28 February 2024

• Environment: India committed to restoring 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 under UNCCD obligations; currently 97 million hectares are degraded.
• Infrastructure: The Banihal-Sangaldan rail section in Jammu and Kashmir was inaugurated, with the Chenab Bridge set to become the world's tallest railway bridge.
• Technology: IIT Madras-incubated startup Genrobotics launched the Homosep Atom, a fully autonomous sewage-cleaning robot.
• Language models: Tata Consultancy Services introduced Hanooman, an 11-language Indian LLM under the BharatGPT initiative.

GS area: Environment (Land Degradation, Desertification, International Conventions)

India is a signatory to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), under which countries have made Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) commitments.

• India's current situation: Approximately 97 million hectares of land in India are degraded. This represents about 30 per cent of India's total geographical area of 329 million hectares.
• India's UNCCD commitment: To restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 as part of the LDN target.
• What land degradation means: Reduction in land quality through soil erosion, loss of organic matter, compaction, salinisation, waterlogging, or conversion of forests and wetlands to other uses.
• UNCCD basics:
  • Adopted: 1994, entered into force 1996.
  • Headquarters: Bonn, Germany.
  • The Conference of Parties (COP) is the main decision-making body. COP16 was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in late 2024.
  • UNCCD is one of the Rio Conventions (alongside UNFCCC and CBD) emerging from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.
• India's strategies: National Action Programme to Combat Desertification (NAPCD), Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP), and agro-forestry promotion.
• Priority states: Rajasthan (wind erosion), Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra (water erosion), and Jammu and Kashmir (mountain degradation).

Static linkage: Environment (UNCCD, desertification, land degradation, Rio Conventions, LDN), Governance (India's environmental commitments).

GS area: Infrastructure (Railways, Jammu and Kashmir)

The Banihal-Sangaldan railway section was inaugurated in Jammu and Kashmir, completing a key segment of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) project.

• Chenab Bridge: The railway bridge over the Chenab River at Bakkal (on the USBRL line) is designed to be the world's tallest railway bridge when completed.
  • Height: 359 metres above the Chenab River bed (surpassing the existing record holder, the Beipanjiang Bridge in China at 275 metres).
  • Total span: 1,315 metres.
• USBRL project: A strategic railway project connecting Jammu to Srinagar by rail, covering 272 kilometres. Once complete, it will provide an all-weather rail connection to the Kashmir Valley, which currently depends on the Srinagar-Jammu highway (prone to closure).
• National Project designation: USBRL is designated a National Project, allowing higher central funding priority.
• Strategic significance: The USBRL runs through difficult terrain (tunnels, viaducts). It will significantly improve logistics for civilian movement and military deployments in Jammu and Kashmir.
• Banihal-Sangaldan segment: This section is on the Jammu side of the Pir Panjal range, connecting to the tunnel segment under the range toward Srinagar.

Static linkage: Infrastructure (railways, strategic infrastructure, USBRL, J&K), Security (logistics, terrain, national projects).

GS area: Science and Technology (Robotics, Manual Scavenging)

Genrobotics, a startup incubated at IIT Madras, launched the Homosep Atom, a fully autonomous robot designed to clean sewers without any human entry.

• The problem it solves: Manual scavenging. Despite the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act 2013, people still enter sewers to clean them. The National Commission for Safai Karamcharis data shows several hundred deaths per year due to toxic gases (hydrogen sulphide, methane, ammonia) in sewers.
• Homosep Atom specifications:
  • Fits into manholes as small as 30 cm in diameter.
  • Uses jetting nozzles and suction to remove solid and liquid waste.
  • Operated remotely; no human entry into the sewer is required.
• Legal context:
  • Manual Scavengers Act 2013 prohibits employment of persons to manually clean sewers and septic tanks.
  • Supreme Court has repeatedly directed states to ensure zero deaths in sewers and compensate victims' families.
  • Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is the nodal ministry.
• Previous Genrobotics product: Bandicoot robot (earlier version), which was also designed for sewage cleaning.

Static linkage: Science and Technology (robotics, social welfare technology), Social Justice (manual scavenging, Prohibition Act 2013, SC directives).

GS area: Science and Technology (Artificial Intelligence)

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) launched Hanooman, a large language model supporting 11 Indian languages, under the BharatGPT initiative.

• Languages: Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Odia, Punjabi, and Assamese.
• BharatGPT initiative: A multi-partner effort bringing together Reliance, TCS, and IITs to build AI tools for Indian languages and contexts.
• Model parameters: Hanooman comes in different sizes (7 billion to 40 billion parameters).
• Use cases: Government service chatbots, healthcare query systems, and multilingual education tools in Indian languages.
• Context of India's AI strategy: India's National AI Portal and IndiaAI Mission (approved with a budget of approximately 10,000 crore rupees) aim to build AI compute infrastructure, language models, and an AI startup ecosystem.
• Garbhini-GA2: A separate AI tool developed by IIT Madras and IISc for accurate gestational age estimation from ultrasound data. It was also in news around this period for being validated across Indian clinical settings with better accuracy than Western-derived tools for Indian populations.

Static linkage: Science and Technology (AI, NLP, Indian language models, BharatGPT), Economy (startup ecosystem, TCS, IndiaAI Mission).

GS area: Social Justice (Disability Rights, Inclusive Society)

Goa hosted Purple Fest, a festival promoting inclusion for persons with disabilities.

• Purple Fest background: An initiative by the Goa government and the Tourism Corporation, designed to create disability-inclusive events, showcase assistive technology, and celebrate arts by persons with disabilities.
• Legal framework:
  • Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016: India's comprehensive disability law replacing the 1995 Persons with Disabilities Act. Expands categories of disabilities from 7 to 21. Mandates reasonable accommodation in employment and education.
  • UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD): India ratified in 2007.
  • Divyangjan designation: The Government of India uses the term "Divyangjan" for persons with disabilities, emphasising their abilities.
• Purple as the colour of disability advocacy: International disability communities use purple as an awareness colour, similar to pink for breast cancer or red for HIV.
• UDID: The Unique Disability ID (UDID) card system allows Divyangjan to access benefits through a single national card.

Static linkage: Social Justice (disability rights, RPwD Act 2016, UNCRPD, Divyangjan), Governance (inclusive policy).

• IT Interception Rules Amendment 2024: The government amended the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring and Decryption of Information) Rules to expand the list of authorised interception authorities and update procedural safeguards.
• Solar-Battery Storage Project: SECI (Solar Energy Corporation of India) awarded a 40 MW solar plus 120 MWh battery energy storage system project in Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh. SECI is the nodal agency under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) that tenders and develops renewable energy projects.