Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Biggest king penguin colony shrinks by 90%

News

• The planet’s largest colony of king penguins has declined by nearly 90% in three decades, researchers have warned.

Beyond News

• The last time scientists set foot on France’s remote Ile aux Cochons roughly half way between the tip of Africa and Antarctica the island was blanketed by two million of the flightless birds, which stand about a metre tall.
• But recent satellite images show the population has collapsed, with barely 2,00,000 remaining, according to a study. While adults will set to sea for days at a time foraging for food, the species does not migrate.
• It is unexpected, and particularly significant since this colony represented nearly one third of the king penguins in the world.
• Climate change may play a role. In 1997, a particularly strong El Nino weather event warmed the southern Indian Ocean, temporarily pushing the fish and squid on which king penguins depend south, beyond their foraging range.
• “This resulted in population decline and poor breeding success” for all the king penguin colonies in the region.
• El Nino’s are cyclical events that occur every two to seven years. But they can be amplified by global warming, which itself produces many of the same results, albeit on a longer timescale.
• Migration is not an option because there are no other suitable islands within striking range.
• Other factors may be contributing to the decline of the Ile aux Cochon colony, including overcrowding.
• The larger the population, the fiercer the competition between individuals.
• The repercussions of lack of food are thus amplified and can trigger an unprecedented rapid and drastic drop in numbers.
• But this so-called “density-dependent effect” can also be made worse by climate change.
• Another possible culprit is avian cholera, which has affected seabirds on nearby Marion and Amsterdam Islands, including some king penguins.

India’s population growth rate is overestimated: study

News

• India’s population growth rate is highly overestimated by existing models, say scientists,suggest that accounting for the diversity and differences in the levels of education among people can help arrive at more accurate projections.

Beyond News

• Accurate population projections could help India and its workforce catch up to more developed Asian countries with higher GDP per capita, researchers suggest.
• By 2025, India is expected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country due to higher fertility rates and a younger population.
• To account for the diversity between different areas of India, researchers designed a study that pioneered a five-dimensional model of India’s population differences that include rural or urban place of residence, state, age, sex, and level of education.
• The model was then used to show the population projection changes within scenarios that combine different levels of these factors.
• For example, a much higher population projection results from a model that combines data from individual states as compared to the overall national projection, since states with higher fertility rates eventually add up to a higher national population projection.
• If the projection is carried out while only explicitly accounting for age and sex, influential factors like higher education, associated with decreased fertility, are left out. Thus, a projection based on today’s much higher fertility rate of uneducated and rural women predicts a drastically larger population in the future.
• Depending on the dimensions considered, when fertility, mortality, education and migration rates are frozen at the 2011 levels, stratification by education, states, or residence can result in population projections that span a huge range from 1.6 to 3.1 billion.
• Where these rates change according to plausible model predictions, the population peaks between 1.65 to around 1.8 billion.

The difference between projections shows the importance of deciding which demo graphical measures to include in a projection model.

Unusual heatwaves will become the norm: experts

News

• Intense heatwaves like the one which fuelled Greece’s deadly wildfires are set to become increasingly frequent around the world due to climate change, experts warn.

Beyond News

• Record high temperatures have been registered across the Northern Hemisphere in recent weeks, from Norway to Japan.
• Sweltering summers are the norm in Greece, where at least 82 people have been killed in the country’s worst ever forest fires.
• But in Northern Europe the recent heatwave is exceptional, and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) predicts temperatures will continue to beat the seasonal average from Ireland to Scandinavia and the Baltic countries until early August.
• This has been the hottest July for at least 250 years in Sweden, where indigenous Sami reindeer herders have been among those worst hit by an unprecedented drought as well as devastating wildfires.
• Each individual event is very difficult to attribute directly to human activity.
• But the soaring temperatures of recent weeks are consistent with what they expect as a result of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions, according to deputy secretary-general of the WMO.
• A study concluded that global warming was solely responsible for worldwide record temperatures recorded in 2016 as well as an extreme heatwave in Asia.
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN panel of experts, warned in a 2012 report that its models forecast increasingly intense episodes of extreme weather in the coming decades. Even if the world manages to limit temperature increases to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels as agreed in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, experts predict worse droughts, heatwaves ,floods and hurricanes, and across wider stretches of territory.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

SC/ST Act: Cabinet clears Bill to restore provisions

News:

• The Union Cabinet gave its nod to a Bill to restore the original provisions of a law on atrocities against Dalits and tribals, acceding to a key demand of Dalit groups ahead of their call for a ‘Bharat Bandh’ on August 9, a top government source said.

Beyond News:

• The Bill to restore the original provisions of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act will be brought in Parliament.
• The Supreme Court in a ruling in March had introduced safeguards which, Dalit leaders and organisations said, diluted the Act and rendered it toothless.

UAE launches amnesty scheme for overstayers

News

• The UAE launched a landmark three-month visa amnesty programme that will benefit hundreds of illegal foreign workers, including Indians, who are overstaying their permits.

Beyond News

• The programme allows the workers to leave the country without paying penalty and also gives them six months to find a job.
• The UAE is home to 2.8 million Indian expatriates, the largest expatriate community in the country.
• The government did not release specific numbers, but said thousands of people, primarily labourers from countries like India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and the Philippines, will benefit from the the amnesty scheme.
• As per Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship (ICA), the entity responsible for entry and residence of foreigners in the UAE, visa violators before August 1, 2018 will be able to rectify their status legally during the amnesty period, which will end on October 31.
• Those who have been blacklisted and those who have legal cases against them are not eligible for amnesty.
• This is the third such amnesty announced by the UAE government in just over a decade, media reports said. Overstaying residents have the option of exiting the country without facing punishment. Alternatively, they can also rectify their status by getting a new sponsored, valid visa.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

RBI hikes repo rates by 25 basis points

News

• The six-member monetary policy committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to increase the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.5% due to inflation concerns.

Beyond News

• Repurchase rate or the repo rate is the rate at which the RBI lends money to commercial banks in the event of any shortfall of funds. Reverse repo the rate at which the RBI borrows money from commercial banks within the country  is adjusted to 6.25 per cent.
• Five members of the MPC voted for the rate hike. While raising the key policy rates, the RBI, however, has maintained the neutral policy stance.
• According to the RBI, inflation outlook is likely to be shaped by several factors, including the government’s decision to increase the minimum support price (MSP) for kharif crops.
• The RBI has projected the inflation at 4.6 per cent in Q2, 4.8% in H2 of 2018-19 and 5.0% in Q1 of 2019-20 “with risks evenly balanced”.
• The MPC reiterates its commitment to achieving the medium-term target for headline inflation of 4 per cent on a durable basis, the RBI said.

GI logo, tagline launched

News

• Commerce and Industry Minister launched a logo and tagline for Geographical Indications (GI) to increase awareness about intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the country.

Beyond News

• A GI product is primarily an agricultural, natural or a manufactured product (handicraft and industrial goods) originating from a definite geographical territory.
• Darjeeling Tea, Tirupati Laddu, Kangra Paintings, Nagpur Orange and Kashmir Pashmina are among the registered GIs in India.
• Commerce and Industry Minister said the initiative would help promote awareness and importance of GI products.
• The Ministry had launched a contest for designing a logo and tagline for GIs.

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