Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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Supreme Court cancels 88 mining leases in Goa

News

• The Supreme Court on Wednesday cancelled 88 mining leases in Goa that were renewed by the State government in 2015 just before the Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Development) Act mandated the auction of mining leases.

Beyond News

• All mining activity, involving the Iron and Manganese mines, in Goa would come to a halt by March 15.
• A Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta said the government would examine the applications for mining leases afresh in accordance with the law.
• It said that,the renewal of mining leases was hasty and illegal.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh to be part of India’s tiger census

News

• India’s tiger census, which began late last year, will see coordination with Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh in estimating the territorial spread of the animal in the subcontinent.

Beyond News

• While India has engaged with Nepal and Bangladesh in previous tiger counts, this is the first time all countries are uniting in arriving at tiger numbers, particularly in regions with shared borders.
• Since 2006, the WII a Union Environment Ministry-funded body  has been tasked with coordinating the tiger estimation exercise.
• The once-in-four-years exercise calculated, in 2006, that India had only 1,411 tigers. This rose to 1,706 in 2010 and 2,226 in 2014 in later editions on the back of improved conservation measures and new estimation methods.
• The survey divided into four phases began last winter and is expected to reveal its findings in early 2019.
• Commissioned by the Union Environment Ministry’s National Tiger Conservation Authority, the ₹10 crore exercise this year involves 40,000 forest guards traversing 4,00,000 sq. km. of forests; wildlife biologists independently assessing them; approximately a year’s duration of field work; 14,000 camera traps; and coordination with 18 States.
• Along with tigers, the survey also collects information on the prey population of deer and other animals.

Spider fossil with a whip-like tail found in Myanmar

News

• Scientists have discovered a new species of spider entombed in chunks of amber from northern Myanmar.

Beyond News

• They described four specimens of the arachnid, called Chimerarachne yingi, that inhabited a Cretaceous Period tropical forest about 100 million years ago during the dinosaur age.
• Alongside modern spider traits such as a silk-producing structure called a spinneret, it possessed a remarkably primitive feature: a whip-like tail covered in short hairs that it may have used for sensing predators and prey.
• It is a key fossil for understanding spider origins and new fossil most likely represents the earliest branch of spiders, and implies that there was a lineage of tailed spiders that presumably originated in the Paleozoic (the geological era that ended 251 million years ago) and survived at least into the Cretaceous of Southeast Asia.
• Despite its fearsome appearance, the fanged Chimerarachne was only about three-tenths of an inch long, more than half of which was its tail.
• University of Kansas paleontologist Paul Selden said that,Chimerarachne represents “a kind of missing link” between true spiders and earlier spider forerunners that had tails but lacked spinnerets.
• The earliest arachnids, a group including spiders, scorpions, mites, ticks and others, dates to about 420 million years ago.
• The oldest-known true spiders lived about 315 millions year ago.
• Chimerarachne may have lived under bark or in the moss at the foot of a tree.

ORR peripheries to go green

News

• The Telangana State government has turned its focus on developing forest blocks along the outer ring road.

Beyond News

• Municipal Administration and Industries Minister said that,58,329 hectares of land was available in 194 forest blocks around the ORR under the HMDA limits.
• The officials should focus on the development of these blocks for creation of lung space for the residents, while special emphasis should be laid on mobilising funds for the same.
• The departments concerned should ensure effective coordination in the preparation of plans for development of these parks with focus on harnessing the potential of wellness, medical and eco-tourism offered by the city.
• In addition, efforts should be made to develop a walkway along the Musi riverfront on the lines of the KBR Park.
• Effort should be made to secure the cooperation of citizens as well as walkers’ associations in the development of these lung spaces in addition to encouraging avenue plantations in urban local bodies.
• The Forest Department, on its part, could contribute in promoting nurseries. The departments concerned should also identify mining zones and quarries in different places along the ORR and ensure that they were developed into parks.

There were 13 forest blocks spread over 1,360 hectares in GHMC limits, of which five had been developed fully and another eight were partially developed.

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