Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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India gets support from Australia, France

News

• India received support for its air strike on a Jaish camp in Pakistan from several countries, including Australia and France.

Beyond News

• France recognises India’s legitimacy to ensure its security against cross-border terrorism and asks Pakistan to put an end to operations of terrorist groups established on its territory.
• The British government called on India and Pakistan to pursue diplomatic solutions. U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt held telephone conversations with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
• The Foreign Secretary highlighted the U.K.’s concern about the threat to regional stability from terrorism.
• Organisation of Islamic Cooperation condemned “the Indian incursion and aerial violation.” The criticism comes four days ahead of Ms. Swaraj’s speech at the OIC inaugural address in the UAE, which will be India’s first appearance at the 57-nation grouping.

IAF plane shot down, pilot taken captive by Pak. army

News

• An Indian pilot was captured by Pakistan after a major aerial confrontation and chase between Pakistan Air Force planes, which dropped bombs in four locations of Jammu and Kashmir, and Indian Air Force jets that countered them over the Line of Control (LoC).

Beyond News

• The confrontation began after Pakistan sent several aircraft to the LoCon in retaliation for the Indian Air Force strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammad camp in Balakot a day earlier.
• The government said IAF jets shot down an F-16 jet of the PAF in the skirmish, and the wreckage had fallen on the Pakistan side. Pakistan’s military, however, denied the loss of any aircraft.
• The pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, began to chase the Pakistani jets and push them back, when he had to eject over the LoC after the MiG-21 he was flying was shot by a Pakistani plane and then landed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, where he was taken into custody.
• In the evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting of the service chiefs, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and other senior officials to take stock of the day’s developments and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s appeal for dialogueto de-escalate the situation.
• According to a release from the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, the PAF had carried out strikes without crossing the LoC at “non-military targets, avoiding human loss and collateral damage”.
• Rejecting the Pakistani claims, the MEA said that Pakistan’s aerial response had in fact targeted military installations on the Indian side and “due to [IAF’s] high state of readiness and alertness, Pakistan’s attempts were foiled successfully.”
• Terming the Pakistani operations an “unprovoked act of aggression”, the government said India reserves the right to “take firm and decisive action”, calling for the immediate return of the pilot.
• Referring to the Indian strikes on Balakot, the MEA said it had also handed over a dossier to Mr. Shah with “specific details of JeM complicity in the Pulwama terror attack and the presence of JeM terror camps and its leadership in Pakistan” and called on Pakistan to take immediate action against terrorism emanating from its territory.
• With the possibility of escalation growing, several countries rushed in to appeal for restraint from New Delhi and Islamabad.

 India-Pakistan tensions: Russia urges India, Pakistan to ‘show restraint’

News

• The U.S. firmly asked Pakistan to take “meaningful action” against terrorist groups operating on its soil after India’s counter-terrorism action against it and asked the two neighbours to exercise restraint and avoid escalation at any cost.

Beyond News

• S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a phone call with Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi also called for avoiding military action.
• In a separate call with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Pompeo emphasised the close security partnership between the U.S. and India and shared goal of maintaining peace and security in the region.
• France is working on a proposal to ban the chief of the UN-proscribed Jaish-e Muhammad (JeM) Masood Azhar and could move it in the Sanctions Committee after it assumes the Presidency of the powerful UN Security Council next month, sources said.
• The rotating monthly Presidency of the 15-nation UN Security Council (UNSC) will go from Equatorial Guinea to France on March 1.
• France, a permanent member of the Council with veto powers, is working on the proposal (to ban Azhar) and it should be ready soon , the proposal against the JeM chief could perhaps be moved in the Sanctions Committee under the French presidency.
• China  again called on India and Pakistan to exercise restraint amid the escalation of hostilities between the two countries and urged them to engage in dialogue to uphold the peace and stability in the region.
• Sri Lankasaid that it was deeply concerned about the increasing tensions between India and Pakistan after the Pulwama attack and asked the two nations to act in a manner that ensures the security, peace and stability of the entire region.
• The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it has unequivocally condemned this terrorist attack in Pulwama and stands firmly in the fight against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Drug residue in fresh water pose global environmental risk: Study

News

• Concentrations of pharmaceuticals have increased in freshwater sources all over the world over the past 20 years, with levels of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin having potentially damaging ecological effects, scientists say.

Findings

• The research is the first to examine the risks of two particular medicines in global freshwater sources.
• For the two pharmaceuticals investigated in the study carbamazepine, an anti-epileptic drug, and ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic the environmental risks were found to be 10 to 20 times higher in 2015 than in 1995.
• The increased human use of ciprofloxacin was found to have a particularly high impact globally.
• The concentrations of this antibiotic can be harmful for bacteria in the water, and these bacteria in turn play an important role in various nutrient cycles.
• Antibiotics can also have a negative impact on the effectiveness of bacteria colonies used in wastewater
• Antibiotic resistance has been on the agenda of the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations General Assembly for a few years now.
• Generally, it’s seen as a problem for the health sector, as resistant bacteria can be spread within hospitals or through livestock.

New NASA mission to study, forecast space weather selected

News

• NASA has selected a $42 million mission that will help scientists understand and, ultimately, forecast the vast space weather system around our planet.
• Space weather is important because it can have profound impacts affecting technology and astronauts in space, disrupting radio communications and, at its most severe, overwhelming power grids.

Beyond News

• The new experiment will, for the first time, obtain global observations of an important driver of space weather in a dynamic region of Earth’s upper atmosphere that can cause interference with radio and GPS communications.
• The Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) mission will cost $42 million and is planned to launch in August 2022, attached to the exterior of the Earth-orbiting International Space Station (ISS).
• From its space station perch, AWE will focus on colourful bands of light in Earth’s atmosphere, called airglow, to determine what combination of forces drive space weather in the upper atmosphere.
• Researchers once thought that only the Sun’s constant outflow of ultraviolet light and particles, the solar wind, could affect the region.
• However, recently they have learned that solar variability is not enough to drive the changes observed, and Earth’s weather also must be having an effect.
• To help unravel that connection, AWE will investigate how waves in the lower atmosphere, caused by variations in the densities of different packets of air, impact the upper atmosphere.
• AWE is a Mission of Opportunity under NASA’s Heliophysics Explorers Program, which conducts focused scientific research and develops instrumentation to fill the scientific gaps between the agency’s larger missions.
• Since the 1958 launch of NASA’s first satellite Explorer 1, which discovered Earth’s radiation belts, the Explorers Program has supported more than 90 missions. The Uhuru and Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) missions led to Nobel prizes for their investigators.
• AWE was selected for development based on its potential science value and the feasibility of its development plans.
• NASA also has selected the Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) for a seven-month, $100,000 extended formulation study. SunRISE would be an array of six CubeSats operating like one large radio telescope.
• This proposed mission would investigate how giant space weather storms from the Sun, called solar particle storms, are accelerated and released into planetary space.

More than 15,000 acres of forest ravaged by fire in Bandipur

News

• The immensity of the fire that has ravaged Bandipur is becoming clearer with two satellite data analyses indicating that the extent of forests burnt could be over 15,000 acres.

Beyond News

• Though the authorities had estimated the damage to be between 6,000 and 8,000 acres, a summary report by the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC).
• The report states that 24.49 hectares were affected on February 23, 1,808.64 hectares on February 24, and 4,419.54 hectares on February 25. This translates to a total of nearly 15,450 acres.
• The NRSC report says that burnt area assessment using Sentinel 2 satellite data was carried out based on the tone, texture, shape and association of the burnt patches.
• There were 127 fire counts in Bandipur between February 21 and 25, as per the report.

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