India 3rd the highest military spender

• Vaid's ICS, Lucknow
• 02, May 2022

1. World military spending continued to grow in 2021, reaching a record $2.1 trillion despite the economic fallout of the pandemic, according to new data on global military spending published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
2. The five largest spenders in 2021 were the U.S., China, India, the U.K. and Russia, together accounting for 62% of expenditure. The U.S. and China alone accounted for 52%.
3. India’s military spending of $76.6 billion ranked third highest in the world.

4.This was up by 0.9% from 2020 and by 33% from 2012. Amid ongoing tensions and border disputes with China and Pakistan that occasionally spill over into armed clashes, India has prioritised the modernisation of its armed forces and self-reliance in arms production.

FACTS FOR PRELIMS:

Splinternet

The internet is changing. The outcome of the recent spat between the Center  and Twitter is one among many instances which may alter the future of the world wide web. The open web, now a mere shadow of its former self, is often dubbed the splinternet.

• A fusion of the words “split” and “internet”, the splinternet is a fragmented version of the world wide web with national identities. The reasons for this ‘split’ include global politics, national security, religion and more.
• In its original form, the internet transcended borders and allowed people unfettered access to virtually everything, while the splinternet limits citizens’ access to data, forces businesses to keep data within borders, and even changes how they operate within a state.
• Splinternet is often defined as the balkanization of the net, as nations try to preserve their sovereign identities and economic interests.

The Gilets Jaunes (yellow vests) movement

The Gilets Jaunes (yellow vests) movement was not led by any union or political party and the protesters’ demands were not clearly articulated: some want tax cuts (on fuel), some want tax rises (for the rich), some want more public services, some want more generous state benefits, some want a stronger President and some want  all of these things at once.

• The Gilets Jaunes have targeted the French state as both villain and saviour. They have organized groups to protest outside government offices all over the country yet, despite their ire, they also demand redress from the very same state they abhor.
• They want the French government to lower fuel taxes, cut property taxes, and hire more doctors for rural clinics. This paradox has a long pedigree in French history.

RASCs

Respiratory airway secretory cells, or RASCs, are a new type of cell that resides deep within human lungs and may play a key role in human lung diseases.

• The cells line tiny airway branches, deep in the lungs, near the alveoli structures where oxygen is exchanged for carbon dioxide. The scientists showed that RASCs have stem-cell-like properties enabling them to regenerate other cells that are essential for the normal functioning of alveoli.
• There are also evidence that cigarette smoking and the common smoking-related ailment called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can disrupt the regenerative functions of RASCs. Thus, correcting this disruption could be an effective way to treat COPD.
• COPD involves progressive damage to and loss of alveoli, exacerbated by chronic inflammation.
• It is estimated to cause about 3 million deaths every year around the world. Patients often are prescribed steroid anti-inflammatory drugs and/or oxygen therapy, but these treatments can only slow the disease process rather than stop or reverse it.
• RASCs, in addition to their secretory function, serve as predecessors for AT2( Alveolar type II cells) cells — regenerating them to maintain the AT2 population and keep alveoli healthy.
• Differentiated AT2 cells produce pulmonary surfactant, a lipoprotein substance that is required for proper lung function.
• Premature human newborns frequently do not have adequate numbers of differentiated AT2 cells and thus do not produce sufficient amounts of pulmonary surfactant. Inadequate amounts of surfactant can lead to neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), which until recently was a leading cause of death in premature newborns.
• AT2 cells are known to become abnormal in COPD and other lung diseases, and the researchers found evidence that defects in RASCs might be an upstream cause of those abnormalities.

 Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet

National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed that the huge Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet is indeed the largest icy comet nucleus ever seen by astronomers.

• This comet has an estimated diameter of almost 129 kilometres. The nucleus is around 50 times larger than that of most known comets, and its mass is estimated to be around 500 trillion tonnes.
• The comet was discovered by astronomers Pedro Bernardinelli and Gary Bernstein in archival images from the Dark Energy Survey at an astronomical observatory in Chile. It was discovered by chance in November 2010 and has been intensively studied since.
• The Bernardinelli-Berstein comet has been travelling towards the sun for over a million years and it is believed to have originated in the Oort Cloud, a distant region of the solar system that is predicted to be the source of most comets.
• The Oort Cloud is still only a theoretical concept as the comets that constitute it are too faint and distant to be directly observed. It was first hypothesised by Dutch astronomer Jan Oort in 1950.
• The Bernardinelli-Berstein comet follows a 3-million-year-long elliptical orbit and has an estimated temperature of minus 348 degrees Fahrenheit – warm enough to sublimate carbon monoxide from the surface to produce the dusty coma.
• It is unlikely that the Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet can become a threat to the earth. It is travelling at a speed of 22,000 miles per hour from the edge of the solar system towards us, but it will never get closer than one billion miles away from the sun. That is a little farther than the planet Saturn, and even this situation is not likely to occur till 2031