CHAPTER - 1 : SPACE TECHNOLOGY

SECTION 1 – THE UNIVERSE

❖ UNIVERSE
➢ Everything that exists, everything that has existed, and everything that will exist.
➢ Composition of the Universe
■ Dark Energy
● Dark Energy is a hypothetical form of energy that exerts a negative, repulsive pressure,
behaving like the opposite of gravity. It has been hypothesised to account for the
observational properties of distant type Ia supernovae, which show the universe going
through an accelerated period of expansion. Like Dark Matter, Dark Energy is not
directly observed, but rather inferred from observations of gravitational interactions
between astronomical objects.
● Dark Energy makes up 70% of the total mass-energy density of the universe. The other
dominant contributor is Dark Matter, and a small amount is due to atoms or baryonic
matter.
■ Dark Matter
● Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85%
of the matter in the universe.[1] Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear
to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not absorb, reflect, or
emit electromagnetic radiation (like light) and is, therefore, difficult to detect.
■ The Rest

❖ FORMATION OF THE UNIVERSE

The Theories:
➢ The Big Bang Theory
➢ Steady-State Theory
➢ Eternal Inflation Theory
➢ Oscillating Universe
➢ String Theory
➢ The Big Bounce Theory
➢ Simulation

➢ BIG BANG THEORY

■ It is the idea that the universe began as just a single point, then expanded and stretched to
grow as large as it is right now—and it is still stretching!
■ EVIDENCES SUPPORTING THE BIG BANG THEORY
● Hubble Expansion : Hubble's law, also known as the Hubble–Lemaître law, is the
observation in physical cosmology that galaxies are moving away from Earth at
speeds proportional to their distance. In other words, the farther they are, the faster
they are moving away from Earth.
● Cosmic Microwave Background : In Big Bang cosmology the cosmic microwave
background (CMB, CMBR) is electromagnetic radiation that is a remnant from an
early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation".[1] The CMB is faint
cosmic background radiation filling all space. It is an important source of data on the
early universe because it is the oldest electromagnetic radiation in the universe,
dating to the epoch of recombination when the first atoms were formed. With a
traditional optical telescope, the space between stars and galaxies (the background) is
completely dark (see: Olbers' paradox). However, a sufficiently sensitive radio
telescope shows a faint background brightness, or glow, almost uniform, that is not
associated with any star, galaxy, or other object. This glow is strongest in the
microwave region of the radio spectrum.
● Big Bang Nucleosynthesis: Big Bang nucleosynthesis (abbreviated BBN, also
known as primordial nucleosynthesis)[1] is the production of nuclei other than those
of the lightest isotope of hydrogen (hydrogen-1, 1H, having a single proton as a
nucleus) during the early phases of the Universe. Primordial nucleosynthesis is
believed by most cosmologists to have taken place in the interval from roughly 10
seconds to 20 minutes after the Big Bang,[2] and is calculated to be responsible for
the formation of most of the universe's helium as the isotope helium-4 (4He), along
with small amounts of the hydrogen isotope deuterium (2H or D), the helium isotope
helium-3 (3He), and a very small amount of the lithium isotope lithium-7 (7Li). In
addition to these stable nuclei, two unstable or radioactive isotopes were also
produced: the heavy hydrogen isotope tritium (3H or T); and the beryllium isotope
beryllium-7 (7Be); but these unstable isotopes later decayed into 3He and 7Li,
respectively, as above.
■ Timeline of Events
● The Planck Era (Big Bang To 10-35 Seconds)
● Inflationary Model Added (10-35 to 10-33 of a Second)
● Reheating (10-33 to About 10-10 Of A Second)
● Particle Era (10-10 to About 10 Seconds)
● Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) (10 Seconds to About 20 Minutes)
● The Photon Era (20 Minutes to 380 Thousand Years)
 ➢ Steady-State Theory
■ Continuous creation of matter throughout the universe to explain its apparent expansion.
■ This type of universe would be infinite, with no beginning or end.
➢ Eternal Inflation Theory
■ After the Big Bang, the universe expanded rapidly during a brief period called inflation.
■ The Eternal Inflation Theory posits that inflation never stopped, and has been going on for an
infinite length of time.
■ Somewhere, even now, new universes are coming into existence in a vast complex called the
multiverse
➢ Oscillating Universe
■ The Oscillating model of the universe involved an endless series of Big Bangs, followed by
Big Crunches that restarted the cycle, endlessly.
➢ THE BIG BOUNCE THEORY
■ The Big Bounce is a hypothesised cosmological model for the origin of the known universe. It
was originally suggested as a phase of the cyclic model or oscillatory universe interpretation
of the Big Bang, where the first cosmological event was the result of the collapse of a
previous universe.

➢ String Theory
■ String theory is a potential “theory of everything”, uniting all matter and forces in a single
theoretical framework, which describes the fundamental level of the universe in terms of
vibrating strings rather than particles. Although the framework can naturally incorporate
gravity even on the subatomic level, it implies that the universe has some strange properties,
such as nine or ten spatial dimensions. String theorists have approached this problem by
finding ways to “compactify” six or seven of these dimensions, or shrink them down so that
we wouldn’t notice them
➢ Simulation
■ The Universe could be a completely digital simulation running on a vast computer.
❖ CELESTIAL BODIES
➢ STARS
■ It is a celestial body that generates light by nuclear reactions and is held by its own gravity.
■ Classification of stars
Based on Temperature:
● Red – Surface Temp – 2400 to 3700 K
● Orange – Surface Temp – 3700 to 5200 K
 ● Yellow – Surface Temp – 5200 to 6000 K
● Yellow White – Surface Temp – 6000 to 7500 K
● White – Surface Temp – 7500 to 10000 K
● White Blue – Surface Temp – 10000 to 30000 K
● Blue – Surface Temp – more than 30000 K
Based on Size
● Super Giant :Supergiants are among the most massive and most luminous stars.
Supergiant stars occupy the top region of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram with
absolute visual magnitudes between about −3 and −8. The temperature range of
supergiant stars spans from about 3,400 K to over 20,000 K
● Giant : A giant star is a star with substantially larger radius and luminosity than a
main-sequence star of the same surface temperature. They lie above the main
sequence on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram and correspond to luminosity classes
II and III
● Main Sequence :
● White Dwarf
● Neutron Star
 ■ Classification based on Luminosity
● Most luminous supergiants
● Less luminous supergiants
● Luminous giants
● Normal giants
● Subgiants
● Main Sequence Stars
● Subdwarf
● White Dwarf
■ Formation of a star
● Stars originate from nebulae. Gravitation then pulls together the dust and gas from
the nebula to form a protostar.
● These clouds of dust and hydrogen gas then collapse under their own gravity.
● The centre of this cloud becomes very hot and nuclear fusion occurs.
● This process releases so much energy that the stars then shine with their own light.
■ Life Cycle of a star

Massive star is 1.44 times then average star, massive star upon dying became
blacl holes. Our sun is Average star and massive stars may or may not become
black holes

Gravitational Waves
■ Gravitational waves are the ripples in the spacetime whose existence was predicted by
Albert Einstein in his theory of relativity in 1995.
■ It is caused due to violent and energetic events like the colliding of black
holes,supernovae,the colliding of neutron stars etc.
■ These waves travel at the speed of light carrying information about its origin and nature of
gravity.
■ Gravitational waves have very weak interaction with the matter which helps it to travel
larger distances unimpeded.
■ Highly sensitive instruments called Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave
Observatory(LIGO) are used to detect them.
■ India is also developing IndiGO-LIGO based in India with international
collaboration.Another project to detect gravitational waves is e-LISA.
Gravitational Lensing
■ As the light emitted by distant galaxies passes by massive objects in the universe, the
gravitational pull from these objects can distort or bend the light. This is called gravitational
lensing.
■ Strong gravitational lensing can actually result in such strongly bent light that multiple
images of the light-emitting galaxy are formed.
■ Weak gravitational lensing results in galaxies appearing distorted, stretched or magnified.
Although difficult to measure for an individual galaxy, galaxies clustered close together will
exhibit similar lensing patterns.

Galaxies

■ A galaxy is a huge collection of gas, dust, and billions of stars and their solar systems, all
held together by gravity.
■ A galaxy is a huge collection of gas, dust, and billions of stars and their solar systems. A
galaxy is held together by gravity. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, also has a supermassive black
hole in the middle.
■ Formation
● Scientists are divided on just how galaxies first formed.Some believe that smaller
clusters of about one million stars,known as globular clusters,formed first and later
gathered into galaxies.
● Others believed that galaxies formed first and that only later did stars within them
begin to gather into smaller clusters.
■ Types of Galaxies
● Spiral Galaxy
◆ Spiral galaxies are the most common type in the Universe.
◆ The Milky Way is a Spiral Galaxy.
◆ The central bright region at the core of a galaxy is called the “Galactic Bulge”.
● Elliptical Galaxy
◆ Elliptical galaxies are roughly egg-shaped (ellipsoidal or ovoid).
◆ Most ellipticals contain older, low mass stars, and because they lack a great deal
of star-making gas and dust clouds, there is a small new star formation
occurring in them.
● Irregular Galaxy
◆ Irregular galaxies are irregular in shape.
◆ Irregulars usually do not have enough structure to characterise them as spirals
or ellipticals.
■ SUN
● The Sun at the heart of our solar system is a Main Sequence Star.
● Its gravity holds the solar system together, keeping everything from the biggest planets
to the smallest particles of debris in its orbit
● Mass of the Sun: 1.988 × 1030 kg.
● Diameter of the Sun: 696342 ± 65 km.
● Distance between Sun and the Earth: 149.6 million km.
● Light travels from the Sun to the Earth in 8 minutes 19 Seconds.
 ● It is a G2V star. Age– 4.5 billion years.

● Sunspots :Sunspots are phenomena on the Sun's photosphere that appear as temporary
spots that are darker than the surrounding areas. They are regions of reduced surface
temperature caused by concentrations of magnetic flux that inhibit convection.
Sunspots are darker areas on the sun's surface where coronal magnetic fields are
particularly strong. When these strong magnetic fields realign themselves, this can
eject solar flares, which are spurts of electromagnetic radiation, as well as giant plumes
of solar plasma known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs).Follow 11 year cycle.
● Solar Flares : A solar flare is an intense localised eruption of electromagnetic radiation
in the Sun's atmosphere. Flares occur in active regions and are often, but not always,
accompanied by coronal mass ejections, solar particle events, and other solar
phenomena. The occurrence of solar flares varies with the 11-year solar cycle.
● Solar Winds : The solar wind is created by the outward expansion of plasma (a
collection of charged particles) from the Sun's corona (outermost atmosphere). This
plasma is continually heated to the point that the Sun's gravity can't hold it down. It
then travels along the Sun's magnetic field lines that extend radially outward.
● Coronal mass ejections(CMEs) are often called "solar storms" or "space storms" in the
popular media. They are sometimes, but not always, associated with solar flares, which
are another manifestation of magnetic energy release at the Sun.

➢ NEBULAE
■ A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionised gases.
■ It originates from gas and dust emitted from dying stars while some nebula stars begin to
develop.
■ Hence it is also called star nursery.
■ It exists in the space between the stars called interstellar space.
■ The closest nebula to the earth is the Helix Nebula at a distance of 700light years from earth.
■ Powerful space telescopes are used to capture the pictures of the nebula.
■ Classification:
● Dark Nebula
● Light Nebula
➢ PLANETS
■ A planet is an astronomical body orbiting a star that:
● Is massive enough to be spherical due to its own gravity.
● Is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion.
● Has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.
Mercury and Venus don't have moon

■ Mercury

■ Venus
■ Earth

■ Mars

■ Jupiter
■ Saturn

■ Uranus

■ Neptune
 ■ Dwarf Planets
A dwarf planet is a celestial body that:
● Orbits the sun.
● Has enough mass to assume a nearly round shape.
● Has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
● Is not a moon.
The first five recognized dwarf planets are:
● Ceres
● Pluto
● Eris
● Makemake
● Haumea
PLUTO

➢ SATELLITES
 ■ A satellite is an object in space that orbits or circles around a bigger object.
■ There are two kinds of satellites: natural or artificial.
MOON

➢ ASTEROIDS
■ Asteroids are small, airless rocky worlds revolving around the Sun that are too small to be
called planets.
■ They are also known as Planetoids or minor planets. In total, the mass of all the asteroids is
less than that of Earth's moon.
■ Asteroids are leftovers from the formation of our Solar system about 4.5 billion years ago.
Early on, the birth of Jupiter prevented any planetary bodies from forming in the gap between
Mars and Jupiter, causing the small objects that were there to collide with each other and
fragment into the asteroids seen today
➢ COMETS
■ Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust roughly the size of a small town.
■ When a comet's orbit brings it close to the Sun, it heats up and spews dust and gases into a
giant glowing head larger than most planets. The dust and gases form a tail that stretches
away from the Sun for millions of kilometres.
■ Comets contain dust, ice, Carbon dioxide, Ammonia, Methane and more.
■ Astronomers think comets are leftovers from the gas, dust, ice and rocks that initially formed
the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.
➢ METEORS, METEOROIDS AND METEORITES
■ A meteoroid that burns up as it passes through the Earth’s atmosphere is known as a Meteor.
■ A meteoroid that survives falling through the Earth’s atmosphere and colliding with the
Earth’s surface is known as a Meteorite.
 ■ A meteoroid is a small rock or particle of debris in our Solar system. They range in size from
dust to around 10 metres in diameter.
■ Almost all meteoroids contain extra-terrestrial nickel and iron. They have three main
classifications: Iron, Stone, and Stony-iron.
❖ Kuiper Belt
➢ The Kuiper Belt is a disc-shaped region beyond Neptune that extends from about 30 to 55
astronomical units. This distant region is probably populated with hundreds of thousands of icy
bodies larger than 100 km across and an estimated trillion or more comets.
➢ Dwarf planet Pluto may be the best known of the larger objects in the Kuiper Belt. Objects in the
Kuiper Belt are presumed to be remnants from the formation of the solar system about 4.5 billion
years ago.
➢ In 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto, making the first up-close exploration of a
Kuiper Belt Object.
❖ Oort Cloud
➢ The Oort Cloud is a theorised shell of icy objects that lie beyond the Kuiper Belt.
➢ They are as far as somewhere between 2,000 and 200,000 AU. It is divided into two regions: a
disc-shaped inner Oort cloud (or Hills cloud) and a spherical outer Oort cloud. Both regions lie
beyond the heliosphere and in interstellar space.
➢ The Kuiper belt and the scattered disc, the other two reservoirs of trans-Neptunian objects, are less
than one thousandth as far from the Sun as the Oort cloud.
➢ The outer limit of the Oort cloud defines the cosmographical boundary of the Solar System and the
extent of the Sun's Hill sphere.
❖ Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion
➢ Kepler's three laws describe how planetary bodies orbit the Sun. They describe how (1) planets move
in elliptical orbits with the Sun as a focus, (2) a planet covers the same area of space in the same
amount of time no matter where it is in its orbit, and (3) a planet’s orbital period is proportional to the
size of its orbit (its semi-major axis).
❖ ORBITS
➢ An orbit is a regular, repeating path that one object in space takes around another one.
➢ Orbits come in different shapes. All orbits are elliptical. For the planets, the orbits are almost circular.
The orbits of comets are highly eccentric.
➢ Satellites that orbit Earth, including the moon, do not always stay the same distance from Earth.
Sometimes they are closer, and at other times they are farther away. The closest point a satellite
comes to Earth is called its perigee. The farthest point is the apogee.
➢ For planets, the point in their orbit closest to the sun is perihelion. The farthest point is called
aphelion. Earth reaches its aphelion during summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
➢ The time it takes a satellite to make one full orbit is called its period. For example, Earth has an
orbital period of one year.
➢ How Do Objects Stay in Orbit?
■ An object in motion will stay in motion unless something pushes or pulls on it.
■ Without gravity, an Earth-orbiting satellite would go off into space along a straight line. With
gravity, it is pulled back toward Earth.
■ A constant tug-of-war takes place between the satellite's tendency to move in a straight line,
or momentum, and the tug of gravity pulling the satellite back.
■ An object's momentum and the force of gravity have to be balanced for an orbit to happen.
➢ Factors determining the Orbit
■ Height : The height of the orbit, or distance between the satellite and Earth’s surface,
determines how quickly the satellite moves around the Earth. An Earth-orbiting satellite’s
motion is mostly controlled by Earth’s gravity. As satellites get closer to Earth, the pull of
gravity gets stronger, and the satellite moves more quickly. NASA’s Aqua satellite, for
example, requires about 99 minutes to orbit the Earth at about 705 kilometres up, while a
weather satellite about 36,000 kilometres from Earth’s surface takes 23 hours, 56 minutes, and
4 seconds to complete an orbit. At 384,403 kilometres from the centre of the Earth, the Moon
completes a single orbit in 28 days.(determine size of orbit)

■ Eccentricity : Eccentricity refers to the shape of the orbit. A satellite with a low eccentric
orbit moves in a near circle around the Earth. An eccentric orbit is elliptical, with the
satellite’s distance from Earth changing depending on where it is in its orbit.(determine shape
of orbit)

■ Inclination : Inclination is the angle of the orbit in relation to Earth’s equator. A satellite that
orbits directly above the equator has zero inclination. If a satellite orbits from the north pole
(geographic, not magnetic) to the south pole, its inclination is 90 degrees.
➢ Types of Orbits

■ LEO : In this highly inclined orbit, the satellite moves around the Earth from pole to pole,
taking about 99 minutes to complete an orbit.
● Polar Orbits
● Sun-Synchronous Orbit
■ MEO :A medium Earth orbit (MEO) is an Earth-centred orbit with an altitude above a low
Earth orbit (LEO) and below a high Earth orbit (HEO) – between 2,000 and 35,786 km (1,243
and 22,236 mi) above sea level.
● Semi-Synchronous Orbit
● Molniya Orbit
■ HEO : A high Earth orbit is a geocentric orbit with an altitude entirely above that of a
geosynchronous orbit (35,786 kilometres, 22,236 mi).
● Geosynchronous Orbit
● Geostationary Earth Orbit

GPS
● The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a constellation of up to 32 satellites that orbit at a
height of 26,600km above Earth.
● For the receiver to work, it needs to be able to “see” four of the satellites.
● When you turn on your receiver, it may take a minute or so to locate these satellite signals, then
to download data from the satellite before positioning can commence.
 GSO vs GEO

❖ Telescopes:
➢ These are ground based space observatories
➢ There are mainly two type of telescope play a pivotal role a) optical telescope b)radio telescope
➢ Optical Telescope:
■ Itn captures visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum in space.
■ These instruments use a string of lenses and mirrors to focus in too deep space.
 ■ The efficiency of the telescope increases with clear and cloudless sky and this factor determines
the location of these telescopes.
■ Some of important optical telescope are located at Deva
➢ Radio Telescope:
■ It captures the invisible radio waves of the electromagnetic spectrum.
■ It looks very different from an optical telescope as it uses a series of antennas and dishes to
receive the radio signals.
■ Some of the important radio telescopes of India are located at Pune in Maharashtra and Ooty in
Tamilnadu.
❖ Lagrange Points
➢ For many spacecraft being put in orbit, being too close to Earth can be disruptive to their mission –
even at more distant orbits such as GEO.For example, for space-based observatories and telescopes
whose mission is to photograph deep, dark space, being next to Earth is hugely detrimental because
Earth naturally emits visible light and infrared radiation that will prevent the telescope from detecting
any faint lights like distant galaxies. Photographing dark space with a telescope next to our glowing
Earth would be as hopeless as trying to take pictures of stars from Earth in broad daylight.
➢ Lagrange points, or L-points, allow for orbits that are much, much farther away (over a million
kilometres) and do not orbit Earth directly. These are specific points far out in space where the
gravitational fields of Earth and the Sun combine in such a way that spacecraft that orbit them remain
stable and can thus be ‘anchored’ relative to Earth. If a spacecraft was launched to other points in
space very distant from Earth, they would naturally fall into an orbit around the Sun, and those
spacecraft would soon end up far from Earth, making communication difficult. Instead, spacecraft
launched to these special L-points stay fixed, and remain close to Earth with minimal effort without
going into a different orbit.
➢ The most used L-points are L1 and L2. These are both four times farther away from Earth than the
Moon – 1.5 million km, compared to GEO’s 36 000 km – but that is still only approximately 1% of
the distance of Earth from the Sun.
❖ GTO
➢ This is an elliptical Earth orbit used to transfer a spacecraft from a low altitude orbit or flight
trajectory to a higher orbit.
➢ The apogee is at 36,000 km.
➢ When a spacecraft reaches this point, its apogee kick motor is fired to inject it into a higher orbit.
❖ INDIAN SPACE RESEARCH ORGANISATION
➢ History of Space Research in India
■ 1962 - Indian National Committee for Space Research established and the Thumba Equatorial
Rocket Launching Station or TERLS.
■ 1969 - formation of ISRO or the Indian Space Research Organisation, under the Department
of Atomic Energy.
■ 1971 - establishment of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
■ 1975 - First Indian-made satellite, Aryabhatta, successfully put into orbit.
■ 1979 - Bhaskara - 1 launched and the first experimental launch of SLV – 3.
■ 1982 was the year of INSAT – 1A communication satellite was launched.
■ 1984 - Rakesh Sharma spent eight days on the Russian Space Station, SALYUT -7.
■ 1992 - launch of ASLV that placed the SROSS-C satellite in orbit and the launch of INSAT –
2A which was followed by the 3 and 4 series.
■ 1997 - first operational launch of PSLV – 4 carrying IRS – 1D.
■ 2001 was a good year with the successful launch of the heavy rocket Geosynchronous
Satellite Launch Vehicle with GSAT – 1 satellite.
■ 2008 - successful launch of the Israeli satellite Tecsar by PSLV, and India’s first path breaking
Moon mission Chandrayaan – 1 lifted off to international acclaim.
■ 2012 On September 9th, ISRO scored a century when a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle put
into orbit two foreign satellites – the French SPOT – 6 and the Japanese Proiteres. This
marked the 100th space mission of the Indian Space Research Organisation.
■ 2013 India’s first interplanetary probe, Mars Orbiter Spacecraft Mangalyaan launched on
November 5, 2013, from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota.
➢ Vision
■ Harness space technology for national development, while pursuing space science research
and planetary exploration.
➢ Mission
■ Design and development of launch vehicles and related technologies for providing access to
space.
■ Design and development of satellites and related technologies for earth observation,
communication, navigation, meteorology and space science.
■ Indian National Satellite (INSAT) programme for meeting telecommunication, television
broadcasting and developmental applications.
■ Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) programme for management of natural resources and
monitoring of the environment using space based imagery.
■ Space based Applications for Societal development.
■ Research and Development in space science and planetary exploration.
➢ Objectives
■ Operational flights of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
■ Developmental flight of Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV- Mk II).
■ Development of heavy lift Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-Mk III).
■ Design, Development and Realisation of Communication Satellites.
■ Design, Development and Realisation of Earth Observation Satellites. •
 ■ Development of Navigation Satellite Systems.
■ Development of satellites for Space Science and Planetary Exploration.
■ Earth Observation Applications.
■ Space based systems for Societal Applications.
■ Advanced Technologies and newer initiatives.
■ Training, Capacity building and Education.
■ Promotion of Space technology.
■ Infrastructure / Facility Development for space research.
■ International Cooperation.
➢ Organisational Structure

❖ Type Of Satellites:
• Communication • Earth Observations • Navigation • Space Science • Experimental • Small
Satellite • University / Academic Institute Satellites
➢ Communication
■ Example: INSAT and GSAT
■ Supports telecommunication, television broadcasting, satellite news gathering, societal
applications, weather forecasting, disaster warning and Search and Rescue operation services.

Frequency Bands
● L Band
○ Global Positioning System (GPS) carriers and also satellite mobile phones, such as
Iridium; Inmarsat providing communications at sea, land and air.
 ● S-band
○ Weather radar, surface ship radar, and some communications satellites, especially
those of NASA for communication with ISS and Space Shuttle.
● C-band (4–8 GHz)
○ Primarily used for satellite communications, for full-time satellite TV networks or
raw satellite feeds. Commonly used in areas that are subject to tropical rainfall,
since it is less susceptible to rainfade than Ku band.
● X-band (8–12 GHz)
○ Primarily used by the military. Used in radar applications including
continuous-wave, pulsed, single polarisation, dual- polarisation, synthetic aperture
radar and phased arrays.
● Ku-band (12–18 GHz)
○ Used for satellite communications. In Europe, Ku-band downlink is used from 10.7
GHz to 12.75 GHz for direct broadcast satellite services, such as Astra.
● Ka-band (26–40 GHz)
○ Communications satellites, uplink in either the 27.5 GHz and 31 GHz bands, and
high-resolution, close-range targeting radars on military aircraft.

➢ Earth Observations
■ Examples: Cartosat, Oceansat, Resourcesat
■ The largest civilian remote sensing satellite constellation in the world - thematic series of
satellites supporting multitude of applications in the areas of land and water resources;
cartography; and ocean & atmosphere.
➢ Navigation
■ Examples: GAGAN, NavIC
■ Satellites for navigation services to meet the emerging demands of the Civil Aviation
requirements and to meet the user requirements of the positioning, navigation and timing
based on the independent satellite navigation system.
➢ Space Science
■ Examples: Astrosat, Mangalyaan
■ Spacecraft for research in areas like astronomy, astrophysics, planetary and earth sciences,
atmospheric sciences and theoretical physics.
➢ Experimental
■ Examples: INS 1A, 1B
 ■ A host of small satellites mainly for experimental purposes.
■ These experiments include Remote Sensing, Atmospheric Studies, Payload Development,
Orbit Controls, recovery technology etc.
➢ Small Satellite
■ SARAL, YOUTHSAT
■ Sub 500 kg class satellites - a platform for stand-alone payloads for earth imaging and science
missions within a quick turnaround time.
➢ University / Academic Institute Satellites
■ Swayam, Pratham
■ ISRO's Student Satellite programme is envisaged to encourage various Universities and
Institutions for the development of Nano/Pico Satellites.
❖ Satellite Launchers

➢ Historic (SLV, ASLV)

■ SLV
● Satellite Launch Vehicle-3 (SLV-3) was India's first experimental satellite launch vehicle,
which was an all solid, four stage vehicle weighing 17 tonnes with a height of 22m and
capable of placing 40 kg class payloads in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
■ ASLV
● With a lift off weight of 40 tonnes, the 24 m tall ASLV was configured as a five stage,
all-solid propellant vehicle, with a mission of orbiting 150 kg class satellites into 400 km
circular orbits.
➢ Operational (PSLV, GSLV, Sounding Rocket)
■ Sounding Rockets
● Sounding rockets are one or two stage solid propellant rockets used for probing the upper
atmospheric regions and for space research.
● They also serve as easily affordable platforms to test or prove prototypes of new
components or subsystems intended for use in launch vehicles and satellites.

■ Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle

● Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is the third generation launch vehicle of India.
● It is the first Indian launch vehicle to be equipped with liquid stages.
● After its first successful launch in October 1994, PSLV emerged as the reliable and
versatile workhorse launch vehicle of India with 39 consecutively successful missions by
June 2017.
● During the 1994-2017 period, the vehicle launched 48 Indian satellites and 209 satellites
for customers from abroad.
● The PSLV has four stages using solid and liquid propulsion systems alternately. The first
stage carries 138 tonnes of hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene-bound (HTPB) propellant
and develops a maximum thrust of about 4,800 kilonewtons.
● On the PSLV-G and PSLV-XL, first stage thrust is augmented by six strap-on solid
boosters. The PSLV-CA uses no strap-on boosters.
● The second stage employs the Vikas engine and carries 41.5 t of liquid propellant –
unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) as fuel and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) as
oxidiser. It generates a maximum thrust of 800 kN.
● The third stage uses 7 t HTPB-based solid propellant and produces a maximum thrust of
240 kN.
● The fourth stage is powered by twin engines burning monomethylhydrazine (MMH) and
mixed oxides of nitrogen (MON). Each engine generates 7.4 kN thrust
● PSLV Variants
◆ • PSLV CA • PSLV G • PSLV XL
■ Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle
● It is an expendable launch system operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation
(ISRO).
● GSLV has been used in ten launches to date, since its first launch in 2001 to the most
recent on May 5, 2017 carrying the GSAT 9 satellite.
● Even though Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III shares the name it is an
entirely different launcher.
● The 49 metres tall GSLV, with a lift-off mass of 415 metric tons , is a three stage vehicle
with solid, liquid and cryogenic stages respectively.
● GSLV employs S-band telemetry and C-band transponders for enabling vehicle
performance monitoring, tracking, range safety / flight safety and preliminary orbit
determination.
● The GSLV uses four L40H liquid strap-on boosters derived from the L37.5 second stage,
which are loaded with 42.6 tons of hypergolic propellants (UDMH & N2O4).
● The GS2 stage is powered by the Vikas engine.
 ● The third stage of the GSLV Mk.II is propelled by CE-7.5 cryogenic rocket engine. It uses
liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX). The engine has a default thrust of 75
kilonewtons but is capable of a maximum thrust of 93.1 kilonewtons.
● GSLV Variants
◆ MK 1 • MK 2 • MK 3
➢ Future (RLV, Scramjet)
■ Vikas Engine
● The Vikas is a family of liquid fuelled rocket engines conceptualised and designed by the
Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre in the 1970s.
● The design was based on the licensed version of the Viking engine with the chemical
pressurisation system.
● It is used in the PSLV and the GSLV series of launch vehicles.
● Vikas engine is used to power the second stage PSLV, boosters and second stage of GSLV
Mark I and II and the first stage of GSLV Mark III.
● The propellant loading for Vikas engine in PSLV, GSLV Mark I and II is 40 tons, while in
GSLV Mark III it is 55 tons.

Scramjet VS Ramjet

Ramjet engine
● A ramjet is a form of air-breathing jet engine that uses the vehicle’s forward motion to
compress incoming air for combustion without a rotating compressor. Fuel is injected in the
combustion chamber where it mixes with the hot compressed air and ignites.
● A ramjet-powered vehicle requires assisted take-off like a rocket assist to accelerate it to a
speed where it begins to produce thrust.
 ● Ramjets work most efficiently at supersonic speeds around Mach 3 (three times the speed of
sound) and can operate up to speeds of Mach 6.However, the ramjet efficiency starts to drop
when the vehicle reaches hypersonic speeds.

Advantages of Ramjet engine

1. Ramjet Is very simple in construction and does not have any moving parts such as compressor
and turbine.
2. It is very cheap and requires almost no maintenance.
3. Greater thrust per unit engine weight than any other propulsion engine at supersonic speed
except rocket.
4. At very high speed and high altitudes the specific fuel consumption is less than turbojet
engine
5. It can be operated with any type of liquid fuels and even with solid nuclear fuels

Scramjet engine
● A scramjet engine is an improvement over the ramjet engine.
● Uniqueness about the scramjet technology is that it draws oxygen from the air when the
rocket travels through the atmosphere.
● Ordinary rockets do the same. They also draw the oxygen from air but they use a compressor
to draw in air, compress and ignite to burn the fuel. The scramjet’s heating and compression is
done by movement of the rocket itself as it is moving at supersonic speed. Thus, it is known
as Supersonic Combustion Ramjet, or Scramjet.

Advantages of scramjet engine

1. Does not have to carry an oxygen tank.
2. No rotating parts makes it easier to manufacture.
3. Less weight and simple design.
4. As the hydrogen is used as a propellant and combustion is carried out at supersonic velocity
with the help of oxygen from the atmosphere.
5. As a result of that, steam (H2O) is an exhaust gas which is eco-friendly in nature.
❖ Fuel

The fuel that will power the core (or the middle unit of the lower part) of the GSLV Mk-III, the
rocket to be used in the Chandrayaan-2 mission is UDMH (Unsymmetrical Di-Methyl Hydrazine).

○ The Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) is using the highly toxic and
corrosive fuel UDMH (Unsymmetrical Di-Methyl Hydrazine), along with the
oxidiser nitrogen Tetroxide. This is called a “dirty combination”.
○ Elsewhere in the world, space programmes have moved to a cleaner and
greener fuel — liquid methane or kerosene.
○ Shifting to liquid methane would mean bringing in a cryogenic engine because
any gas would need to be kept in extremely low temperatures to stay liquefied.
● GSLV Mk III is a three-stage heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by ISRO. The
vehicle has two solid strap-ons, a core liquid booster and a cryogenic upper stage.
● GSLV Mk III is designed to carry 4 ton class of satellites into Geosynchronous
Transfer Orbit (GTO) or about 10 tons to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which is about
twice the capability of GSLV Mk II.
Propellant Used in Rocket
● The propellant is the chemical mixture burned to produce thrust in rockets and consists of a
fuel and an oxidizer.
​ Fuel is a substance that burns when combined with oxidiser for propulsion.
​ The oxidizer is an agent that releases oxygen in combination with a fuel. The ratio of
oxidizer to fuel is called the mixture ratio.
● Propellants are classified according to their state - liquid, solid, or hybrid.
● Liquid Propellants: In a liquid propellant rocket, the fuel and oxidizer are stored in separate
tanks and are fed through a system of pipes, valves, and turbopumps to a combustion chamber
where they are combined and burned to produce thrust.

​ Advantages: Liquid propellant engines are more complex than their solid propellant
counterparts, however, they offer several advantages. By controlling the flow of
propellant to the combustion chamber, the engine can be throttled, stopped, or
restarted.
​ Disadvantages: The main difficulties with liquid propellants are with oxidizers.
Storable oxidizers, such as nitric acid and nitrogen tetroxide are extremely toxic and
highly reactive, while cryogenic propellants are stored at low temperature and can also
have reactivity/toxicity issues.
​ Liquid propellants used in rocketry can be classified into three types: petroleum,
cryogens, and hypergolic.

■ Petroleum fuels are those refined from crude oil and are a mixture of complex
hydrocarbons, i.e. organic compounds containing only carbon and hydrogen.
The petroleum used as rocket fuel is a type of highly refined kerosene.
 ■ Cryogenic propellants are liquefied gases stored at very low temperatures,
most frequently liquid hydrogen (LH2) as the fuel and liquid oxygen (LO2 or
LOX) as the oxidizer. Hydrogen remains liquid at temperatures of -253 oC
(-423 oF) and oxygen remains in a liquid state at temperatures of -183 oC
(-297 oF).
■ Hypergolic propellants and oxidizers that ignite spontaneously on contact with
each other and require no ignition source. The easy start and restart capability
of hypergolic make them ideal for spacecraft manoeuvring systems.

​ Since hypergolic remains liquid at normal temperatures, they do not

pose storage problems like cryogenic propellants. Hypergolic are
highly toxic and must be handled with extreme care. Hypergolic fuels
commonly include hydrazine, monomethyl-hydrazine (MMH) and
unsymmetrical dimethyl-hydrazine (UDMH).
● Solid propellant: These are the simplest of all rocket designs. They consist of a casing,
usually steel, filled with a mixture of solid compounds (fuel and oxidizer) that burn at a rapid
rate, expelling hot gases from a nozzle to produce thrust. When ignited, a solid propellant
burns from the centre out towards the sides of the casing.
● There are two families of solids propellants: homogeneous and composite. Both types are
dense, stable at ordinary temperatures, and easily storable.

​ Composites are composed mostly of a mixture of granules of solid oxidizers, such as

ammonium nitrate, ammonium dinitramide, ammonium perchlorate, or potassium
nitrate in a polymer binding agent.
​ Single-, double-, or triple-bases (depending on the number of primary ingredients) are
homogeneous mixtures of one to three primary ingredients.
● Advantages: Solid propellant rockets are much easier to store and handle than liquid
propellant rockets. High propellant density makes for compact size as well.
● Disadvantages: Unlike liquid-propellant engines, solid propellant motors cannot be shut
down. Once ignited, they will burn until all the propellant is exhausted.
● Hybrid propellant: These engines represent an intermediate group between solid and liquid
propellant engines. One of the substances is solid, usually the fuel, while the other, usually the
oxidizer, is liquid. The liquid is injected into the solid, whose fuel reservoir also serves as the
combustion chamber.

​ The main advantage of such engines is that they have high performance, similar to
that of solid propellants, but the combustion can be moderated, stopped, or even
restarted. It is difficult to make use of this concept for very large thrusts, and thus,
hybrid propellant engines are rarely built.

Cryogenic Rocket

● A cryogenic rocket engine is a rocket engine that uses a cryogenic fuel or oxidizer, that is, its
fuel or oxidizer (or both) are gases liquefied and stored at very low temperature.
● A Cryogenic rocket stage is more efficient and provides more thrust for every kilogram of
propellant it burns compared to solid and earth-storable liquid propellant rocket stages.
Specific impulse achievable with cryogenic propellants (liquid Hydrogen and liquid Oxygen)
is much higher compared to earth storable liquid and solid propellants, giving it a substantial
payload advantage.
 ● Oxygen liquefies at -183 deg C and Hydrogen at -253 deg C also entails complex ground
support systems like propellant storage and filling systems, cryo engine and stage test
facilities, transportation and handling of cryo fluids and related safety aspects.

Specific Impulse

● The gauge for rating the efficiency of rocket propellants is specific impulse, stated in seconds.
Specific impulse indicates how many pounds (or kilograms) of thrust are obtained by the
consumption of one pound (or kilogram) of propellant in one second.
● Specific impulse is characteristic of the type of propellant, however, its exact value will vary
to some extent with the operating conditions and design of the rocket engine.

CHAPTER - 2 : ENERGY

❖ INTRODUCTION
➢ Energy is the capacity to do work.
➢ Exists in many forms
❖ Types of Energy
➢ Renewable Energy
■ Solar Energy
■ Hydroelectricity
■ Wind Energy
■ Geothermal Energy
■ Biofuels
➢ Non-renewable Energy
■ Coal
■ Petroleum
■ Natural Gas

(Non-Renewable sources of energy)

❖ COAL
➢ Coal is a fossil fuel and is the altered remains of prehistoric vegetation that originally accumulated
in swamps and peat bogs.
➢ Formation
■ Coal formation began around 360 million to 290 million years ago. The build-up of silt and
other sediments, together with tectonic movements, buried swamps and peat bogs often to
great depths. With burial, the plant material was subjected to high temperatures and pressures.
This caused physical and chemical changes in the vegetation, transforming it into coal.
➢ Types of Coal
■ Peat • Lignite • Bituminous • Anthracite
◆ PETROLEUM
➢ Complex mixture of hydrocarbons that occur in the Earth in liquid, gaseous, or solid forms.
➢ The term is often restricted to the liquid form, commonly called crude oil
➢ Formation
 ■ Petroleum is derived from ancient fossilised organic materials, such as zooplankton and
algae. Vast quantities of these remains settled to sea or lake bottoms, mixing with
sediments and being buried under anoxic conditions.
■ As further layers settled to the sea or lake bed, intense heat and pressure built up in the
lower regions. This process caused the organic matter to change, first into kerogen and
then with more heat into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons via a process known as
catagenesis.
■ Formation of petroleum occurs from hydrocarbon pyrolysis in a variety of reactions at high
temperature or pressure, or both

Terminology
● Kerogens – Kerogen is a solid organic matter in sedimentary rocks.
● Catagenesis – Catagenesis is a term used in petroleum geology to describe the cracking
process which results in the conversion of organic kerogens into hydrocarbons.
● Cracking – Process whereby complex organic molecules such as kerogens or long chain
hydrocarbons are broken down into simpler molecules such as light hydrocarbons, by the
breaking of carbon-carbon bonds in the precursors.
● Pyrolysis – It is a thermochemical decomposition of organic material at elevated
temperatures in the absence of oxygen (or any halogen).
● Knocking – A sharp sound caused by premature combustion of part of the compressed
air-fuel mixture in the cylinder.
● Octane number – A measure of the ability of a fuel to resist knocking when ignited in a
mixture with air in the cylinder of an internal-combustion engine
➢ Petrol and Diesel
■ Petrol is a mixture of volatile, flammable liquid hydrocarbons derived from petroleum and
used as fuel for internal-combustion engines.
■ It is a complex mixture of hundreds of different hydrocarbons. Most are saturated and
contain 4 to 12 carbon atoms per molecule. Gasoline used in automobiles boils mainly
between 30° C and 200° C.
■ Diesel fuel is a combustible liquid used as fuel for diesel engines, ordinarily obtained from
fractions of crude oil that are less volatile than the fractions used in petrol.
➢ Natural Gas
■ Gaseous fuel that contains very high (85-90%) of methane and a small percentage of other
hydrocarbons.
➢ LPG, LNG, PNG, CNG
■ Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) is a mixture of propane and butane; and propane and
butane in small amounts.
■ Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas that has been cooled to a liquid state at about
-260°F (-160⁰C) for shipping and storage.
■ Compressed natural gas (CNG) refers to methane stored at high pressure and is a fuel
which can be used in place of petrol, Diesel and LPG. It is a cleaner fuel compared to the
fuels mentioned above.
■ Piped Natural Gas (PNG) is similar to CNG . Only difference is that it is supplied through
pipelines for household uses.
➢ Oil and Gas Window
■ The oil and gas window is a temperature dependent interval in the subsurface where oil is
generated and expelled from the source rocks.
❖ Fuel Gas

➢ Coal gas – Obtained when coal is heated strongly in the absence of air.
➢ Water gas – Mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen produced from synthesis gas.
➢ Producer gas – Producer gas is fuel gas that is manufactured from material such as coal, as
opposed to natural gas.
➢ Syngas – It is a fuel gas mixture consisting primarily of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and very often
some carbon dioxide. Syngas is usually a product of gasification and the main application is
electricity generation. Syngas can be produced from many sources, including natural gas, coal,
 biomass, or virtually any hydrocarbon feedstock, by reaction with steam (steam reforming), carbon
dioxide (dry reforming) or oxygen (partial oxidation).
➢ Wood gas – Wood gas is a syngas fuel which can be used as a fuel for furnaces, stoves and vehicles
in place of gasoline, diesel or other fuels.

(Renewable Source Of Energy)

❖ SOLAR ENERGY
➢ Energy obtained from the sun
➢ World’s fastest-growing source of power
➢ The daily average global radiation is around 5 kWh/m2 /day with the sunshine hours ranging
between 2300 and 3200 per year.
➢ India receives solar energy equivalent to more than 5000 trillion kWh/year, which is far more than
its total annual energy consumption.
➢ Solar heat and light can both be harnessed as energy - the former as solar thermal and the latter as
solar photovoltaic.

What is a solar panel?

● Devices that are used to convert solar energy into electricity.
● Solar panel consists of several individual cells that are made of semiconductors such as
Silicon.
● When light strikes a silicon semiconductor, it causes electrons to flow and thereby produce
electricity
● Working of solar panels.

➢ Advantages of Solar Energy

■ Renewable ■ Low Maintenance
■ Environmentally Friendly ■ Remote & Portable Power Option
■ Wide Availability ■ Return on Investment (ROI)
■ Versatile ■ Increased Energy Security
■ Low Noise ■ Evolving Technology
 ➢ Disadvantages of Solar Energy
■ Expensive
■ Daylight-Only Solution
■ Vulnerable to Atmospheric Conditions
■ Large Footprint
■ Manufacturing Pollution
❖ WIND ENERGY
➢ Wind is a kind of kinetic energy associated with the movement of large masses of air caused by the
differential heating of the atmosphere by the sun, regularities on the surface of the Earth and the
rotation of the earth.
➢ Wind flow patterns are modified by Earth’s terrain, body of water and vegetative cover.
➢ Wind is concentrated in certain regions and variable with time at any other given location:
harnessing it as an energy source is dependent on these two factors.
➢ In India, for instance, winds are influenced by the Southwest monsoons. From March to August, the
winds are uniformly strong over the entire Indian Peninsula, except on the eastern coast.
➢ In September, the wind weakens, and only coastal Gujarat and South Tamil Nadu experience wind
speeds of 15 to 20 km/hour.
➢ Current Status in India
■ The Union Government has set an ambitious target of achieving 175 GigaWatt (GW) power
capacity from clean renewable energy resources by 2022.
■ Out of this, 60 GW target is set for wind power. The present installed wind power capacity
in the country is nearly 33 GW (Dec 2017) accounting for nearly 10% of total installed
capacity.
■ Globally, India is at 4th position in terms of installed wind power capacity after China, USA
and Germany.
■ The National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE) under the MNRE assesses the wind power
potential in the country at 100 metre above ground level.
■ India has achieved the largest-ever wind power capacity addition of 3,423 MW in 2015-16,
exceeding the target by 44%
➢ Working
 ➢ Offshore Wind Power
■ Offshore wind power or offshore wind energy is the use of wind farms constructed in bodies
of water, usually in the ocean on the continental shelf, to harvest wind energy to generate
electricity. Higher wind speeds are available offshore compared to on land, so offshore wind
power’s contribution in terms of electricity supplied is higher.
■ At the end of 2016, the total worldwide offshore wind power capacity was 14,384 MW.
■ All the largest offshore wind farms are currently in northern Europe, especially in the United
Kingdom and Germany.
■ As of 2017, the 630 megawatt (MW) London Array in the United Kingdom is the largest
offshore wind farm in the world.
➢ Advantages of Wind Energy
■ Renewable & Sustainable ■ Industrial & Domestic Installations
■ Environmentally Friendly ■ Remote Power Solution
■ Reduces Fossil Fuel Consumption ■ Low Maintenance
■ Wind Energy is Free ■ Increases Energy Security
■ Small Footprint ■ Job Creation
➢ Disadvantages of Wind Energy
■ The Wind Fluctuates ■ Noise Pollution
■ Installation is Expensive ■ Visual Pollution
■ Threat to Wildlife
❖ GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
➢ Introduction
■ It’s simply the heat energy of the earth, generated by various natural processes, such as:
● Heat from when the planet formed and accreted, which has not yet been lost
● Decay of radioactive elements
➢ Geothermal Reservoirs
■ Geyser • Boiling mud pot • Volcano • Hot springs
➢ Geothermal Energy in India
■ Geothermal provinces are estimated to produce 10,600 MW of power (experts are confident
only to the extent of 100 MW)
■ Geothermal provinces in India: the Himalayas, Sohana, West coast, Cambay,
Son-Narmada-Tapi, Godavari, and Mahanadi
■ Reykjavík Geothermal will assist Thermax to set up a pilot project in Puga Valley, Ladakh
(Jammu & Kashmir)
■ First operational commercial geothermal power plant is likely to come up in AP with a
capacity of 25 MW by Geosyndicate Pvt Ltd.
➢ Advantages of Geothermal Energy
■ Renewable and Sustainable ■ Low Noise
■ Environmentally Friendly ■ Reduces Fossil Fuel Dependency and
■ Constant Supply Increases Energy Security
■ Small Footprint ■ Job Creation
■ Cost Effective ■ Huge Potential
■ Low Maintenance
➢ Disadvantages of Geothermal Energy
■ Geographical Limitations ■ Sustainability Concerns
■ Large Investment Needed ■ Seismic Instability
■ Environmental Impacts
◆ Bioenergy
➢ Bioenergy is energy of biological origin, derived from biomass, such as fuelwood, livestock
manure, municipal waste, energy crops
➢ Energy crops are crops specifically cultivated to provide bioenergy, mainly biofuels.

Biomass
● Biomass is biological material derived from living, or recently living organisms. In the
context of biomass for energy this is often used to mean plant based material, but biomass
can equally apply to both animal and vegetable derived material.
● Many biomass fuels generate lower levels of such atmospheric pollutants as sulphur
dioxide.
● The use of biomass fuel provides an economic incentive to manage woodland which
improves biodiversity.
➢ Bioenergy Feedstock
■ Wood
● Forest management residues
● Fuel timber
■ Crops
● Annual (cereals, oilseed rape, sugarbeet)
● Perennial (miscanthus, reed canary grass, short rotation coppice)
■ Wastes
● Straw
● Animal manure
➢ Biofuels
■ Any hydrocarbon fuel that is produced from organic matter (living or once living material) in
a short period of time (days, weeks, or even months) is considered a Biofuel.
■ Biofuels are fuels produced from biomass, usually of agricultural origin
● • Bioethanol • Biodiesel • Biogas
■ Biofuel Generations(Categories of Biofuels)
● First generation biofuels:
◆ These are made from food sources such as sugar, starch, vegetable oil, or
animal fats using conventional technology.
◆ Common first-generation biofuels include Bioalcohols, Biodiesel, Vegetable
oil, Bioethers, Biogas.
◆ Though the process of conversion is easy, the use of food sources in the
production of biofuels creates an imbalance in the food economy, leading to
increased food prices and hunger.
● Second generation biofuels:
◆ These are produced from non-food crops or portions of food crops that are
not edible and considered as wastes, e.g. stems, husks, wood chips, and fruit
skins and peeling.
◆ Thermochemical reactions or biochemical conversion processes are used for
producing such fuels.
◆ Examples include cellulose ethanol, biodiesel.
◆ Though these fuels do not affect the food economy, their production is quite
complicated.
◆ Also, it is reported that these biofuels emit less greenhouse gases when
compared to first generation biofuels.
● Third generation biofuels:
◆ These are produced from micro-organisms like algae.
◆ Example- Butanol
◆ Micro-organisms like algae can be grown using land and water unsuitable for
food production, therefore reducing the strain on already depleted water
sources.
 ◆ One disadvantage is that fertilisers used in the production of such crops lead
to environmental pollution.
● Fourth Generation Biofuels:
◆ In the production of these fuels, crops that are genetically engineered to take
in high amounts of carbon are grown and harvested as biomass.
◆ The crops are then converted into fuel using second generation techniques.
◆ The fuel is pre-combusted and the carbon is captured. Then the carbon is
geo-sequestered, meaning that the carbon is stored in depleted oil or gas
fields or in unmineable coal seams.
◆ Some of these fuels are considered as carbon negative as their production
pulls out carbon from the environment.
➢ Major Types of Biofuels

➢ DIMENSIONS OF FOOD SECURITY AND BIOFUELS:

1. AVAILABILITY OF FOOD vs. BIOFUELS
a. Production of genetically modified crops (non-edible) will be encouraged, aimed at the
biofuels industry instead of food consumption.
b. There will be a decrease of food import capacity, specially in the poorest countries due
to increase of prices.
c. Decrease of food aid is expected since cereal stocks will be diverted towards biofuels
production.
2. ACCESS TO FOOD VS. BIOFUELS
 a. Biofuels production causes an increase of food prices due to increasing demand for
agricultural products.
b. Current influence of biofuel on food prices ranges between 3% to 30 %
c. Future trend: biofuels will push prices 12 – 15 % by 2018
3. STABILITY OF SUPPLY AND ACCESS TO FOOD VS.BIOFUELS
a. Food and fuel crops compete for land and water resources, increasing their price.
b. Increase of the price of land leads towards its concentration. Therefore, small farmers
turn to be waged workers and lose their food sovereignty.
c. Subsidies and tariffs on biofuels affect stability and access to food, and cause distortions
in food prices.
4. FOOD UTILISATION VS. BIOFUELS
a. Increase in demand for fuel crops may lead to a lower food quality and diversity,
threatening the nutrition of people.
b. Water availability for human consumption will be threatened:
i. Producing one gallon of corn ethanol requires the consumption of 170 gallons of
water.
ii. Producing one gallon of soybean-based biodiesel requires the consumption of
900 gallons of water
➢ Advantages of Biodiesel
■ Biodiesel reduces carbon dioxide exhaust emissions by up to 80%.
■ Biodiesel produces 100% less SO2 than petroleum.
■ Biodiesel reduces exhaust smoke (particulates) by up to 75% so the usual black cloud
associated with a diesel engine can be eliminated.
■ Biodiesel is much easier to handle and does not cause cracking or redness.
■ Biodiesel is much less dangerous to put in vehicle fuel tanks as its flash point is 150°C as
opposed to petroleum diesel 70°C.
■ Biodiesel provides significant lubricity improvement over petroleum diesel fuel so engines
last longer, with the right additives engine performance can also be enhanced
➢ Biodiesel from Jatropha
■ Jatropha can be cultivated anywhere along canals, roads, railway tracks, on the border of
farms and even in alkaline soils.
■ Grown in high as well as low rainfall.
■ In high rainfall yield is more.
■ Occurs mainly at lower altitude(0-500 cm) with average annual temperature above 200⁰C, and
rainfall of 300-1000 mm.
➢ Bioethanol
■ Brazil stands 1st in terms of Biofuel consumption.
■ According to the UNCTAD report, Brazil uses pure ethanol in 20% of their vehicles and a 22
to 26 % ethanol-petrol blend in the rest of their vehicles.
■ CO emission from automobiles decreased from 50g/km in 1980 to 5.8g/km in 1995
■ The USA and Australia use a 10% ethanol blend.
■ India is the 4th largest producer and the government mandated the use of a 5% ethanol blend
in petrol sold in nine sugarcane producing states.
■ Bioethanol is a form of renewable energy that can be produced from agricultural feedstocks. It
can be made from very common crops such as hemp, sugarcane, potato, cassava and corn.
■ Concerns about its production and use relate to increased food prices due to the large amount
of arable land required for crops, as well as the energy and pollution balance of the whole
cycle of ethanol production.
■ Recent developments with cellulosic ethanol production and commercialization may allay
some of these concerns.
 ■ Cellulosic ethanol offers promise because cellulose fibres, a major and universal component
in plant cell walls, can be used to produce ethanol.
➢ Biogas
■ Biogas typically refers to a gas produced by the breakdown of organic matter in the absence
of oxygen.
■ It is a renewable energy source, like solar and wind energy. Furthermore, biogas can be
produced from regionally available raw materials such as recycled waste.
■ Biogas is produced by anaerobic digestion with anaerobic bacteria of biodegradable materials
such as manure, sewage, municipal waste, green waste, plant material, and crops.
■ Biogas comprises primarily methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) and may have small
amounts of hydrogen sulphide (H2S), moisture.
■ The gases methane, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide (CO) can be combusted or oxidised with
oxygen.
■ This energy release allows biogas to be used as a fuel.
■ Biogas can be used as a fuel in any country for any heating purpose, such as cooking.
■ It can also be used in a gas engine to convert the energy in the gas into electricity and heat.
■ Composition of Biogas

■ Advantages of Biogas
● Biogas could potentially help reduce global climate change. Normally, manure that
is left to decompose releases two main gases that cause global climate change:
Nitrogen dioxide and methane
● Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) warms the atmosphere 310 times more than carbon dioxide
and methane 21 times more than carbon dioxide
● By converting cow manure into methane biogas via anaerobic digestion, the cows
would be able to produce huge amounts of electricity
■ Biogas in India
● In India, biogas produced from the anaerobic digestion of manure in small scale
digestion facilities is called gobar gas.
● The digester is an airtight circular pit made of concrete with a pipe connection. The
manure is directed to the pit, usually directly from the cattle shed.
● The pit is then filled with a required quantity of wastewater. The gas pipe is
connected to the kitchen fireplace through control valves. The combustion of this
biogas has very little odour or smoke.
● Owing to simplicity in implementation and use of cheap raw materials in villages, it
is one of the most environmentally sound energy sources for rural needs.
❖ NUCLEAR ENERGY
➢ Introduction
■ Mass of a proton - 1.6726219 × 10-27 kg
■ Mass of an electron - 9.109390 x 10-31 kg
 ■ Mass of a neutron - 1.674929 x 10-27 kg
➢ Discovery of Neutron
■ The masses of the nuclei of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium are in the ratio of 1:2:3.
■ Therefore, the nuclei of deuterium and tritium must contain in addition to a proton, some
neutral matter.
■ The amount of neutral matter present in the nucleus of these isotopes expressed in units of
mass of a proton is approximately equal to 1 and 2 respectively.
■ This fact indicates that the nuclei of atoms contained in addition two protons, neutral matter in
multiples of the basic unit.
■ Chadwick was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of neutrons.
➢ Mass-Energy and Nuclear Binding Energy
■ Mass-Energy
● Einstein, from his theory of special relativity, observed that it is necessary to treat
mass as another form of energy.
● Before the advent of this theory of special relativity it was presumed that mass and
energy were conserved separately in a reaction.
● However, Einstein showed that mass is another form of energy and can convert
mass-energy into other forms of energy, say kinetic energy and vice versa.
■ Nuclear Binding Energy
● Nucleus is made up of neutrons and protons.
● Therefore it may be expected that the mass of the nucleus is equal to the mass of its
individual protons and neutrons.
● However, the nuclear mass is found to be always less than this. The difference in mass
of the nucleus and its constituent is called the mass defect.

What is the meaning of mass defect?

● The mass of a nucleus is less than the sum of the masses of its constituents, the
equivalent energy of a nucleus is less than that of the sum of the equivalent energies
of its constituent.
● If one wants to break a nucleus into its protons and neutrons, an extra energy Δmc2
has to be provided. This energy is called the binding energy of the nucleus.
● If we separate the nucleus into its nucleons, we would have to supply a total energy
equal to binding energy to those particles.
● Binding energy per nucleon - The ratio of binding energy of a nucleus to the atomic
number of the nucleon in that nucleus.

■ Binding Energy vs Mass Number

● The binding energy per nucleon is practically constant or independent of the atomic
number for nuclei of the middle mass number that is between 30 and 170
● Binding energy per nucleon is lower for both light nuclei and heavy nuclei that is less
than 30 and more than 170
● The constancy of the binding energy in the range 30 to 170 is a consequence of the
fact that nuclear forces are short range.
● A very heavy nucleus has lower binding energy per nucleon compared to that of a
nucleus with lower mass number.
● Thus, if a nucleus with higher mass number breaks into two nucleus with lower mass
number, the nucleus gets more tightly bound.
● Energy would be released in the process. It has very important implications for energy
production through fission
● Consider 2 very light nuclei with mass number less than 10 joining to form a heavier
nucleus.
 ● The binding energy per nucleon of the fused heavier nuclei is more than the binding
energy per nucleon of the lighted nuclei.
● This means that the final system is more tightly bound than the initial system. Again
energy would be released in such a process of fusion.

➢ Nuclear Force
■ The force that determines the motion of atomic electrons is the familiar Coulomb force.
■ For average mass nuclei the binding energy per nucleon is approx 8 MeV, which is much
larger than the binding energy in atoms.
■ Therefore to bind a nucleus together there must be a strong attractive force of a totally
different kind. It must be strong enough to overcome the repulsion between the positively
charged protons and to bind both protons and neutrons into a tiny nuclei volume. This is the
nuclear force.
■ The nuclear force between neutron-neutron, proton-neutron and proton-proton is
approximately the same. The nuclear force does not depend on the electric charge.
■ Like Coulomb's law or Newton's law of gravitation, there is no simple mathematical form of
the nuclear force.
➢ Radioactivity
■ An unstable nucleus undergoes a decay. This is referred to as radioactive decay.
■ Three Types of radioactive decay occur in nature:
● Alpha decay in which Helium nucleus is emitted
● Beta decay in which electrons are positrons are emitted
● Gamma decay in which high energy photons are emitted.
■ Alpha Decay
● In Alpha decay the mass number of the product nucleus is 4 less than that of the
decaying nucleus, while the atomic number is decreased by 2.
 ■ Beta Decay
● In beta decay a nucleus spontaneously emits an electron or a positron. In beta decay
the mass number remains unchanged.

■ Gamma Decay
● When a nucleus in an excited state spontaneously decays into ground state, a
photon is emitted with energy equal to the difference in the two energy levels of the
nucleus. This is Gamma decay.
● The energy corresponds to radiation of extremely short wavelength, shorter than the
x-ray region.
● Typically a Gamma ray is emitted when an Alpha or beta decay results in the
daughter nucleus in an excited state.
● This then returns to the ground state by a single Proton transition or successive
successive transitions involving more than one photon.

➢ Nuclear Energy
■ The curve of binding energy per nucleon has a long flat middle range between 30 and 170. In
this region the binding energy per nucleon is 8 MeV.
■ For the lighter nuclear region and for the heavier nuclear region the binding energy per
nucleon is less than 8 MeV.
■ The greater the binding energy, the less is the total mass of a bound system, such as a nucleus.
Consequently, if a nucleus with less total binding energy transforms into two nuclei with
grated binding energy, there will be a net energy release.
■ This is what happens when a heavy nucleus decays into two or more intermediate mass
fragments that are fission or light nuclei defuse into a heavier nucleus that is fusion.
 ■ Fission of 1 kg of Uranium generates 1014 J of energy compare it with burning of 1 kg of coal
that gives 107 J.
➢ Nuclear Fission
■ Nuclear Fission is the process whereby an atomic nucleus breaks up into two or more major
fragments with the emission of two or three neutrons. It is accompanied by the release of
energy in the form of Gamma radiation and the kinetic energy of the emitted particles.
■ Fission occurs spontaneously in the nuclei of Uranium 235, the main fuel used in nuclear
reactors. However, the process can also be induced by bombarding nuclei with neutrons
because a nucleus that has absorbed a neutron becomes unstable and splits.

■ If the fission neutrons split other uranium 235 nuclei, a chain reaction is set up. In practice
some fission neutrons are lost by skipping from the surface of Uranium before this happens.
■ the ratio of those escaping to those causing fission decreases as the mass of Uranium 235
increases.
■ This must exceed a certain Critical Mass for a chain reaction to start. Critical Mass is thus the
minimum mass of fissile material that can undergo a continuous chain reaction.
■ Above the Critical Mass, the reaction may accelerate into a nuclear explosion if uncontrolled.
■ Uranium 238 isotope would make an ideal nuclear reactor fuel because it is abundant in
nature.
■ But uranium 238 nuclei usually absorbs free neutrons without undergoing fission.
■ Unabsorbed neutrons simply become a part of the nucleus.
■ The isotope uranium 235 is the only natural material that nuclear reactors can use to produce a
chain reaction.
■ Uranium with an abundant amount of Uranium 235 is called enriched uranium.
➢ Nuclear Fusion
■ Nuclear fusion occurs when 2 lightweight nuclear fuels are combined and form the nucleus of
a heavier element.
■ The products of the fusion weigh less than the combined weights of the original nuclei. The
lost matter has therefore been changed into energy.
■ The fusion reactions that produce large amounts of energy can be created only by means of
extremely intense heat. Such reactions are called thermonuclear reactions. Thermonuclear
reactions produce the energy of both the sun and the hydrogen bomb.
■ For a nuclear fusion reaction to occur, it is necessary to bring two nuclei so close that the
nuclear forces between them become active and make them stick together.
■ Research in fusion aims at confining fusion ions at high enough temperatures and pressures
and for a long enough time to fuse
➢ Confinement Approaches
■ Magnetic confinement fusion uses strong magnetic fields to confine the plasma, which
atoms to create the conditions needed for fusion energy production by using the electrical
conductivity of the plasma to contain it with magnetic field
■ Inertial confinement fusion uses powerful laser or iron beams to compress a pellet of fusion
fuel to the right temperatures and pressures. Large amounts of Clean Energy with zero carbon
emission could be produced from such sustained fusion reactions.
➢ Nuclear Reactor

■ Parts of a Nuclear Reactor

● Reactor Vessel: The reactor vessel holds the other reactor parts. It is installed near the
base of the reactor building. The vessel has Steel walls at least 15 cm thick. Steel pipes
are carried into and out of the vessel to carry water and steam.
● Core: The core contains the nuclear fuel and so is the part of the reactor where fission
occurs. The core is near the bottom of the reactor vessel. It consists mainly of the
nuclear fuel held in place between an upper and lower support plate.
 ● Control rods: Control rods are metal rods that contain such elements as Boron or
cadmium. These elements absorb free neutrons thus help control a chain reaction. The
control rods are inserted into the core or withdrawn to slow down or speed up a chain
reaction.
● Moderators: A moderator is a substance, such as water or Carbon that slows down
neutrons which pass through it. Reactors require a moderator because the neutrons
released by fission are fast neutrons. But slow neutrons are needed to cause a chain
reaction in the mixture of Uranium 238 and uranium 235 that reactors use as fuel.
● Coolants: A coolant is a substance, such as water and carbon dioxide that conducts
heat well but does not easily absorb free neutrons. The coolant carries heat from the
chain reaction.
■ Types of Nuclear Reactors
● Pressurised water reactor (PWR)
◆ Fuel: Enriched uranium.
◆ Moderator and Coolant: water or graphite.
◆ The energy generated by the reactor core is conveyed through the cooling water
which flows at high pressure to a heat exchanger.
◆ The reactor is based on the principle that the water under high pressures can
evaporate without reaching the boiling point, i.e., at temperatures greater than
100°C.
◆ In the exchanger the vapour cools and condenses and returns to the reactor in
liquid state. In the exchanger there is heat transfer to a secondary water circuit.
◆ The water from the secondary circuit that comes from heat, produces steam,
which is introduced into a turbine that drives an electric generator.

● Boiling water reactor (BWR)

◆ Fuel: Enriched uranium.
◆ Moderator and Coolant: water
◆ The thermal energy generated by the chain reaction is used to boil water. The
steam produced is introduced into a turbine that drives an electric generator.
 ◆ The steam from the turbine passes through a condenser where it is transformed
back into liquid water. Subsequently the water returns to the reactor driven by a
suitable pump.

● Fast breeder reactor (FBR)

◆ The main characteristic of fast reactors is that they don't use moderators and,
therefore, most of the fissions produced are produced by fast neutrons.
◆ The reactor core consists of a fissile area, surrounded by a fertile area where
natural uranium is transformed into plutonium. Also the cycle uranium
233-thorium can be used.
◆ The coolant is liquid sodium, the steam is produced in heat exchangers.
◆ The name "breeder" is due to the fact that the reactor produces more amount of
fissile material than it consumes in operation, it means that it generates more
new fuel than the fuel that it spends.
❖ India’s Nuclear Programme

India’s Nuclear Energy Program

● India has consciously proceeded to explore the possibility of tapping nuclear energy for the
purpose of power generation. In this direction a three-stage nuclear power programme was
formulated by Homi Bhabha in the 1950s.
● The Atomic Energy Act, 1962 was framed and implemented with the set objectives of using
two naturally occurring elements Uranium and Thorium having good potential to be utilised
as nuclear fuel in Indian Nuclear Power Reactors.
● The estimated natural deposits of Uranium are about 70,000 tonnes and Thorium are about 3,
60,000 tonnes in the country.

Three Stage programme

● Stage one – Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor uses
○ Natural UO2 as fuel matrix,
○ Heavy water as moderator and coolant.
● In the reactor, the first two plants were boiling water reactors based on imported technology.
Subsequent plants are of PHWR type through indigenous R&D efforts. India achieved
complete self- reliance in this technology and this stage of the programme is in the industrial
domain.
● The future plan includes the setting up of VVER type i.e. The Russian version of the
Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) is under progress to augment power generation.
● MOX fuel (Mixed oxide) is developed and introduced at Tarapur to conserve fuel and to
develop new fuel technology.
● Second stage of nuclear power generation envisages the use of Pu-239 obtained from the first
stage reactor operation, as the fuel core in fast breeder reactors (FBR).
● Third phase of India’s Nuclear Power Generation programme is, breeder reactors using U-233
fuel.
● India’s vast thorium deposits permit design and operation of U-233 fuelled breeder reactors.

Challenges

● Genuine problems of Nuclear technology include safety and waste management. Incidents
like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima are serious cases of concern.
● Complete phasing out of nuclear power generation for the fear of nuclear accident would be a
wrong move. If nuclear energy is generated adhering to the highest standards of safety, there
is less possibility of catastrophic accidents.
● Land acquisition and selection of location for Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) is also a major
problem in the country. NPP’s like kudankulam in Tamil Nadu and Kovvada in Andhra
Pradesh have met with several delays due to the land acquisition related challenges.
● As India is not a signatory of NPT and NSG, nuclear supply is severely contained by
sanctions against India. This situation has changed after the 2009 waiver and bilateral civil
nuclear energy agreements with many countries.
● Reprocessing and enrichment capacity also required boost in India. For this India needs
advanced technology to fully utilise the spent fuel and for enhancing its enrichment capacity.
● On the front of Infrastructure and Manpower needs, India has worked very hard for
development of Industrial infrastructure to manufacture equipment and skill development.
Many Universities and institutes provide engineering manpower for NPP.
Suggestions
To ensure the safety and security of using nuclear power there is need to:

● ensure maintenance of the skills base

● maintain continued effective safety regulation
● foster progress on facilities for waste disposal and management must be given serious
consideration.
● maintain and reinforce international non-proliferation arrangements.

Nuclear Tests and Nuclear Doctrine

● In 2003, India adopted its Nuclear Doctrine of 'No First Use' i.e. India will use nuclear
weapons only in retaliation against a nuclear attack on its Territory.
● In addition to this in 1965, India with NAM countries proposed five points to prevent the
proliferation of nuclear weapons to the UN Disarmament commission. These are:
○ Not to transfer Nuclear technology to others
○ No use of nuclear weapons against non nuclear countries
○ UN security cover to non nuclear States
○ Nuclear disarmament
○ Ban on the nuclear test
● In May 1974, India conducted its first nuclear test in Pokhran under the codename "Smiling
Buddha".
● Between 11 and 13 May, 1998, five nuclear tests were conducted as a part of the series of
Pokhran-II. These tests were collectively called Operation Shakti–98.
● According to a 2018 report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI),
Pakistan has 140-150 nuclear warheads compared to India’s 130-140 warheads.
● Pakistan has not stated a “no first use” policy and there is little known about its nuclear
doctrine.

India’s Stand on different Nuclear Treaties

● Limited Ban Treaty: US, UK and USSR in 1963, signed this treaty. It allows nuclear tests
only underground thus, prohibits the nuclear experiments on ground, underwater and in outer
space. India has also ratified the treaty.
● Treaty on Outer Space: Signed in 1967, it prohibits countries to test nuclear weapons in orbit
or on celestial bodies like the moon.
● Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT): Signed in 1968, the treaty entered into force in
1970, now has 190 member states. It requires countries to give up any present or future plans
to build nuclear weapons in return for access to peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
● Three main objectives of the treaty are non-proliferation, disarmament, and the right to
peacefully use nuclear technology.
● India is one of the only five countries that either did not sign the NPT or signed but withdrew,
thus becoming part of a list that includes Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, and South Sudan.

Why didn't India sign the NPT?

● The quest for freedom of action in an uncertain regional strategic environment and an
asymmetric international system dominated by superpowers and China drove India to not sign
the NPT and hedge, and to conduct the 1974 test.
● India perceives its nuclear weapons and missile programs as crucial components of its
strategic doctrine.
 ● India rejects the Treaty on the grounds that it perpetuates—at least in the short-term—an
unjust distinction between the five states that are permitted by the treaty to possess nuclear
weapons, while requiring all other state parties to the treaty to remain non-nuclear weapon
states.
● One major point raised by India is that the five authorised nuclear weapons states still have
stockpiles of warheads and have shown reluctance to disarmament which also angered some
non-nuclear-weapon NPT states.
● For eliminating the last nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapons state requires confidence that
the other countries would not acquire nuclear weapons.
● Moreover, India’s pledge of not to use nuclear weapons unless first attacked by an adversary
and a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear tests since 1998, established its credibility as a
peaceful nuclear power even without joining the treaty.
● Perceived security threats from Pakistan and Pakistan’s ally China and demonstration of a
nuclear weapons capability guaranteed New Delhi’s ability to effectively hedge in an
asymmetric international system, and a regional strategic environment where New Delhi felt
largely cornered.
● Maintaining a degree of political autonomy has driven independent India’s foreign policy
choices. Major decisions that New Delhi took in the nuclear realm are representative of that.
The grand bargain of NPT was certainly going to restrict India’s policy options.
● Domestic political imperatives also dictated the timing and the rhetoric about nuclear power.
● The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) intends to ban all nuclear explosions -
everywhere, by everyone. It opened for signature on 24 September 1996 and since then 182
countries have signed the Treaty, most recently Ghana has ratified the treaty on 14 June 2011.
● The Treaty will enter into force after all 44 States listed in Annex 2 to the Treaty will ratify it.
These States had nuclear facilities at the time the Treaty was negotiated and adopted.
● As of August 2011, 35 of these States have ratified the Treaty. Nine States still need to do so:
China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel,
Pakistan and the United States. India, North Korea and Pakistan have not yet signed the
Treaty.

Reasons behind India’s rejection to CTBT

● India has always stood by its demand for a nuclear weapons-free world but various
procedural, political, and security concerns have stopped India from joining the treaty.
● India’s relationship with the CTBT has undergone distinct changes. In 1954, Indian Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru championed the cause of a nuclear test ban by calling for a
"standstill" agreement. In 1993, India was among those that co-sponsored the call for a test
ban treaty. However, in 1996, India’s reservations about the Treaty blocked its adoption by the
Conference on Disarmament.
● India, after negotiation, was ready to sign the treaty provided the United States should present
a schedule for eliminating its nuclear stockpile, a condition the United States rejected.
● India believed that the universal and complete nuclear disarmament should be the end goal
not a means.
● India considered, Article XIV, the entry-into-force (EIF) clause of the treaty as a violation of
its right to voluntarily withhold participation in an international treaty.
● The treaty initially made ratification by states that were to be a part of the CTBT’s
International Monitoring System (IMS), mandatory for the treaty’s EIF. Because of this, India
withdrew its participation from the IMS.
● The treaty didn’t talk about the disarmament of the stocks by nuclear weapon states.
 ● Further, the treaty is vague on the ban of laboratory testing of nuclear weapons. It means
sophisticated technology of developed countries permit them for laboratory testing and ban on
field tests only affect the developing countries nuclear programme.
● India’s scientific community believes that accepting the CTBT would hinder India’s strategic
nuclear program development and the option to test must be kept open.
● On the security front, India thought that it faced uncertain dangers from Pakistan, and China,
which had conducted nuclear tests even while the CTBT was being negotiated.
● Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) is a proposed international agreement that would
prohibit the production of two main components of nuclear weapons: highly-enriched
Uranium and Plutonium.
● An FMCT would provide new restrictions for the five recognized nuclear weapon states
(NWS— United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, and China), and for the four nations
that are not NPT members (Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea).
● Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) is not a treaty and does not impose any legally
binding obligations on Partners (members). Rather, it is an informal political understanding
among states that seek to limit the proliferation of missiles and missile technology.
● The regime was formed in 1987 by the G-7 industrialised countries (Canada, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the United States). There are currently 35 countries that
are members (Partners) of the MTCR. India became the 35th full member of MTCR In July
2016.
● MTCR membership enables India to buy high-end missile technology, strengthen its export
control regime and it supports India’s bid to become a member of the Nuclear Supplier Group
(NSG).

India and Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)

● The NSG was created in response to India’s first nuclear test ‘Smiling Buddha’ (Pokhran-I) in
1974. The NSG first met in November 1975 in London, thus popularly referred to as the
"London Club''.
● It’s a group of nuclear supplier countries that seek to contribute to the non-proliferation of
nuclear weapons through the implementation of two sets of Guidelines for nuclear exports
and nuclear-related exports.
● NSG consists of 48 members, including the five nuclear weapon states US, UK, France,
China, and Russia. It is not a formal organisation, and its guidelines are not binding.
● A non-NPT state cannot become a member of NSG which keeps India out of the group.
● India was left outside the international nuclear order, which forced India to develop its own
resources for each stage of the nuclear fuel cycle and power generation, including next
generation reactors such as fast breeder reactors and thorium breeder reactors.
● More recently in January 2019, China has again reiterated its previous stand that India’s
accession to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is pre-requisite for its membership to the
NSG or else there should be a common guidelines for the membership of the non-NPT states.
● Rejecting India’s claims for NSG membership, China cited the reasons that there should be no
double standards in enforcing the NPT and the international community should stick to
multilateralism and promote the three pillars namely non-proliferation, disarmament and
peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
● Except China, all P5 members have endorsed India’s membership of NSG based on India’s
non-proliferation record.
● Pakistan has also applied for the NSG membership while being also a non-signatory to the
NPT. But it has a dubious record and its credibility is very much doubtful as a peaceful
nuclear state.
 ● Membership of the NSG will provide India, greater certainty and a legal foundation for
India's nuclear regime and thus greater confidence for those countries investing billions of
dollars to set up ambitious nuclear power projects in India.
● Though India is not a member of NPT and NSG, its track-record in observing the provisions
of either body is impeccable. NSG was able to grant a waiver to India in 2008 on the basis of
its past performance, now it should have no objection to admitting the country as a member.
● Australia Group admitted India as the 43rd member on 19 January 2018. It’s an informal
group that keeps a control over exports of substances used in making of chemical weapons.
● The group membership will help India to raise its stature in the field of non-proliferation, and
help in acquiring the critical technologies. It will also strengthen India’s bid to gain NSG
membership.
● Wassenaar Agreement, established in 1996, is a group of countries which subscribe to arms
export controls. It seeks to bring about security and stability, by fostering transparent practices
in the process of sale and transfer of arms and materials and technologies that can be used to
make nuclear weapons.
● It is a grouping of 42 countries, of which India is the latest entrant on December 8, 2017.
With the exception of China, all the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council
are signatories of this arrangement.
● After joining the group India will be able easily access dual use technologies and materials
and military equipment that are prescribed for non-participating members. In addition India
will also be able to sell its nuclear reactors and other materials and equipment indigenously
produced without attracting adverse reactions.

Way Forward
● In his presidential address at the first International Conference on the Peaceful Uses
of Atomic Energy in Geneva in August 1955, Homi J Bhabha, traced the growth of the
civilization, correlating it with increase in energy consumption and the development
of new energy sources.
● He emphasised that the acquisition by man of the knowledge of how to release and
use atomic energy must be recognized as the third epoch of human history.
● To maintain the pace of development, it is important to build a constant and reliable
supply chain of nuclear materials.
● The fundamentals underlying the possibility of breakthrough growth in India’s civil
nuclear programme are strong: political will, bilateral agreements with most supplier
countries, an NSG waiver for nuclear trade, domestic human resources and capability
developed in the last 30 years of nuclear power operations.
● While the political will and commitment to nuclear power remains strong, the
government in recent months tried hard to secure membership in the NSG, an effort
that was ultimately unsuccessful.
● It is crucial to remember that India does not need NSG membership to import
nuclear technology that was already cleared through the exemption given in 2008.
 CHAPTER - 3 : BIOTECHNOLOGY

❖ Introduction
➢ The word biotechnology has come from two words, bios (meaning biology) and technology
(meaning technological application).
➢ It is defined as the industrial application of living organisms and their biological processes such as
biochemistry, microbiology, and genetic engineering, in order to make best use of the
microorganisms for the benefit of mankind.
❖ Applications of Biotechnology
➢ Green Biotechnology • Red Biotechnology • White Biotechnology • Blue Biotechnology
1. Green Biotechnology
a. The use of biotechnology in the field of agriculture is called Green Biotechnology.
b. Control of pests: The genetic make-up of the pest is changed by causing some mutations.
These pests become sterile and do not reproduce further.
c. Manufacturing and bio-processing: With the help of new biological techniques it has become
possible to grow the plants that produce compounds for use in detergents, paints, lubricants
and plastics on a large scale.

Transgenic Plants
● In a transgenic crop plant, one or more genes are artificially inserted instead of the plant
acquiring such genes through pollination while the inserted gene sequence or transgene may
come either from another unrelated plant or from a completely different species.
● Plants containing transgenes are often called genetically modified crops.
● For instance, Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) Cotton is a transgenic crop in which the Cry 1 AC
gene of Bt is introduced to make the crop pest resistant.
● After the introduction of this gene, the Cotton crop starts producing its own pesticides.
● The BT trade has been believed to save the cotton plant from the pest, which is popularly
known as ball worm.
● Why should we make transgenic crop plants?
○ A plant breeder tries to accumulate a combination of genes in a crop plant so as to
make it useful and more productive as far as possible.
● Desirable genes may provide the following features:
1. Increased crop production:
a. Transgenic plants have been developed to produce higher yields, or tolerant
diseases, droughts etc. Such crop attributes have facilitated increased crop
production.
2. Improved nutritional value
a. Transgenic plants with higher nutritional value have been produced.
b. For instance, Golden rice is a transgenic variety of rice with genes for
synthesis of Beta carotene taken from Daffodil plant and inserted into rice.
The beta carotene is converted into vitamin A.
c. Thus, Golden rice helps in preventing nutritional blindness in people, which
occurs due to deficiency of Vitamin A, and is also responsible for the normal
functioning of the immune system.
d. The golden rice is also called so because the rice grain is pale yellow in
colour, instead of pearly white. Golden colour is due to the presence of Beta
carotene.
3. Increased shelf life
a. Transgenic plants have been developed with longer shelf life, which makes
 storage and transportation of producers easier.
4. Environmental benefits
a. Transgenic varieties rely on reduced consumption of pesticides.
Consequently, there is less pesticide residue in foods, production of
pesticides leaching into groundwater, and minimization of the farm workers
exposure to hazardous products.
● Comparison with traditional plant breeding
○ Traditional plant breeding has been limited to artificially crossing plants with the
same species or with closely related species to bring different genes together
through selective or mutation breeding techniques.
○ For example, a gene for protein in soybean could not be transferred to a completely
different crop such as wheat using traditional techniques.
○ Transgenic Technology enables plant breeders to bring the useful genes together in
one plant from a wide range of living sources.
○ Thus, it extends the possibilities beyond the limitations proposed by traditional
cross-pollination and selection techniques.
● Development of Transgenic Plants
○ Genetic engineering is the process by which scientists modify the genome of an
organism. Creation of genetically modified organism requires Recombinant DNA
○ Transgenic plants are obtained through Recombinant DNA technology or genetic
engineering.
○ Recombinant DNA technology is a technology through which a foreign gene of an
unorganised organism is inserted into a host organism to produce the desired
qualities in the host organism.
○ Such a foreign gene may be acquired from an organism which is unrelated to the
host organism.
2. Red Biotechnology

The use of biotechnology in the field of medicine is called red biotechnology.

a. Gene Therapy
i. It is a subdivision of red biotechnology that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of
genetic diseases and other diseases which are related to genetic makeup of an
individual.
ii. Modern life science considers the important role of genetic makeup of diseases even
associated with heart or cancer.
iii. In gene therapy, the treatment revolves around the manipulation and replacement of
defective genes.
iv. It may also involve insertion of missing genes.
b. Pharmacogenomics
i. This field is a combination of genetics and pharmaceuticals.
ii. Pharmacogenomics analyses how a genetic makeup affects an individual’s response
to drugs.
iii. It deals with the influence of genetic variation of drug response in patients by
correlating gene expression with efficacy or toxicity of drug
c. Genetic Testing
i. Genetic testing allows for the diagnosis of genetic vulnerabilities leading to inherited
diseases, and can also be used to determine a child's parentage or in general, a
person's ancestry.
ii. It includes biochemical tests for the possibility of presence of genetic diseases for
changes that are associated with inherited disorders or mutant forms of genes
associated with increased risk of the Genetic disorders.
d. Drug administration
 i. Biotechnology has contributed to the discovery of manufacturing of Pharmaceutical
drugs as well as drugs that are products of biotechnology, which are called
biopharmaceutics.
ii. Biopharmaceutics examines the interrelationships of the physical or chemical
properties of the drug, the dosage form and the manner of drug administration on the
rate and extent of drug absorption.
iii. Biotechnology has also helped in the field of pharmacokinetics. It is described as
what the body does to a drug, refers to the movement of drug into, through and out of
the body – the time course from its absorption to excretion.
e. Virotherapy
i. It is a medical treatment that uses biotechnology to convert viruses into therapeutic
agents.
ii. Viruses are genetically modified to treat diseases.
iii. There are three main branches of virotherapy: anti-cancer oncolytic viruses, viral
vectors for gene therapy and viral immunotherapy
3. White Biotechnology

The use of biotechnology in industry is regarded as White biotechnology. It helps to improve

industrial processes and create new Industrial Products.

The use of white biotechnology are mentioned below:

● Biotechnology is used to develop microorganisms which can increase the rate of fermentation
of organic matter in order to convert it into alcohols, acids and Biomass.
● It is used to enhance oil recovery from its well. Genetically modified organisms by
consuming dense hydrocarbons can reduce the surface tension of the oil to a great extent and
hence facilitate easy recovery of oil.
● It is used to produce microorganisms which can act as preservatives for perishable products.
● It is used to produce biofuels which are renewable sources of energy
a. Biosorption
i. It is a property of certain types of inactive, dead, microbial Biomass to bind and
concentrate heavy metals from even very dilute aqueous solution.
b. Biomining
i. It is an approach for the extraction of desired minerals from hosts with the help of
living organisms. Biomining can be undertaken through microbes or plants.
ii. Microorganisms are used to leach out minerals, rather than the traditional method of
extreme heat or toxic chemicals, which have an adverse effect on the environment.
iii. Phytomining is an approach in which mining is done with the help of plants. For
instance, some plants absorb copper compounds through their roots. As a result,
copper compounds remained concentrated in their roots. The plant can be burnt to
produce an ash that contains copper.
4. Blue Biotechnology
a. Blue biotechnology deals with aquatic environments along with the Marine organisms to
generate new sources of energy, develop new drugs, extract useful resources or develop new
varieties of marine organisms.
b. Uses of Blue Biotechnology
i. Biotechnology can be used to develop microorganisms to clean water bodies, like oil
spills.
ii. Oil zapper is a mixture of 5 types of bacteria which feed on hydrocarbon compounds
present in the crude oil. Oil zapper converts hydrocarbons into carbon dioxide and
water.
 iii. Biotechnology can create transgenic aquatic organisms with desirable features.
❖ Bioremediation
I. It refers to the cleaning of the environment with the help of living organisms.
II. Living organisms range from microorganisms to different species of plants. For example,
bacteria help in the decomposition of organic waste on certain plant species such as mustard
by helping in the absorption of poisonous elements such as Selenium.
III. Bioremediation effectively discriminates between pollutants and the required nutrients.
IV. Strategies of Bioremediation
1. In situ Bioremediation Techniques
2. Ex situ Bioremediation Techniques

In situ Bioremediation Techniques

● It refers to the treatment of waste at its site.

● These techniques not only exist in the degradation of absorbed fuel, but also assist in the
degradation of volatile organic compounds.
● In situ bioremediation techniques include biosparging, bioventing, bioaugmentation and
bioculture.
○ Biosparging
■ It is an in situ remediation technology that uses indigenous microorganisms to
biodegrade organic constituents in the unsaturated zone.
■ In biosparging, air or oxygen and nutrients are injected at high pressure to
increase the biological activity of indigenous microorganisms and to enhance
the decomposition activity
○ Bioventing
■ It is an in situ remediation technology that uses microorganisms to biodegrade
organic constituents absorbed in soils in the unsaturated zone.
■ Bioventing enhances the activity of indigenous bacteria and simulates the
natural in-situ biodegradation of Hydrocarbons in the soil by inducing air or
oxygen flow at low pressure into the Unsaturated zone and, if necessary, by
adding nutrients.
■ In conventional bioventing systems, oxygen is delivered by an electric blower
to subsurface well.
○ Bioaugmentation
■ In this technology, the microorganisms are imported to the contaminated site to
carry out degradation of organic wastes. For instance oilzapper.
○ Bioculture
■ It is a bacterial formulation to improve waste degradation in septic tanks and
eliminate odours due to organic build up.
■ Bioculture refers to the use of a blend of bacteria that selectively produces
enzymes for the degradation of fats, oil, proteins, starch and carbohydrates.

Ex-situ Bioremediation Techniques

● Ex-situ refers to the transfer of contaminated material for treatment to some other site. Ex-situ
bioremediation techniques include land farming and biopile.
○ Land Farming
■ In this technique, the contaminated soil is spread over a prepared bed. The soil
is periodically tilled to simulate the growth of microorganisms for degradation
of organic waste.
○ Biopile
 ■ It is a hybrid of land farming and land-composting. Excavated soils are spread
over prepared beds, formed into compost piles and enclosed for treatment.
■ Moisture, heat, nutrients, oxygen and pH are controlled to enhance
biodegradation. An irrigation or nutrient system is used to pass air and
nutrients through the soil. Soil piles can be up to the height of 20 feet. They
may be covered with plastic to control runoff, evaporation and to promote
solar heating.
■ Treatment time is typically 3 to 6 months, after which the estimated material is
either returned to its original location or disposed of.
■ The treatment area is generally covered or contained with impermeable lining
to minimise the risk of contaminants releasing into the uncontaminated soil.
○ Phytoremediation
■ It means the use of plants to remove contamination from soil and water. Neem
plant is used for phytoremediation as it absorbs poisonous elements and
reduces the growth of harmful microorganisms.
○ Phytoextraction
■ It is a sub process of phytoremediation in which plants remove dangerous
elements or compounds from soil or water, mostly heavy metals or metals that
have a high density and are toxic to organisms even at relatively low
concentrations.
○ Mycoremediation
■ It involves the use of fungus such as mycelia to decontaminate an area.
Mycorrhiza is another type of fungus which is used for bioremediation. It also
has important uses in agriculture.
❖ Drawbacks of Biotechnology
➢ Weapons of mass-destruction
■ Biotechnology can be used to develop weapons of mass destruction.
■ Biological Weapons of mass destruction are cheap and easy to build
➢ Regenerating Extinct Pathogens
■ Biotechnology can bring back certain extinct forms of life which may lead to some
unpredictable and harmful consequences.
➢ Effects on Biodiversity
■ Biotechnology may have a negative effect on biodiversity.
■ At present few plant and animal species are the focus of research leading to ignorance of other
species.
■ A focus on few species may lead to their growth and can have a negative effect on remaining
species.
➢ Terminator Genes
■ Biotechnology is used to develop plant varieties with Terminator genes.
■ A terminator gene in a genetically modified crop plant stops the plant from releasing fertile
seed. Hence the farmer is again required to purchase the seeds in the next cropping season.
■ The practice of incorporating Terminator gene traits in some seed varieties is adopted by
multinational companies to enhance the sale of seeds.
■ This terminated treat may cross-pollinate with local varieties and may affect the continuity of
agriculture.
❖ CLONING
➢ It is a process of asexual reproduction in which the offspring or the progeny is an exact replica of
the single parent who has contributed to the genetic material.
➢ Cloning is a process, where a cell is equipped with genetic information of an organism, which has
the ability to develop into a full organism.
➢ Cloning in animals is used to produce duplicates of animals.
➢ First successfully cloned animal was the Sheep called Dolly in the year 1997 in Scotland.
➢ Animal Cloning in India
■ Samrupa: In 2009 the world's first cloned buffalo calf named Samrupa, was developed by
National Dairy Research Institute in Karnal, Haryana. But unlike Dolly, the first mammal
cloned 13 years ago who lived for 7 years, Samrupa succumbed to a lung infection just 5
days after it was born.
■ Garima: It was the world's 2nd cloned buffalo in India. It was developed in 2009 and
survived for more than 2 years. It died because of heart failure in 2011.
■ Cirb Gaurav: In 2016 the scientists at Central institute for research on buffaloes in Hisar,
Haryana, cloned a buffalo and named it Cirb Gaurav.
➢ Process of Cloning
■ Human cloning is performed by somatic cell (any cell in the body other than sperm and egg,
the two types of reproductive cells) nuclear transfer into enucleated egg (an egg cell whose
nucleus has been removed).
■ The egg is obtained thereafter, stimulated by electric shock and chemicals to initiate
division.
■ Within a week, this single cell becomes a ball of mass having around 150 unspecialised
cells. This stage of Development is called blastocyst.
■ The blastocyst is inserted into the uterus of a surrogate mother to complete the process of
embryonic development.
➢ Types of Cloning
■ There are two types of cloning:
1. Reproductive
2. Therapeutic

➢ The difference between the two is listed below:

1. In reproductive cloning the newly created embryo is placed back into the uterus, where it
takes time to develop into an individual. Reproductive cloning is the production of genetic
duplicates of an existing organism.
2. Therapeutic cloning involves the replication of human embryos in order to harvest stem cells
for medical uses. In therapeutic cloning, an embryo is created in a similar manner but the
resultant clones are stored in the lab and are not implanted into a female's uterus.
 ➢ Concerns over Reproductive Human Cloning
1. It may undermine society’s respect for human life. It may happen that clones are treated as
secondary race or even as slaves.
2. It may affect social Institutions such as marriage and family. Single parents may go for
reproductive cloning. Thus, the Institution of marriage may be affected. Children born out of
reproductive cloning may be treated secondary in the family.
3. Reproductive cloning creates a Global Security concern. Nations or even terrorist
organisations may create cloned armies.
4. The reproductive cloning may emphasise on infusing desirable traits in clones. This may
promote the concept of ‘designer babies’ who are genetically engineered to exhibit desirable
characteristics.
5. Experiments and research on cloning require work on embryos. This is opposed because
according to some religious organisations, life begins at conception.
➢ Reproductive Cloning vs Surrogacy
1. Process: In case of cloning, a somatic cell is taken from a donor and is used to create an
embryo. This child is born of a single parent and carries his or her DNA only. In an In-Vitro
fertilisation or a test tube baby, an egg fertilised by sperm is transferred into the uterus. It
creates a progeny similar to normal conception. The child carries genes of both his/ her
parents.
2. Uniqueness of progeny: Biologically a child from IVF is a unique human while a cloned
child is genetically identical to his/her parent. 3. Lifespan: Shortened lifespan has been
reported in many cases of animal cloning. The progeny born of IVF leads a normal life.
3. Ethical issues: The ethical issues with IVF are not questioned as Reproductive cloning. Both
IVF and reproductive cloning help infertile couples and same sex couples with their parenting
rights. This in turn has led to commercialization of IVF and creation of contract mothers.
❖ Gene Therapy
➢ Gene therapy is a medical technique that manipulates genes to treat or prevent a disease. Gene
therapy research is focused on the following approaches:
1. Replacing a gene responsible for disease with a healthy gene.
2. In activating or knocking out a gene that is functioning improperly
3. Introducing a new gene into the body to help fight a disease.
4. In future this technique may allow doctors to treat a disorder by manipulating a gene into a
patient's cell instead of using drugs or surgery. Gene therapy is a treatment option for a
number of diseases including inherited disorders, some types of cancer and certain viral
infections.
➢ Use of vector to introduce a gene
1. Usually a gene that is inserted directly into a cell does not function on its own. Instead, a
carrier called a vector is genetically engineered to deliver the gene.
2. Certain viruses such as retrovirus are often used as vectors, because they can deliver the new
gene by inspecting the cell.
3. The viruses are modified so that they cannot cause disease when inserted into people.
4. The vector can be injected, or given intravenously (by IV) directly into a specific tissue in the
body, where it is taken up by individual cells.
5. Alternatively, a sample of a patient's cell can be removed and exposed to the vector in a
laboratory setting.
6. The cells containing the vector are then returned to the patient. If the treatment is successful,
the new gene delivered by the vector will make a functioning protein.
➢ Concerns over gene therapy
1. Short lived nature of treatment
a. Before gene therapy can become a permanent cure for a condition, the therapeutic
DNA introduced into the target cells must remain functional and cells containing the
therapeutic DNA must be stable. Problems with integrating therapeutic DNA into the
genome and the rapidly dividing nature of many cells prevent it from achieving long
term benefits. Patients undergoing gene therapy often require multiple treatments.
2. Immune response
a. Depending on the number of times of foreign object is introduced into our body, the
immune system is stimulated to attack the invader. As a result, gene therapy might
activate the response of our immune system. Even our immune system reduces the
effectiveness of gene therapy.
3. Multigene disorders
a. Some commonly occurring diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure,
Alzheimer's disease, Arthritis and diabetes are affected by variations in multiple genes,
which complicate the use of gene therapy.
b. Presently, the technique remains risky. It is not yet proven to be safe and effective.
Gene therapy is currently being tested only for treatment of diseases that have no other
choice.
➢ Genetically Modified Organisms
■ Genetically modified organisms are organisms whose genetic material have been altered using
genetic engineering techniques to provide the organisms with certain special characteristics.
■ They can include plants, animals and even microorganisms.
■ We have learnt that genetic modification can lead to various benefits. GMO research in
animals is at a nascent stage.
■ However, it has attained some success in plants. Many genetically modified plant varieties
have been developed.
➢ Popular Genetically Modified Crops
 1. Golden rice We have already discussed this earlier. At present research about golden rice is
going on. It is not yet commercially cultivated.
2. BT Cotton
a. We have already discussed that BT Cotton is a transgenic crop in which cry 1 AC
gene of bacillus thuringiensis is introduced to make the crop pest-resistant.
b. After the introduction of this gene the cotton crop starts producing its own pesticide.
The BT trade is believed to save the cotton plant from the pest popularly known as
ball worm.
3. BT brinjal and BT mustard
a. BT brinjal and BT mustard have been developed on the lines of BT Cotton. These
crops are also transgenic in nature in which cry 1 AC gene of bacillus thuringiensis is
introduced to make crop pest resistant.
➢ Position of genetically modified crops in India

At present commercial cultivation of edible, genetically modified crops such BT brinjal and BT
mustard is not allowed because of the following reasons:

1. Present research is not enough to understand the impact of food crops on human health. The
regular consumption of such varieties may have long term effects on health.
2. Bt trait food crops may cross-pollinate with local wild weeds to make them superweeds which
would then require large amounts of pesticides for elimination.
3. Moreover, there is a strong opposition from some groups for cultivation of GM crops. Farmer
groups oppose the cultivation of GM crops, because promotion of sale of GM crops would
hamper the sale of non-GM crops.
❖ Stem Cells

What is a Cell?
1. A cell is the building block of our body. It is the smallest structural and functional unit of the
body.
2. There are different types of specialised cells that perform different functions.
3. Human beings are estimated to have 100 trillion cells and more than 200 different types of
cells (liver cells, skin cells, muscle cells, etc).

What are Stem Cells?

Special human cells that have the capability to develop into wide-ranging types of cells in the human
body, from muscle cells to brain cells, are called stem cells.

What are the 2 unique properties of Stem Cells?

A stem cell is an immature or unspecialized cell that can

1. Split to form similar cells

2. Develop into different specialised cells that perform a distinct function.

What are the Different Types of Stem Cells?

Stem cells are classified into 2 main categories –
1. Classification based on the formation of cells at different phases of human lives and
2. Classification based on its ability to form into different specialised cells.

Classification based on Stem Cells formation at different times of human lives

There are 3 types under this classification

 1. Embryonic stem cells
2. Adult stem cells
3. Induced pluripotent stem cells or iPSC’s

What are Embryonic Stem cells?

These are the Stem cells that exist only during the earliest stage of development.

What are Adult Stem Cells?

1. These are the cells that can multiply when there is a need to repair adult organs and tissues.
2. These cells are present in almost all organs of the human body.
3. They are multipotent i.e. they can give rise to a limited number of mature cell types, usually
corresponding to the tissues in which they reside. A most well-known example is the
blood-forming (hematopoietic) stem cells from bone marrow that give rise to different blood
cells in our body.
4. Some tissue-specific stem cells can only give rise to one or two mature cell types and are
called unipotent and bipotent, respectively. Stem cells found in the skin produce new skin
cells and are an example of unipotent stem cells.

What are induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC’s)?

1. These cells are not found in the body but made in the laboratory from cells of the body.
2. The iPSC cells have properties similar to those of embryonic stem cells.
3. Human iPSCs were generated in 2007.

Classification based on Stem cells ability to develop into different specialised cells

There are 3 types under this classification

1. Totipotent stem cells

2. Pluripotent stem cells
3. Multipotent stem cells

What are Totipotent Stem Cells?

These Stem Cells can transform into all kinds of cells in the human body.

What are Pluripotent Stem Cells?

These Stem Cells can transform themselves into any type of cell in the human body except those
kinds that are required to support and develop a foetus in the womb. ESC’s and iPSC’s are
pluripotent stem cells.

What are Multipotent Stem Cells?

These can give rise to only a few distinct types of cells.

Use of stem cells in the Medical field

The only stem cells currently used to treat disease are hematopoietic stem cells. These are blood cells
forming adult stem cells found in the bone marrow.

Researchers believe that stem cells would be able to treat a multitude of ailments like
 1. Heart disease
2. Type 1 diabetes
3. Spinal cord injury
4. Alzheimer’s disease
5. Rheumatoid Arthritis

There is no law to regulate the use of stem cells in India. The Indian Council of Medical Research
(ICMR) has issued guidelines that recognize stem cell therapies only for certain treatments and
observes that other types of treatments are unproven and should not be offered as therapy.

The Health Ministry had sought to change the rules by amending the law.

Which is the law that regulates the use and approval of drugs in India?

The law that regulates the use and approval of drugs in India is the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.

Currently does stem cells come under the category of drugs?

At present stem cells are not classified as drugs in India. If the Drugs and Cosmetics Act is amended
by the Government then stem cells will be classified as Drugs and it will come under the jurisdiction
of ‘Drugs Controller General of India.’ However in the proposed amendment stem cells that are
‘minimally manipulated’ are excluded from the definition of a new drug.

What is a ‘minimally manipulated’ stem cell?

Stem cells are minimally manipulated, meaning they are subjected to minimal manipulation when
stem cells are taken from an individual, subjected to minor procedures like rinsing, cleaning and
resizing and do not undergo any other processing steps that may alter their function before being
implanted into the same individual.

Does India undertake stem cell research? Does the Government of India support the research?

Yes, India carries out stem cell research. The government of India has been supporting the research
through funding agencies like the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Department of Science and
Technology (DST), Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). This has resulted in the
establishment of the state of the art infrastructure at over 40 premier health research and education
institutions.

Are there guidelines governing stem cell research in India?

The guidelines are given in the National Guidelines for Stem Cell Research (NASCAR-2013).

❖ DNA Fingerprinting:
➢ DNA fingerprinting is a chemical test that shows the genetic makeup of a person or other living
things.
➢ It is a technique for identification of an individual by examining their DNA
➢ DNA 0r DeoxyriboNucleic Acid is composed of bases, (adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and
thymine (T)) , sugar and phosphate
➢ Two bases link to each other using hydrogen bonds to form base pairs
➢ Though 99.7% of the makeup is similar between any two people there is a 0.3% difference which
accounts to almost 10 million different base pairs
➢ By examining this we can identify the relation between two people
➢ Blood, semen ,hair and teeth (with roots), , bones, flesh, saliva etc. can be used to study the DNA
➢ DNA fingerprinting was first developed in 1984 by Alec Jeffreys in the UK

➢ Applications Of DNA Fingerprinting are –

■ DNA analysis in forensic tests
■ Can be used to establish paternity tests
■ In criminal investigations
■ To determine the frequency of specific genes in a population which gives rise to
diversity
■ Can be used to trace the role of genetic drift in evolution
■ Personal identification
➢ What are the issues with DNA fingerprinting?
1. Ecological impacts - Degradation of a sample with prolonged contact to sunlight, humidity,
and heat
2. Unreliable results - Instrumental errors also lead to unreliable results
3. Privacy issues - Sensitive genetic information of a person is exposed to another individual
and it is against human rights
4. Security concerns - DNA databases holding DNA profiles
5. Lack of expertise - Leads to mishandling of samples
6. Intermixing of samples - Corruption, tampering with evidence, misconception during
labelling sample is possible
7. Targeting of groups - If people from one ethnic group are more often convicted, they will be
overrepresented and leads to targeting
➢ How to address these issues?
1. Acceptance by the legal fraternity and ensuring 100% conviction rate
2. Legal framework for innocents is needed to elude the fears of DNA profiling in data
collection and maintenance
 3. Stringent implementation of Human DNA Profiling Bill
4. Experts have clarified that DNA profiling will not give out any details of background or
identity of religion
❖ Dark-Biotechnology:

CHAPTER - 4 : NANOTECHNOLOGY

❖ Introduction
➢ The term Nano comes from the Latin word for dwarf. In scientific terminology it refers to nanometre.
One nanometre is a millionth of a millimetre.
➢ The nanoscale is the first point where we can assemble something. It is not until we start putting
atoms together that we can make anything useful.
➢ The term nanotechnology was used in 1959 by Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynman, though it
was Eric Drexler who actually popularised the term.
➢ Nanotechnology is a branch of science that deals with the minutest of particles, that is, 1 to 100
nanometres in size.
➢ Nanoscience involves manipulation of materials at atomic, molecular, macromolecular scales, where
properties significantly differ from those at larger scales.
➢ Nanotechnology mainly consists of processing of, separation, consolidation, and deformation of
materials by one atom or by 1 molecule.
➢ Nanoparticles exploit the fact that, at this scale, materials can behave very differently from when they
are in larger form.
➢ Quantum mechanics plays a role in the study of nanoscales.
➢ Substances that are insulators in bulk form might become semiconductors when reduced to
nanoscale.
➢ Melting Point can change due to an increase in surface area. Nanomaterials can be stronger or lighter,
or conduct heat or electricity in different ways.
➢ Particles of gold can appear red or blue depending on their size. Opaque substances become
transparent
❖ Scanning Tunnelling Microscope
➢ The scanning tunnelling microscope works by scanning a very sharp metal wire tip over a surface.
➢ By bringing the tip very close to the surface, and by applying an electrical voltage to the tip or
sample, we can image the surface at an extremely small scale – down to resolving individual atoms.
➢ It is based on several principles. One is the quantum mechanical effect of tunnelling. It is this effect
that allows us to “see” the surface.
➢ Another principle is the piezoelectric effect. It is this effect that allows us to precisely scan the tip.
➢ Lastly, a feedback loop is required, which monitors the tunnelling current and coordinates the current
and the positioning of the tip.

❖ Fullerenes
➢ A fullerene is a third form of carbon along with graphite and diamond that features unique properties
that make it ideal for photo-resists, organic photovoltaics, spin-on carbon hard masks and organic
photo detectors. Their discovery in 1985 was rewarded with a Nobel prize in chemistry 10- years
later.
➢ Fullerenes unique properties enable a range of application from electronics to medicine because they:
■ Can behave as superconductors through to semi-conductors
■ Are exceptional radical scavengers
■ Feature extreme durability
■ Can be easily modified to tailor properties as a Derivative, enabling modification to their
electronic structure, solubility and physical properties
❖ Carbon Nanotubes
➢ A carbon nanotube is a nano-size cylinder of carbon atoms.

➢ Advantages of Carbon Nanotubes

1. High thermal and electrical conductivity
2. Optical properties
3. Flexibility
4. Increased Stiffness
5. High tensile strength (100 times stronger than steel per unit of weight)
6. Light weight
7. Ability to be manipulated yet remain strong
8. When applied to products, these properties provide tremendous advantages. For example,
when used in polymers, bulk carbon nanotubes can improve the electrical, thermal, and
electrical properties of the products.
➢ Applications and Uses
1. Bicycle components
2. Wind turbines
3. Marine paints
4. Sports equipment, such as skis, baseball bats, hockey sticks, archery arrows, and surfboards
5. Electrical circuitry
6. Batteries with longer lifetime
7. Electronics
➢ Future uses of carbon nanotubes may include:
1. Clothing (stab-proof and bulletproof)
2. Semiconductor materials
3. Spacecraft
4. Space elevators
5. Solar panels
6. Cancer treatment
7. Touch screens
8. Energy storage
9. Optics
10. Radar
11. Biofuel
12. LCDs
❖ Nanowires
➢ Nanowires are wires with a very small diameter, sometimes as small as one nanometer.
➢ Scientists hope to use them to build tiny transistors for computer chips and other electronic devices.
 ➢ Nanowires have remarkable optical, electronic and magnetic properties, so it is hoped they will prove
useful in storing computer data.
❖ Applications of Nanotechnology
➢ Medicine : Researchers are developing customised nanoparticles the size of molecules that can
deliver drugs directly to diseased cells in your body. When it's perfected, this method should greatly
reduce the damage treatment such as chemotherapy does to a patient's healthy cells.
➢ Electronics : Nanotechnology holds some answers for how we might increase the capabilities of
electronics devices while we reduce their weight and power consumption.
➢ Food : Nanotechnology is having an impact on several aspects of food science, from how food is
grown to how it is packaged. Companies are developing nanomaterials that will make a difference
not only in the taste of food, but also in food safety, and the health benefits that food delivers.
➢ Solar Cells : Companies have developed nanotech solar cells that can be manufactured at
significantly lower cost than conventional solar cells.
➢ Batteries : Companies are currently developing batteries using nanomaterials. One such battery
will be as good as new after sitting on the shelf for decades. Another battery can be recharged
significantly faster than conventional batteries.
➢ Space : Nanotechnology may hold the key to making space-flight more practical. Advancements in
nanomaterials make lightweight spacecraft and a cable for the space elevator possible. By
significantly reducing the amount of rocket fuel required, these advances could lower the cost of
reaching orbit and travelling in space.
➢ Better Air Quality : Nanotechnology can improve the performance of catalysts used to transform
vapours escaping from cars or industrial plants into harmless gases. That's because catalysts made
from nanoparticles have a greater surface area to interact with the reacting chemicals than catalysts
made from larger particles.
➢ Cleaner Water : Nanotechnology is being used to develop solutions to three very different
problems in water quality. One challenge is the removal of industrial wastes from groundwater.
Nanoparticles can be used to convert the contaminating chemical through a chemical reaction to
make it harmless. Studies have shown that this method can be used successfully to reach
contaminates dispersed in underground ponds and at much lower cost than methods which require
pumping the water out of the ground for treatment.
➢ Fuel Cells : Nanotechnology is being used to reduce the cost of catalysts used in fuel cells to
produce hydrogen ions from fuel such as methanol and to improve the efficiency of membranes
used in fuel cells to separate hydrogen ions from other gases such as oxygen.
➢ Fuels : Nanotechnology can address the shortage of fossil fuels such as diesel and gasoline by
making the production of fuels from low grade raw materials economical, increasing the mileage of
engines, and making the production of fuels from normal raw materials more efficient.
❖ Nano Mission
The Nano Mission is an umbrella programme for capacity building which envisages the overall
development of this field of research in the country and to tap some of its applied potential for nation’s
development. In brief, the objectives of the NanoMission are:
➢ Basic Research Promotion – Funding of basic research by individual scientists and/or groups of
scientists and creation of centres of excellence for pursuing studies leading to fundamental
understanding of matter that enables control and manipulation at the nanoscale.
➢ Infrastructure Development for Nano Science & Technology Research – Investigations on the
nano scale require expensive equipment like Optical Tweezer, Scanning Tunnelling Microscope
(STM) etc. For optimal use of expensive and sophisticated facilities, it is proposed to establish a
chain of shared facilities across the country.
➢ Nano Applications and Technology Development Programmes- To catalyse Applications and
Technology Development Programmes leading to products and devices, the Mission proposes to
 promote application-oriented R&D Projects. Special effort will be made to involve the industrial
sector into nanotechnology R&D directly or through Public Private Partnership (PPP) ventures.
➢ Human Resource Development – The Mission shall focus on providing effective education and
training to researchers and professionals in diversified fields so that a genuine interdisciplinary
culture for nanoscale science, engineering and technology can emerge.
➢ International Collaborations – Apart from exploratory visits of scientists, organisation of joint
workshops and conferences and joint research projects, it is also planned to facilitate access to
sophisticated research facilities abroad, establish joint centres of excellence and forge
academia-industry partnerships at the international level wherever required and desirable.
❖ Concerns About Nanoparticles
➢ Nanosized particles can accumulate in various body parts such as nasal cavities, lungs and brain.
Research has shown that carbon Nanomaterials known as buckyballs can induce brain damage in
fish. There are even warnings that the small size of nanoparticles would render them toxic and thus,
full hazard assessments are needed before nanomanufacturing is licensed.
➢ Due to their minute size, nanoparticles are able to accumulate and travel very far into the
environment. We do not yet know how these particles will act in the environment or what chemical
reactions will they Trigger on meeting other particles.
➢ Many commonly used products have nanoparticles; for instance, titanium dioxide nanoparticles are
widely used in sunscreens and cosmetics as sun-protection. The US has issued a safe occupational
exposure limit of 0.1 mg/m3 for nanoscale titanium dioxide. This was after reports of incidences of
lung cancer in rats at doses of 10 mg/m3 and above surfaced.
➢ There is also a concern that nanoscale titanium dioxide particles have higher photo-reactivity than
coarser particles, and may generate free radicals that can damage cells.

CHAPTER - 5 : ROBOTICS

❖ Introduction:
➢ Robotics is an interdisciplinary sector of science and engineering dedicated to the design,
construction and use of mechanical robots in various fields.
➢ Robots are intelligent machines that sense and manipulate their environment.
❖ Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with
the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence if such protection does not conflict with the First or Second
Law.
❖ COMPONENTS OF ROBOT
➢ Controller:
■ The controller is the part of a robot that coordinates all movements of the mechanical
system. It also receives input from the immediate environment through various sensors.
■ The heart of the robot’s controller is generally a microprocessor linked to input/output and
monitoring devices.
➢ Actuators:
■ Actuators are those parts of the robot that convert the stored energy into movement. These
are like the muscles of the robot. There can be different kinds of technologies that are used
as actuators in robots.
 ➢ Manipulators:
■ The manipulator consists of segments that may be joined and that move about, allowing the
robot to do work.
■ The manipulator is the arm of the robot that must move materials, parts, tools, or special
devices through various motions to provide useful work
➢ End Effectors:
■ The end effector is the robot’s hand, or the end-of arm tooling on the robot.
■ It is a device attached to the wrist of the manipulator for the purpose of grasping, lifting,
transporting, manoeuvring, or performing operations on a workpiece.
➢ Sensors:
■ Sensors allow a robot to gather information about its environment. This information can be
used to guide the robot’s behaviour.
➢ Power Source Of Robot :
■ At present, most robots use batteries as their power source. The different types of batteries
used in robots are
1. Lithium-ion and Lithium-polymer batteries,
2. Lead acid batteries,
3. Silver cadmium batteries,
4. Nickel-cadmium batteries,
5. Nickel-metal hydride batteries, etc.

❖ APPLICATION OF ROBOTICS
1. Military
a. Military robots are remote controlled autonomous mobile robots that have been designed to
carry out military tasks and actions such as search and rescue operations, transportation, and
for attacking the enemy etc.
b. Examples of military robots currently in use are:
i. IAIO Fotros Iran
ii. Elbit Hermes 450 Israel
iii. RQ-9 Predator B USA
iv. DRDO Daksh India
2. Industry:
a. Some of the important applications of robotics in industries include welding, assembly line
management, pickup and place, painting, packaging and labelling, product inspection, and
 testing etc. Types of robots used in industries include articulated robots, delta robots, cartesian
robots, and SCARA robots.
3. Agriculture:
a. The robots are designed to replace human labour for agricultural tasks such as fruit picking,
operating driverless tractors and sprayers, sheep shearing etc.
b. Agricultural robots can have applications in livestock such as automatic milking, washing and
castrating etc.
c. The main areas of applications of agricultural robots are harvesting, cloud seeding, planting
seeds, soil analysis and environmental monitoring, drones for weed control etc.
4. Medical Science:
a. There are various types of medical robots such as surgical robots, rehabilitation robots,
telepresence robots, biorobots, disinfection robots, companion robots and pharmacy
automation robots etc.
b. Nanorobots can be used in nanomedicine.
c. Biological nanobots may be used for identifying and destroying cancer cells etc.
5. Outer space
a. Unmanned robotic spacecraft have been used for the exploration of planets, stars etc. by the
space agencies such as NASA, ISRO and others.
6. Education
❖ Robotics In India:

❖ Challenges In India:
➢ Lack of hardware ecosystem
➢ Financial incentives
➢ Critical human resources
➢ Lack of the required knowledge
➢ Mindset shift required
❖ Concerns Related To Robotics:
➢ Change in manufacturing process. ➢ AI and robotics
➢ Biohybrid and bioinspired robots ➢ Brain-computer interface
➢ Power consumption ➢ Social interaction
➢ Robot swarms (better coordination) ➢ Medical robotics
➢ Navigation and exploration ➢ Ethics and security
 ➢ Occupational safety and health implication
➢ Building multi functional robots
❖ FUTURE OF ROBOTICS IN INDIA:
➢ Deep specialisation in server engineering, electrical, embedded programming and mechanical
engineering.
➢ Identification of First-Wave Technologies.
➢ Safety and Quality of Products.
➢ Optimization of Resources.
➢ Improving Productivity.
➢ Academic Support.
➢ Industrial Robots.

CHAPTER - 6 : ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

❖ INTRODUCTION
➢ John McCarthy, coined the term "Artificial Intelligence" in 1956, and defined it as "the science and
engineering of making intelligent machines".
➢ It refers to the ability of machines to perform cognitive tasks like thinking, perceiving, learning,
problem solving and decision making.
➢ Constellation of technologies that enable machines to act with higher levels of intelligence and
emulate the human capabilities of sense, comprehension and related actions.
➢ The term may also be applied to any machine that exhibits traits associated with a human mind such
as learning and problem solving.

❖ MACHINE LEARNING (ML)

➢ Coined by Arthur Samuel in 1959, meaning: “The ability to learn without being explicitly
programmed.”
 ➢ ML involves the use of algorithms to parse data, analyse it, learn from it and predict outcomes or
possibilities.
➢ The machine gets “trained” using large amounts of data and algorithms and in turn gains the
capability to perform specific tasks.
❖ DEEP LEARNING (DL)
➢ It is a type of machine learning that can process a wider range of data resources, requires less data
pre-processing by humans, and can often produce more accurate results than traditional machine
learning approaches.
➢ In deep learning, interconnected layers of software-based calculators known as “neurons” form a
neural network.
❖ NEURAL NETWORK
➢ Neural networks reflect the behaviour of the human brain, allowing computer programs to
recognize patterns and solve common problems in the fields of AI, Machine Learning, and Deep
Learning.
➢ Can be used to extract patterns and detect trends that are too complex to be noticed by either
humans or other computer techniques.

❖ WEAK AI VS. STRONG AI

Weak AI Strong AI

It describes "simulated" thinking. That is, a It describes "actual" thinking. That is,
system which appears to behave intelligently, behaving intelligently, thinking as humans
but doesn't have any kind of consciousness do, with a conscious, subjective mind.
about what it's doing.

For example, a chatbot might appear to hold a

natural conversation, but it has no sense of
who it is or why it is talking to you.

❖ NARROW AI VS. GENERAL AI

 Narrow AI General AI

It describes an AI that is limited to a single It describes an AI which can be used to

task or a set number of tasks. complete a wide range of tasks in a wide
range of environments. As such, it's much
closer to human intelligence.

For example, the capabilities of IBM's Deep

Blue, the chess playing computer that beat
world champion Gary Kasparov in 1997,
were limited to playing chess.

It wouldn't have been able to win a game of

tic-tac-toe - or even know how to play

❖ SUPERINTELLIGENCE
➢ The term "Superintelligence" is often used to refer to general and strong AI at the point at which it
surpasses Human Intelligence, if it ever does.
❖ APPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)

1. AI in Astronomy
​ Artificial Intelligence can be very useful to solve complex universe problems. AI technology
can be helpful for understanding the universe such as how it works, origin, etc.

2. AI in Healthcare
● In the last five to ten years, AI has become more advantageous for the healthcare industry and is
going to have a significant impact on this industry.
● Healthcare Industries are applying AI to make a better and faster diagnosis than humans. AI can
help doctors with diagnoses and can inform when patients are worsening so that medical help
can reach the patient before hospitalisation.

3. AI in Gaming
​ AI can be used for gaming purposes. The AI machines can play strategy games like chess,
where the machine needs to think of a large number of possible places.

4. AI in Finance
​ AI and finance industries are the best matches for each other. The finance industry is
implementing automation, chatbot, adaptive intelligence, algorithm trading, and machine
learning into financial processes.

5. AI in Data Security
​ The security of data is crucial for every company and cyber-attacks are growing very rapidly in
the digital world. AI can be used to make your data more safe and secure. Some examples such
as AEG bot, AI2 Platform,are used to determine software bugs and cyber-attacks in a better
way.

6. AI in Social Media
​ Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat contain billions of user profiles,
which need to be stored and managed in a very efficient way. AI can organise and manage
massive amounts of data. AI can analyse lots of data to identify the latest trends, hashtags, and
requirements of different users.
 7. AI in Travel & Transport
​ AI is becoming highly demanding for travel industries. AI is capable of doing various travel
related works such as from making travel arrangements to suggesting the hotels, flights, and
best routes to the customers. Travel industries are using AI-powered chatbots which can make
human-like interaction with customers for better and faster response.

8. AI in Automotive Industry
● Some Automotive industries are using AI to provide virtual assistants to their users for better
performance. Such as Tesla has introduced TeslaBot, an intelligent virtual assistant.
● Various Industries are currently working on developing self-driven cars which can make your
journey more safe and secure.

9. AI in Robotics:
● Artificial Intelligence has a remarkable role in Robotics. Usually, general robots are
programmed such that they can perform some repetitive task, but with the help of AI, we can
create intelligent robots which can perform tasks with their own experiences without being
pre-programmed.
● Humanoid Robots are the best examples for AI in robotics, recently the intelligent Humanoid
robot named Erica and Sophia has been developed which can talk and behave like humans.

10. AI in Entertainment
​ We are currently using some AI based applications in our daily life with some entertainment
services such as Netflix or Amazon. With the help of ML/AI algorithms, these services show
the recommendations for programs or shows.

11. AI in Agriculture
​ Agriculture is an area which requires various resources, labour, money, and time for best
results. Nowadays agriculture is becoming digital, and AI is emerging in this field. Agriculture
is applying AI as agriculture robotics, solid and crop monitoring, predictive analysis. AI in
agriculture can be very helpful for farmers.

12. AI in E-commerce
​ AI is providing a competitive edge to the e-commerce industry, and it is becoming more
demanding in the e-commerce business. AI is helping shoppers to discover associated products
with recommended size, colour, or even brand.

13. AI in education:
● AI can automate grading so that the tutor can have more time to teach. AI chatbot can
communicate with students as a teaching assistant.
● AI in the future can work as a personal virtual tutor for students, which will be accessible easily
at any time and any place.

❖ INDIA AND AI
➢ It is estimated that AI will add 957 billion dollars to India’s GDP by the year 2035 boosting India’s
annual growth by 1.3%. India stood at the ninth position in terms of the number of AI specialists
working in the field.
➢ The CBSE has AI as an elective subject for its ninth grade classes.
➢ IIT Hyderabad has launched a full-fledged Bachelor of Technology (B. Tech.) program in AI
becoming the first Indian educational institution to do so.
 ➢ Defence forces of India are now venturing into the products and technologies which will aid
defence measures using the AI and related technologies.
➢ In India, corporations have started collaborating with academia on AI. Example – IBM’s Blue
project
❖ POSSIBLE AREAS FOR AI APPLICATIONS FOR INDIA
1. e-Governance
a. Targeted delivery of services, schemes, subsidies.
b. Automate Government Processes.
c. Digital India Mission.
2. Safety and Security
a. Counterinsurgency and Patrolling operations.
b. Smart border surveillance and Monitoring.
c. Crime data analysis.
d. Road safety.
3. Earth Sciences
a. Weather forecasting and Climate studies.
b. Disaster management.
c. Precision Agriculture.
4. Education
a. Study Ancient Literature on Medicines.
b. Customised classrooms and Curriculum.
c. Virtual teacher.
❖ CHALLENGES IN INDIA
1. Driven largely by the private sector
2. Education System is not updated
3. Debate of poverty v/s. technology
4. The decrease in demand for human labour
5. Existential risks
6. It may lead to moral degradation in society

CHAPTER - 7 : HEALTH AND DISEASES

❖ Introduction
➢ Any malfunctioning process which interferes with the normal functioning of the body is called a
disease.It is two type
1. Congenital disease: The disease which is present from birth (e.g. hole in the heart in
infants). They are caused by some genetic abnormality or metabolic disorder or
malfunctioning of an organ.
2. Acquired disease: The disease which may occur after birth during one’s lifetime.
❖ Acquired Disease
➢ (i) Infectious diseases : The diseases which can be transmitted from diseased person to another
person e.g. measles.
➢ (ii) Degenerative diseases : The diseases caused by the malfunction of some vital organs of the
body e.g. heart failure.
➢ (iii) Deficiency diseases : These are caused due to nutritional deficiency such as that of minerals or
vitamins in the diet e.g. anaemia (Fe), Beriberi (vitamin B). You have read about such diseases in an
earlier lesson 27.
➢ (iv) Cancer : This is an abnormal, uncontrolled and unwanted growth of cells. e.g. lung cancer.
◆ Modes of Spread of Communicable Diseases
1. Direct transmission
a. (i) Direct contact between the infected person and the healthy person: Diseases like
smallpox, chicken pox, syphilis, gonorrhoea spread through direct contact.
b. (ii) Droplet infection: The infected person throws out tiny droplets of mucus by coughing,
sneezing or spitting. Diseases like common cold, pneumonia, influenza, measles,
tuberculosis and whooping cough spread through droplet infection.
c. (iii) Contact with soil contaminated with disease-causing viruses and bacteria.
d. (iv) Animal bite: Viruses of rabies are introduced through the wound caused by the bite of
rabid animals, especially dogs. The virus is present in the saliva of the rabid animals.
2. Indirect transmission
a. (i) By vectors such as houseflies, mosquitoes, and cockroaches.
b. (ii) Air-borne: The pathogens may reach humans with air and dust.
c. (iii) Object borne (Fomite borne) : Many diseases are transmitted through the use of
contaminated articles, such as clothes, utensils, toys, door handles, taps, syringes and
surgical instruments.
d. (iv) Water borne : If potable water is contaminated with pathogens of diseases such as
cholera, diarrhoea, hepatitis or jaundice, it reaches a healthy person upon consuming such
water.
❖ COMMUNICABLE DISEASES (INFECTIOUS DISEASES)
➢ The diseases which spread from one diseased person to another through contaminated food, water
or contact or through insecticides, and animals are called communicable diseases.
➢ These are caused by different causative agents (pathogens).
➢ Diseases caused by viruses
1. Chicken pox
a. Pathogen : Chicken pox virus (varicella)
b. Mode of transmission : By contact or through scabs
c. Incubation period : 12-20 days
d. Symptoms
i. Fever, headache and loss of appetite
ii. Dark red-coloured rash on the back and chest which spreads on the whole
body. Later, rashes change into vesicles.
iii. After a few days these vesicles start drying up and scabs (crusts) are formed.
iv. These scabs start falling (infective stage)
e. Prevention and cure
i. There is no vaccine against chicken pox as yet. But precautions must be taken
as follows:
1. The patient should be kept in isolation.
2. Clothing and utensils used by the patient should be sterilised.
3. Fallen scabs should be collected and burnt.
ii. One attack of chicken pox gives life-long immunity to the person recovered
from this disease.
2. Measles
a. Pathogen : Virus (Rubeola)
b. Mode of transmission : By air
c. Incubation period : 3-5 days
d. Symptoms
i. Common cold
ii. Appearance of small white patches in mouth and throat.
iii. Appearance of rashes on the body.
e. Prevention and cure
i. The patient should be kept in isolation.
ii. Cleanliness should be maintained.
iii. Antibiotics check only the secondary infections which can easily recur.
3. Poliomyelitis Pathogen : Polio Virus
a. Mode of transmissions : Virus enters inside the body through food or water.
b. Incubation period : 7-14 days
c. Symptoms
i. The virus multiplies in intestinal cells and then reaches the brain through
blood.
ii. It damages the brain and nerves and causes infantile paralysis.
iii. Stiffness of neck, fever, loss of head support.
d. Prevention and Cure
i. Polio vaccine drops (oral polio vaccine, OPV) are given to children at certain
intervals.
ii. Pulse polio programme is organised in our country to give polio vaccines to
children.
4. Rabies (hydrophobia)
a. Pathogen : Rabies virus
 b. Mode of Transmission : Bite by a rabid dog.
c. Incubation period : 10 days to 1-3 months depending upon the distance of bite from
Central Nervous System (CNS), that is the brain or spinal cord.
d. Symptoms
i. Severe headache and high fever.
ii. Painful contraction of muscles of throat and chest.
iii. Choking and fear of water leading to death.
e. Prevention and Cure
i. Compulsory immunisation of dogs.
ii. Killing of rabid animals.
iii. Anti-rabies injections or oral doses are given to the person bitten by a rabid
animal.
5. Hepatitis
a. Pathogen : Hepatitis B virus.
b. Mode of Transmission : Mainly through contaminated water.
c. Cubation Period : Generally 15-160 days.
d. Symptoms
i. Body ache.
ii. Loss of appetite and nausea.
iii. Eyes and skin become yellowish, urine deep yellow in colour (due to bile
pigments).
iv. Enlarged liver.
e. Prevention and Cure
i. Hepatitis B vaccine is now available in India.
ii. Proper hygiene is to be observed.
iii. Avoid taking fat rich substances.
6. Influenza
a. Causes
i. Influenza is caused by a virus which attacks our body’s cells, resulting in
various effects depending on the strain of the virus
b. Symptoms
i. fever (Usually 100° F to 103° F in adults and often even higher in children).
ii. respiratory tract infection symptoms such as, cough, sore throat, running nose,
headache, pain in the muscles, and extreme fatigue.
c. Treatment and Control
i. Much of the illness and death caused by influenza can be prevented by annual
influenza vaccination. Influenza vaccine is specifically recommended for those
who are at high risk for complications with chronic diseases of the heart, lungs
or kidneys, diabetes, or severe forms of anaemia.
ii. The persons suffering from influenza should
1. drink plenty of fluids
2. take symptom relief with paracetamol, aspirin or ibuprofen as
recommended by the doctor.
3. Consult a doctor immediately for treatment.
7. Dengue
a. Dengue is an acute fever caused by a virus. It is of two types:
i. Dengue fever
ii. Dengue haemorrhagic fever.
b. Dengue fever is characterised by an onset of sudden high fever, severe headache, pain
behind the eyes and in the muscles and joints.
c. Dengue haemorrhagic fever is an acute infectious viral disease. It is an advanced stage
of dengue fever. It is characterised by fever during the initial phase and other
symptoms like headache, pain in the eye, joint pain and muscle pain, followed by
signs of bleeding, red tiny spots on the skin, and bleeding from nose and gums.
d. How does Dengue spread?
i. Dengue spreads through the bite of an infected Aedes aegypti mosquito. The
transmission of the disease occurs when a mosquito bites an infected person
and subsequently bites a healthy person. In doing so, it transmits blood
containing the virus to the healthy person and the person becomes infected
with dengue. The first symptoms of the disease occur about 5 to 7 days after
the infected bite.
ii. The Aedes mosquito rests indoors, in closets and other dark places, and is
active during day time. Outside, it rests where it is cool and shaded.
e. Incubation period: The time between the bite of a mosquito carrying dengue virus
and the start of symptoms averages 4 to 6 days, with a range of 3 to 14 days.
f. Diagnosis
i. Diagnosis is made through blood tests by scanning for antibodies against
dengue viruses. In addition the blood platelet counts also get drastically
reduced in the infected person.
g. Symptoms
i. Sudden onset of high fever, generally 104-105 °F (40 °C), which may last 4- 5
days.
ii. Severe headache mostly in the forehead.
iii. pain in the joints and muscles, body aches.
iv. Pain behind the eyes which worsens with eye movement.
v. Nausea or vomiting.
h. Symptoms of Dengue haemorrhagic fever
i. Severe and continuous pain in the abdomen.
ii. Rashes on the skin. ]
iii. Bleeding from the nose, mouth, or in the internal organs.
iv. Frequent vomiting with or without blood.
v. Black stools due to internal bleeding.
vi. Excessive thirst (dry mouth).
vii. Pale, cold skin, weakness.
i. Prevention
i. Avoid water stagnation for more than 72 hours so that the mosquitoes do not
breed there.
ii. Prevent mosquito breeding in stored water bodies, like ponds, and wells.
iii. Destroy discarded objects like old tyres and bottles, as they collect and store
rainwater.
iv. Use mosquito repellents and wear long sleeved clothes to curtail exposure.
v. Avoid outdoor activities during dawn or dusk when these mosquitoes are most
active.
vi. Patients suffering from dengue fever must be isolated for at least 5 days.
vii. Report to the nearest health centre for any suspected case of Dengue fever.
j. Treatment for dengue and dengue haemorrhagic fever
i. There is no specific treatment for dengue fever.
ii. Persons with dengue fever should rest and drink plenty of fluids.
iii. Dengue haemorrhagic fever is treated by replacing lost fluids.
iv. Some patients need blood transfusions to control bleeding.
8. Swine Flu/H1N1
a. Mode of transmission :person to person by infected droplets
b. Incubation period : 1-4 days
c. Prevention: H1N1 vaccination
d. Symptoms :
i. Fever, but not vi. Watery, red eyes
always vii. Body aches
ii. Chills viii. Headache
iii. Cough ix. Fatigue
iv. Sore throat x. Diarrhoea
v. Runny or stuffy xi. Nausea and
nose vomiting
e. Prevention
i. Mask
ii. Sanitisation
9. Ebola
a. Mode of transmission : Wild animals to people and people to people
b. Incubation period : 2 to 21 days
c. Prevention : rVSV-ZEBOV
d. Symptoms :
i. Fever.
ii. Aches and pains, such as severe headache and muscle and joint pain.
iii. Weakness and fatigue.
iv. Sore throat.
v. Loss of appetite.
vi. Gastrointestinal symptoms including abdominal pain, diarrhoea, and
vomiting
e. Prevention
i. Control human animal transmission
ii. Reducing human transmission
iii. Reducing through pregnancy
iv. Rvsv-zebov
10. Zika Virus:
a. Mode of transmission: through the bite of an infected aedes mosquitos
b. Incubation period: 3-14 days
c. Prevention: Vaccine
d. Symptoms:
i. Muscle pain.
ii. Headache.
iii. Eye pain.
iv. Fatigue or a general feeling of discomfort.
v. Abdominal pain.
e. Prevention:
i. protect yourself from mosquito bites
ii. Protected sexual activities
11. NIPAH virus:
a. Mode of transmission :from animal to human and human to human
b. Incubation : 4 -15 days
c. Prevention : Vaccine
 d. Symptoms :
i. Fever.
ii. Headache.
iii. Cough.
iv. Sore throat.
v. Difficulty breathing.
vi. Vomiting.
e. Prevention
i. Prevention human animal transissin
ii. Reducing human transmission
iii. Intensive care
➢ Diseases caused by Bacteria
1. Tuberculosis(TB)
a. Pathogen : A bacterium (Mycobacterium tuberculosis).
b. Mode of Transmission : airborne-discharged through sputum, cough and sneeze, of the
infected person.
c. Incubation period : 2-10 weeks during which the bacteria produce a toxin, tuberculin.
d. Symptoms
i. Persistent fever and coughing.
ii. Chest pain and blood comes out with the sputum.
iii. General weakness.
e. Prevention and Cure
i. Isolation of patients to avoid spread of infection.
ii. BCG vaccination is given to children as a preventive measure.
iii. Living rooms should be airy, neat and with clean surroundings.
iv. Antibiotics are administered as treatment.
2. Typhoid
a. Pathogen : A Bacillus rod-shaped bacterium (Salmonella typhi)
b. Mode of transmission : Through contaminated food and water
c. Incubation period : About 1-3 weeks
d. Symptoms
i. Continuous fever, headache, slow pulse rate.
ii. Reddish rashes appear on the belly.
iii. In extreme cases, ulcers may rupture resulting in death of the patient.
e. Prevention and Cure
i. Anti-typhoid inoculation should be given.
ii. Avoid taking exposed food and drinks.
iii. Proper sanitation and cleanliness should be maintained.
iv. Proper disposal of excreta of the patient.
v. Antibiotics should be administered.
3. Cholera
It often breaks out among people in crowded areas and the areas with poor sanitary conditions
a. Pathogen : Comma shaped bacterium (Vibrio cholerae)
b. Mode of transmission : Contaminated food and water. Housefly is the carrier.
c. Incubation period : 6 hours to 2-3 days.
d. Symptoms
i. Acute diarrhoea and watery stool.
ii. Muscular cramps.
iii. Loss of minerals through urine.
 iv. Dehydration leads to death.
e. Prevention and cure
i. Cholera vaccination should be given.
ii. Electrolytes (Na, K, sugar) dissolved in water should be given to the patient to
check dehydration (In market it is available as ORS–oral rehydration solution).
iii. Proper washing and cooking of food.
iv. Proper disposal of vomit and human excreta.
v. Flies should not be allowed to sit on eatables and utensils.
4. Diphtheria
a. This disease generally occurs in children of 1-5 years of age.
b. Pathogen : Rod-shaped bacterium (Corynebacterium diphtheriae)
c. Mode of Transmission : Through air (droplet infection)
d. Incubation period : 2-4 days
e. Symptoms
i. Slight fever, Sore throat and general indisposition.
ii. Oozing semisolid material in the throat which develops into a tough
membrane. The membrane may cause clogging (blocking) of air passage,
resulting in death.
f. Prevention and cure
i. Immediate medical attention should be given.
ii. Babies should be given DPT vaccine.
iii. Sputum, oral and nasal discharges of the infected child should be disposed of.
iv. Antibiotics may be given under doctor’s supervision.
v. Isolation of the infected child.
5. Leprosy/ Hansen’s Disease
a. Pathogen : A bacterium (Mycobacterium leprae)
b. Mode of transmission : Prolonged contact with the infected person. Nasal secretions
are the most likely infectious material for family contacts.
c. Incubation period : 1-5 years
d. Symptoms
i. Affects skin.
ii. Formation of nodules and ulcers.
iii. Scabs and deformities of fingers and toes.
iv. Infected areas lose sensation.
e. Prevention and Cure
i. The children should be kept away from parents suffering from leprosy.
ii. Some medicine may arrest the disease and prevent it from spreading.
➢ Diseases caused by protozoans
1. Malaria
a. Pathogen : Malarial parasite (different species of Plasmodium)
b. Mode of transmission : By bite of female Anopheles mosquitoes
c. Incubation period : Approximately 12 days
d. Symptoms
i. Headache, nausea and muscular pain.
ii. Feeling of chilliness and shivering followed by fever which becomes normal
along with sweating after some time.
iii. The patient becomes weak and anaemic.
iv. If not treated properly secondary complications may lead to death.
 e. Prevention and cure
i. Fitting of double doors and windows (with “Jali” i.e. wire mesh) in the house to
prevent entry of mosquitoes.
ii. Use of mosquito net and mosquito repellents.
iii. No water should be allowed to collect in ditches or other open spaces to prevent
mosquito breeding.
iv. Sprinkling of kerosene oil in ditches or other open spaces where water gets
collected.
v. Antimalarial drugs to be taken.
2. Amoebiasis (Amoebic dysentery)
a. Pathogen : Entamoeba histolytica
b. Mode of transmission : Contaminated food and water
c. Symptoms
i. Formation of ulcers in intestine.
ii. Feeling of abdominal pain and nausea.
iii. Acute diarrhoea and mucus in stool.
d. Prevention and cure
i. Proper sanitation should be maintained.
ii. Vegetables and fruits must be properly washed before eating.
iii. Antibiotics may be given to the patients.
3. KALA-AZAR(LEISHMANIASIS)
a. Mode of transmission : bite of infected female phlebotomine sandflies
b. Incubation period: 1-4 months
c. Prevention : under development
d. Symptoms
i. Irregular bouts of fever
ii. Weight loss and weakness
iii. Enlargement of the spleen and liver
iv. Anaemic
v. Darkening of skin
e. Prevention and cure
i. Vector control
ii. Effective diseases surveillance
iii. Early diagnosis and prompt treatment
iv. Community effort
v. Residual spray
➢ Diseases caused by worms (helminths)
1. Filariasis
a. Pathogen : Filarial worm (Wuchereria bancrofti)
b. Mode of transmission : Bites of mosquitoes - Aedes and Culex.
c. Symptoms
i. Fever
ii. Collection of endothelial cells and metabolites in the wall of lymph vessels.
iii. Swelling takes place in certain parts of the body like legs, breasts, and scrotum.
iv. Swelling of legs which appear as legs of elephant, so this disease is also called
elephantiasis
d. Prevention and cure
i. Mesh doors and windows in the house to check the entry of mosquitoes.
ii. The water collected in tanks or other articles should be properly covered.
iii. Sprinkling of kerosene in ditches. (iv) Drugs may be administered.
❖ NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASES
1. Diabetes mellitus
a. The disease can be diagnosed by blood test or urine test
b. Types of diabetes:
i. TYPE 1 DIABETES:In this type, the body produces very little or no insulin.
Therefore, a daily injection of insulin is required for the body to maintain blood glucose
levels under control. It can develop at any age but mostly it affects children and
adolescents.
ii. TYPE 2 DIABETES:In this type, the body is not able to use the insulin that it
produces. The remedy for this is a healthy lifestyle, increased physical activity, and a
healthy diet. Some people with time may take oral drugs or insulin to keep their blood
glucose levels under control. It is more common in adults and 90% mostly cases of
Diabetes are Type 2 only.
iii. GESTATIONAL DIABETES (GDM):In this type, glucose in the blood increases
during pregnancy and may generate complications for both mother and child. It is also
seen that Gestational diabetes may disappear after pregnancy but affected women or
children are at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life.
c. Causes
i. Less secretion of insulin hormone from the pancreas.
ii. Mental stress
iii. Through heredity from parents to children.
d. Symptoms
i. More glucose in blood.
ii. Excessive and frequent passing of urine.
iii. Feeling thirsty and hungry frequently.
iv. Reduced healing capacity of injury.
v. General weakness of the body.
vi. In extreme cases diabetic coma can take place making the patient unconscious.
e. Prevention and cure
i. Control the excessive weight of the body.
ii. A regulated and controlled diet is to be taken.
iii. The food should not contain sugar and carbohydrates.
iv. Injection of insulin before meals, if required (only on doctor’s prescription).
2. Cardio-Vascular Diseases
Common Causes
I. Deposition of cholesterol (a kind of fat) in the walls of coronary arteries which restrict the
flow of blood to the heart muscles. This leads to heart attack.
II. Due to reduced blood supply, and reduced oxygen available to the muscles, the heart's
efficiency is affected.
III. Due to stress and strain.
IV. Obesity (overweight).
A. Hypertension : (high blood pressure)
a. Symptoms
i. Persistent high blood pressure (BP)
ii. It may damage the arteries of the kidney.
iii. In extreme cases the arteries may burst or blindness may be caused.
iv. It may also cause paralysis.
b. Prevention and Cure
 i. Do not build up mental tension.
ii. Low fat diet should be taken.
iii. Weight of the body must be kept under control.
iv. Good eating habits should be cultivated
v. Medicines may be taken as per doctor’s advice.
B. Coronary heart disease
a. Symptoms
i. Severe pain in the chest gasping for breath.
ii. Intense nausea and vomiting.
iii. Lot of sweating takes place.
iv. Blood clot may be formed within the blood vessels
b. Prevention and Cure
i. A diet low in saturated fats may control the formation of cholesterol.
ii. Sound eating habits should be developed.
iii. Over weight should be checked.
iv. Avoid smoking, alcoholic drinks and drugs.
v. Take treatment under a qualified doctor.
vi. Electrocardiograms (ECG) can diagnose the disease.
vii. By-pass surgery is performed in extreme cases
3. Osteoporosis
a. Osteoporosis is an age dependent disorder with loss of the normal density of bone. The bones
become fragile and are easily fractured. Bones that are affected by osteoporosis can fracture
with only a minor fall or injury. Elderly men and women are most susceptible because of
hormonal changes which occur with advancing age.
b. Symptoms
i. The persons suffering from osteoporosis may not know about their condition for a long
time, because osteoporosis doesn’t cause clear cut symptoms and one may not realise
till a bone fracture.
ii. The symptoms of osteoporosis are related to the location of the fracture.
iii. Fractures of the spine can cause severe ‘band like’ pain that radiates around from the
back to the side of the body. Repeated spine fractures can cause chronic lower back
pain, as well as curving of the spine, which gives the individual a hunched-back
appearance.
iv. Some patients with osteoporosis develop stress fractures of the feet while walking or
stepping off. Hip fractures typically occur as a result of a fall. With osteoporosis, hip
fractures can occur upon even minor accidents. Hip fractures may take a very long
time to heal because of poor bone quality
c. Treatment
i. Patients suffering from osteoporosis are generally treated with vitamin D and calcium
supplements. In addition they are advised bed rest so that the condition does not
worsen.
ii. Changes to lifestyle and diet are also recommended. The patients are advised to take
calcium either via dietary means or via supplements in the form of tablets. Since the
body absorbs about 500 mg calcium at a given time, the calcium intake should be
spread throughout the day.
iii. Exercise also helps to protect persons from the risk of getting osteoporosis. However,
it is important to do exercises for osteoporosis under the guidance of a professional
physiotherapist.
4. Cancer
a. 1t is the uncontrolled and unwanted growth of cells.
 b. Cause
i. No definite cause has been arrived at so far. However, it is found that the body has
proto-oncogenes. These are activated by some substances or stimuli, which convert
these into active cancer-causing oncogenes.
ii. Heavy smoking and alcoholism.
iii. Chewing tobacco.
iv. Consistent irritation of skin or repeated injury at the same point.
c. Cancer is a kind of tumorous growth. Tumours can be classified into two categories :
i. Benign tumour
1. It remains confined to the place of origin and does not spread to other body
parts.
2. It is relatively harmless.
ii. Malignant tumour
1. It spreads to other parts of the body and growth is rapid. This is serious and
may cause death of the patient.
d. Symptoms
i. Persistent lump or thickening in tissues, specially in tongue, breast and uterus.
ii. Any irregular bleeding or blood-tinged discharge from any body opening.
iii. Any sore that does not heal quickly.
iv. Change in the form of mole or wart.
v. Persistent hoarseness in voice, cough or difficulty in swallowing.
e. Prevention and cure
i. Cancer check up should be done once a year.
ii. Treatment should be taken under medical advice.
iii. Avoid smoking, drinking alcohol and chewing tobacco.
iv. Observe regularity in lifestyle to keep your body healthy.
5. Allergy
a. Includes a group of non-infectious diseases.
b. No definite cause is known
c. It is believed that they occur due to hypersensitivity of certain individuals to foreign matter
(allergens) which may enter inside the body.
d. Symptoms may be sneezing, gasping, running of eyes, irritation of throat or trachea.
e. Allergens may be pollen grains, feathers, some animals or insects, drugs, medicines and
odour.
❖ SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES
The diseases that are transmitted through sexual contact are known as sexually transmitted diseases.
Sexually transmitted diseases are those diseases that are transmitted via the mucous membrane and
secretions of the sexual organ, throat and the rectum. Syphilis, gonorrhoea, and AIDS are some sexually
transmitted diseases.
1. AIDS (Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome)
a. It is a pandemic disease. The word “immunodeficiency” signifies that the immune system
becomes very weak. It is a disease of the cell mediated immune system of the body.
b. Lymphocytes are the main cells of the immune system i.e. Tlymphocytes and B-lymphocytes.
‘Helper T’ lymphocytes play a great role in regulating the immune system.
c. Damage to or destruction of ‘Helper’ lymphocytes leads to the development of a cellular
immune deficiency which makes the patient susceptible to a wide variety of infections.
d. Incubation period : The average period is 28 months though it may range between 15 to 57
months
 e. Mode of transmission
i. Sexual contact with the affected person. In India, the most common route of HIV
transmission is through unprotected heterosexual sex.
ii. Using the same syringe that was used for the affected person.
iii. Blood transfusion which contains human immunodeficiency virus.
iv. Organ transplantation of the affected person.
v. Artificial insemination.
vi. From mother to newborn baby during the process of giving birth.
f. Symptoms :
i. A type of lung disease develops (tuberculosis).
ii. Skin cancer may be observed.
iii. Nerves are affected.
iv. Brain is badly damaged with the loss of memory, ability to speak and to think. The
number of platelets (thrombocytes) becomes less which may cause haemorrhage.
v. In severe cases the patient shows swollen lymph nodes, fever and loss of weight. A
full blown (disease at its peak ) AIDS patient, may die within three years.
g. Prevention and cure
No medicine or vaccine is known to be available against HIV infection. Therefore, care has to
be taken through following measures:
i. There should not be any sexual contact with the person who has HIV infection or
STI. Since STI causes some damage to the genital area and mucous layer, and thus
facilitates the entry of HIV into the body.
ii. Use disposable syringe and needle.
iii. The blood to be transfused to the needy person, should be free from HIV germ.
Prostitution and homosexuality should be avoided.
iv. Condoms should always be used during intercourse.
h. Control
AIDS can be detected by the ELISA test. • There are three points which may be important to
control STD.
i.Partner notification : Identification of potential infected contact, examination and
treatment.
ii. Education of STD : This should be a part of general education.
iii. Screening for STD : Serological screening of groups, such as, blood donors, women
before giving birth.
❖ MENTAL HEALTH:
➢ According to WHO (World Health Organisation), mental health is defined as “a state of
well-being in which the individual realises his or her abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of
life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to contribute to his or her community”.
➢ Challenges:
■ High Public Health Burden: An estimated 150 million people across India are in need of
mental health care interventions, according to India’s latest National Mental Health Survey
2015-16.
■ Lack of Resources: Low proportion of the mental health workforce in India (per 100,000
population) include psychiatrists (0.3), nurses (0.12), psychologists (0.07) and social
workers (0.07).

● Low financial resource allocation of just over a percent of Gross Domestic Product on
healthcare has created impediments in public access to affordable mental healthcare.
 ■ Other Challenges: Poor awareness about the symptoms of mental illness, social stigma and
abandonment of mentally ill, especially old and destitute, leads to social isolation and
reluctance on part of family members to seek treatment for the patient.

● This has resulted in a massive treatment gap, which further worsens the present mental
illness of a person.
■ Post-Treatment gap: There is need for proper rehabilitation of the mentally ill persons post
his/her treatment which is currently not present.
■ Rise in Severity: Mental health problems tend to increase during economic downturns,
therefore special attention is needed during times of economic distress.

➢ Steps Taken by the Government:

■ Constitutional Provision: SC has held healthcare to be a fundamental right under Article 21
of the Constitution.
■ National Mental Health Program (NMHP): To address the huge burden of mental disorders
and shortage of qualified professionals in the field of mental health, the government has
been implementing the National Mental Health Program (NMHP) since 1982.

● The Program was re-strategize in 2003 to include two schemes, viz. Modernization of
State Mental Hospitals and Up-gradation of Psychiatric Wings of Medical
Colleges/General Hospitals.
■ Mental HealthCare Act 2017: It guarantees every affected person access to mental
healthcare and treatment from services run or funded by the government.

● It has significantly reduced the scope for the use of Section 309 IPC and made the
attempt to commit suicide punishable only as an exception.
■ Kiran Helpline: In 2020, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment launched a 24/7
toll-free helpline ‘Kiran’ to provide support to people facing anxiety, stress, depression,
suicidal thoughts and other mental health concerns.
➢ Way Forward
■ Mental health situation in India demands active policy interventions and resource
allocation by the government.
 ■ To reduce the stigma around mental health, we need measures to train and sensitise the
community/society.
■ When it comes to providing the right care to patients with mental illness, we need mental
health care intervention to the patients, we need innovative models to deepen the
penetration of services and staff.

● One such model is Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) by the ministry of health
and family welfare.
■ India needs a constant stream of funds for educating and creating awareness about mental
health and chronic issues around it.
■ The need of the hour is to provoke masses to learn about mental health through campaigns
like Swach Mansikta Abhiyan.

❖ Drug Resistance:

➢ The misuse and overuse of drugs has contributed to a phenomenon known as antibiotic resistance.
This resistance develops when a potentially harmful bacteria changes in a way that reduces or
eliminates the effectiveness of antibiotics.
➢ Steps To Combat Antimicrobial Resistance:
■ The union health ministry’s antimicrobial resistance awareness campaign urges people not
to use medicines marked with a red vertical line,including antibiotics,without a doctor’s
prescription.These medicines are called the “Medicines with the Red Lines”.
■ Encourage the appropriate and informed health care seeking behaviour among the citizens.
■ Educate patient and general community on:
● Danger of taking antibiotics without being prescribed.
● Containment steps for ARM.
■ Prescription Audit to minimise the overuse and misuse of drugs.
 ■ In an effort to curb antibiotic resistance, the World Health Organisation has divided drugs
into 3 categories-specifying which are to be used for common ailments and which are to
be kept for complicated diseases.
● Access: commonly used antibiotics
● Watch: Slightly more potent
● Reserve: potent drugs to be used only as a “last resort”
➢ India’s action plan for AMR
■ A national policy for containment of AMR was introduced in 2011. The policy aims to
understand emergence, spread and factors influencing AMR.
■ To set up an antimicrobial program to rationalise use of antimicrobials and to encourage
the innovation of newer and effective antimicrobials.
■ In addition, some major action points identified in the national policy are:
● Establishing an AMR surveillance system.
● To strengthen infection, prevention and control measures.
● Educate, train and motivate all stakeholders in the rational use of antimicrobials.
● Providing sanitation, clean water and good governance.
● Increasing public health expenditure and better regulating the private health
sector.
❖ Nutrients:
➢ Nutrients can be defined as components that are needed by our body to grow,survive and carry on
different daily activities.
➢ Our food contains mainly 5 kinds of nutrients namely vitamins,minerals,carbohydrates,proteins and
fats.Additionally food also contains water and dietary fibres/roughage which are also required by
our body.
➢ There are 7 types of nutrients :
1. Carbohydrates.
2. Proteins.
3. Fats.
4. Vitamins.
5. Minerals.
6. Dietary fibre.
7. Water.
A. Carbohydrates:

CHAPTER - 8 : DEFENCE
❖ Missiles
➢ Missile, a rocket-propelled weapon designed to deliver an explosive warhead with great accuracy at
high speed.
➢ They are used to intercept incoming objects such as missiles and aircrafts of enemy nations as well as
to launch an offensive strike.
➢ The missile technology is deeply linked to launch vehicle technology used for various space missions.
➢ Classification of Missiles
A. On the basis of RANGE they are classified into:
a. Short range missiles
b. Intermediate range missiles
c. Long range missile
 B. On the basis of STARTING AND ENDING POINT, they are classified into:
a. Surface-to-surface missile
b. Surface-to-air missile
c. Air-to-air missiles
C. On the basis of path or TRAJECTORY they are classified into:
a. Ballistic missiles
b. Cruise missiles
D. On the basis of UTILITY they are classified into
a. Strategic missiles
b. Tactical missile
❖ Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme
➢ This is a Ministry of Defence programme for the research and development in the range of missiles.
➢ It was launched in 1983 under the leadership of the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi.
➢ It is the most ambitious missile development programme that was launched by India.
➢ It covers the following 5 types of missiles:
1. Agni
Agni missile is a family of surface-to-surface Medium-to-Continental range ballistic missiles
developed by India. Various versions of Agni missile are:
a. Agni-I is a medium range (700 km to 1,200 km) missile with one stage
b. Agni-II is an intermediate range (2,000 km to 2,500 km) missile with two stages.
c. Agni-III is an intermediate range (3,000 km to 5,000 km) missile with two stages.
d. Agni-IV is an intermediate range (2,500 km to 3,700 km) missile with two stages.
e. Agni-V is an intercontinental (5,000 km to 8,000 km) missile with three stages.
f. Agni-VI is an intercontinental (10,000 km to 12,000 km) missile with three stages
2. Prithvi
It is a tactical surface-to-surface short-range ballistic missile. The Prithvi missile project
includes developing 3 variants for use by the Indian Army, Indian Air Force and the Indian
Navy.
a. Prithvi-I is an Army Version with 150km range and 1,000kg payload capacity.
b. Prithvi-II is an Air Force Version with 250-350 km range and 500kg payload capacity.
c. Prithvi-III is a Naval Version with 350km range and 1000kg payload capacity.

Dhanush
● Single stage,liquid propellent,short range ballistic missile with a range between 250
to 400 Km.
● It is the naval variant of the indigenously developed “Prithvi” missile.
● It is capable of carrying a payload of 500kg including Nuclear warhead and hitting
both land and sea-based targets.
● It is launched from the deck of ships of the Indian navy.

3. Trishul
a. It is a short-range surface-to-air missile for the Navy which is used for intermediate
combat action.
b. It has a range of 9 km.
c. This missile is not in service at present.
4. Akash
a. Akash is a group of 4 medium-range surface-to-air missiles along with a radar called
Rajendra.
b. The missiles in the Akash system are useful for different purposes. The missiles have
multi target engagement capacity.
 c. The radar detects incoming objects and the missiles are fired up on these objects.
d. The incoming objects can be fighter jets Cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
e. The Missile system can target up to 30 km at quality tune up to 18000
5. Nag
a. It is an anti-tank missile for immediate combat situations.
b. It has a range of only 4 kilometres.
c. It is a thermosensitive missile. In other words, this missile has heat sensors. Whenever
a tank fires, it is hot enough to be detected by heat sensors of Nag missiles.
d. It is a third-generation “fire and forget” anti-tank guided missile.
e. NAG will be produced in two basic variants: land version and air launched version.
f. The missile is launched from 3 platforms: NAMICA (NAG missile carrier), HAL
Dhruv Helicopter and HAL Light Combat Helicopter.
g. HELINA (HELIcopterNAg) is an advanced variant of NAG and is based on a ‘lock-on
after launch’ system extending its range to 7 km.Another name Dhruvashtra.
◆ Missiles outside Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme
➢ Brahmos
■ It is a short range 290 km, scramjet Supersonic Cruise missile. It is developed out of a joint
venture between Russia and India.
■ BrahMos supersonic cruise missile is designed and developed by BrahMos Aerospace, a joint
venture of India and Russia.
■ It is capable of being launched from land, sea, sub-sea and air against sea and land targets.
■ It is capable of carrying a warhead of 300 kilogram and can be launched from ships, land and
submarines.
■ It has a top supersonic speed of Mach 2.8. It can strike a target at a maximum range of 290-km.
■ It is a two-stage missile, the first one being solid and the second one ramjet liquid propellant.
➢ Brahmos 2
■ BrahMos-2 or BrahMos Mark II is a hypersonic cruise missile currently under joint
development by Russia and India.
■ The BrahMos-II is expected to have a range of 450 kilometres and a speed of Mach 7.
■ During the cruise stage of flight the missile will be propelled by a scramjet airbreathing jet
engine.
■ The planned operational range of the BrahMos-II has been restricted to 290 kilometres as
Russia is a signatory to the MTCR, which prohibits it from helping other countries develop
missiles with ranges above 300 kilometres. However, now that India is also a MTCR signatory,
it is trying to extend the range of BrahMos.
■ Its top speed will be double that of the current BrahMos-I, and it has been described as the
fastest cruise missile in the world.
➢ Astra
■ It is an air-to-air missile which is developed indigenously for close combat it has a range of 80
km.
■ It is already in service.
➢ Barak 1
■ It is a short range surface to air missile attached to a project.
■ It can also be targeted on land.
■ It has a range of 12 km.
■ India has purchased this message from Israel
➢ Barak-8
■ It is a short range surface to air missile attached to a project.
■ It can also be targeted on land.
■ It has a range of 80 km.
 ■ It can also carry a larger amount of War held as compared to Barak 1.
■ Thus, it has more destructive capability.
■ India has purchased this missile from Israel.
➢ K Missile Series
● The K family of missiles is a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).
● They are being developed to provide second-strike capabilities and thus the nuclear deterrence.
● There are three variants: K-15 (Sagarika), K-4 and K-5. K-15 has a 750km range.
● K-4 missile has two sub-variants, one with 3,500km range and the other with 5,000km range.
● K-5 and K-6 are under development with a range of 6,000km.
● The K family of missiles are used with nuclear powered Arihant class submarines.
■ K-15
● K-15 also called Sagarika is a ballistic missile which is fitted on Arihant, the
indigenously developed nuclear powered submarine.
● This missile is already in service.
● It was developed indigenously.
● The Missile will carry a nuclear warhead and can be launched from underwater to hit
the target on the ground.
● It has a range of 700 km.
● It is an effective deterrent for the enemy, because the exact location of the submarine
cannot be determined by the enemy, and like ground nuclear installations which are
mostly known to the enemy and can be destroyed in a pre-emptive strike.
■ K-4
● K-4 is a ballistic missile which will be fitted on Arihant.
● This missile is under development.
● It is also being developed indigenously.
● It is a superior version of the K-15 missile.
● The Missile will carry a nuclear warhead and could be launched from underwater to
hit the target on the ground.
● It will have a range of 3500 km.
● It will be an effective treatment for the enemy because it will also be fitted on a
submarine.
➢ Nirbhaya
■ Nirbhaya is also being developed indigenously.
■ It is a cruise missile with a range of 1000 km.
■ When put under command, it will be the longest range cruise missile of India.
➢ Prahaar
■ Prahaar is an intermediate combat ballistic missile with a range of 150 km.
■ It is a surface to surface missile.
■ It is already in service.
➢ Shaurya
■ Shaurya is a surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of 1000 km.
■ It is already in service.
■ It is a hypersonic missile.
■ The missile can fly at 7.5 Mach.
■ In its test flight, it covered a distance of 700 km in 500 seconds.
◆ Indian Ballistic Missile Defence Programme
➢ The Indian ballistic missile programme is an initiative to develop and deploy a multi-layered ballistic
missile defence system to product from ballistic missiles attack.
 ➢ It is a double-tier system consisting of two land and sea based interceptor missile namely, Prithvi Air
Defence missile (Pradyuman) for high altitude intersection, i.e., for exo-atmospheric range, and the
Advanced Air Defence missile for low altitude intersection, i.e., for endo-atmospheric range.
➢ The two-tier shields should be able to intercept any incoming missile launched 5000 km away. The
system also includes an overlapping network of early warning and tracking radar, as well as
command and control post.
➢ The PAD was tested in November 2006, followed by the AAD in December 2007.
➢ With the test of the PAD missile, India became the fourth country to have successfully developed an
anti-ballistic missile system, after the United States, Russia, and Israel.
➢ The system has undergone several tests but the system is yet to be officially commissioned.
➢ DRDO engaged in the development of missile defence systems expects to have a seal ready for
deployment by 2022.
◆ BATTLE TANKS IN INDIA
➢ Arjun
■ It is fitted with 120-mn gun, capable of firing 6-8 rounds in a minute
■ Fin Stabilised Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot (FSAPDS) which can pierce contemporary
Armour.
■ It is also fitted with 7.62- mm machine guns and 12.77-mn anti-aircraft guns.
■ The laser range finder accurately measures the distance of which the target is located (range
10 km).
➢ Bhishma
■ Better version of Russian origin T-90 tank.
■ It Weighs 42 tons.

CHAPTER - 9 : INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

❖ Computers:
➢ A computer is an electronic device that takes raw data as input and processes this data under the
control of a set of instructions (called program) and gives the result as output.
➢ Generation of Computers:
■ 1st Generation:(1956-1963)
● Vacuum tubes are used in circuits.
● Very large in size
● Require large amount of electricity
● Produce more heat
● Less reliable
● Ex.ENIAC,EDSAC,EDVAC,UNIVAC
■ 2nd Generation:(1957-1962)
● Vacuum tubes are replaced by transistors in circuit.
● Small size as compared to 1st generation computers.
● Less amount of heat generation.
● Less electricity consumption
● Ex. ATLAS,ICL 1901
■ 3rd Generation:(1963-1972)
● Transistors were replaced by I.C. in circuits.
● Small in size as compared to 2nd Generation computers.
● Less amount of heat as compared to 2nd generation computers.
● Less electricity consumption.
● Faster and more accurate than 2nd Generation computers.
● Ex. IBM 360/370,NCR 395
■ 4th Generation:(1973-Present)
● LSI and VLSI technologies are used.
● LSI- Large Scale Integration
● VLSI- Very large scale integration
● Microprocessors are developed.
● Apple,Microsoft PC,IBM-PC
■ 5th Generation:(Present and Beyond)
● Based on AI.
● Computers can understand spoken words.
● Ex. IBM Watson.
➢ Types of Computers:
➢ Types Of Memory:
Memory is primarily of three types:
■ Cache Memory :
● Cache memory is a chip-based computer component that makes retrieving data
from the computer's memory more efficient. It acts as a temporary storage area
that the computer's processor can retrieve data from easily.
● Advantages:
1. Faster than main memory
2. Consume less access time
3. Stores the programs that can be executed within a short period of time.
4. Stores data for temporary use.
● Disadvantages:
1. Has limited capacity.
2. Very expensive.
■ Primary Memory/Main Memory
● Primary memory is computer memory that a processor or computer accesses first or
directly. It allows a processor to access running execution applications and services
that are temporarily stored in a specific memory location. Primary memory is also
known as primary storage or main memory.

● RAM
1. It is also called read/write memory or the main memory or primary memory.
2. The programs and data that the CPU requires during execution of a program are
stored in this memory.
3. It is volatile memory as the data is lost when power is turned off.
4. RAM is further classified into sram and dram.
 ● ROM
1. Stores crucial information essential to operate the system, like the program
essential to boot the computer.
2. It is not volatile.
3. Always retains its data.
4. Used in embedded systems or where the programming needs no change.
5. Used in calculators and peripheral devices.
6. Types of Read Only Memory (ROM)
a. PROM(Programmable ROM) - It can be programmed by user.Once
programmed,the data and instructions in it cannot be changed.
b. EPROM(Erasable ROM) - It can be programmed.To erase data from
it,expose it to uv light.To reprogram it erase all data.
c. EEPROM(Electrically Erasable ROM) - The data can be erased by
applying electric field,no need of uv light.We can erase only portions of
the chip.
d. MROM(Masked ROM) - The very first ROMs were hard-wired
devices that contained a pre-programed set of data or instructions.
These kinds of ROMs are known as masked ROMs which are
inexpensive.

■ Secondary Memory
● Secondary memory is computer memory that is non-volatile, persistent and not
immediately accessible by a computer or processor. It allows users to store data and
information that can be retrieved, transmitted, and used by apps and services quickly
and easily. Secondary storage is another name for secondary memory.
 ● Hard Drive, SSD, Flash, Optical Drive,USB Drive
➢ Software:
■ Software is a set of instructions, data or programs used to operate computers and
execute specific tasks. It is the opposite of hardware, which describes the physical aspects of
a computer. Software is a generic term used to refer to applications, scripts and programs that
run on a device.
■ Examples and types of software
● Application software. The most common type of software, application software, is a
computer software package that performs a specific function for a user, or in some
cases, for another application. An application can be self-contained, or it can be a
group of programs that run the application for the user. Examples of modern
applications include office suites, graphics software, databases and database
management programs, web browsers, word processors, software development tools,
image editors and communication platforms.
● System software. These software programs are designed to run a computer's
application programs and hardware. System software coordinates the activities and
functions of the hardware and software. In addition, it controls the operations of the
computer hardware and provides an environment or platform for all the other types of
software to work in. The OS is the best example of system software; it manages all the
other computer programs. Other examples of system software include the firmware,
computer language translators and system utilities.
● Driver software. Also known as device drivers, this software is often considered a
type of system software. Device drivers control the devices and peripherals connected
to a computer, enabling them to perform their specific tasks. Every device that is
connected to a computer needs at least one device driver to function. Examples include
software that comes with any nonstandard hardware, including special game
controllers, as well as the software that enables standard hardware, such as USB
storage devices, keyboards, headphones and printers.
● Middleware. The term middleware describes software that mediates between
application and system software or between two different kinds of application
software. For example, middleware enables Microsoft Windows to talk to Excel and
Word. It is also used to send a remote work request from an application in a computer
that has one kind of OS, to an application in a computer with a different OS. It also
enables newer applications to work with legacy ones.
● Programming software. Computer programmers use programming software to write
code. Programming software and programming tools enable developers to develop,
write, test and debug other software programs. Examples of programming software
include assemblers, compilers, debuggers and interpreters.

●
❖ Wireless Communication:
➢ Wireless communication involves the transmission of information over a distance without the help of
wires, cables or any other forms of electrical conductors.
➢ radio and television broadcasting, radar communication, cellular communication, global position
systems (GPS), WiFi, Bluetooth and radio frequency identification are all examples of “wireless”,
with wildly different uses in some cases.
➢ Wavelength and Frequency
❖ Electromagnetic Waves:

❖ Radio Waves:
➢ Radio waves are at the lowest range of EM spectrum,with frequency upto about 30billion hertz,or 30
gigahertz(GHz), and wavelengths greater than about 100 millimetres(0.4 inches).
❖ Microwaves:
➢ Microwaves are defined as electromagnetic radiations with a frequency ranging between 300 MHz to
300 GHz. In contrast, the wavelength ranges from 1 mm to around 30 cm. Microwave radiation is
commonly referred to as microwaves. They fall between infrared radiation and radio waves in the
electromagnetic spectrum.
➢ The uses of the microwave are similar to that of radio waves. They are used in communications,
radio astronomy, remote sensing, radar, and of course, owing to their heating application, they are
used in cooking as well. Why do mobile phones use microwaves? Because microwaves can even be
generated with the help of small antennas, mobile phones need not be of large size.
❖ Infrared:
➢ Infrared radiation (IR), sometimes referred to simply as infrared, is a region of the electromagnetic
radiation spectrum where wavelengths range from about 700 nanometers (nm) to 1 millimetre (mm).
Infrared waves are longer than those of visible light, but shorter than those of radio waves.
Correspondingly, the frequencies of IR are higher than those of microwaves, but lower than those of
visible light, ranging from about 300 Ghz to 400 THz.
➢ Infrared light is invisible to the human eye, although longer infrared waves can be sensed as heat. It
does, however, share some characteristics with visible light -- namely, infrared light can be focused,
reflected and polarised.
❖ Visible light:
➢ The portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye is known as the visible
light spectrum. Visible light range comes under the range of EM spectrum between infrared and
ultraviolet, having a frequency of about 4 x 10 14 to 8 x 10 14 cycles per second and wavelengths of
about 740 nanometres or 2.9 x10 -5 inches to 380 nm.
❖ UV Rays:
➢ UV light (ultraviolet light) has a wavelength between 10 and 400 nm that is shorter than the visible
light but longer than the X-rays and is a type of electromagnetic radiation. These are present in
sunlight and contribute 10% of the total light from the sun.
➢ Types:
UV light or UV ray is classified into three components: ultraviolet A (UVA), ultraviolet B (UVB),
and ultraviolet C (UVC). Following is the table explaining the characteristics of these components:
■ Ultraviolet A (UVA) :
 ● Most of the UV (98.7%) that reaches us on the earth’s surface is of type UVA and is
affected by the ozone
● Fading of paints and dyes.
● UVA causes early ageing of the skin.
● UVA causes skin cancer called melanoma.
■ Ultraviolet B (UVB):
● 1.3% of the UV reaches the earth’s surface and is highly affected by ozone.
● These rays are responsible for sunburn and tan.
● For the production of vitamin D, 270-300 nm wavelengths are stimulated.
■ Ultraviolet C (UVC):
● UVC rays do not reach the earth’s surface as most of them are absorbed by the
atmospheric nitrogen, oxygen, and ozone, and the rest are scattered.
● UVC causes lesions on the skin.
❖ X-Rays:
➢ They are powerful waves of electromagnetic energy. Most of them have a wavelength ranging from
0.01 to 10 nanometres, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and
energies in the range 100 eV to 100 keV.
❖ Gamma Rays:
➢ A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation, is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation
arising from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. It consists of the shortest wavelength
electromagnetic waves, typically shorter than those of X-rays. With frequencies above 30 exahertz
(30×1018 Hz), it imparts the highest photon energy. Paul Villard, a French chemist and physicist,
discovered gamma radiation in 1900 while studying radiation emitted by radium.
❖ Different types of wireless communication
➢ Infrared
■ Infrared is used for short-range communication like TV remotes, mobile phones,
personal computers etc. In science, the Infrared is part of a spectrum that is not
visible to the human eye. The limitation of infrared rays is that they cannot
penetrate any obstacles and can only be used for short-range. Also, Infrared is used
in night vision cameras as it has thermal properties. The frequency range of
infrared rays 300GHz – 400THz
■ Uses:
● As we have already discussed they are used in TV remotes, Pc devices like
mice, and keyboards.
■ Advantage and Disadvantage:
● Infrared is one of the secure wireless communication mediums as it is used
for short-range. Also, unlike other wireless mediums, infrared is quite
inexpensive, and this is some reason it is used in many electronic devices.
● disadvantaged part of Infrared waves so they can only be used in short-range
communication. Also, they cannot penetrate any obstacles like walls or any
building
➢ Bluetooth Communication:
■ Short range communication.
■ Devices connected in a bluetooth network communicate with each other Ultra High
Frequency(UHF) radio waves.
■ Operates on Spread Spectrum Frequency Hopping (switching of the carrier
frequency).
■ Operational frequency-2.4 GHz
■ Range less than 20m.
■
 ➢ Near Field Communication(NFC)
■ Contact less communication technology based on radio frequency using base
frequency of 13.56MHz.
■ Peer-to-peer communication
■ Operating frequency- 13.56MHz
■ Devices must be very near to each other.
■ Range less than 10Cm
■ NFC devices can act as both reader and tag.
➢ Radio Frequency Identification:(RFID)
■ Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) refers to a wireless system comprising two
components: tags and readers. The reader is a device that has one or more antennas that
emit radio waves and receive signals back from the RFID tag.
■ Tags, which use radio waves to communicate their identity and other information to nearby
readers, can be passive or active. Passive RFID tags are powered by the reader and do not
have a battery. Active RFID tags are powered by batteries.
■ Hundreds of tags can be read in seconds.
■ Range upto 100m
■ One way communication
➢ Wi-Fi:
■ Wi-Fi, often referred to as WiFi, wifi, wi-fi or wi fi, is often thought to be short for
Wireless Fidelity but there is no such thing.
■ The term was created by a marketing firm because the wireless industry was looking for a
user-friendly name to refer to some not so user-friendly technology known as IEEE 802.11.
And the name stuck.
■ Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP),Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA),Wi-Fi Protected Access 2
(WPA 2),Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA 3)
■ Operating Frequency : 2.4GHz or 5.2GHz
➢ Li-Fi:
■ Light Fidelity
■ Transmits data over lights.
■ Almost 100 times faster than wifi.
■ Speed up to 224Gbps per second.
■ Runs on light waves-380 nm to 780 nm wavelength.
■ Can't pass through walls
■ More secure compared to wifi.
❖ Evolution of Mobile Networks:
➢ Advantages of 5g:
■ High resolution and bi-directional large bandwidth shaping.
■ Technology to gather all networks on one platform.
■ More effective and efficient.
■ Technology to facilitate subscriber supervision tools for quick action.
■ Most likely, it will provide a huge broadcasting data (in Gigabit), which will support more
than 60,000 connections.
■ Easily manageable with the previous generations.
■ Technological sound to support heterogeneous services (including private network).
■ Possible to provide uniform, uninterrupted, and consistent connectivity across the world.
❖ Internet of Things:
➢ In 1999 Kevin Ashton, then at P&G (later MIT’s Auto-ID Center), coined the term ‘Internet of
Things’. It was a new term, but not a new operation. It was known as pervasive computing, ubicomp,
and ambient intelligence.
➢ IoT is the interlinking of digital devices, people, machines, appliances, and other objects with one
another through wireless networks.
➢ It allows machines and people to be connected to each other and communicate as well.
➢ It is considered the future of the internet. This version of the internet is about data that is created by
things.
➢ Application:
■ Daily life: IoT can be used to do small tasks in daily life such as coffee-making as soon
as the owner of the house returns home, refrigerator indicating that vegetables need to be
bought and/or ordering them automatically from the e-store, etc. It can also be used in
offices.
■ Industry: IoT can be used to reduce human error, increase efficiency, and improve
productivity, etc.
■ Agriculture: IoT can be used to improve overall productivity by having enhanced
weather forecasting, soil nutrient content, pest infestation, etc.
■ Healthcare: there are several benefits to the medical industry. Better diagnosis of
diseases, wearable monitors of vitals, sophisticated connected equipment, etc.
■ Transportation: IoT can be used on toll booths, traffic management, driverless cars, etc.
It can also be used in fleet management, safety assistance, improved logistics, etc.
■ Media/Advertising: Companies can use IoT to analyse and predict consumer behaviour
and apply target marketing for better ROI in advertising/marketing campaigns, etc. Big
data and data mining concepts can be used in this regard.
 ■ Smart Cities: IoT can be used to make cities better places to live. It can be applied in
solid waste management, smart power grids, smart energy management systems, etc.
■ Government policies and services: the government can use IoT to offer better citizen
services.
➢ IoT in India:
■ The government of India envisages using the Internet of Things (IoT) as part of the
Digital India Mission.
■ The National Digital Communications Policy was launched in 2018 to develop and apply
IoT, 5G technology, machine to machine (M2M) communication, etc.
■ The government also permitted 100% FDI in the telecom sector. This should also aid the
development of IoT in India.
■ The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeiTY) also published a
draft policy for IoT in India.
■ The government has set a target of USD 15 billion for the IoT market by the year 2020.
This would be 5 – 6 % of the global IoT industry.
➢ Challenges:
■ Loss of jobs because of the replacement of humans with machines. Automation will
naturally bring in job losses.
■ Safety and privacy is a challenge in this domain. There is the issue of selling personal
data without users’ consent by internet/social media companies. Digital surveillance also
poses a threat with smart homes being susceptible to privacy invasions. Further, there is
also the problem of bank accounts being hacked, ransomware attacks, etc.
❖ Cloud Computing:
➢ Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage
and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have
functions distributed over multiple locations, each location being a data centre.
➢ Advantages:
● Seamless Connectivity: Cloud-based software offers companies from all sectors a
number of benefits, including the ability to use software from any device either via a
native app or a browser. As a result, users can carry their files and settings over to
other devices in a completely seamless manner.
● Higher Accessibility: Cloud computing is far more than just accessing files on
multiple devices. Thanks to cloud computing services, users can check their email on
any computer and even store files using services such as Dropbox and Google Drive.
● Improved Disaster Recovery: Cloud computing services also make it possible for
users to back up their music, files, and photos, ensuring those files are immediately
available in the event of a hard drive crash.
● Cost-Saving: It also offers big businesses huge cost-saving potential. Before the cloud
became a viable alternative, companies were required to purchase, construct, and
maintain costly information management technology and infrastructure.
● Scalability: can be improvised to cater to increased demand, say in SMART city
mission
● Companies can swap costly server centres and IT departments for fast Internet
connections, where employees interact with the cloud online to complete their tasks.
● The cloud structure allows individuals to save storage space on their desktops or
laptops.
● Increased Collaboration and flexibility: It also lets users upgrade software more
quickly because software companies can offer their products via the web rather than
through more traditional, tangible methods involving discs or flash drives.
 ● For example, Adobe customers can access applications in its Creative Suite through
an Internet-based subscription. This allows users to download new versions and fixes
to their programs easily.
● Environmentally friendly: Cloud computing reduces a company’s carbon footprint by
minimising energy consumption and carbon emissions by more than 30%. For small
businesses, the decreased energy usage can reach up to 90% = A huge money saver.
➢ Cloud computing in Indian Governance:
● E-Gram Panchayat
​ The majority of the Indian population lives in villages, and the Panchayats
represent the face of governance for these villagers. To improve the quality of
governance, the Indian government initiated an e-governance scheme known
as ePanchayat to simplify and enhance internal government operations. The
module was constructed in 4 phases of e-governance.
● Indian Railways on Cloud
​ Governed by the Central Railway Ministry of India, the Indian railway network
is the largest rail network in Asia and second-largest rail network in the world.
A research carried by the railway ministry says out of 17 million passengers
every day, only 1 million passengers carry confirmed rail tickets. This results in
substantial monetary loss. To avoid loss, the Indian government decided to
implement cloud technology for Indian railways. Today, the central
government maintains the railway data on the cloud.
● Kisan Suvidha
​ The Indian government came up with the portal Kisan Suvidha to help farmers
with the relevant information instantly. It delivers farmers with detailed
knowledge on weather, market prices, seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, agriculture
machinery, dealers, agro advisories, plant protection and IPM practices. It
notifies them with extreme weather conditions and the changing market price.
● DigiLocker
​ DigiLocker is the public cloud-based storage introduced by the Indian
government for the citizens of India. It is much more than an online drive
where you upload your documents to be accessed depending on your
convenience. The documents are digitally verified and signed by the
government of India in a few seconds with an authentic DigiLocker
verification seal. With more than 57.13 million users and 4.27 billion issued
documents, DigiLocker has proved to be one of the biggest success stories of
cloud in the government.
● eHospital
​ eHospital is the cloud-based healthcare project implemented by the
government of India to ease the process of healthcare management. The
system was designed to speed up services like online registration, payment of
fees and appointment, online diagnostic reports, checking on the availability
of blood online, etc. This hospital model assigns a unique identification
number to every patient at the time of registration. The medical history of a
particular patient can be accessed using the number.
● In India, cloud computing has ensured the success of national initiatives and schemes
such as Swachh Bharat Mission, e-Hospital, National Scholarship, My-Gov and
e-Transport.
● One of India’s most landmark initiatives, the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) uses
a multi-cloud architecture to ensure scalability. Today, the GeM serves over 50,000
 buyer organisations and has a listing of over 19 lakh products and more than 80,000
services.
● NIC’s SaaS-based service, S3WaaS, has empowered district administrators to create,
configure and deploy scalable and accessible websites without much effort and
technical knowledge.
● The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), announced last year that it had
gone fully digital with the launch of a unique cloud-based and AI-powered big
analytics platform. All project documents and correspondences related to NHAI will
be stored in a cloud-based data lake, which is linked with GIS tagging and a unique
project ID, so that project data can be retrieved easily from any location.
● The Indian Railways has given the responsibility of deploying open source Hospital
Management Information System (HMIS), an integrated clinical information system,
for its 125 health facilities and 650 polyclinics across the country for improved
hospital administration and patient healthcare, using a cloud platform.
➢ Limitations:
● With all of the speed, efficiencies, and innovations that come with cloud computing,
there are naturally risks.
● Security has always been a big concern with the cloud especially when it comes to
sensitive medical records and financial information.
● While regulations force cloud computing services to shore up their security and
compliance measures, it remains an ongoing issue. Encryption protects vital
information, but if that encryption key is lost, the data disappears.
● Servers maintained by cloud computing companies may fall victim to natural
disasters, internal bugs, and power outages, too.
● The geographical reach of cloud computing cuts both ways: A blackout in California
could paralyse users in New York, and a firm in Texas could lose its data if something
causes its Maine-based provider to crash.
● As with any technology, there is a learning curve for both employees and managers.
But with many individuals accessing and manipulating information through a single
portal, inadvertent mistakes can transfer across an entire system.
● Maintenance costs: While the upfront or capital cost for the cloud-based server is
very low compared to traditional hosting, the cloud server requires the same amount
to be paid each month to maintain both servers as well as data.
● Internet connectivity: For cloud-based services, consistent internet connection is
important because if any one of the cloud-based service providers loses connectivity,
then the company will be out of business until that internet connection returns.
● A common argument from critics is that cloud computing cannot succeed because it
means that organisations must lose control of their data, such as an email provider
that stores data in multiple locations around the world. A large regulated company,
like a bank, might be required to store data in the United States.
❖ Supercomputers:
➢ A supercomputer is a computer that performs at or near the currently highest operational rate for
computers.
➢ Generally, PETAFLOP is a measure of a Supercomputer’s processing speed and can be expressed as
a thousand trillion floating point operations per second.
■ FLOPS (floating point operations per second) are typically used to measure the performance
of a computer’s processor.
■ Using floating-point encoding, extremely long numbers can be handled relatively easily.
➢ Supercomputers are primarily designed to be used in enterprises and organisations that require
massive computing power.
 ■ For example: weather forecasting, scientific research, intelligence gathering and analysis,
data mining etc.
➢ Globally, China has the maximum number of supercomputers and maintains the top position in the
world, followed by the US, Japan, France, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
➢ India’s first supercomputer was PARAM 8000.
➢ PARAM Shivay, the first supercomputer assembled indigenously, was installed in IIT (BHU),
followed by PARAM Shakti, PARAM Brahma, PARAM Yukti, PARAM Sanganak at IIT-Kharagpur,
IISER, Pune, JNCASR, Bengaluru and IIT Kanpur respectively.
➢ In 2020, PARAM Siddhi, the High-Performance Computing-Artificial Intelligence (HPC-AI)
supercomputer, achieved global ranking of 62nd in Top 500 most powerful supercomputer systems in
the world.
➢ What is the National Supercomputing Mission?
■ In 2015, the National Supercomputing Mission was launched to enhance the research
capacities and capabilities in the country by connecting them to form a Supercomputing
grid, with National Knowledge Network (NKN) as the backbone.
● The NKN project is aimed at establishing a strong and robust Indian network which
will be capable of providing secure and reliable connectivity.
■ It supports the government's vision of 'Digital India' and 'Make in India' initiatives.
■ The Mission is being jointly steered by the Department of Science and Technology (DST)
and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
● It is implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing
(C-DAC), Pune, and the IISc, Bengaluru.
■ The mission was planned in three phases:
● Phase I looking at assembling supercomputers,
● Phase II looking at manufacturing certain components within the country.
● Phase III where a supercomputer is designed by India.
■ An indigenously developed server platform called ‘Rudra’ is being tried out in a pilot
system, with an interconnect for inter node communication called Trinetra also having been
developed.
❖ Quantum Computing:
● Quantum computing is an area of computing based on the principles of quantum theory, which
explains the behaviour of energy and material on the atomic and subatomic levels.
● It uses quantum bits or qubits.
● It harnesses the unique ability of subatomic particles that allows them to exist in more than one state
i.e. a 1 and a 0 at the same time.
● Superposition and entanglement are two features of quantum physics on which these supercomputers
are based.
● This empowers quantum computers to handle operations at speeds exponentially higher than
conventional computers and much lesser energy consumption.
What is ‘quantum supremacy’?

● Quantum supremacy or quantum advantage refers to quantum computers being able to solve a
problem that a classical computer cannot.
● It’s when the superior potential of quantum computing is finally achieved in practice —
effectively superseding existing forms of computing.
● Recently, Google announced that they have achieved ‘quantum supremacy’, in which a
computer harnessing the properties of subatomic particles did a far better job of solving a
problem than the world’s most powerful supercomputer.
● Google’s Sycamore is reported to have solved a problem in 200 seconds that would have
taken today’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to solve.

Differences between Quantum computing and Conventional computing:

Quantum computing Conventional computing

​ Based on the phenomenon of ​ Based on the phenomenon of classical physics.

Quantum Mechanics or quantum
physics.

​ Information storage and manipulation ​ Information storage and manipulation are

are based on Quantum Bit or “qubit” based on “bit”, which is based on voltage or
i.e. 0, 1, and superposition states of charge; low is 0, and high is 1.
both 0 and 1 to represent information.

​ It is possible to be in more than one ​ There is the possibility of being only in a single
state at a time. state at a given time, either on or off.
 ​ In quantum computers, data ​ In conventional computers, data processing is
processing is done in the Quantum done in a Central Processing Unit or CPU,
Processing Unit or QPU, which which consists of an Arithmetic and Logic Unit
consists of several interconnected (ALU), processor registers, and a control unit.
qubits.

​ Quantum computers will allow much ​ Classical computers are limited in terms of size
larger calculations. and complexity.

Applications of Quantum computing:

Quantum computing could be a game-changing technology across various industries,

governments, and society at large.

● Aerospace industry:
○ Quantum computing has great potential to solve computational challenges in
aircraft modelling, simulation, and more.
○ It could also help assess the optimal amount of fuel and speed to operate a
commercial aircraft, thereby potentially helping the industry to improve its
sustainability performance.
● Artificial intelligence and big data:
○ Quantum computers could empower machine learning by enabling AI
programs to search through the gigantic datasets concerning medical research,
consumer behaviour, financial markets, etc.
○ Quantum computing helps to integrate data and quickly analyse and
understand the patterns.
● Space:
○ The scalability of quantum computing will help the detection of gravitational
waves.
○ Can be used to scan the universe for habitable planets.
○ Can help in modelling and designing space crafts and space suits.
● Medicine:
○ Discover tumours in time and develop better targeting drugs leading to greater
advancements in pharmacology.
○ Could be used to provide faster, more accurate diagnostics.
○ Enable therapists to run more simulations in less time, helping to minimise
radiation damage to healthy tissue.
○ Clinicians could easily review CT scans over time and quickly identify changes
and anomalies.
○ Can accelerate precision medicine.
○ With quantum computing’s enhanced data processing abilities, medical
practitioners can quickly identify targeted chemotherapy protocols and with
more customization.
● Agriculture:
○ Help in detecting weed through an invasive weed optimization algorithm.
○ Farmers can hence, effectively craft fertilisers.
○ Can help in determining the right amount of inputs.
 ○ It can be used to make precise long-term large-scale production plans and
helps to increase yield and efficiency.
● Cybersecurity:
○ Quantum computing with the help of machine learning can help in developing
various techniques to combat cybersecurity threats.
○ Additionally, quantum computing can help in creating encryption methods,
also known as quantum cryptography.
● Weather Forecasting and Climate Change:
○ Quantum computer’s ability to crunch vast amounts of data, in a short period,
could indeed lead to enhancing weather system modelling allowing scientists
to predict the changing weather patterns in no time and with excellent
accuracy — something which can be essential for the current time when the
world is going under a climate change.
○ With quantum computers, meteorologists will also be able to generate and
analyse more detailed climate models, which will provide greater insight into
climate change and ways to mitigate it.
● Financial services:
○ Quantum computers can be used for complex financial modelling and risk
management in the financial industry by finding new ways to model financial
data and isolating key global risk factors.
○ It can also be used for algorithmic trading – the use of complex algorithms to
automatically trigger share dealings based on a wide variety of market
variables.
○ Can be used in stock markets for detecting problems.
● Logistics optimization:
○ Improved data analysis and robust modelling will indeed enable a wide range
of industries to optimise their logistics and scheduling workflows associated
with their supply-chain management.
● Gaming:
○ Quantum computing can take game development experience to a whole new
level.
○ In the future, one can implement it into game development in interesting ways
such as procedural generations, random generation of content, and many
more.

Concerns/challenges with quantum computing:

● Not affordable for small businesses.

● Difficult to build, verify, and design.
● Quantum states are fragile and hence hard to control.
● Potential to misuse for cyber attacks.

National Mission on Quantum Technologies & Applications (NM-QTA):

● The government in its budget 2020 has announced a National Mission on

Quantum Technologies & Applications (NM-QTA) with a total budget outlay
of Rs 8000 Crore for a period of five years to be implemented by the
Department of Science & Technology (DST).
● The mission will oversee the development of quantum technologies for
communications, computing, materials development, and cryptography.
 New Development

● The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, have shown that microscopic particles can
remain intrinsically linked, or entangled, over long distances even if there are random
disruptions between them.
● Using the mathematics of quantum theory, they discovered a simple setup where entangled
particles can be prepared and stabilised even in the presence of noise by taking advantage of a
previously unknown symmetry in quantum systems.
● Their results open a new window into the mysterious quantum world that could revolutionise
future technology by preserving quantum effects in noisy environments, which is the single
biggest hurdle for developing such technology.
● Harnessing this capability will be at the heart of ultrafast quantum computers.

❖ BlockChain Technology:
➢ They are a new data structure that is secure, cryptography-based, and distributed across a network. The
technology supports cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, and the transfer of any data or digital asset.
➢ Spearheaded by Bitcoin, blockchains achieve consensus among distributed nodes, allowing the
transfer of digital goods without the need for centralised authorization of transactions.

➢ How does it operate?

■ The technology allows transactions to be simultaneously anonymous and secure, peer-to-peer,
instant and frictionless.
■ It does this by distributing trust from powerful intermediaries to a large global network, which
through mass collaboration, clever code and cryptography, enables a tamper-proof public
ledger of every transaction that’s ever happened on the network.
 ■ A block is the “current” part of a blockchain which records some or all of the recent
transactions, and once completed, goes into the blockchain as a permanent database.
■ Each time a block gets completed, a new block is generated. Blocks are linked to each other
(like a chain) in proper linear, chronological order with every block containing a hash of the
previous block.
➢ Prospects:
■ Blockchain technology is expensive to initially put it in place.
■ The massive usage of energy for the functioning of blockchain.
■ Safeguarding the privacy of individuals and companies as blockchains are usually open ledgers
for everyone to see.
■ Knowledge of the benefits of distributed ledger technology is still limited.
■ If automated risk management, smart contracts, and similar tools are deployed across a
network, cascades of rapid and hard-to-control obligations and liquidity flows could propagate
across a network.
■ This interdependence will likely call for creative organisational thinking to address the need for
governance and strong risk management

➢ Advantages
 ➢ Blockchain in Social sectors:
■ Personal Identification: Governments manage vast amounts of personal data from birth and
death records to marriage certificates, passports and census data. Blockchain technology
offers a streamlined solution for managing all of it securely.
■ Fight corruption: Registering government transactions in the blockchain helps create a trusted
history for any transaction and significantly eases the auditing process. This would contribute
to making public procurement more transparent
■ Cut red tapism: As government agencies currently store data in autonomous centralised
databases, they tend not to interoperate in an optimal way. This results in duplication, overlap
and contradiction in the information held. Blockchain eliminates this lack of interoperability
which generates unnecessary red tape in obtaining relevant information from a user, and
makes the process for sharing data between agencies clear and inexpensive.
■ Identity and Land rights: The World Identity Network and Humanised Internet project can
store identifiers such as birth certificates and university degrees on a blockchain, in the form
of distributed digital lockboxes. Users can keep their information private and secure, but also
give permission for anyone to access it anywhere in the world. Several governments,
including those in Dubai, Estonia, Georgia, and Sweden are making early forays into
blockchain-based approaches to securing property rights.
■ Agriculture: First of all, it can reduce contamination and food fraud. This can happen with the
help of blockchain efficiency and transparency. Blockchain’s role is to improve the third party
involvement by ensuring that they are tracking, collecting and managing data in the best
possible way. With blockchain, farmers and distributors are going to get their payments faster
than ever-improving their ability to work on their next set of projects faster.
■ Health: The health sector is one of those sectors that have tons of initiatives by both for-profit
and nonprofit organisations. With blockchain, healthcare can improve digital healthcare
records. It also improves pharmaceutical supply chain management. As usual, blockchain
offers a decentralised, efficient and secure solution.
■ Governance and democracy: Government and civil society can also leverage blockchain
technology to strengthen democratic processes and participation. Blockchain systems such as
Ballot Chain can manage online elections with secure and anonymous voting that participants
can verify at any time.
■ Environmental protection: In the environmental arena, new blockchain-supported supply
chain management systems, which are transparent but cannot be tampered with, can track
products from the farm to the table, and show whether or not a food product is organic or Fair
Trade.
■ Philanthropy and Aid: Billions of dollars are invested in helping the needy. However, these
aids are mostly misused due to a lack of transparency. In fact, most of the aid never reaches
the intended people. This has also led people to not contribute to these non-profit
organisations. Blockchain can solve all of these problems and help elevate the confidence in
non-profit organisations in utilising the funds.
■ Crowdfunding: As with traditional crowdfunding, a blockchain powered crowdfunding
campaign seeks to secure investment for a new project from an interested community. But in
this instance, funding is most likely to come in the form of bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

CHAPTER - 10 : INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHT

❖ INTRODUCTION
 ➢ Refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols,
names and images used in commerce.
➢ Some of the examples include development of vaccines and life-saving drugs, creation of paintings,
murals, etc.
➢ Intellectual property protection does not mean simply declaring ownership of a particular product or
an asset.
❖ NEED FOR IPR

❖ TYPES OF IPR
1. Patents
a. It refers to a set of rights granted by a sovereign state exclusively to an inventor for a limited
period of time in exchange for detailed public disclosure of an invention.
b. It is used for the protection of new inventions, ideas or processes
c. Patent holders are required to pay a definite fee periodically to the government for the
renewal of the patent.
d. All patents which are approved by the governments are for a limited period of time.
e. In principle, the patent owner has the exclusive right to prevent or stop others from
commercially exploiting the patented invention.
f. Patents are territorial rights. In general, the exclusive rights are only applicable in the
country or region in which a patent has been filed and granted, in accordance with the law of
that country or region.
g. The protection is granted for a limited period, generally 20 years from the filing date of the
application.
2. Trademarks
a. A trademark is a sign capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one enterprise from
those of other enterprises.
b. It can be understood as a sign, design, or expression that can be easily recognized and which
identifies the products or services of a particular source and makes it unique from those of
others.
c. Trademarks which are used to identify services are usually known as Service marks.
3. Copyrights
a. Copyright is a right given by the law to creators of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic
works and producers of cinematograph films and sound recordings.
b. It is a legal right enforced by the law of a country that grants the creator of an original work
exclusive rights of reproduction, communication to the public, adaptation and translation of
the work.
 c. Works commonly protected by copyright throughout the world include:
i. Literary works such as novels, poems, plays, reference works, newspaper
articles.
ii. Computer programs, databases
iii. Films, musical compositions, and choreography.
iv. Artistic works such as paintings, drawings, photographs, Sculpture and
Architecture.
v. Advertisements, maps, and technical drawings.
d. Copyright protection extends only to expressions, and not to ideas, procedures, methods of
operation or mathematical concepts as such. Copyright may or may not be available for a
number of objects such as titles, slogans, or logos, depending on whether they contain
sufficient authorship.
e. There are two types of rights under copyright:
i. Economic Rights, which allow the rights owner to derive financial reward
from the use of their works by others.
ii. Moral Rights, which protect the non-economic interests of the author.
4. Trade Secrets
a. Trade secrets are intellectual property (IP) rights on confidential information which may be
sold or licensed.
b. In general, to qualify as a trade secret, the information must be:
i. Commercially valuable because it is secret.
ii. Be known only to a limited group of persons.
iii. Be subject to reasonable steps taken by the rightful holder of the information
to keep it secret, including the use of confidentiality agreements for business
partners and employees.
5. Industrial Design Rights
a. It is an intellectual property right which protects the visual design of objects and other
aesthetic parameters which are not purely utilitarian i.e. do not have any bearing on the
functionality of the object.
b. Preparation of an industrial design constitutes the creation of a shape, configuration or
composition of pattern or colour, or combination of pattern and colour in a
three-dimensional form which also contains an aesthetic value.
c. An industrial design can be a 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional pattern which can be used to
prepare any product, industrial commodity or handicraft.
6. Geographical Indication
a. A geographical indication (GI) is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical
origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin.
b. The use of a geographical indication may act as a certification that the product possesses
certain qualities and is made according to traditional methods, or enjoys a certain reputation,
due to its geographical origin.
c. Some of the examples of GI Tag include Darjeeling Tea, Basmati rice, Nagpur oranges etc.
❖ IPR POLICY 2016
NEED OF
➢ There was a need for a policy on IPR to institutionalise the process of protection of rights and
validation of claims arising out of issues concerning Intellectual Property.
➢ An IPR policy is important for the government as it helps to formulate incentives in the form of tax
concessions to encourage research and development (R&D) and foster innovative spirit in the minds
of people.
➢ The policy on intellectual property rights ensures that there exists a legal framework and there is a
level playing field for all players and participants across industries.
➢ It is critical to strengthen the Make In India, Startup and Digital India schemes that are announced
by the government in order to make India a leading nation in the field of manufacturing and IT.
➢ India had been facing fresh challenges from the developed world and mega regional trade
agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to come up with a robust IPR policy and
ensure that there is no encroachment on rights of genuine innovators by perpetrators of piracy
MAJOR OBJECTIVES OF IPR POLICY
➢ Spreading awareness on IPRs: The policy aims at creating public awareness about the various
economic, social and cultural benefits of IPRs across all the sections of society.
➢ Generation of IPRs: The national policy on IPR aims at stimulating the creation of IPRs.
➢ Legal and Legislative Framework: The policy on IPR envisages strong and effective IPR laws,
which balance the interests of rights owners with larger public interest.
➢ Administration and Management: The policy provides adequate measures to modernise and
strengthen the service-oriented IPR administration in order to create a responsive and user friendly
framework for the overall administration of issues concerned therewith.
➢ Commercialization of IPRs: The IPR policy states that a high value can be generated through the
commercialization, trade and related exchange of IPR.
➢ Enforcement and Adjudication: The policy aims at strengthening the enforcement and adjudicatory
mechanisms for combating IPR infringements.
➢ Human Capital Development: Through a robust mechanism regarding IPR in place, we can
strengthen and expand human resources, institutions and capacities for teaching, training, research
and skill building in IPRs.
 HIGHLIGHTS OF NATIONAL POLICY ON IPR
➢ The new policy on IPR emphasises on providing financial support to the relatively less empowered
groups of IP owners or creators like craftsmen, farmers, weavers and artisans through financial
institutions like rural banks or cooperative banks that offer IP-friendly loans.
➢ The Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade (DPIIT, earlier known as DIPP) shall
serve as a monitoring body for the work done by various ministries and departments, and shall also
be the nodal department to coordinate, guide and oversee implementation and future development
of IPRs in India
➢ Tagline of policy : “Creative India: Innovative India”.
➢ The policy provides for updating of various intellectual property laws, including the Indian
Cinematograph Act, Protection of Plant varieties and farmers right Act, 2001 etc.in order to remove
anomalies and inconsistencies in consultation with stakeholders.
➢ The national policy on IPR solicits financial aid to develop IP assets through links with financial
institutions, including banks, VC funds, angel funds and crowd-funding mechanisms in order to
support the financial aspects of IPR commercialization.
➢ The policy calls for taking actions against attempts to treat generic drugs as spurious or counterfeit
and undertake stringent measures to curb manufacture and sale of misbranded, adulterated and
spurious drugs in order to achieve the objective of strengthening enforcement and adjudicatory
mechanisms to combat IPR infringements .
➢ The policy will be reviewed after every five years to keep pace with further developments in the
sector.
BENEFITS OF IPR POLICY
➢ The interests of rights owners shall be safeguarded along with the wider public interest. This shall
help in combating infringements of intellectual property rights.
➢ The reduction in window for trademark registration has helped in reducing the huge number of
pending applications in India’s 4 patent offices.
➢ The new policy on IPR has got multiple direct and indirect tax benefits available under various laws
that shall promote R&D through simplification of procedures and norms.
➢ The newly recast IPR regime will cover films, music and industrial drawings in addition to books
and publications for copyright status.
➢ A range of other laws such as those made on semiconductors, industrial designs, geographical
indications, trademarks and patents shall be streamlined under this policy.
➢ The policy also encourages improving access to healthcare, food security and environmental
protection.
➢ This policy aims to create a conducive environment for investment by attracting both domestic and
foreign investors through a stable IPR framework in the country.
➢ The policy shall provide a strong incentive for the promotion of a holistic and conducive ecosystem
for catalysing the full potential of intellectual property for India’s growth and socio-cultural
development along with the protection of public interest
➢ This policy shall lay the future roadmap for intellectual property in India and also put in place an
institutional mechanism for implementation, monitoring and review.
➢ The policy has got sufficient material in it to incorporate some of the best practices across the globe
in the Indian context and adapt to the same
❖ CHALLENGES INDIA NEEDS TO ADDRESS
➢ Patent Laws:Government is of the view that there is no urgent need to change patent laws which are
already fully compliant with the World Trade Organization norms. Due to this, India continues to
resist pressure from the US and other Western countries to amend its patent laws.
➢ Evergreening:The policy also does not provide clarity on Section 3(d) of the Patents Act, 1970
which sets the standard for what is considered an invention in India, for reinterpretation.
➢ Compulsory Licensing :
 ■ India continues to retain the right of issuing compulsory licences to its drug firms, under
“emergency” conditions.
■ Compulsory licensing is a matter of huge concern especially for the foreign investors
who bring technology, skill and R&D with them as they are concerned about the misuse
of CL to replicate their products.
■ This has impacted Indian Trade negotiations with international bodies like the European
Union.
■ A compulsory licence provides that the owner of a patent or copyright licences the use
of their rights against a payment. This payment is either set by law or determined
through some form of arbitration.
■ In other words, a compulsory licence enables an individual or company seeking to use
another’s intellectual property to do so without seeking the rights holder’s consent by
paying the rights holder a set fee for the licence.
■ Grant of a compulsory licence signifies permission by the government, to entities, to
use, manufacture, import or sell a patented invention without the patent-owner’s
consent. Patents Act, 1970 in India deals with CL.
■ CL is permitted under the WTO’s TRIPS (IPR) Agreement provided conditions such as
‘national emergencies, other circumstances of extreme urgency and anti-competitive
practices are fulfilled.
■ The concept of compulsory licence serves as an exception to the general rule under
intellectual property laws which bestows exclusive rights on the intellectual property
owner that it may licence– or decline to licence– to others over its patent or copyright.
■ Example: If any country invents a vaccine for the pandemics like deadly Covid-19, a
compulsory licence can ensure equitable access to that vaccine to other countries of the
world.
➢ Data Exclusivity : It has been an ever-concerning issue that confronts the foreign investors and
MNCs as they allege that Indian law does not protect against unfair commercial use of test data or
other data submitted to the government during the application for market approval of
pharmaceutical or agrochemical products. For this they demand a Data Exclusivity law.
➢ Copyrights : Enforcement of the Copyright act is weak, and piracy of copyrighted materials is
widespread in India. This has been a continuous roadblock to India’s rise in global rankings as far as
IPR is concerned.
❖ TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE DIGITAL LIBRARY (TKDL)
➢ Developed by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Department of
Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (Dept. of AYUSH), Ministry of
Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.
➢ TKDL manages a database of knowledge existing in various languages including Sanskrit, Urdu,
Arabic, Persian and Tamil.
➢ Makes it possible to break the language and format barriers by making knowledge and information
documented in local languages, available in English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese in
patent application format, which is easily understandable by patent examiners
➢ TKDL is a tool that provides defensive protection to the rich traditional knowledge of India.
➢ The digital library is an attempt to consider unexplored potential for development, promotion and
utilisation of traditional knowledge, which is a unique endowment of India.
➢ TDKL has created a sui-generis system for protecting traditional knowledge through which
traditional knowledge shall be safeguarded from misappropriation.
➢ TDKL shall promote further research and development in products and services based on traditional
knowledge
➢ Over 2 lakh medicinal formulations have been transcribed as of now and the database is contained
in 30 million A4-size pages.
 ➢ The next challenge for India lies in the use of its inherent strength in traditional knowledge by way
of effective promotion, development and utilisation.
❖ CONCERNS AND CHALLENGES THAT CONFRONTED INDIA IN THE FIELD OF
TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE:
➢ Patents were being wrongfully granted to traditional knowledge related inventions which did not
fulfil the requirement of novelty and inventive step, particularly due to existence of relevant prior
art. This was observed in the case of Turmeric, Neem, Basmati etc.
➢ Lack of access to traditional knowledge information in their classified non-patent literature for the
patent examiners was a big obstacle earlier towards protection of traditional knowledge
➢ The reasons for this non-accessibility were that the Indian traditional knowledge existed in local
languages such as Sanskrit, Urdu, Arabic, Persian, Tamil, etc. which either was not available or not
understood by patent examiners.