What to Read in Indian Express Editorial( Topic and Syllabus wise)

EDITORIAL 1: Navy’s two new frigates

Context

The Indian Navy recently, simultaneously commissioned two Nilgiri-class stealth guided-missile frigates, the INS Udaygiri and INS Himgiri, at Visakhapatnam.

Two ships from two shipyards

• The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said that this is the first time that two major surface combatants from two different Indian shipyards were commissioned simultaneously.
• INS Udaygiri is the second ship of the Project 17A stealth frigates built by Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL)in Mumbai.
• INS Himgiri is the first of the Project 17A ships constructed by Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers(GRSE), Kolkata.
• In another major milestone for the Indian Navy, INS Udaygiri is the 100th ship designed by the Navy’s in-house Warship Design Bureau.
• Both ships are the result of an industrial ecosystem spanning over 200 Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), supporting approximately 4,000 direct jobs and more than 10,000 indirect jobs.
• The year 2025 has, until now, witnessed the commissioning of several indigenous platforms including the destroyer INS Surat, the frigate INS Nilgiri, and the submarine INS Vaghsheer,all of which were constructed by MDL and commissioned together in Mumbai in January, and others including the Anti-submarine Warfare (ASW) Shallow Water Craft INS Arnala, and the Diving Support Vessel INS Nistar.

Seven-vessel fleet

• The Nilgiri-class stealth frigates are being constructed under the codename Project 17 Alpha.
• They are follow-ons of the Shivalik class or Project 17 frigates that are currently active in service. The frigate commissioned in January, INS Nilgiri, was the first of seven frigates in Project 17A.
• Of the seven-member class of ships, four – Nilgiri, Udaygiri, Taragiri, and Mahendragiri –are being built by MDL, and three by GRSE (Himgiri, Dunagiri, and Vindhyagiri).
• On the operational front, the multi-mission frigates are capable of operating in a “blue water” environment, which denotes the deep sea far from India’s shores, and can tackle both conventional and non-conventional security challenges.
• The Nilgiri class of ships have been built using an “integrated construction” philosophy,which involves extensive pre-outfitting at the block stages to reduce the overall building periods.

Sleek and stealthy fighting machines

• With their range of versatile weapons and capabilities, these ships can play a crucial role in anti-surface warfare, anti-air warfare, and anti-submarine warfare.
• Among the weapons and equipment fitted on this class of ships are Long Range Surface to Air Missiles (LRSAM), Eight Vertically launched Surface to Surface Brahmos supersonic cruise missiles, Barak 8 Anti aircraft missile, Light weight Anti-Submarine Torpedo, Indigenous Rocket Launcher (IRL), 127 mm Main Role Gun, two AK-630 rapid fire Guns, Multi Mission Surveillance Radar, Shakti Electronic Warfare Suite, Airborne Early Warning Radar, Surface Surveillance Radar and Sonar Humsa (NG).
• The ships are configured with Combined Diesel or Gas (CODOG) main propulsion plants.

The rich legacy

• The erstwhile Nilgiri-class frigates were updated versions of the Leander class and were designed and built for the Indian Navy by MDL.
• Six of those ships were built between 1972 and 1981. The new Nilgiri class carries forward the names of six ships, with Mahendragiri as the seventh ship.
• Udaygiri has been named after the mountain range in Andhra Pradesh. Over the next three decades, INS Udaygiri, a steam ship, played roles in several crucial operations, including Op Pawan in 1987 in Sri Lanka, Op Dolphin and Op Cactus in 1988, Op Madad in 1991 and Op Castor in 2005.
• While there is no particular mountain range named Himgiri, it primarily refers to the snow-clad mountains of the Himalaya range.
• In 1988, she served in Op Cactus. Beyond combat, she played a key role in bringing relief supplies in the aftermath of the 2001 Gujarat earthquakes as part of Op Sahayata. The ship was decommissioned in May 2005.
• INS Udaygiri is going to be part of the Eastern Command’s fleet,also referred to as the Sunrise Fleet.
• INS Himgiri, which will serve under the Western Naval Command,has the motto Adrushyam Ajayam, which means “invisible and invincible’’.

The road ahead

• The Project-17 Bravo frigates (P-17B), which would entail construction of seven Next Generation class of frigates, which will be a follow-on for Nilgiri-class frigates,are already in the pipeline.
• The P-17B ships are slated to have futuristic weapons, communication, command and control systems and are expected to have a higher percentage of indigenous content than the Nilgiri-class.

Conclusion

With the commissioning of the three ships of the Nilgiri-class over, the remaining four are expected to be commissioned over the next one and a half years.

 

EDITORIAL 2: US confirms it’s first human case flesh-eating new world screwworm

Context

The Department of Health and Human Services recently reported the first human case of the flesh-eating parasite, the New World screwworm, in the United States.

What is New World screwworm?

• Screwworms are a type of blue-grey blowfly, typically found in South America and the Caribbean.
• Screwworms — specifically females — are attracted to and lay eggs on and in open wounds or another entry point like a nasal cavity in warm-blooded animals and, rarely, humans.
• One female can lay up to 300 eggs at a time and may lay up to 3,000 eggs during her 10- to 30-day lifespan, according to the CDC.
• These eggs hatch into larvae (known as maggots), which burrow into the wound using their sharp mouth hooks to feed on the living flesh, leading to infestation.
• After feeding, the larvae fall into the ground, burrow into the soil and emerge as adult screwworm flies.
• The parasites are named after the screwlike way they burrow into the tissue.
• Their Latin name, Cochliomyia hominivorax, “literally means man-eater”.

What are the symptoms of infestation?

• New World screwworm infestations can be extremely painful, especially in humans, with a high mortality rate if left untreated.
• That is because once an infestation starts, that often attracts more flies that lay more eggs. And depending on where the wound is, the maggots can make their way into vulnerable tissue like the brain, or the wound can get quite big, and then you get sepsis.
• According to the CDC, symptoms of infestation include: wounds or sores that do not heal; bleeding from open sores; feeling larvae movement within a skin wound or sore; and a foul-smelling odour from the site of the infestation.

Why are screwworms spreading now?

• The US eradicated New World screwworms in 1966 by using a method called the sterile insect technique.
• This involved rearing billions of sterile insects inside factories and releasing them into the air in affected regions.
• If the females on the ground mate with a sterile male, at least with a screwworm, that’s all they’ll mate with  so that female won’t produce any offspring.
• This technique helped remove New World screwworms not only in the US, but also in Mexico in the 1970s and Central America in the early 2000s.
• In 2017, the method was again implemented to control a small outbreak in Florida.
• However, recently, new cases of New World screwworm infestation have been reported in Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras.

Conclusion

There could be several factors behind the reemergence of the infestation. These include the movement of infested cattle and the possibility that the current strain of sterilised flies is less effective than in the past.