GI tag for Majuli masks of Assam (GS Paper 3, Economy)
Why in news?
- Recently, the traditional Majuli masks in Assam were given a Geographical Indication (GI) tag by the Centre. Majuli manuscript painting also got the GI label.
- A GI tag is conferred upon products originating from a specific geographical region, signifying unique characteristics and qualities. Essentially, it serves as a trademark in the international market.
Details:
- Majuli, the largest river island in the world and the seat of Assam’s neo-Vaishnavite tradition, has been home to the art of mask-making since the 16th century.
- Today, many of its traditional practitioners are working to take the art out of their traditional place in sattras, or monasteries, and give them a new, contemporary life.
What are these masks?
- The handmade masks are traditionally used to depict characters in bhaonas, or theatrical performances with devotional messages under the neo-Vaishnavite tradition, introduced by the 15th-16th century reformer saint Srimanta Sankardeva.
- The masks can depict gods, goddesses, demons, animals and birds; Ravana, Garuda, Narasimha, Hanuman, Varaha Surpanakha all feature among the masks.
- They can range in size from those covering just the face (mukh mukha), which take around five days to make, to those covering the whole head and body of the performer (cho mukha), which can take up to one-and-a-half months to make.
- The masks are made of bamboo, clay, dung, cloth, cotton, wood and other materials available in the riverine surroundings of their makers.
Why is the art practised in monasteries?
- Sattras are monastic institutions established by Srimanta Sankardev and his disciples as centres of religious, social and cultural reform.
- Today, they are also centres of traditional performing arts such as borgeet (songs), xattriya (dance) and bhaona (theatre), which are an integral part of the Sankardev tradition.
- Majuli has 22 sattras, and the patent application states that the mask-making tradition is by and large concentrated in four of them; Samaguri Sattra, Natun Samaguri Sattra, Bihimpur Sattra and Alengi Narasimha Sattra.
What is Majuli manuscript painting, which also received the GI tag?
- It is a form of painting also originating in the 16th century done on sanchi pat, or manuscripts made of the bark of the sanchi or agar tree, using homemade ink.
- The earliest example of an illustrated manuscript is said to be a rendering of the Adya Dasama of the Bhagwat Purana in Assamese by Srimanta Sankardev.
- This art was patronised by the Ahom kings. It continues to be practised in every sattra in Majuli.
MethaneSAT
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Why in news?
- MethaneSAT, a satellite which will track and measure methane emissions at a global scale was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon9 rocket from California.
- It will provide more details and have a much wider field of view than any of its predecessors.
Why there is need to track and measure methane emissions?
- Methane is an invisible but strong greenhouse gas, and the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide, responsible for 30 per cent of global heating since the Industrial Revolution.
- According to the United Nations Environment Programme, over a period of 20 years, methane is 80 times more potent at warming than carbon dioxide.
- The gas also contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone, a colourless and highly irritating gas that forms just above the Earth’s surface. According to a 2022 report, exposure to ground-level ozone could be contributing to one million premature deaths every year.
- Therefore, it is crucial to cut methane emissions. And the main culprit: fossil fuel operations, which account for about 40 per cent of all human-caused methane emissions. The objective of MethaneSAT is to help achieve this goal.
What is MethaneSAT?
- The entity behind MethaneSAT is the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a US-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group. To develop the satellite, EDF partnered with Harvard University, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and the New Zealand Space Agency.
- Essentially, MethaneSAT will orbit the Earth 15 times a day, monitoring the oil and gas sector.
- It will create a large amount of data, which will tell “how much methane is coming from where, who’s responsible, and are those emissions going up or down over time”.
- The data collected by MethaneSAT will be made public for free in near real-time. This will allow stakeholders and regulators to take action to reduce methane emissions.
What are the features of MethaneSAT?
- Historically, tracking the source of methane emissions and measuring them has been quite challenging.
While some satellites can provide high-resolution data, they can only scan specific, pre-targeted sites. Others can examine larger areas and detect large emitting events, but cannot scan smaller sources that account for the majority of emissions in many, if not most, regions.
- Due to this discrepancy global methane emissions are about 70 per cent higher than levels reported by national governments.
- MethaneSAT is expected to fix the issue. Equipped with a high-resolution infrared sensor and a spectrometer, the satellite will fill critical data gaps.
- It can track differences in methane concentrations as small as three parts per billion in the atmosphere, which enables it to pick up smaller emissions sources than the previous satellites.
- MethaneSAT also has a wide-camera view of about 200 km by 200 km allowing it to identify larger emitters so-called “super emitters”.
Why is it significant?
- The launch of MethaneSAT has come at a moment when the world is implementing more stringent methane management policies.
- For instance, more than 150 countries signed the Global Methane Pledge in 2021, to cut their collective methane emissions by at least 30 per cent from 2020 levels by 2030.
- At 2023 COP, more than 50 companies committed to virtually eliminating methane emissions and routine flaring. MethaneSAT will help them meet these targets.
- The satellite will also usher in a new era of transparency. Its publicly available data, which can be accessed by anyone in the world, will keep track of methane commitments made by governments and corporations.
