Current Affairs 4 November

4 November 2022

Content   Garo tribal community Folk Paintings Tokhü Emong festival ‘Potharajulu’ tradition Data point Black sea Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) Amur falcons CAS9 Special Campaign 2.0

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Art and Culture

Garo tribal community perform Wangala dance

The Garos are indigenous people in Meghalaya, India and neighbouring areas of Bangladesh like Mymensingh, Netrokona and Sylhet, who call themselves. They are the second-largest tribe in Meghalaya after the Khasi and comprise about a third of the local population. The Garos are one of the few remaining matrilineal societies in the world.

Folk Paintings

At the ongoing exhibition Echoes of the Land, artists use Gond art, Warli paintings and Madhubani techniques to highlight climate change issues

Warli Painting

Warli Painting is the folk painting of Maharashtra. The name ‘Warli’ is inspired by the largest tribe found in the northern outskirts of Maharashtra’s capital Mumbai.

Categories of Warli Paintings

Warli paintings can be categorised into four groups:

• The Gods – The warli paintings related to this category revolve around the old folklores of the Warli tribe. Through this warli art, the tribesmen show the history that they believe in.
• The People – Through these warli paintings, they depict good and bad deeds by the people.
• The Animals – Many animals that were in their surroundings, are depicted in these Warli paintings. Tiger is the famous animal painting in Warli art.
• Rights and Ritual – The most prominent of all the categories is the Warli paintings depicting rights and rituals. The joy, happiness, celebration, day to day activities are depicted under this category.

Gond Art

The Gond paintings flourished with vivid colours, especially red, blue, yellow, and white, that serve the view with their excellent contrast. These bright paints are usually derived and extracted from organic sources such as coloured soil, charcoal, plant leaves and sap, and even cow dung. The local sand called Chui Mitti helps in the production of the yellow colour, while Gheru Mitti serves the brown colour. Charcoal provides the black colour, Hibiscus flower gives red, and plant leaves impart green.

Tokhü Emong festival

Tokhu Emong festival is one among many popular festivals of Nagaland. It is a very famous harvest festival. Tokhu Emong is the post-harvest festival of the Lotha Nagas.

The Lotha tribe is a major and pre-dominant tribe in Nagaland. The festivities are therefore prestigious and no short of grand. It is practiced in parts forming North East India. The attributes of the festival does a candid exploration and exhibition of the Lotha culture and heritage.

From a tourism vantage point this colour filled festival stands out and grabs hold of visitor’s attention. ‘Tohku’, meaning moving from house to house to collect token and gifts in form of naturals resources and food. However, the meaning of Emong is to put a stop.

The prayers of praise are granted to God for his ever-humble blessings. People halt after articulating hard work in their vast lands and fields. This halt comprises of relaxation and pomp. Unified together, people relive the stories of their ancestors in the form of old songs, folk music composed long stretched ages ago and through their traditional style

‘Potharajulu’ tradition

 ‘Potharajulu’ tradition, an integral part of Telangana’s acclaimed Bonalu festival. 

It is a custom practised by the Budaga Jangalu, a community that visits villages and collects money while whipping themselves for a livelihood.

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Data point

‘Thousands of schools have shut down in India during 2020­21’ 20,000The number of schools shut down across India during 2020­21, while the number of teachers also declined by 1.95% compared to the previous year, according to a new report by the Ministry of Education. Moreover, only 44.85% of schools had computer facilities, while nearly 34% had an internet connection.

Black sea

Context-Russia warns U.K. over drone attacks at its Black Sea fleet

Black Sea:

• Black Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean.
• It is located between Eastern Europe and Western Asia
• Border countries: Black Sea is bordered by six countries- Romania and Bulgaria to the west; Ukraine, Russia and Georgia to the north and east and Turkey to the south.

Connecting water bodies:

• The Black Seaultimately drains into the Mediterranean Sea via the Turkish Straits and the Aegean Sea.  
• The Bosporus Strait connects it to the small Sea of Marmara which in turn is connected to the Aegean Sea via the Strait of the Dardanelles.
• To the north, the Black Sea is connected to the Sea of Azov by the Kerch Strait. 

Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA)

A Seminar on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing, under the aegis of Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), was conducted by the Indian Navy at Goa on 02 November 2022.

India and IORA

Established in 1997, this year marks the 25^th Anniversary of IORA. India, as a founding member of IORA, remains committed to IORA’s agenda of promoting cooperation in the region to ensure a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indian Ocean Region.

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Amur falcons

Amur falcons, the world’s longest travelling raptors start travelling with the onset of winters.

The raptors breed in south eastern Siberia and northern China, and migrate in millions across India and then over the Indian Ocean to southern Africa before returning to Mongolia and Siberia. Their 22,000-kilometre migratory route is one of the longest amongst all avian species.

The birds are the least concern under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, but the species is protected under the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and the Convention on Migratory Species, to which India is a signatory (which means it is mandatory to protect the birds).

Science And Technology

CAS9

The CRISPR gene-editing technology that received the Nobel Prize in 2020 has witnessed a new height. Indian scientists have demonstrated for the first time that the associated Cas9 enzyme, which acts as molecular scissors to cut DNA at a location specified by a guide RNA, can bind to and cut the target DNA at very low temperatures.

This work has shown the highly efficient functioning of this platform at temperatures as low as 4^oC, making it possible to edit genes in temperature sensitive organisms, plants, or crop varieties.

CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) are short DNA sequences found in the genome of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria, which are reminders of previous bacteriophage (viruses) attacks that the bacteria successfully defended against. Cas9 enzyme (part of bacteria’s defence mechanism) uses these flags to precisely target and cut any foreign DNA, thus protecting the bacteria from future attacks by similar bacteriophages. The unprecedented precision of targeting the DNA sequences and then efficiently cutting them is the basis for CRISPR-Cas9 technology, which has been recently demonstrated in editing genes in cells and organisms.

CRISPR-Cas9 technology has been successfully used for many purposes, including basic studies of gene function, agriculture, and medicine to increase our knowledge of disease processes and their potential future therapies. So far, most binding trials were typically performed at 37 °C.

Prelim Specific

Special Campaign 2.0

The objective of the campaign was to institutionalise swachhta and record management as a regular activities among employees and to minimise pendency, as well as strengthen the internal monitoring mechanism for the timely disposal of important items of government business pertaining to the Ministry.

Major thrust areas of the campaign were: selling scrap, furniture, papers, and e-waste to enable recycling and carrying out cleanliness activities, record management exercises, liquidating the pendency of VIP references, IMC references, PMO/state government references, public grievances, PG appeals