UPSC Essentials: Tobacco Board, Space Tech & Ketamine

Table of Contents

GS Paper 2

Tobacco Board of India

News: The Tobacco Board has authorised a crop size of 100 million kg for Karnataka during the year 2024-25.
Tobacco Board of India:
- - The Government of India under the Tobacco Board Act of 1975, established the Tobacco Board, in place of the Tobacco Export Promotion Council.
  - It comes under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
  - The organization maintains regional offices in key tobacco cultivation regions throughout India, spanning Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, and West Bengal.
  - The Board is headquartered in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh.
Key Functions:
- - Market Monitoring and Price Stabilization:
  - Constant monitoring of the Virginia tobacco market both domestically and internationally.
  - Ensuring fair and remunerative prices for growers and minimizing price fluctuations.
  - International Market Development:
  - Sustaining and enhancing existing international markets for Indian Virginia Tobacco.
  - Exploring new overseas markets and devising marketing strategies aligned with demand.
  - Auction Platform Establishment:
  - Setting up auction platforms for registered growers to sell Virginia tobacco.
  - Acting as an auctioneer at these platforms, whether established by the organization or registered with it.
  - Minimum Price Recommendations:
  - Advising the Central Government on minimum prices for exportable Virginia tobacco to prevent unhealthy competition among exporters.
  - Regulatory Oversight:
  - Regulating various aspects of Virginia tobacco marketing in India and export, considering the interests of growers, manufacturers, dealers, and national interests.
  - Information Dissemination:
  - Providing useful information to growers, dealers, exporters, packers, and tobacco product manufacturers.
  - Tobacco Purchase and Disposal:
  - Purchasing Virginia tobacco from growers when deemed necessary to protect their interests.
  - Disposing of purchased tobacco domestically or internationally as appropriate.
  - Grading Promotion:
  - Promoting tobacco grading at the grower level to enhance quality and market competitiveness.
  - Research Promotion:
  - Sponsoring, assisting, coordinating, or encouraging scientific, technological, and economic research to advance the tobacco industry.

Space-borne Assistant and Knowledge Hub for Crew Interaction (Sakhi) App

News: The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) has developed a multi-purpose app that will help astronauts on the Gaganyaan space flight mission.
Aim:
- The app aims to support astronauts during the Gaganyaan space mission by providing essential technical information and facilitating communication.
- The system monitors astronauts’ well-being, facilitates their communication with Earth, and provides alerts regarding vital health metrics such as blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen saturation levels, as well as dietary schedules.

GS Paper 3

Peatlands

News: New study reveals how climate change impacts the intricate microbial food web in peatlands.
Understanding Peatlands:
- - Unique Ecosystem Characteristics: Peatlands are distinct wetland ecosystems characterized by waterlogged conditions that hinder complete decomposition of plant material. This leads to the accumulation of organic matter, forming peat soil layers.
  - Formation Factors: Arising in areas with high water tables and limited oxygen, peatlands exhibit slowed decomposition processes, facilitating the accumulation of organic material over time.
  - Vegetation Composition: While vegetation types may vary based on climate, common plants found in peatlands include mosses, particularly Sphagnum moss, along with sedges and shrubs.
  - Global Distribution: Peatlands are globally distributed across various climate zones, although they cover only a small percentage of the Earth’s terrestrial surface, approximately 3%.
Significance of Peatlands:
- - Carbon Sequestration: Peatlands play a crucial role as significant carbon sinks, storing more carbon than all other terrestrial vegetation types combined, contributing to climate regulation efforts.
  - Water Management: Functioning akin to massive sponges, peatlands absorb and gradually release water, regulating downstream flow and mitigating flood risks.
  - Biodiversity Support: Peatlands provide unique habitats for diverse plant and animal species specially adapted to the wet, acidic environment, contributing to overall biodiversity conservation efforts.

Ketamine

News: Tesla CEO Elon Musk advocates for the use of ketamine, stating its benefits for investors.
Definition: Ketamine is an approved medical product as an injectable, short-acting anesthetic for use in humans and animals.
Working:
- Ketamine works by blocking the NMDA receptor in the brain and spinal cord, and increases a brain chemical or neurotransmitter called glutamate.
- This halts transmission of pain in the spinal cord and activates reward pathways of the brain.
Impact:
- Helps with Depression: An intravenous dose of ketamine could relieve severe depression in a matter of hours.
- Dissociative drug: The drug has a “dissociative” effect that causes someone to hallucinate in an altered reality, a sort of high. This experience is called a “K-hole.”
- A Date Rape Drug: Since Ketamine is a clear liquid and can’t be detected, and even the white powder can be dissolved easily, it began to be used as a date rape drug. Now it is also available as nasal sprays.
Ketamine is a Schedule X drug in India, which means it is tightly controlled and even monitored on a case-specific basis by the prescribing doctor.

Patents

News: Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2024 have been notified by the Department For Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
Understanding Patents: Patents, as a vital component of intellectual property rights, are granted by governments to inventors for a specified duration. In return, inventors disclose their innovations to the public.
Rights Granted by Patents: Patents afford inventors exclusive privileges to manufacture, use, sell, import, or offer their invention for sale. Additionally, inventors can license others to utilize their invention for a fee.
Different Types of Patents:
- Product Patents: Safeguard novel machines, articles, compositions of matter, or enhancements to existing ones. For instance, innovations in solar panel design.
- Process Patents: Protect innovative methods of performing tasks, utilizing machinery, or producing articles. For example, new techniques for biofuel production.
- International Collaboration: India and the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)
  - India has ratified the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), signifying its commitment to global cooperation in patent protection and application processes.
Recent Developments and Key Rule Changes
- A novel addition, the ‘Certificate of Inventorship’ acknowledges the contributions of inventors towards patented inventions, enhancing recognition and incentivizing innovation.
- The timeframe for filing requests for examination has been shortened from four years to 31 months, streamlining the patent evaluation process and encouraging prompt action.
- To promote electronic transactions, a 10% reduction in renewal fees is offered for payments made in advance via electronic modes for a minimum of four years.

UPSC Prelims: UNESCO Sites, MCC, Ethanol 100 & More

Planetary Boundaries Framework: Concept and Significance

News: The 2024 Tyler Prize for environmental achievement was awarded to Johan Rockstrom for his pioneering work in the development of the Planetary Boundaries Framework.
He had led the team of international researchers who originated the planetary Boundary Framework in 2009.
The prestigious Tyler Prize is often described as Nobel Prize for environment.
Analysis: The Concept of Planetary Boundaries Framework
What are the boundaries for a “safe operating space for humanity” on Earth, and what changes can we force on it before we trigger rapid, catastrophic environmental harm?
- In 2009, Sweden’s Stockholm Resilience Centre published the Planetary Boundaries Framework, which outlined nine key processes, influenced by humanity, that threaten the stability of the entire Earth System. These are:
  - - climate change (CO2 concentration and radiative forcing),
    - biodiversity integrity (functional and genetic),
    - ocean acidification,
    - atmospheric aerosol loading,
    - stratospheric ozone depletion,
    - biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus,
    - freshwater change (blue water and green water),
    - land-system change, and
    - release of novel chemicals (including heavy metals, radioactive materials, plastics, and more).
    - Together, the stability of these nine processes is essential to maintaining the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and ecosystems in the delicate balance that has allowed human civilizations to flourish.
    - Crossing boundaries increases the risk of generating large-scale abrupt or irreversible environmental changes.
The 2023 Update
- - In 2023, the latest update not only quantified all boundaries, it also concludes that six of the nine boundaries have been transgressed. These are:
  - climate change (CO2 concentration and radiative forcing),
  - biodiversity integrity (functional and genetic),
  - biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus,
  - freshwater change (blue water use and green water),
  - land-system change, and
  - release of novel chemicals (including heavy metals, radioactive materials, plastics, and more).

Read also: Planetary Boundaries Framework: Concept and Significance

Glossary
Blue Water Vs Green Water:
- - From a scientific perspective, there are two types of freshwater on earth: blue water and green water.
  - Blue water is water in rivers and lakes, groundwater and the water frozen in glaciers and the polar ice caps.
  - Green water is the water available in the soil for plants and soil microorganisms. It is the water absorbed by roots, used by plants, and released back to the atmosphere through the process of transpiration.
  - Green water can also leave the soil through evaporation or subsurface runoff, but it is considered productive only when it is used for plant transpiration.
  - Note: Grey water includes all the wastewater without faecal matter (toilet water) generated from domestic streams, such as kitchens, and bathroom.
Climate Sensitivity:
- - Climate sensitivity is a term used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to describe to what extent rising levels of greenhouse gases affect the Earth’s temperature.
  - Specifically, it describes how much warmer the planet will get if the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere doubles.
Functional Biodiversity:
- - Functional diversity is a component of biodiversity that generally concerns the range of things that organisms do in communities and ecosystems.
  - Integrity is the degree to which biodiversity’s composition, structure, and function are similar to its natural or reference state.
Radiative Forcing:
- - Radiative forcing is what happens when the amount of energy that enters the Earth’s atmosphere is different from the amount of energy that leaves it.
  - Energy travels in the form of radiation: solar radiation entering the atmosphere from the sun, and infrared radiation exiting as heat.
  - If more radiation is entering Earth than leaving—as is happening today—then the atmosphere will warm up.
  - This is called radiative forcing because the difference in energy can force changes in the Earth’s climate.
Atmospheric Aerosol Loading:
- - Atmospheric aerosol loading refers to the presence of suspended solid and/or liquid particles in the air, such as dust, smoke, and haze.
  - This can be quantified either by measuring the mass concentration of these aerosol particles or by utilizing optical methods to gauge their presence.
Biogeochemical Cycles:
- - Biogeochemical Cycles are the pathways by which elements like carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, and sulfur, or compounds like water, flow between living organisms and the environment.
Land Systems Change:
- - Land Systems Change refers to the human impact on landscapes, encompassing alterations such as deforestation, habitat destruction, and the transformation of natural environments into pastures, plantations, mining sites, roads, and various infrastructural developments
Earth Overshoot Day:
- - Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year.
Plastic Overshoot Day:
- - The Plastic Overshoot Day marks the point at which the amount of plastics exceeds the global waste management capacity.
Ocean Acidification:
- - Ocean acidification refers to a reduction in the pH of the ocean over an extended period of time, caused primarily by uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.
  - However, ocean acidification does not imply that ocean waters will actually become acidic (i.e., pH < 7.0).
  - Increased ocean temperatures and oxygen loss act concurrently with ocean acidification and constitute the ‘deadly trio’ of climate change pressures on the marine environment.
Stratospheric Ozone Depletion:
- - When chlorine and bromine atoms come into contact with ozone in the stratosphere, they destroy ozone molecules. This is called Stratospheric Ozone Depletion.
  - The stratosphere is the second major layer of the atmosphere and lies above the troposphere, the lowest layer. It occupies the region of atmosphere from about 12 to 50 km above the Earth’s surface, although its lower boundary tends to be higher nearer the equator and lower nearer the poles.
Climate Change:
- Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Such shifts can be natural, due to changes in the sun’s activity or large volcanic eruptions.
- But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.