Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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PM’s maternity scheme benefits 23.6 lakh

News

• After initial hiccups in implementing the maternity benefit programme Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), the government has finally made some headway and provided cash incentives to nearly 23.6 lakh beneficiaries out of an estimated 51.6 lakh a year.

Beyond News

• The scheme was approved by the Union Cabinet in May 2017 and expected to be rolled out in September. However, until January 2018, the government programme had covered only 90,000 women a mere 2% of the target.
• Under the scheme, pregnant women and lactating mothers are offered a cash incentive of ₹6,000 for the birth of their first child as partial compensation for wage loss, to reduce maternal mortality and malnutrition levels among children.
• The official was confident of meeting the target.
• An amount of ₹673 crore has been transferred to the accounts of the beneficiaries out of the total budget of ₹2,594 crore set aside for the scheme last year, and another ₹2,400 crore allocated for the current fiscal. The scheme is being implemented on a 60:40 cost-sharing basis with the State governments.
• While States like Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Odisha and West Bengal have their own maternity benefit schemes and have been reluctant to implement the PMMVY, the senior official said they were bound to comply because the scheme was a by-product of the National Food Security Act.

India to host first BIMSTEC war games in September

News

• India will host the first military exercise of the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) group focussing on counter-terrorism in September. As part of this, a conclave of the Army chiefs of all seven member-states is being planned.

Beyond News

• The exercise is scheduled to be held in Pune in the second week of September.
• The aim of the exercise is to promote strategic alignment among the member-states and to share best practices in the area of counter terrorism, a defense source said.
• BIMSTEC was set up in 1997 and includes India, Bangladesh, Bhutan Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
• The theme includes counter-terrorism in semi-urban terrain and cordon and search, and each side will bring in some 30 soldiers.
• The conclave of Army chiefs is scheduled on the last two days of the exercise. The chiefs will debate the challenge of terrorism and transnational crime, which is a major concern among all the states and on how they can promote collective cooperation, the source said.
• BIMSTEC countries held a disaster management exercise in 2017, but this is the first military exercise of the grouping which brings together important neighbours of India in South and Southeast Asia.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Scientists seek to find mass of ‘ghost particle’

News

• Researchers in Germany have started collecting data with a 60 million euro ($71 million) machine designed to help determine the mass of the universe’s lightest particle.

Beyond News

• Physicists, engineers and technicians at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology hope the 200-metric tonne device will narrow down or even pinpoint the actual mass of neutrinos.
• Those are sometimes called “ghost particles” because they’re so difficult to detect.
• Researchers say determining the mass of neutrinos is one of the most important open questions in particle physics and will help scientists better understand the history of the universe. Some 200 people from 20 institutions in seven countries are part of the project.

ISRO’s PRL scientists discover an ‘EPIC’ planet

News

• In an epic Indian discovery, a team from the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, has spotted for the first time a distant planet six times bigger than Earth and revolving around a Sun-like star about 600 light years away. Both the planet and the star have been named EPIC.

Beyond News

• With this discovery India has joined a handful of countries which have discovered planets around stars,” PRL’s parent Indian Space Research Organisation has announced.
• Significantly, the discovery was made using a PRL-designed spectrograph, PARAS, to measure and confirm the mass of the new planet.
• EPIC 211945201b (or K2-236b) is the name given to the planet by the discovery team led by PRL’s Abhijit Chakraborty. The host star is named EPIC 211945201 or K2-236.
• The scientists observed the target over a time 420 days or about 1.5 years.
• They measured the mass of the planet using the indigenously designed PRL Advance Radial-velocity Abu-sky Search or PARAS spectrograph integrated with the 1.2-metre telescope located at PRL’s Gurushikhar Observatory in Mount Abu, Rajasthan.
• EPIC was found circling very close to the Sun-like star, going around it once in about 19.5 days and unlikely to be inhabitable because of its high surface temperature of around 600°C.
• The team found the planet to be smaller in size than Saturn and bigger than Neptune. Its mass is about 27 times Earth’s and six times that of Earth at radius. The scientists estimate that over 60% of its mass could be made up of heavy elements like ice, silicates and iron.

Kozhikode steps up disaster management activities

News:

• With the monsoon gathering strength and causing large-scale destruction in the district, efforts are on to revive the activities of all the task forces in various taluks for effective disaster management.

Beyond News:

• Senior Revenue officers have been asked to review the preparedness of such groups in all villages to deal with flash floods, landslips and whirlwinds, and adopt a suitable action plan for the monsoon season.
• Along with the Revenue squad, officials from Fire and Rescue, Police and Fisheries departments will play a major role in the rescue activities.
• Support of voluntary organisations will also be roped in to mitigate the effects of natural calamities. Fire and Rescue Service officials said many such voluntary groups had been trained to be deployed during emergencies as community rescue volunteers. The groups were capable of managing an emergency situation till the arrival of rescue teams, they added.
• Arrangements are also in place in coastal areas to shift families in case of serious sea erosion threat or high tide. Revenue officials have reviewed facilities in some school buildings in the city limit to rehabilitate people. A separate control room is now functional at the Beypore fisheries station to attend to rescue requests from fishers.
• As an additional security measure, avenue trees that pose a threat to commuters safety will soon be cleared. The formation of a quick response team to swing into action in the event of tree falls will be considered this week.

‘Draft pesticide Pesticides Management bill will hurt farmers’

News:

• A group of Indian pesticide manufacturers says that the proposed Pesticides Management Bill, which is likely to be finalised this month, will harm both farmers and the domestic industry by not making it mandatory for the active ingredients of pesticides to be revealed in the registration process.

Beyond News:

• The Bill, a draft of which was made available for public feedback by the Ministry for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in February 2018, is intended to replace and update the Insecticides Act, 1968. The existing law mandates the registration of active ingredients, and allows for “me-too” registrations under Section 9(4).
• However, in 2007, the government started allowing importers to register new formulations while keeping active ingredients secret for a fixed period.
• Currently, the domestic pesticide market is valued at around ₹20,000 crore, of which importers hold 30%, according to the PMFAI.

Novel material can remove pollutants from water

News:

• Scientists have identified absorbent materials that can help soak up pollutants found in urban waste water in less than 24 hours.

Beyond News:

• Researchers from University of Seville in Spain evaluated two types of phyllosilicates: a highly-charged expandable synthetic mica (Na-Mica-4), and one obtained from cation exchange with an organo-functionalised mica (C18-Mica-4).
• Phyllosilicates are a subclass of silicates and include common mineral in very different environments.
• The results show that the material C18-Mica-4 is capable of eliminating the majority of pollutants that were evaluated in urban waste water, as well as surface water and potable water.
• The study also provides data on the adsorption mechanism and establishes a significant correlation between the physical chemical properties of the selected criteria and emerging pollutants and the adsorption to the material.
• In total, 18 organic pollutants were studied, among which were industrial pollutants, personal care products, and the pharmacological active ingredients such as anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, anti-epileptics, central nervous system stimulants and lipid-lowering agents, among others.
• Within the industrial pollutants, several compounds frequently used as cleaning products were analysed, as well as others used as water- and oil-repellents. With the personal care products, two synthetic preservatives were analysed (methylparaben and propylparaben), both widely used in cosmetic and pharmaceutical products.

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