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Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Tribal people celebrate onset of monsoon with earth festival

News:

  • When monsoon sets, the tribal people in seven mandals in Rampachodavaram Agency and four mandals in Chinturu revenue division in Andhra Pradesh, celebrate the earth festival to take up agriculture works.

Beyond News

  • The festival lasts for three days. During the three days, the tribal people offer special prayers (puja) to village deities and the agriculture field where they are going to take up sowing. They will get into agriculture related works immediately after the festival.
  • The earth festival is mostly celebrated in Chinturu, Vara Ramachandrapuram, Kunavaram and Yetapaka mandals in which men will leave for hunting of animals in the early hours on all these three days.
  • When men leave for hunting, the women dressed in a traditional way will come on to the main roads and perform Rela dance in groups. They will stop vehicles proceeding to Bhadrachalam side from Rajamahendravaram.

India faces worst water crisis: NITI Aayog

Water crisis india ground water

News

  • The NITI Aayog released the results of a study warning that India is facing its ‘worst’ water crisis in history and that demand for potable water will outstrip supply by 2030 if steps are not taken.
  • Nearly 600 million Indians faced high to extreme water stress and about 2,00,000 people died every year due to inadequate access to safe water.

Findings

  • Twenty-one cities, including Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad will run out of groundwater by 2020, affecting 100 million people, the study noted.
  • If matters are to continue, there will be a 6% loss in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2050.
  • Moreover, critical groundwater resources, which accounted for 40% of India’s water supply, are being depleted at “unsustainable” rates and up to 70% of India’s water supply is “contaminated,” the report says.
  • The NITI Aayog’s observations are part of a study that ranked 24 States on how well they managed their water.
  • Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh took the top three spots, in that order, and Jharkhand, Bihar and Haryana came in last in the ‘Non-Himalayan States’ category. Himachal Pradesh which is facing one of its worst water crises this year  led a separate 8-member list of States clubbed together as ‘North-Eastern and Himalayan.’
  • These two categories were made to account for different hydrological conditions across the two groups.
  • About 60% of the States were marked as “low performers” and this was cause for “alarm,” according to the report.
  • Many of the States that performed badly on the index Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh  accounted for 20-30% of India’s agricultural output.
  • Envisioned as an annual exercise, the Composite Water Management Index (CWMI), to evaluate States, has been developed by the NITI Aayog and comprises 9 broad sectors with 28 different indicators covering various aspects of groundwater, restoration of water bodies, irrigation, farm practices, drinking water, policy and governance.
  • Other experts said that unless India woke up to its water crisis, disaster loomed.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Hyderabad’s Baam Rukn Ud Dowla lake disappears

Death of a lake

News:

  • Baam Rukn Ud Dowla, the small lake in front of the S.V.P. National Police Academy can no longer be seen from the road that connects Aramghar to the Shamshabad Airport.
  • Now, the lake has disappeared. And with it, one of the relics of Nizam’s rule and lifestyle has disappeared.

Baam Rukn Ud Dowla

  • The lake was constructed in 1770 by Nawab Rukn-ud-Daula, prime minister of the third Nizam. Reputedly originally 104 acres, the lake has been subject of controversy over claims of encroachment.
  • The lake has a history dating back to Nizam Ali Khan’s time when Rukn Ud Dowlah was his prime minister. For generations, drinking water for the Nizam’s family was sourced from this lake and used to be transported by pack of animals.

Beyond News

  • While the land abutting the lake was barricaded in 2014, now a new road leads to the wall where the lake waters used to lap the shore.
  • A portion of the S-shaped wall remains where a few young men can be spotted fishing in the lake early in the morning or in the evening.
  • A few housing colonies that came up in early 2000 behind the lake have had to face frequent flooding and still battle water stagnation problem even after a small downpour.
  • A 1976 Survey of India topography map shows an S shaped lake abutting the road. A 2000 satellite image shows a small lake but open ground reaching up to the road. Satellite imagery shows this open space and water level fluctuate over a period of time.
  • The Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority carried out a survey, it marked out the contours and the Full Tank Level (FTL) of the lake in 2014 and it shows the lake bund wall reaching up to the road. Now the whole area has been filled up and the lake bund has disappeared.
  • A 2017 satellite image shows the extent of the the massive earthen work in the area including the wide road that has been laid on the lake bed.

Cyber bullying on the rise, but few want to report it, say officials

Cyber bullying on rise

News

  • While cyber bullying has been on the rise, in Mumbai and across the country, the reluctance of the victims to report the cases has proven to be a hindrance for law enforcement agencies in dealing with such instances, cyber crime officials said, on the eve of Stop Cyber Bullying Day.

Beyond News

  • The Day is observed on the third Friday of June across the world, an initiative of the Cybersmile Foundation to encourage people towards creating a healthy online environment.
  • The foundation, a non-profit organisation working out of London, started the initiative in June 2013 in collaboration with other similarly-minded organisations.
  • Cyber crime officials said the law requires the victims to come forward and register complaints, and investigation and prosecution is not possible unless this first step is taken. They put down the victims’ reluctance to lack of awareness about laws and infrastructure.
  • Special Inspector General of Police (Cyber Crime) said that,the Central government has allotted ₹4 crore to every State for cyber security.
  • Maharashtra is the only State that has put in ₹1,000 crore towards dealing with cyber crimes and has one police station dedicated to cyber crime in every district.
  • Cyber experts said that under the circumstances, prevention is the best cure. Some basic safety tips include talking to loved ones about potential dangers, encouraging them to confide in you, refraining from sharing excessive information online and not hesitating to seek legal help.

Pakistan Taliban chief Fazlullah killed in U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan

News

  • Chief of Pakistan Taliban Maulana Fazlullah has been killed in a United States drone strike in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province, an Afghan Defence Ministry official confirmed.

Beyond News

  • Fazlullah, who has been designated as a global terrorist by the U.S. and carried a bounty of $5 million, had been on the run since his loyalists were routed in a major military operation in Pakistan’s Swat district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in 2009.
  • The U.S. military said it carried out a strike targeting a senior militant leader in Afghanistan. It, however, did not identify him.
  • Fazlullah, also known by the alias Radio Mullah or Maulana Radio due to his long sermons on a private radio channel, and his commanders were having an Iftar party at a compound when a remotely piloted U.S. aircraft targeted them, reports said.
  • Fazlullah had directed numerous high-profile attacks against the U.S. and Pakistani targets since he was appointed the group’s leader in 2013, including the December 2014 attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar that killed 151 people, including more than 130 children.
  • The U.S. says Fazlullah ordered the 2012 attempted assassination of Malala Yousafzai, who became a global symbol of the fight for girls’ rights to schooling.
  • The U.S. strike comes amid a ceasefire between the Afghan Taliban and Afghan security forces to mark the end of the Ramzan month.

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