Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

Editorials are covered separately. HINDU NOTES are available free date wise| CLICK HERE

Can changes in the Atlantic ocean affect the Indian Summer Monsoon

News

• Changes in the equatorial Atlantic ocean have been known to have an inverse relationship with the Indian summer monsoon rainfall.
• This means if there is a cold phase in the Atlantic, it can bring more rainfall to India and vice versa.

Findings

• Researchers have shown that this relationship has significantly strengthened in recent decades.
• The researchers looked at sea surface temperature changes, wind patterns over the Atlantic Ocean and compared it with the Indian monsoon patterns for the past 106 years.
• They studied how the relationship has evolved from 1903- 2010 They divided the years into three equal parts and looked at the emerging trend.
• El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) refers to the changes in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean. These changes are known to influence the climate the tropical countries.
• El Niño occurs when sea surface temperatures rise to above-normal levels for an extended period of time, The opposite phase of El Niño is called La Niña when sea surface temperatures drop to lower-than-normal levels.
• El Niño generally suppresses monsoon rainfall; La Niña generally increases it. But the relationship is not that straightforward. There are many years especially past 1990, this relationship do not hold.
• Not just these two oceans but also changes in the Indian Ocean known as Indian Ocean dipole play an important role in our rainfall patterns.
• Indian Ocean dipole is an irregular oscillation of sea-surface temperatures in which the western Indian Ocean becomes alternately warmer and then colder than the eastern part of the ocean.
• Anomalous warming of the West Indian Ocean (South Arabian Sea) relative to the East is considered a booster for a concurrent Indian monsoon.
• The warming or cooling of the Atlantic Ocean (also known as Atlantic Zonal Mode or Atlantic Nino) influences the Kelvin waves in the atmosphere. These waves are eastward moving disturbances in the troposphere (lowest region of the atmosphere, just about 10 km above the ground).
• The waves move towards the tropical Indian Ocean and either increase or decrease the atmospheric temperature. This in turn influences the temperature gradient between Indian Ocean and subcontinent and thereby affecting the monsoon.
• When predicting monsoon patterns, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) should start taking the changes in the Atlantic Ocean also into consideration.

Hindi the first choice of people in only 12 States

News

• People in only 12 out of 35 States (figures are for undivided Andhra Pradesh) and Union Territories (UTs) had overwhelmingly chosen Hindi as their first choice for communication.
• Among the rest, while a few chose Hindi as their second or third language of communication, a majority chose English, according to the 2011 language Census.
• About 43.63% of the total population said their mother tongue was Hindi.

Findings

• The 2011 Census data shows that most States, apart from a few in northern and central India, do not primarily speak Hindi but have adopted the language as a secondary language. Most southern and northeastern States are not Hindi-speaking and have adopted English as their secondary language.
• The map shows the State-wise percentage of people who stated that Hindi was their first, second or third choice of language. Most of the 12 States and UTs that chose Hindi as their first choice were located in northern and central India over 96% of the population in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh speak Hindi.
• The share of Hindi-speaking people in Gujarat is significantly lower than most States. The southern and north-eastern States, apart from Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, have the lowest proportion of Hindi-speaking population, among all States.
• In 23 States and UTs, Hindi was not the first choice of language. Of the 23, in 16 States, a very low percentage had chosen Hindi as a second or third choice.
• All southern States, most north-eastern States, Gujarat and West Bengal have the least proportion of people who speak in Hindi in India. Only 0.6% of the people in Kerala are native speakers of Hindi, the least in India, and Tamil Nadu has the smallest percentage of general speakers of the language.
• Maharashtra, Punjab and Sikkim have higher than average general Hindi speakers, while also having a substantially lower proportion of native Hindi speakers.
• States that have a lesser proportion of Hindi speakers have a higher proportion of English speakers, compared to States that have a higher share of Hindi speakers.
• While Goa has the highest proportion of English speakers in India, Bihar and Chhattisgarh have the least share of English speakers. In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, 20.15% and 18.49% of the people speak English respectively.

India at 95 on maiden Gender Index

News

• India ranked 95th out of a total 129 countries in the first-ever SDG Gender Index, which measures strides made in achieving gender commitments against internationally set targets.

Beyond News

• The index has been developed by Equal Measures 2030, which is a partnership among global and regional organisations from the civil society and the development and private sectors.
• It includes The African Women’s Development and Communication Network, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, International Women’s Health Coalition and Plan International.

Findings

• The index finds that no country has fully achieved the promise of gender equality and that the global average score of 65.7 out of 100 is “poor”.
• This means that almost 1.4 billion, or 40%, of the world’s girls and women live in countries failing on gender equality and another 1.4 billion live in countries that barely pass.
• Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Slovenia, Germany, Canada, Ireland, and Australia rank as the top 10 countries in the index, while the bottom 10 comprise Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Yemen, Congo, DR Congo and Chad.
• The SDG Gender Index includes 51 indicators across 14 of the 17 official Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The indicators include those that are gender specific, as well as those that are not but have an effect on girls and women.
• The overall index scores are based on a scale of 0–100. A score of 100 indicates the achievement of gender equality in relation to the underlying indicators. A score of 50 would indicate that a country is about halfway to meeting its goal.
• India’s score of 56.2 means that it is among 43 countries that fall in the ‘very poor’ category.
• India scores the highest in health (79.9), followed by hunger (76.2) and energy ( 71.8). Among the SDGs, on which the country performs poorly are partnerships (18.3), industry, infrastructure and innovation (38.1) and climate (43.4).

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

Mandatory Hindi goes out of draft education policy

News

• The clause recommending mandatory teaching of Hindi in all schools was dropped from the draft National Education Policy on Monday, after the Union government faced an intense backlash from Tamil Nadu and protests from some other States.

Beyond News

• However, the revised draft uploaded by the Human Resource Development Ministry retains the recommendation to introduce a three-language formula from Class 1 onwards, merely having removed the clause stipulating the specific languages that students must choose.
• Since the original draft was released evening, all Opposition parties in Tamil Nadu have severely criticised the recommendations.
• The ruling AIADMK, an ally of the NDA government in the Centre, also refused to dilute the State’s two-language formula.
• Protests were also reported over the weekend in West Bengal, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

23-year-old student infected with Nipah virus, confirms Kerala govt

News

• Nearly a year after the outbreak in Kozhikode and Malappuram, the deadly Nipah has resurfaced in 
• It has been confirmed that a 23-year-old college student here is infected.

Beyond News

• 311 people from various districts with whom the student had interacted in recent times were under observation.
• The Centre rushed a six-member team to Kerala. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan spoke to Ms. Shylaja to discuss the situation and assured her all support from the Centre.
• The Health Ministry said the team, among them an epidemiologist, had been sent to the State for contact tracing for early detection of suspects and review isolation facilities.
• A control room has been set up and the Strategic Health Operations Centre (SHOC) of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has been activated.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

RBI sets banks’ group exposure limit at 25% of capital base

News

• The Reserve Bank of India has decided to reduce banks’ exposure to a group of connected parties to 25% of its capital base, while the exposure to a single party has been capped at 20%.
• However, bank boards can allow an additional 5% exposure in ‘exceptional cases.’

Beyond News

• Till now, a bank’s exposure to a single borrower and a borrower group was restricted to 15% and 40% of capital funds respectively.
• The central bank, which notified a new framework for large exposures of banks,decided to exclude entities connected with the sovereign from definition of group of connected counterparties.
• The RBI has introduced economic interdependence criteria in definition of connected counterparties in the new guidelines.
• The sum of all the exposure values of a bank to a single counterparty must not be higher than 20% of the bank’s available eligible capital base at all times, the RBI said.
• The sum of all the exposure values of a bank to a group of connected counterparties must not be higher than 25% of the bank’s available eligible capital base at all times, the new norms said.
• Banks have to report large exposures defined as 10% of capital to RBI.
• In some cases, a bank may have exposures to a group of counterparties with specific relationships or dependencies such that, were one of the counterparties to fail, all of the counterparties would very likely fail. A group of this sort, referred to in this framework as a group of connected counterparties, must be treated as a single counterparty.

Trove of 1,800 exploding stars discovered

News

Scientists have discovered about 1,800 new supernovae, or exploding stars, that may help measure how fast the universe is expanding.

The researchers combined data from one of the world’s most powerful digital cameras and a telescope capable of capturing a wider shot of the night sky compared to other big telescopes.

The finding includes 58 Type Ia supernovae located eight billion light years away.

Navy’s P-8I surveillance aircraft, satellites scout for missing An-32

News

• Search and Rescue (SAR) efforts of the Indian Air Force (IAF) to locate its An-32 transport aircraft that went missing with 13 onboardover Arunachal Pradesh were stepped up, with overnight efforts giving no leads.

Beyond News

• The Navy’s P-8 I aircraft joined the search operations. Cartosat and Risat satellites of the ISRO are taking images of the area. Post sunset, search by helicopters have ceased. However, search by all sensors with night capability and the ground party will continue throughout the night.
• The IAF had pressed into service a C-130, one AN-32, two Mi-17 helicopters and one Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH). An Army ALH is also part of the search team. In addition, ground teams of the Army and the ITBP are scouting the area.
• The An-32s are equipped with an Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT), which will be active for a few days after a crash. It gets activated when the impact of a crash is 20 times that of gravity or 20g, and works based on line of sight, which means the search aircraft have to pass overhead to be able to pick up its signal. No signal had been detected from the ELT so far.
• The IAF operates around 100 An-32s and a major upgrade and life extension of the fleet is underway. The missing aircraft is yet to be upgraded.
• During the search, aircraft are assigned different paths based on the coordinates within the search area. Once a possible lead is identified, helicopter and ground teams are sent in.

Security agencies make a list of top terrorists

News

• Security agencies have prepared a list of 10 most wanted terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, who will be eliminated or taken down in targeted operations to be launched soon, officials said.
• Riyaz Ahmed Naikoo, Hizbul Mujahideen’s chief commander in the Valley, tops the list, which is based on inputs from intelligence agencies, paramilitary forces, the Army and the police. He is involved in subversive activities that caused casualties among security forces and civilians.

Supersonic cruise missile BrahMos test-fired

News

• Supersonic cruise missile BrahMos was test-fired from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur in Odisha.

Beyond News

• The anti-ship version of the missile was launched around noon from the launch complex-3 of the ITR.
• Described as the world’s fastest supersonic cruise missile with high rate of precision and accuracy, BrahMos can be fired from land, sea and air.
• The missile, with a strike range of around 290 km, is a strategic asset for India as it would act as a deterrence against any possible threats from China and Pakistan, they said.
• BrahMos is a joint venture between the DRDO and the NPOM of Russia.
• The highly versatile BrahMos has been operationalised in the Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force.
• BrahMos has established itself as a major force multiplier in modern-day complex battlefields with its impeccable land-attack, anti-ship capabilities with multi-role and multi-platform abilities.

CLICK HERE TO SEE DATE WISE CURRENT AFFAIRS