Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Chilika Lake possesses 20% of India’s seagrass

News

• Chilika Lake is claimed to have 20% of India’s seagrass distribution, which plays a vital role in oxygen production and absorption of carbon dioxide and acts as a purifier in aquatic ecology.

Beyond News

• Seagrass distribution has been estimated over an area of 152 sq. km, an increase from 135 sq km in the last year. Increase in seagrass has been reported against its declining trend throughout the world and now Chilika has 20% of India’s seagrass.
• The seagrass area increases only when the water is clean. Seagrass will rejuvenate fishing ground by providing nursery habitat to important fish species.
• Some of the indicators that emerged during the monitoring established the lake’s resilient ecosystem. The annual survey of endangered Irrawaddy dolphins conducted finds population of aquatic mammals in the range of 130-150.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

21 Bangladeshi nationals deported from Assam

News

• The border police in Karimganj district of Assam deported 21 Bangladeshis who had been detained for illegally entering India.

Beyond News

• The 21 persons, two of them women, were sent back from the Sutarkandi border checkpoint after approval from the Union Home Ministry.
• They were handed over to the Bangladeshi authorities who confirmed that they were from Syllhet and Kishoreganj districts of the country.
• They were detained for violation of the Passport Act over the past few months and kept at the detention camp in the Silchar Central Jail. Six of them were held in Cachar district and 11 in Karimganj.
• In July last year, 52 Bangladeshi nationals were deported from the Mankachar sector of the Assam-Bangladesh border. They were “convicted foreigners”, arrested for not possessing valid travel documents or for cross-border crimes.

Demolish wall on elephant corridor: Supreme Court tells Assam’s Numaligarh Refinery

News

• The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal filed by Numaligarh Refinery Ltd. (NRL) and ordered demolition of a 2.2-km boundary wall erected on an elephant migration corridor in eastern Assam’s Golaghat district.

Beyond News

• Environmentalists had objected to the wall the refinery had erected in 2011 for a proposed township in as the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had observed later a part of the Deopahar Reserve Forest.
• The refinery received flak from wildlife activists when a seven-year-old male elephant died of haemorrhage in May 2015 after trying to force its way through the wall. Videos also captured herds trying to cross the high boundary wall with barbed wire in vain.
• In August 2016, the NGT ordered NRL to demolish the wall within a month, but only a 289-metre stretch was demolished.
• Dismissing the NRL’s appeal in the apex court, Justice said there cannot be any township as elephants have the first right on forest.

U.S. wants regular China trade reform review

News

• The United States is pushing for regular reviews of China’s progress on pledged trade reforms as a condition for a trade deal and could again resort to tariffs if it deems Beijing has violated the agreement, according to sources briefed on negotiations to end the trade war between the two nations.
• A continuing threat of tariffs hanging over commerce between the world’s two largest economies would mean a deal would not end the risk of investing in businesses or assets that have been impacted by the trade war.

Beyond News

• The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed import tariffs on Chinese goods to put pressure on Beijing to meet a long list of demands that would rewrite the terms of trade between the two countries.
• The demands include changes to China’s policies on intellectual property protection and other trade barriers.
• An enforcement and verification process is unusual for trade deals and is akin to the process around punitive economic sanctions such as those imposed on North Korea and Iran.
• Disputes over trade are more typically dealt with through courts, the World Trade Organization (WTO) or through arbitration panels and other dispute settlement mechanisms built into trade agreements.
• Trump’s team has criticised the WTO for failing to hold China accountable for not executing on promised market reforms. The U.S. has also criticised the WTO’s dispute settlement process and is seeking reforms at the organisation.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Rajasthan’s State bird may be extinct soon

News

• Almost two years after the Rajasthan government proposed setting up of captive breeding centres for the Great Indian Bustards to boost their wild population, the wildlife activists here have called for enforcement of recovery plan for the country’s most critically endangered bird.

Beyond News

• No progress has been made on the proposal for establishing a captive breeding centre at Sorsan in Kota district and a hatchery in Jaisalmer’s Mokhala village for conservation of the State bird of Rajasthan.
• The GIB’s last remnant wild population of about 50 in Jaisalmer district accounts for 95% of its total world population.
• Suggested that an incubation unit be set up at Jaisalmer district’s Sudasri considered the sanctum sanctorum of the Desert National Park so as to step up recruitment rate of the critically endangered species.

Japan satellite blasts into space to deliver artificial meteors

News

• A rocket carrying a satellite on a mission to deliver the world’s first artificial meteor shower blasted into space.

Beyond News

• A start-up based in Tokyo developed the micro-satellite for the celestial show over Hiroshima early next year as the initial experiment for what it calls a “shooting stars on demand” service.
• The satellite is to release tiny balls that glow brightly as they hurtle through the atmosphere, simulating a meteor shower.
• It hitched a ride on the small-size Epsilon-4 rocket that was launched from the Uchinoura space centre by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
• The rocket carried a total of seven ultra-small satellites that will demonstrate various “innovative” technologies, JAXA spokesman Nobuyoshi Fujimoto said.
• The company ALE Co. Ltd plans to deliver its first out-of-this-world show over Hiroshima in the spring of 2020. The satellite carries 400 tiny balls whose chemical formula is a closely-guarded secret. That should be enough for 20-30 events, as one shower will involve up to 20 stars, according to the company.
• ALE’s satellite, released 500 km above the earth, will gradually descend to 400 km over the coming year during orbit.
• When its two satellites are in orbit, they can be used separately or in tandem, and will be programmed to eject the balls at the right location, speed and direction to put on a show for viewers on the ground.
• Tinkering with the ingredients in the balls should mean that it is possible to change the colours they glow, offering the possibility of a multi-coloured flotilla of shooting stars.
• Each star is expected to shine for several seconds before being completely burned up well before they fall low enough to pose any danger to anything on the earth.

Asteroids are smacking Earth twice as often as before

News

• For the past 290 million years, large asteroids have been crashing into Earth more than twice as often as they did in the previous 700 million years.

Findings

• Asteroids still only smack Earth on average every million or few million years, even with the increased crash rate.
• NASA’s list of potential big space rock crashes shows no pending major threats. The biggest known risk is a 4,200-foot (1.3-km) wide asteroid with a 99.988 percent chance that it will miss Earth when it whizzes very near here in 861 years.
• Compiled a list of impact craters on Earth and the moon that were larger than 12 miles (20 km) wide and came up with the dates of them. It takes a space rock that’s half a mile (800 metres) wide to create holes that big.
• The team counted 29 craters that were no older than 290 million years and nine between 291 million years and 650 million years old.
• The science team determined that the current space crash rate is 2.6 times more than the previous 700 million years.
• Scientists used impact craters on the nearby moon as a stand-in for holes between 650 million and 1 billion years old.
• The moon is a good guide for estimating Earth crashes, because it is close enough to be in the same bombardment path and its craters last longer.

Country’s 2nd defence innovation hub to come up in Maharashtra

News

• Nashik in Maharashtra will be the site of the country’s second defence innovation hub after Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu.

Beyond News

• Defence innovation hub at Nashik will help local industries and entrepreneurs and further the Centre’s Make in India push in the country’s defence sector.
• The Ministry of Defence had set a target of making the country among the top five arms exporters by 2025.

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