). Both put together, the number of tiger deaths in 2019 was 95.

• In 2018, the number of tiger deaths recorded was 100 (93 mortalities and seven seizures). The number was 115 (98 mortalities and 17 seizures) in 2017, and 122 (101 mortalities and 21 seizures) in 2016.

Significance

• These figures should be seen in the context that tiger numbers in the country were growing.
• The last tiger census report, released in July 2019, had placed the number of tigers in India at 2,967, up by a third when compared with the numbers reported in 2014.

Reasons for reduction in tiger deaths

• The reduced numbers of tiger mortalities are because of surveillance, good management of Tiger Reserves and a lot of awareness and education programmes on tiger conservation. ‘

• Using technology to maintain surveillance on tigers has also come as an added advantage.

Tiger deaths across states

• Madhya Pradesh, which has the highest number of tigers in the country (526, as per the last census), recorded the most number of cases (31) of tiger deaths.
• This was followed by Maharashtra, which reported 18 deaths. Karnataka, another State with high tiger population, recorded 12 deaths, and Uttarakhand recorded ten deaths.
• Tamil Nadu recorded seven cases of tiger deaths.
• Deaths were also recorded from non­tiger bearing States like Gujarat, where a tiger had strayed into the State and died.

Way ahead

With the increase in tiger numbers, more areas in the country need to be declared Tiger Reserves. Currently, there are 50 Tiger Reserves in India with an area of about 73,000 sq. km.

About National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA)

• It is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change constituted under enabling provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, as amended in 2006, for strengthening tiger conservation, as per powers and functions assigned to it under the said Act.

• It has been fulfilling its mandate within the ambit of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 for strengthening tiger conservation in the country by retaining an oversight through advisories/normative guidelines, based on appraisal of tiger status, ongoing conservation initiatives and recommendations of specially constituted Committees.

Functions

• Ensuring normative standards in tiger reserve management
• Preparation of reserve specific tiger conservation plan
• Laying down annual/ audit report before Parliament
• Instituting State level Steering Committees under the Chairmanship of Chief Minister and establishment of Tiger Conservation Foundation.
• According approval for declaring new Tiger Reserves.