IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

Lakshadweep could face major coastal erosion due to rising sea levels: study

News

  • A group of scientists, in a study carried out under the Department of Science and Technology, have found that sea levels around Lakshadweep are estimated to rise between 0.4 mm and 0.9 mm annually, causing coastal erosion in many of the islands, and possibly submerging the smaller islets.

Sea levels

  • The Lakshadweep archipelago comprises 36 islands of coral and reef formation in the Arabian Sea, spanning just over 32 sq km.
  • The islands are characterized by low elevations, with maximum elevation ranging from 4-6 metres above Mean Sea Level and minimum elevations lower than 1 metre.
  • The range of rise in sea levels has been ascertained based on different climate change models and the study has been conducted projecting different greenhouse gas scenarios. While the study has found that some islands will be affected more than others, all islands will be affected by the sea level rise.
  • The study has estimated that the islands Chetlat and Amini are expected to face major land-loss. Projection mapping indicated that about 60-70 per cent of the existing shoreline would experience land-loss in Amini and about 70-80 per cent in Chetlat.
  • The island Minicoy and capital Kavaratti are also vulnerable to sea-level rise, and expected to experience land-loss along 60 per cent of the existing shoreline, the study shows, adding that the only airport in the archipelago, located on the southernmost tip of Agatti island, is likely to experience damage due to inundation.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

IAF AND USN IN IOR.

Source: PIB INDIA

News

  • As a strategic outreach exercise with the defence forces of friendly foreign countries in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), Indian Air Force will participate in operational engagements with the US Navy in an exercise to be carried out with Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group (CSG).
  • The CSG is currently deployed in the IOR.

Operational engagements

  • The Exercise in the AoR of Southern Air Command will see the IAF forces operate from bases under four operational commands and will include Jaguars & Su-30 MKI fighters, AWACS, AEW&C and Air to Air Refueller aircraft.
  • The US CSG is expected to field F-18 fighters and E-2C Hawkeye AEW&C aircraft. The exercise will be carried out south of Thiruvananthapuram, on the western seaboard, over two days.
  • IAF has extensive experience in maritime operations in the IOR. This has been consolidated over the years by conduct of exercises from the country’s island territories, including participation in International exercises.
  • The multi spectral capability of the IAF in IOR also includes HADR missions and logistics support undertaken in support of friendly nations in the region.
  • This engagement with the US CSG offers one more opportunity to undertake joint operations in the maritime domain with a friendly foreign power.
  • The exercise with the US CSG will focus on multiple areas including enhancing aspects of interoperability, nuances of international integrated maritime SAR operations and exchange of best practices in the maritime airpower domain.

India and Fiji sign MoU for cooperation in the field of agriculture and allied sectors.

Source: PIB INDIA

News

  • Indian Minister for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, and Fiji’s Minister of Agriculture, Waterways & Environment, Dr. Mahendra Reddy signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for cooperation in the field of Agriculture and allied sectors between India and Fiji in a virtual meeting.

MoU for cooperation

  • Food and agriculture are closely related to climate change. Both countries are cooperating in dealing with global challenges in this regard.
  • The MoU provides for cooperation in the fields of Dairy Industry Development, Rice Industry Development, Root crop diversification, Water Resources Management, Coconut Industry Development, Food Processing Industry Development, Agriculture Mechanization, Horticulture Industry Development, Agricultural Research, Animal Husbandry, Pest and Disease, Cultivation, Value Addition and Marketing, Post-Harvest and Milling, Breeding and Agronomy.
  • The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India and the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of the Republic of Fiji shall be the Executing Agencies from respective sides.
  • Under the MoU, a Joint Working Group will be established to set down procedures and plan and recommend programs of cooperation towards achieving its aims. The Working Group will hold its meetings alternatively in India and Fiji once in every two years.
  • The MoU will remain valid for a period of five years from the date of its signing and any variation to its duration will be approved in writing by both Parties.

Central Government agency Food Corporation of India supplies 76.72 LMT free food grains to all 36 States/ UTs under PMGKAY for May and June 2021.

Source: PIB INDIA

News

  • Government of India’s agency Food Corporation of India has supplied 76.72 LMT free food grains to all 36 States/ UTs.

Free food grains

  • FCI is transporting food grains all across the country to ensure smooth supply to all States/ UT Governments.
  • The Government of India has sensitized all the States/ UT Governments to complete the distribution of free food grains under PMGKAY in time bound manner.
  • Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana is facilitating supply of free food grains to the beneficiaries amidst ongoing COVID pandemic and thus providing food security to the beneficiaries.
  • The Government of India announced Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) to ameliorate the hardship faced by the poor due to economic disruption caused by Corona virus.
  • Under the scheme, free food grains @ 5 kg per person per month is being distributed to beneficiaries covered under NFSA.

Kerala HC stays Lakshadweep admin orders to shut dairy farms, exclude meat from school kids’ menu

News

  • The Kerala High Court imposed a stay on two controversial orders of the Lakshadweep UT administrationheaded by Praful Patel.

Stay on orders of the Lakshadweep

  • A division bench ordered a stay on the administration’s decisions to close down dairy farms on the islands and change the midday meal diet of school children by excluding chicken, beef, and other meat from the menu.
  • The order was passed in response to a petition filed a lawyer and native of Kavaratti in Lakshadweep.
  • The petitioner had contended that the Administrator’s decisions were violative of human rights.
  • The petition argued that the decisions were aimed at destroying the culture and eating habits of the islanders.
  • It said that the decision to shut down dairy farms and auction off the animals was taken without any due consultations with the elected local bodies on the islands.
  • In the last several months, a slew of proposals of the UT administration has sparked anger on the islands leading to protests and arrests.
  • The proposals include widespread changes in the use of land for development purposes, allowing liquor at resorts on inhabited islands, ban the consumption and sale of beef and exclude those with more than two children from contesting panchayat elections.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

MoD signs contract with GSL for construction of two Pollution Control Vessels for Indian Coast Guard.

Source: PIB INDIA

News

  • Ministry of Defence signed a contract with Goa Shipyard Ltd (GSL) for construction of two Pollution Control Vessels (PCVs) for Indian Coast Guard (ICG) at a cost of about Rs 583 crore. These Special Role ships will be indigenously designed, developed and built by GSL.

Pollution Control Vessels

  • The acquisition is under ‘Buy Indian – Indigenously Designed Developed & Manufactured (Buy Indian-IDDM)’, the highest priority category for defence capital procurements.
  • The acquisition will significantly augment the capability of ICG to respond to Oil spill disasters at sea and also enhance Pollution Response (PR) efficiency. These two vessels are scheduled for delivery by November 2024 and May 2025 respectively.
  • At present, ICG has three PCVs in its fleet at Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Porbander to carry out dedicated Pollution Surveillance, Oil spill monitoring/Response operations in Indian EEZ and around islands.
  • The new PCVs planned are for pollution response requirements in Eastern and the ecologically sensitive Andaman & Nicobar Regions.
  • The vessels, with capability of operating helicopter onboard, will have many advanced features with modern PR equipment of niche technology for containing, recovering and dispersing of marine oil spill.

Scientists trace the mystery behind abundance of heavy metals in oldest metal-poor stars.

Source: PIB INDIA

News

  • The abundance of heavy metals in oldest metal-poor stars that are born from the ejecta of first stars has intrigued astronomers for long as already known processes of reaction of chemical elements by nuclear fusion within stars (nucleosynthesis) could not explain it.
  • Scientists have now found a clue to this abundance in a nucleosythesis process called the i-process.

Metal-poor stars

  • Metal-poor stars that show enhancement of carbon, technically called Carbon Enhanced Metal Poor (CEMP) stars which were formed from the ejected material of the first stars that formed after the Big Bang, carry the chemical imprints of early Galactic chemical evolution.
  • Probing into the formation of these metal-poor stars that exhibit enhancement in carbon as well as the specified heavy elements can help trace the origin and evolution of the elements in the Universe.
  • Scientists earlier found that heavier elements are produced mainly by two processes of nucleosynthesis– slow and rapid neutron-capture processes called s and r processes respectively.
  • The CEMP stars showing enhancements of s-process and r-process elements are known as CEMP-s and CEMP-r stars respectively.
  • A group of scientists has achieved a significant advancement in unravelling this puzzle in a recent study published by in the journal, ‘Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A).
  • They have found that an intermediate process which they called i-process operating at neutron densities intermediate between those for s-process and r-process is responsible for the peculiar abundance pattern of CEMP-r/s stars.
  • They have also put forward a new stellar classification criteria based on the abundances of barium, lanthanum and europium to distinguish between the CEMP-s and CEMP-r/s stars.

Parliamentary panel holds meeting on glaciers, seeks to streamline research, warning systems

News

  • The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources, held a meeting in which the possibility of a convergence of data and early warning systems for avalanches and glacier management systems was explored.

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources

  • The committee has been examining glacier management in the country including the monitoring of glaciers and glacial lakes, particularly glacial lake outbursts leading to flash floods in the Himalayan region .
  • The standing committee will now look into the possibility of setting up an inter-nodal agency or mechanism to streamline research as well as warning systems.
  • Members of the committee also discussed the role of state governments, and how this can shift from a mainly reactive role to a more proactive one in aiding mitigation of disasters.
  • With inadequate monitoring of glaciers in India right now, the panel discussed the possibility of establishing a separate Centre of Glaciology (currently only the Wadia institute has one department), the establishment of a network of automated weather stations across the Himalayas, the collection of hydrological data and a standardised protocol for local district officials and administration and the possibility of having hydropower project proponents establish their own early warning systems to disseminate warnings to the local population.

Terrorist safe havens and sanctuaries must be dismantled for enduring peace in Afghanistan: India

News

  • India said that terrorist safe havens and sanctuaries must be dismantled immediately and terrorist supply chains disrupted for enduring peace in Afghanistan as it called for zero tolerance for terrorism in all its forms and manifestations including cross-border attacks.
  • During a UN Security Council debate on the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Indian External Affairs Minister also pressed for a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire in the war-torn nation to ensure immediate reduction in violence and protection of civilian lives.
  • India has been supportive of all the efforts being made to accelerate the dialogue between the Afghan government and the Taliban, including the intra-Afghan negotiations.

IMD to strengthen radar network over Maharashtra, plans new doppler units at Ratnagiri and Vengurla

News

  • The India Meteorological Department (IMD) will install seven new doppler radars in Maharashtra, including Mumbai, this year.

Doppler radars

  • Doppler radars of varying frequencies — S-band, C-band and X-band — are commonly used by the IMD to detect and track the movement of weather systems, cloud bands and gauge rainfall over its coverage area of about 500 km.
  • The radars guide meteorologists, particularly in times of extreme weather events like cyclones and associated heavy rainfall.
  • With the radar observations, updated every 10 minutes, forecasters can follow the development of weather systems as well as their varying intensities, and accordingly predict weather events and their impact.
  • An X-band radar is used to detect thunderstorms and lightning whereas C-band guides at the time of cyclone tracking.
  • India’s east coast, which is frequently affected by the cyclones formed in the Bay of Bengal, has radars operational at eight locations — Kolkata, Paradip, Gopalpur, Vishakhapatnam, Machilipatanam, Sriharikota, Karaikal and Chennai.
  • The modernisation and upgrade of existing radars are ongoing and the IMD plans to have a network of 55 doppler radars.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-04

More than 8,500 children used as soldiers in 2020: UN

News

  • More than 8,500 children were used as soldiers last year in various conflicts across the world and nearly 2,700 others were killed, the United Nations said.

Children were used as soldiers

  • UN chief’s annual report to the Security Council on children and armed conflict covers the killing, maiming and sexual abuse of children, abduction or recruitment, denial of aid access and targeting of schools and hospitals.
  • The report verified that violations had been committed against 19,379 children in 21 conflicts. The most violations in 2020 were committed in Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.
  • It verified that 8,521 children were used as soldiers last year, while another 2,674 children were killed and 5,748 injured in various conflicts.
  • The report also includes a blacklist intended to shame parties to conflicts in the hope of pushing them to implement measures to protect children. The list has long been controversial with diplomats saying Saudi Arabia and Israel both exerted pressure in recent years in a bid to stay off the list.
  • In an effort to dampen controversy surrounding the report, the blacklist released in 2017 by Guterres was split into two categories.
  • One lists parties that have put in place measures to protect children and the other includes parties that have not.
  • The only state parties named on the list for not putting measures in place are Myanmar’s military for killing, maiming and sexual violence against children and Syrian government forces for recruitment of children, killing, maiming and sexual violence against children and attacks on schools and hospitals.