The Hindu Editorial Analysis- 28th April 2023 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly - UPSC PDF Download

Why in News?

There is a touch of wry irony in the fact that today most of the news about the Indian Railways concerns Vande Bharat trains, and more particularly the fact that every new Vande Bharat train is being personally flagged off by the Prime Minister. For, a little over four years ago, the launch of Train 18, the precursor to the Vande Bharat train, was heralded by the initiation of vigilance investigations against some of the top architects of the project on wholly specious grounds.

• The Vande Bharat was India’s first attempt at adaptation of the train set technology compared with conventional systems of passenger coaches hauled by separate locomotives.
• The train set configuration, though complex, is faster, easier to maintain, consumes less energy, and has greater flexibility in train operation.
• Currently, two Vande Bharat Expresses are operational —one between New Delhi and Varanasi and the other from New Delhi to Katra.
• The 400 new trains will have “better efficiency” and railways are looking at making several of these trainsets with aluminium instead of steel.
• An aluminium body will make each trainset around 40-80 tonnes lighter than a current Vande Bharat and this will mean lower consumption of energy as well as better speed potential.

What are the Features of the Vande Bharat Trains?

• These trains, dubbed as Train 18 during the development phase, operate without a locomotive and are based on a propulsion system called distributed traction power technology, by which each car of the train set is powered.
• Its coaches incorporate passenger amenities including on-board WiFi entertainment, GPS-based passenger information system, CCTVs, automatic doors in all coaches, rotating chairs and bio-vacuum type toilets like in aircraft.
• It can achieve a maximum speed of 160 kmph due to faster acceleration and deceleration, reducing journey time by 25% to 45%.
• It also has an intelligent braking system with power regeneration for better energy efficiency thereby making it cost, energy and environment efficient.

What is the Significance?

• The sheer manufacturing of 400 of these trainset equipment in three years will be additional employment generation to the tune of 10,000-15,000.
• The pumping in around Rs 50,000 crore into the country’s rolling stock industry, will give a big boost in the sectors of component manufacturing, supplies etc.
• It will also improve railway finances and operational efficiency.

Way Forward

• Indian railways is moving towards a new era of travel experience with upgraded next-generation trains. At a time when low cost airlines and smooth road networks are offering stiff competition, the new trains can help railways retain traffic and even grow it.
• Timely execution of the ambitious project and keeping in mind the demand for various classes of travel will go a long way in ensuring the success of the Vande Bharat project.

Why in News?

In 2018, the then Union Minister of Human Resource Development, Satyapal Singh, called Darwin’s theory of evolution “scientifically wrong” and asked that it be removed from Indian school and college curricula. The next year, the Vice-Chancellor of Andhra University, Nageswara Rao Gollapalli, made a claim at the 106th Indian Science Congress, that the “theory of Dashavatara” explains evolution better than Darwin’s theory.

About the Theory of Evolution

• The Theory of Evolution by natural selection was first formulated in Charles Darwin's book "On the Origin of Species published in 1859.
• In his book, Darwin describes how organisms evolve over generations through the inheritance of physical or behavioral traits.
• The theory starts with the premise that within a population, there is variation in traits, such as beak shape in one of the Galapagos finches Darwin studied.
• According to the theory, individuals with traits that enable them to adapt to their environments will help them survive and have more offspring, which will inherit those traits.
• Individuals with less adaptive traits will less frequently survive to pass them on.
• Over time, the traits that enable species to survive and reproduce will become more frequent in the population and the population will change, or evolve.
• Through natural selection, Darwin suggested, genetically diverse species could arise from a common ancestor.
• A species is a population of organisms that interbreeds and has fertile offspring.
• Living organisms have descended with modifications from species that lived before them.
• Natural selection explains how this evolution has happened:
• More organisms are produced than can survive because of limited resources.
• Organisms struggle for the necessities of life; there is competition for resources.
• Individuals within a population vary in their traits; some of these traits are heritable -- passed on to offspring.
• Some variants are better adapted to survive and reproduce under local conditions than others.
• Better-adapted individuals (the "fit enough") are more likely to survive and reproduce, thereby passing on copies of their genes to the next generation.
• Species whose individuals are best adapted survive; others become extinct.