20 March 2023

• Same-sex marriage: The Supreme Court referred petitions challenging denial of legal recognition to same-sex marriages to a five-judge Constitution Bench.
• Water crisis awareness: With UN World Water Day (22 March) approaching, data on global water stress and India's Jal Jeevan Mission drew wide coverage.
• Millets wrap-up: Outcomes of the Global Millets Conference, including the proposed MIIRA body and India's Shree Anna branding, entered policy discourse.
• Emerging tech: 4D printing and the world's first sand battery provided vivid illustrations of cutting-edge material science with potential examination relevance.

GS Paper II: Indian Polity, Fundamental Rights, Judiciary

The Supreme Court of India referred a batch of petitions seeking legal recognition of same-sex marriage to a Constitution Bench of five judges on 20 March 2023, setting the stage for one of the most consequential constitutional adjudications in recent memory.

• Legal backdrop: In Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India (2018), the Supreme Court unanimously decriminalised consensual homosexual acts by striking down Section 377 of the IPC, but explicitly did not rule on the right to marry.
• Petitioner arguments: Petitioners invoked Articles 14 (equality), 19 (freedom of expression and association), and 21 (right to life and personal liberty, read with the right to privacy established in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, 2017).
• Government's position: The Union government filed an affidavit opposing recognition, arguing that the institution of marriage in India is bound by personal laws, religious customs, and legislative enactments, and that any redefinition is for Parliament, not the courts.
• Special Marriage Act 1954: Petitioners focused on the Special Marriage Act as the vehicle for recognition since it is a secular, non-religion-specific law covering inter-faith and inter-caste marriages.
• Constitution Bench: A bench of five or more judges is constitutionally mandated (Article 145(3)) when a substantial question of law as to the interpretation of the Constitution is involved.
• International context: As of March 2023, 34 countries recognised same-sex marriage, beginning with the Netherlands in 2001.

GS Paper III: Environment, Water Resources, International Institutions

With UN World Water Day falling on 22 March, the run-up saw extensive data released on the global freshwater crisis. The UN Water Conference in New York (22-24 March 2023) was the first such dedicated UN conference on water in 50 years.

• Scale of crisis: 3 billion people live in water-stressed countries. 2 billion people in agricultural areas face critical water pressure. Agriculture accounts for approximately 70% of global freshwater withdrawal.
• India's groundwater problem: India is the world's largest extractor of groundwater, accounting for about 25% of global groundwater extraction. States with severe over-extraction include Punjab (97%), Haryana (90%), and Rajasthan (86%).
• Jal Jeevan Mission: Launched in 2019 with the target of providing a functional household tap connection to every rural household by 2024. As of early 2023, over 11 crore connections had been provided.
• Atal Bhujal Yojana: Launched in 2020 with World Bank support. Targets sustainable groundwater management in seven states: Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.
• Jal Shakti Abhiyan: A time-bound campaign covering 256 water-stressed districts, focusing on water conservation, rainwater harvesting, and watershed management.
• ICZM: Integrated Coastal Zone Management projects, active in Odisha, Gujarat, and West Bengal, address coastal erosion and marine water quality.

GS Paper I: Geography, Coastal Processes; GS Paper III: Disaster Management

Odisha registered the highest number of villages severely affected by coastal erosion among all Indian states, with 74 villages facing existential threat from retreating shorelines.

• Extent: Approximately 196 km of Odisha's 480 km shoreline eroded between 1990 and 2015, a rate exceeding the national average.
• Drivers: Sea-level rise (Indian Ocean warming faster than the global average), storm surges from cyclones (Odisha is among the most cyclone-prone states globally), reduction in sediment supply from rivers due to upstream dams, and sand mining.
• Engineering responses: Geosynthetic sand-filled tubes (geo-tubes) placed along eroding shorelines, seawalls, and groynes have been deployed. Mangrove and casuarina green belt restoration offers a nature-based solution.
• Bhitarkanika context: Odisha's Bhitarkanika mangroves (a Ramsar Wetland) provide critical coastal buffering. Mangroves absorb wave energy and trap sediment.
• ICZM Odisha: The Integrated Coastal Zone Management project in Odisha, funded by the World Bank, aims to establish a science-based coastal management framework.
• Displacement: Erosion has forced relocation of entire communities, raising issues of coastal climate refugees and land tenure.

GS Paper III: Agriculture, Food Security, International Affairs

The Global Millets Conference concluded with a set of policy commitments that translate the International Year of Millets from symbolic recognition into institutional action.

• Shree Anna branding: India coined "Shree Anna" (revered grain) as a culturally resonant name for millets to position them as premium, nutritious food rather than a poor person's crop.
• Export push: India's millet food product exports and overall millet sales grew by approximately 30% in the period preceding the conference, driven by global interest in health foods.
• NFSM-Coarse Cereals: Active in 14 states, providing improved seed varieties, micro-irrigation support, and farmer training. Bajra (pearl millet) and jowar (sorghum) are the highest-production varieties.
• Climate argument: Millets require only 30 to 40% of the water needed by wheat or rice. Their deep root systems help stabilise soil. Some nitrogen-fixing varieties reduce fertiliser dependency.
• School nutrition: PM POSHAN (formerly Mid-Day Meal Scheme) incorporation of millets in school menus targets both demand creation and child nutrition improvement.
• MIIRA: The Millet International Initiative for Research and Awareness was formally proposed to coordinate global seed banks, research institutions, and market development programmes.

GS Paper I: Indian Heritage, Art and Culture; GS Paper III: Science and Technology (Archaeology)

Two heritage sites in Rajasthan demonstrated the deep antiquity of India's technological and geological heritage.

Zawar:

• Located near Udaipur, Rajasthan, Zawar is widely recognised as the world's oldest large-scale zinc smelting site, with operations dated to approximately the 9th century CE, predating European zinc smelting by several centuries.
• The Zawar mines used a retort-condenser technology: zinc ore (sphalerite) was heated in clay retorts, and zinc vapour was condensed and collected, a process far ahead of contemporary metallurgy elsewhere.
• The mines were rediscovered and their antiquity scientifically established through archaeometallurgical studies in the 20th century.

Jhamarkotra:

• Also in Rajasthan, Jhamarkotra contains phosphate deposits interspersed with stromatolite fossils estimated to be 1.8 billion years old.
• Stromatolites are layered biochemical accretionary structures formed by microbial communities (primarily cyanobacteria), considered among the earliest evidence of life on Earth.
• The site is significant as a geoheritage location, linking geological deep time with the evolution of life.

GS Paper III: Environment, Biodiversity, Species Conservation

Horseshoe crabs, often described as "living fossils" because their body plan has remained virtually unchanged for 445 million years, are disappearing from Odisha's coastline, raising alarms among conservationists and the biomedical industry.

• Species: Four living species exist globally; the Indian coast hosts Tachypleus gigas and Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda along the Bay of Bengal coast from West Bengal to Odisha.
• Protection status: Listed under Schedule IV of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, in India, prohibiting their capture and trade.
• Biomedical importance: Horseshoe crab blood is copper-based (haemocyanin), giving it a distinctive blue colour. Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL), derived from the blood, is the gold-standard test for detecting bacterial endotoxins (lipopolysaccharides) in injectable drugs, vaccines, and medical devices. Every injectable medication approved globally is tested using LAL or a recombinant equivalent.
• Threats: Overharvesting for the biomedical industry, habitat loss on nesting beaches, entanglement in fishing nets, and pollution are major threats.
• Conservation response: Recombinant Factor C (rFC), a synthetic alternative to LAL, is being developed to reduce wild harvest pressure.

GS Paper III: Science and Technology, Emerging Technologies, Energy

Two technology stories from March 2023 illustrated the frontier of materials science: 4D printing and the world's first operational sand battery.

4D Printing:

• 4D printing extends the concept of 3D printing by adding the dimension of time: printed objects are programmed to change their shape, property, or function in response to external stimuli such as heat, moisture, electrical current, or light.
• The "fourth dimension" is transformation over time.
• Materials used: shape-memory polymers, hydrogels, and smart composites.
• Applications: self-assembling medical implants (stents that expand in the body), adaptive aerospace components, soft robotics, and drug delivery capsules that release medicine in response to body temperature.

World's First Sand Battery (Finland):

• The world's first commercial sand battery was installed in Kankaanpää, Finland, by Polar Night Energy.
• Stores 8 MWh of thermal energy in a 4-metre diameter silo filled with construction sand.
• Operating temperature: up to 600°C.
• Charging mechanism: surplus electricity from wind and solar farms is used to heat the sand via a resistive heating element.
• Discharge: the stored heat is released for district heating (hot water and space heating), not for electricity generation, making it suitable for cold climates.
• Significance: sand is inexpensive, abundant, and can store heat with minimal losses for weeks or months, offering a low-cost long-duration thermal storage solution.