Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Drought situation ‘grim’ as 156 taluks in Karnataka face water crisis

News

• The government has described the drought situation in the State as “grim and devastating” as 156 of the total 176 taluks have been reeling under severe water crisis owing to deficient rainfall during kharif and rabi seasons in 2018–19, worsening the condition of farmers.

Beyond News

• It is estimated that loss owing to natural calamities, including floods/landslips and drought during both kharif and rabi seasons is ₹32,335 crore.
• The Centre so far has released ₹949.49 crore as against the NDRF norm of ₹4,460 crore, according to the Minister.
• The State had suffered agricultural crop loss on about 19.46 lakh hectares of land while horticulture crops on 23,313.37 hectares too had dried up during the 2018–19 rabi season. The total estimated loss during rabi was about ₹22,384.47 crore.
• The deputy commissioners have over ₹647 crore at their disposal to take up drought relief works in their respective districts. Over 370 villages were being provided drinking water through 706 tankers and 401 villages through hired private bore wells. In urban areas, 181 wards were being provided drinking water through tankers.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

World Bank pat for Rythu Bandhu implementation

News

Rythu Bandhu, Telangana State government’s flagship programme for providing investment support to farmers, has received accolades from the World Bank for effective measures in the implementation of the scheme to reduce overall cost reduction for farmers.

Beyond News

• According to Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF), a part of the World Bank group, the government had collected phone numbers of farmers when it updated landholding records and hired a call centre to ask farmers if and when they received their cheques. The call centre was asked to seek details on when each farmer cashed the cheques, whether they faced problems in receiving or cashing the cheque and how satisfied they were with the programme.
• A study was conducted on whether using phone calls to monitor the distribution of cheques and telling agricultural officers concerned that calls were being made to beneficiaries to ascertain if they would improve their performance so that more farmers received their payment. The study was a randomised control trial covering 30 of the 31 districts of the State.
• The study revealed that phone based monitoring improved the rate at which farmers received their cheques based on the bank records showing which cheques were cashed. In the control group, 83% farmers cashed their cheques in the four-month period while in the treatment group, there was 1.3 percentage point increase in the number of farmers who cashed their cheques.
• The study said the programme was “highly cost effective” in that the government paid the call centre about US $36,000, meaning that the cost per dollar of benefits delivered to beneficiaries was 3.6 cents which is “lower than the administrative cost of almost any anti-poverty programme for which such data is available”.
• In addition, the programme, which led to more farmers receiving their cheques and receiving them earlier, reduced the farmers’ need to borrow money before the planting season.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

As summer season arrives, Forest Dept. on toes to control wildfires

News

• Tamil Nadu Forest Department has stepped into the most challenging season of the year with the summer triggering incidents of forest fire and crop damages by wild animals that stray out from forest in search of water and fodder.

Beyond News

• With the Department staff forced to engage in fire prevention activities, there is a shortage of manpower to prevent straying of wild animals from the forests, especially wild elephants.
• Forest fringes of Madukkarai forest range witnessed minor fire for at least three consecutive days. Similarly, fire spread to forest fringes in Marudhamalai foothills on Sunday and Thoovaipathi-Panapalli areas of Anaikatti.
• More than 130 Anti-poching Watchers (APWs) and nine-member Rapid Response Team (RRT) are actively involved in the front in preventing forest fire in the Coimbatore Forest Division. They are supported by forest watchers, forest guards, foresters and forest range officers.
• Along with incidents of forest fire, straying of wild animals especially elephants have started in several forest ranges. This was primarily due to shortage of fodder and water in forests.

Northeast India throws up Asia’s oldest bamboo fossils

News

• Northeast India, a bamboo hotspot, has thrown up several bamboo fossils. One of them at around 28 million years old, is the oldest Asian bamboo fossil ever unearthed.

Beyond News

• Scientists came across the fossils on their digs in northeast India. At Assam’s Makum Coalfield, they came across three culm (bamboo stem) fossils, one almost a metre long. At the Subansiri Formation of Doimara in Arunachal Pradesh, the team also came across two bamboo leaf fossils.
• The team compared these culm and leaf fossils to extant bamboo species at the bamboo garden in China’s Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden and samples at the Botanical Survey of India (Kolkata). The leaf fossils belong to two different bamboos, Bambusium doimaraense and  arunachalense (named after where they were unearthed from), approximately 10 million years old (dating to the age of the sandstone deposits, in the late Miocene-Pliocene).
• The culm fossils have been named new species too:Bambusiculmus tirapensis and Bambusiculmus makumensis. These are around 28 million years old and date to the late Oligocene period. According to the scientists, the culm fossils are the earliest evidence of bamboos in Asia (so far, bamboo fossils from Asia date back only to the Neogene (3 to 23 million years ago)).

Flash floods in Afghanistan kill at least 20

News

• At least 20 people including children were killed in southern Afghanistan by flash floods that engulfed up to 2,000 homes and swept away cars, the U.N. agency coordinating relief efforts said.

Beyond News

• Afghan government officials said hundreds of houses in Herat province were destroyed in flash floods.
• Flood-affected families have been evacuated to secure areas in the districts and Kandahar city, including schools, mosques and government buildings.
• At least 10 people, including children, were missing in Arghandab, Daman, Spin Boldak and Dand districts.
• The OCHA statement said a large number of Kochi (nomadic) families, about 500 people, were stranded on the river bank and there was an urgent need for air support to rescue them.
• The rugged mountainous terrain, heavy snowfall and lack of roads were retarding the pace of immediate relief and rescue operations.

UNSC blacklists Osama bin Laden’s son, seen as successor of Al Qaida leader al-Zawahiri

News

• The UN Security Council has designated Hamza bin Laden, the son of slain Al Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, under its sanctions list, subjecting him to a travel ban, assets freeze and an arms embargo as it described him as being seen as the “most probable successor” of the group’s current leader Aiman al-Zawahiri.

Beyond News

• The UN Security Council’s 1267 ISIS and Al Qaida Sanctions Committee listed 29-year old Hamza bin Laden, the day the US announced a reward of up to one million dollars for information about him.
• Saudi Arabia also announced it had revoked the citizenship of Hamza bin Laden via a royal decree.
• A Security Council said al-Zawahiri has announced that the Saudi Arabia-born Hamza is an official member of Al Qaida. Hamza has called for followers of Al-Qaida to commit terror attacks. Is seen as the most probable successor of al-Zawahiri.
• An assets freeze under the Sanctions Committee requires that all States freeze without delay the funds and other financial assets or economic resources of designated individuals and entities.
• The travel ban entails preventing the entry into or transit by all States through their territories by designated individuals.
• Under the arms embargo, all States are required to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale and transfer from their territories or by their nationals outside their territories, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, of arms and related materiel of all types, spare parts, and technical advice, assistance, or training related to military activities, to designated individuals and entities.
• Since at least August 2015, he has released audio and video messages on the Internet calling on his followers to launch attacks against the United States and its Western allies, and he has threatened attacks against the United States in revenge for the May 2011 killing of his father by U.S. service members.
• In January 2017, the State Department had listed Hamza as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, freezing all of his assets based in the United States or in the possession or control of US persons. The designation also prohibited US persons from engaging in transactions with him.

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