🔆Pillar Architecture: Mauryan’s Pillars

✅Mauryan Pillars (4th and 2nd Century BC) are one of the crucial architectural belongings of Ancient India. These pillars give details about the major incidents of those times, rulers, wars, etc. Thus, they are major sources of information for Historians.
✅Three types of pillars were made during the Mauryan period. The 1st variety was that of a wooden pillar. These pillars were used in the palace build by Chandra Gupta Maurya. These pillars are known only from literacy reference.
✅The other 2 varieties of pillars were made up of stone. Out of these 1st variety was used in the stone palace build by Ashoka to support the roof & 2nd variety represented Independent work.
✅Despite the fact that creating pillars is an ancient practice, Mauryan pillars vary from pillars in other regions of the globe (such as Achaemenian pillars) in that they are rock-cut pillars, demonstrating the carver’s talent.
✅Two kinds of stone were used to chisel these pillars. Some are made of white sandstone from the Mathura region, while others are made of buff-colored fine-grained hard sandstone mined in Chunar near Varanasi.
✅Capital is the topmost element of a pillar or column. Figures such as a bull, lion, elephant, and others were carved onto the upper half of the pillar. The capital figures (typically animals) are all carved standing on a square or circular abacus and are all forceful.
✅Abacuses have stylized lotuses on them.
✅The Lion Capital, a Mauryan pillar capital unearthed at Sarnath, is the best specimen of Mauryan sculpting tradition.
✅King Ashoka erected many pillars across his territory.
✅The pillars of Ashoka are a series of monolithic columns dispersed throughout the Indian subcontinent, erected or at least inscribed with edicts by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka during his reign from c.  268 to 232 BCE.
✅Ashoka used the expression Dhaṃma thaṃbhā (Dharma stambha), i.e. “pillars of the Dharma” to describe his own pillars. These pillars constitute important monuments of the architecture of India, most of them exhibiting the characteristic Mauryan polish.
✅Of the pillars erected by Ashoka, twenty still survive including those with inscriptions of his edicts.
✅Only a few with animal capitals survive of which seven complete specimens are known. Two pillars were relocated by Firuz Shah Tughlaq to Delhi. Several pillars were relocated later by Mughal Empire rulers, the animal capitals being removed.
✅Averaging between 12 and 15 m (40 and 50 ft) in height, and weighing up to 50 tons each, the pillars were dragged, sometimes hundreds of miles, to where they were erected.
✅All the pillars of Ashoka were built at Buddhist monasteries, many important sites from the life of the Buddha and places of pilgrimage. Some of the columns carry inscriptions addressed to the monks and nuns. Some were erected to commemorate visits by Ashoka.
✅Major pillars are present in the Indian States of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and some parts of Haryana.
✅The capital without the crowning wheel and the lotus base has been adopted as the National Emblem of Independent India.

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🔆'Responsible quantum technologies’ movement

✅The United Nations has declared 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology to raise awareness of quantum S&T’s benefits.
✅Responsible quantum S&T calls for ethical practices to prevent misuse, especially given the dual-use nature of the technology.
✅Companies like IBM are committed to positive social impact and preventing harmful applications of quantum technology.
✅Challenges include disparities in quantum S&T capacities between countries and ethical issues. National policies often prioritize intellectual property protections over openness.

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🔆Constitutional Rights for safeguarding Vulnerable groups against Climate Change/Disasters:

✅Right to Life and Personal Liberty (Article 21): The Constitution guarantees the right to life and personal liberty, which includes the right to live in a safe environment free from the adverse effects of climate change and disasters.

✅ Right to Equality (Article 14): Women and girls are entitled to equal protection under the law, ensuring that they receive equitable treatment ans opportunities in climate change adaptation and disaster response measures.

✅ Right to Health (Article 21): The Constitution recognizes the right to health as an integral part of the right to life, ensuring access to healthcare services to mitigate health risks posed by climate change and disasters, particularly for pregnant women and children.

✅ Directive Principles of State Policy (Article 39): The Directive Principles of State Policy mandate the state to ensure that women are not subject to discrimination and have equal rights to livelihood opportunities.

✅ Fundamental Duties (Article 51A): Citizens have a duty to protect and improve the natural environment, including forests, lakes, rivers, and wildlife, which are essential for climate resilience and disaster mitigation efforts that benefit women and girls.

✅ Protection Against Exploitation (Article 23): The Constitution prohibits trafficking, forced labour, and other forms of exploitation, safeguarding women and girls from vulnerabilities exacerbated by climate change-induced displacement and migration.

✅ Special Provisions for Women and Children (Article 15): The Constitution allows the state to make special provisions for the advancement of women and children, including measures to enhance their resilience and adaptive capacity to climate change and disasters.

✅ Protection of Tribal Rights (Article 244): Indigenous women and girls have constitutionally protected rights to their traditional lands and resources, which are essential for their resilience to climate change impacts.

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🔆Biological Disaster :

Biological disasters are scenarios involving disease, disability or death on a large scale among humans, animals and plants due to toxins or disease caused by live organisms or their products.
Such disasters may be natural in the form of epidemics or pandemics or man-made by the intentional use of disease causing agents in Biological Warfare (BW) operations or incidents of Bioterrorism (BT).

Types of Biological Disasters :

✅ Natural: An epidemic affects a disproportionately large number of individuals. It is an epidemic that is spread across a continent or worldwide.
✅ Man-Made: Biological Warfare and Bioterrorism are man-made biological disasters.

Causes of Epidemics :

✅ Poor sanitary conditions leading to contamination of food and water or
✅ due to inadequate disposal of human or animal carcasses in post disaster situations
✅ They become real dangers during floods and earthquakes.
✅ Poor solid waste management may create epidemics like plague.

▪️Major sources of Epidemics in India : In India, the major sources of epidemics can be broadly categorized as follows:

✅Water-borne diseases like cholera (and forms of gastroenteritis), typhoid, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B etc. - major epidemics of such diseases have been recorded in the past and continue to occur;
✅ Vector-borne (often mosquito-borne) epidemics like dengue fever, chikungunya fever, Japanese encephalitis, malaria, kala-azar etc., which usually occur in certain regions of the country;
✅ Person to person transmission of diseases e.g. AIDS and other venereal diseases; and
✅ Air-borne diseases like influenza and measles that can also be transmitted through fomites (used clothes etc.).

▪️Trends Favouring Biological Disaster :

✅ Low cost and wide spread availability
✅ More efficient in terms of coverage per kilogram of payload
✅ Advances in biotechnology has made production easy
✅ Used agents are largely natural pathogens to simulate existing diseases
✅ Have unmatched destructive potential
✅ Lethal biological agents can be produced easily and cheaply
✅ The lag time between infection and appearance of symptoms are longer than with chemical exposure.

▪️Consequences of Biological Disaster Student Notes:

✅ It can result into heavy mortalities in the short term leading to a depletion of population with a corresponding drop in economic activity .
✅ It leads to diversion of substantial resources of an economy to contain the disaster.
✅ Bio weapons of mass destruction

▪️Prevention and Mitigation Measures :

✅ The general population should be educated and made aware of the thread and risks
associated with it.
✅ Only cooked food and boiled/chlorinated/filtered water should be consumed.
✅ Insects and rodent control measures must be initiated immediately.
✅ Clinical isolation of suspected and confirmed cases is essential.
✅ A network of laboratories should be established for proper laboratory diagnosis.
✅ Existing diseases surveillance system as well as vector control measures have to be pursued more rigorously.
✅ Mass immunization programs in suspected areas have to be followed more rigorously.
✅ More focus should be given on the research of the vaccines which are not available.


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🔆Fiscal Federalism :

✅Seventh Schedule: Tax Bases Delineated in Union and State Lists (Article 246).
✅Distribution of Revenue:
🔸Article 269: Taxes levied and collected by Centre, assigned to states.
🔸Article 269-A: GST in inter-state trade.
✅Article 270: Taxes distributed between Union and states per Finance Commission.
✅Article 275: Financial assistance to States in form of grants-in-aid charged to revenue of India.
✅Borrowings:
🔸Article 292: Union can borrow domestically or internationally.
🔸Article 293: State can only borrow domestically.
✅Article 280: Finance Commission constituted to adjudicate sharing of resources between Union and States.

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🔆Judiciary :

✅Article 20 (Right to protection against conviction of offenses),
✅Article 21 (Right to life and liberty),
✅Article 22 (Right to protection against arrest and detention in certain circumstance).

✅Pendency: Over 85,000 cases in SC alone (National Judicial Data Grid).
✅Women in Judiciary: 13.4% and 9.3% of judges are women in HCs and SC respectively (State of Judiciary Report 2023).

✅Judicial Appointment (Article 124): President shall make SC Judges appointments after consulting with CJI and other SC and HC judges as he considers necessary.
✅Regional Benches (Article 130): Supreme Court shall sit in Delhi or in such other place or places, as the Chief Justice of India may, with the approval of the President, from time to time, appoint.
✅Judicial Accountability (Article 235): Constitution provides for ‘control’ of High Court over the subordinate
judiciary clearly indicating the provision of an effective mechanism to enforce accountability.
✅Free legal aid (Article 39A): Mandates State to ensure justice with equal opportunity, including free legal aid provision.

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Urban Naxalism : It refers to the presence and activities of Naxalites or CPI (Maoist) in urban areas. As per the Maoist strategy, urban areas are crucial for providing cadres, leadership, and logistical support for the people’s war. The key objectives are mobilizing masses, building a united front, and military tasks. Activities include maintaining safe houses, providing logistics, and recruiting youth and workers.

Domestic workers : Domestic workers are individuals (women in particular) hired to perform various household tasks within private residences, such as cleaning, cooking, childcare, and other domestic duties. They play a crucial role in supporting families and often work without formal contracts or labour protections.

There are about 5 million domestic workers in India (of which 3 million are women)