23 August 2024

• National Space Day: India celebrated the first National Space Day on 23 August, marking the first anniversary of Chandrayaan-3's successful lunar landing. ISRO's 2024 theme was "Touching Lives while Touching the Moon."
• Nuclear energy: Kakrapar Atomic Power Station Unit 4 (KAPS-4), a 700 MW indigenous reactor, achieved full operational capacity.
• Governance: Kerala's Hema Committee report was ordered to be partially submitted to the High Court. The 233-page report exposed systemic exploitation in the Malayalam film industry.
• Economy: the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is India's policy response to e-commerce platform dominance. E-commerce is projected to grow at 27 per cent CAGR and reach 7.8 per cent of retail sales by 2022 already.

GS area: Science and Technology

India's first National Space Day was celebrated on 23 August 2024, exactly one year after Chandrayaan-3's Vikram lander touched down on the Moon's south polar region:

• Chandrayaan-3 achievement: India became the fourth country to land on the Moon (after USA, USSR and China) and the first to land at the south polar region. The landing site is named "Shiv Shakti Point."
• ISRO's 2024 theme: "Touching Lives while Touching the Moon: India's Space Saga."
• Pragyan rover findings: the APXS (Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer) made the first in-situ measurements of lunar soil composition at the south pole. Findings supported the Lunar Magma Ocean hypothesis: higher concentrations of magnesium-rich minerals (olivine and pyroxene) were found, suggesting deep-layer materials ejected by the South Pole-Aitken basin impact.
• PRL involvement: the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, the birthplace of India's space programme, and ISRO jointly published the findings. PRL is under the Department of Space.
• India's space milestones since Chandrayaan-3: Aditya L1 (Sun-observing satellite) reached the L1 Lagrange point in January 2024; XPoSat (X-ray polarimetry) was launched in January 2024; SSLV completed development; Gaganyaan crew modules are in final testing.

Static linkage: ISRO missions, planetary science, space diplomacy.

GS area: Science and Technology, Energy

KAPS-4 achieved full operational capacity:

• Capacity: 700 MW. This is the standard size for India's indigenous Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) of the latest generation.
• Location: Kakrapar, Surat district, Gujarat. On the Tapi River.
• Operator: Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL). NPCIL is a Central Public Sector Undertaking under the Department of Atomic Energy.
• Regulatory approval: the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) approved full-power operations.
• India's nuclear programme expansion: 14 additional reactors are under construction with an expected completion timeline of 2031-32. India's total installed nuclear capacity is around 7,480 MW, targeting 22,480 MW by 2031.
• PHWR design: India's PHWRs use natural (unenriched) uranium as fuel and heavy water as moderator and coolant. This design does not require uranium enrichment, a strategic advantage.
• First stage programme: PHWRs form the first stage of India's three-stage nuclear power programme. The second stage involves Fast Breeder Reactors (Kalpakkam PFBR), and the third will use thorium.

Static linkage: nuclear energy, India's three-stage programme, atomic energy governance.

GS area: Society, Governance, Ethics

The Kerala High Court ordered portions of the Hema Committee Report to be submitted to the court. The report had been submitted to the Kerala government in 2019 but largely suppressed until August 2024:

• Background: the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) was formed after an actress was abducted and assaulted in 2017. The state government appointed a committee under retired judge K. Hema to study the conditions of women in the Malayalam film industry.
• Report findings: a 233-page document documenting sexual harassment, a casting couch system, absence of basic sanitation facilities for women, criminal elements influencing production decisions, cybersecurity threats and gender pay disparities.
• Power structure: the report stated that 10 to 15 influential men exercise control over the industry and create conditions where women cannot refuse their demands without losing work.
• Legal provisions invoked: IPC Sections 354 (assault to outrage modesty), 354A (sexual harassment), 509 (words or gestures to insult women's modesty), POSH Act 2013, IT Act 2000, POCSO Act 2012.
• Recommendations: mandatory Internal Complaints Committees, independent industry tribunal, written employment contracts, gender sensitivity training.

Static linkage: women's rights, workplace legislation, creative industry governance.

• ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce): launched by DPIIT as a Section 8 (not-for-profit) company. Designed to democratise e-commerce by creating an open protocol that any seller or buyer can access without platform dependency. Zero platform fees for sellers. Supports MSMEs and small food retailers. Challenges: complex user interface, unclear dispute resolution mechanism.
• South China Sea: approximately 33 per cent of global shipping volume (by value) and 40 per cent of petroleum product transit pass through the South China Sea. China's nine-dash line claim covers most of the sea. The area involves overlapping claims by Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. A 2016 UNCLOS tribunal ruled against China's historical claims; China does not recognise the ruling.
• Chandrayaan-3 APXS data: the discovery of olivine-pyroxene enrichment at the south polar region supports the Lunar Magma Ocean hypothesis, which proposes that the Moon's outer layer was once molten. The SPA basin impact excavated deep-layer material to the surface, explaining the unusual mineralogy.
• ISDra2TnpB gene editing tool: developed by ICAR-National Rice Research Institute in collaboration with Penn State University. A miniature genome-editing protein from the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans, less than 50 per cent the size of conventional genome-editing proteins. Successfully used to edit rice (monocot) and Arabidopsis (dicot) for crop improvement.