Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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

Cyclone Fani’s fury creates four new mouths in Odisha’s Chilika Lake

News

• The extremely severe cyclone, Fani, has created four new mouths in Chilika Lake, Asia’s largest brackish water lake, connecting to Bay of Bengal, officials said.

Beyond News

• Chilika Development Authority (CDA) officials have started studying the impact of saline ingression into the lake.
• While three new mouths have come up between the two functional mouths near Sanpatna and Arakhakuda, a smaller mouth has been noticed on the northern side.
• In the meantime, a lot of sea water is entering Chilika Lake. They are now monitoring its salinity level at different stations. If sea water ingression goes up, fish migration will increase and the biodiversity will get richer.
• Three of the four sectors are more or less marine ecosystems. Chilika Lake is a mixture of saline and fresh water.
• Increase in salinity will not have an impact on dolphins as they can survive in salinity.
• Though nesting grounds at Panchakudi and Mangalajodi have been affected, they would be ready to host migratory birds by the time they arrive in winter.

ASI unearths new evidence of Nellore’s maritime history

News

• The discovery of a 40-acre walled enclosure with artefacts at Gottiprolu near Naidupeta in Nellore district has come as a source of major encouragement for archaeologists and historians, who believe the area was a major maritime trade point in ancient days.

Findings

• The recent findings would help corroborate theories pointing to a historic maritime past. Prominent among the findings are goblet-shaped vessels and conical jars which are worth mentioning as they are supposed to have been used by the elite. These were not used for cooking but were used to consume wine.
• This particular site discovered with 6-ft-wide brick walls, structures and defence systems, is yielding new evidence on the Andhra region as earlier exploited sites in the South do not have evidence of such structures, which is very interesting.
• A conical jar placed at the eastern side of the structure is an important find as such jars are widely distributed in Tamil Nadu and are considered to be an imitation of Roman Amphorae jars. A series of broken terracotta pipes fitted into one another found near this structure shed light on the civic amenities maintained by the occupants of this site.
• The most outstanding discovery so far made at the site is a massive brick structure that rises to a height of nearly 2 m and about 3.40 m in width.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

180 nations agree on a new UN accord to curb export of plastic waste

News

• Around 180 governments agreed on a new UN accord to regulate the export of plastic waste, some eight million tonnes of which ends up in the oceans each year.

Beyond News

• The 1,400 representatives, meeting in Geneva reached the agreement after 12 days’ discussion on what Rolph Payet, Executive Secretary of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) called “one of the world’s most pressing environmental issues”.
• The Geneva meeting amended the 1989 Basel Convention on the control of hazardous wastes to include plastic waste in a legally-binding framework.
• For far too long developed countries like the US and Canada have been exporting their mixed toxic plastic wastes to developing Asian countries claiming it would be recycled in the receiving country
• The a meeting also undertook to eliminate two toxic chemical groups Dicofol and Perfluorooctanoic Acid, plus related compounds. The latter has been used in a wide variety of industrial and domestic applications including non-stick cookware and food processing equipment, as well as carpets, paper and paints.
• Even though the U.S. and a few others have not signed the accord, they cannot ship plastic waste to countries that are on board with the deal.

IAF receives first AH-64E Apache attack helicopter

News

• The first AH-64E Apache attack helicopter built for India was formally handed over to the Indian Air Force (IAF) at Boeing production facility in Mesa, Arizona in USA.

Beyond News

• The first batch of these helicopters is scheduled to be shipped to India by July this year.
• Selected aircrew and ground crew have undergone training at the training facilities at U.S. Army base Fort Rucker in Alabama. These personnel will lead the operationalisation of the Apache fleet in the IAF.
• IAF has contracted 22 Apache helicopters from the US Govt and Boeing in September 2015.
• The helicopter has been customized to suit IAF’s future requirements and would have significant capability in mountainous terrain.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Islamic State claims ‘province’ in India for first time after clash in Kashmir

News

• Islamic State (IS) has claimed for the first time that it has established a “province” in India, after a clash between militants and security forces in the Kashmir region killed a militant with alleged ties to the group.

Beyond News

• IS’s Amaq News Agency  announced the new province, that it called “Wilayah of Hind”, in a statement that also claimed IS inflicted casualties on Indian army soldiers in the town of Amshipora in the Shopian district of Kashmir.
• The IS statement corresponds with a police statement that a militant called Ishfaq Ahmad Sofi was killed in an encounter in Shopian.
• IS’s statement establishing the new province appears to be designed to bolster its standing after the group was driven from its self-styled “caliphate”in Iraq and Syria in April, where at one point it controlled thousands of miles of territory.
• IS has stepped up hit-and-run raids and suicide attacks, including taking responsibility for the Easter Sunday bombing in Sri Lankathat killed at least 253 people.
• Sofi had been involved in several militant groups in Kashmir for more than a decade before pledging allegiance to Islamic State, according to a military official on Saturday and an interview given by Sofi to a Srinagar-based magazine sympathetic to IS. He was suspected of several grenade attacks on security forces in the region, police and military sources said.
• Separatists have for decades fought an armed conflict against Indian rule in Kashmir. The majority of these groups want independence for Kashmir or to join Pakistan. They have not, like Islamic State, sought to establish an empire across the Muslim world.
• Nuclear powers India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir, and came to the brink of a third earlier this year after a suicide attack by a Pakistan-based militant group killed at least 40 paramilitary police in Pulwama.

CCMB scientists sequence Asiatic lion genome

News

• For the first time, the entire genome of Asiatic lion, an endangered species, has been sequenced by scientists.

Beyond News

• De novo sequencing and annotation have resulted in a draft assembly of the entire genome of a male Asiatic lion.
• This firsthand information would help to better understand the evolution of Asiatic lions and also make possible comparative analysis with other big cats.
• With the complete genome of royal Bengal tiger, African Cheetah and Jaguar available, comparative studies of all these big cats would be possible.
• The population of the endangered Asiatic lion is very low only 523 animals are present in the Gir forests.
• The genome sequencing would enable scientists to develop specific markers to study population genetics(the differences at the gene level within a population) and get newer insights into its population status and subsequent management.
• Comparative analysis with other felids and mammalian genomes unravelled the evolutionary history of the Asiatic lion and its position among other felids. The study noted that the evaluation of genetic diversity placed the Asiatic lion in the lowest bracket of genomic diversity index highlighting the gravity of its conservation status.
• The genome is estimated to be 2.3 Gb (Gigabase) long and is found to have 20,543 protein-coding genes.
• As regards the crucial aspect of conservation of Asiatic lions,there is a need to adopt a multi-pronged approach and the study will enable better disease and population management of the endangered big cat by identifying characteristics which are specific to Asiatic lions.
• The final objective is to understand the species at DNA level and study if there are any specific problems with regard to adaptability to environment or behaviour vis-à-vis other big cats.

CLICK HERE TO SEE DATE WISE CURRENT AFFAIRS