Prelims Focus – 1st April 2024

Quantum Cryptography

Recent News:

Scientists are promoting the use of Quantum Cryptography as an advanced technology to protect sensitive communications.

Details:

• Quantum cryptography, also known as Quantum Key Distribution, is a method of encrypting and transmitting secure data based on the laws of quantum mechanics. 
• It uses photons, particles/waves of light, to create a secure cryptosystem. 
• The encryption key is determined by comparing measurements of properties from a subset of these photons. 
• This method ensures high security from hacking as the encryption keys are transmitted as “qubits” through optical fibres. 
• The sender transmits photons with different polarizations and the receiver uses beam splitters to discern the polarisation of each incoming photon. 
• The receiver communicates the use of beam splitters to the sender, and the resulting bit sequence constitutes the encryption key.

Luna Crater

Recent News:

A recent study proposed that Luna Crater in Gujarat may have been formed by the largest meteorite to hit Earth in the past 50,000 years.

Details:

• Geochemical analysis at the site revealed high levels of iridium in the soil, indicating a possible impact by an iron meteorite. 
• Researchers also found other meteor characteristics like wustite, kirschsteinite, hercynite, and ulvospinel. However, some scientists are sceptical and believe more evidence is needed to confirm the Luna structure as a meteor crater, such as finding super-heated rocks from the impact. 
• A meteorite is a piece of debris from space that lands on Earth, while a meteor is the bright streak of light seen in the sky, and a meteoroid is a smaller fragment of a meteor.
•  Meteoroids are objects in space ranging from dust grains to small asteroids. When they enter the Earth’s atmosphere, they become meteors. If a meteoroid hits the ground, it is called a meteorite.
• A recent study dated a meteor impact about 4,050 years ago in the area where the Indus Valley civilization once lived. 
• The impact would have caused shockwaves and wildfires, with dust dimming the Sun for days in Gujarat.
• It would have been similar to a nuclear bomb, but without radioactive fallout.

CoViNet

In News: Recently, the ‘CoViNet’ — a global laboratory to monitor emerging coronaviruses has been launched by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

• • CoViNet is a network of international laboratories with knowledge in human, animal, and environmental covid-19 surveillance.
  • The network currently consists of 36 laboratories from 21 nations in all 6 WHO regions.
  • It expands at the WHO COVID-19 reference laboratory community set up during the early days of the pandemic.
  • Initially, the lab network was centered on SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
  • However, the network will now cope with a broader range of coronaviruses, consisting of MERS-CoV and ability new coronaviruses.

• The Objectives of CoViNet:

• • It aims to facilitate and coordinate international know-how and capacities for early and correct detection, monitoring, and evaluation of SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, and novel coronaviruses of public fitness significance.
  • It aims to screen the global stream and evolution of these viruses, spotting the need for a ‘One Health’ method.
  • It aims to provide timely hazard evaluation for these viruses to tell WHO policy related to a range of public health and clinical countermeasures.

India-led Group of Friends (GOF)

In News: The India-led Group of Friends (GOF) deliberated on strategies to strengthen legal frameworks against perpetrators of malicious acts targeting Peacekeepers, focusing on supporting measures for ensuring accountability.

• • It is a widespread initiative launched in 2022 by India during its presidency of the UN Security Council (UNSC).
  • It represents the ‘political will’ of member states, especially of the troop and police contributing international locations, to champion the implementation of the provisions of UNSC Resolution 2589.
  • It comprises forty member states, and India, Bangladesh, Egypt, France, Morocco, and Nepal serve as co-chairs of the GOF.

• Objectives and Functions:

• • It aims to promote responsibility for all acts of violence towards United Nations (UN) peacekeepers and provide ability building and technical assistance to the host nation government.
  • It serves as an informal platform in the UN to trade data, share best practices, and mobilise sources directed at facilitating responsibility for crimes devoted in opposition to peacekeepers.
  • It monitors development on bringing responsibility for crimes against peacekeepers.
  • It convenes  conferences of its contributors per year and organises one event per year concerning Permanent Missions and other stakeholders to take the plan forward, thereby making sure greater safety and security for peacekeepers.

White Rabbit Collaboration

In News: The European Organization for Nuclear Research or CERN has recently launched the White Rabbit Collaboration.

• White Rabbit: The generation is evolved to synchronise devices in the accelerators down to sub-nanoseconds and clear up the venture of establishing a common notion of time across a network.
  • At a scale of billionths of a 2d, the time light takes to travel through a fibre-optic cable and the time the electronics take to method the sign are no longer negligible. To avoid ability delays, the co-inventors of White Rabbit designed a new ethernet transfer.
• Application: White Rabbit is used inside the finance zone as well as in many research infrastructures, and it’s currently being evaluated for software in the future quantum net. 
  • The technology can also play a key function in the futurelandscape of global time dissemination technologies, which currently rely closely on satellites. 
• White Rabbit Collaboration: It is a membership-based global network whose goal is to maintain a high-performance performance open-source technology that meets the desires of users and to facilitate its uptake by industry.
  • The WR Collaboration will provide devoted support and training, facilitate R&D projects between entities with common interests and complementary expertise and establish a testing ecosystem fostering trust in products that incorporate the open-source technology. 

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