Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Literacy levels in rural India suffer due to migration, finds UNESCO study

News

• Literacy levels in rural households of India dip with seasonal migration, the UNESCO global education monitoring report 2019 has observed, bringing out the educational challenges thrown up by migration.

Findings

• In India, 10.7 million children aged 6 to 14 lived in rural households with a seasonal migrant in 2013. About 28% of youth aged 15 to 19 in these households were illiterate or had not completed primary school, compared to 18% of the cohort overall.
• About 80% of seasonal migrant children in seven cities lacked access to education near work sites, and 40% are likely to end up in work rather than education, experiencing abuse and exploitation.
• The construction sector absorbs the majority of short-term migrants.
• Inter-State migration rates have doubled between 2001 and 2011. An estimated 9 million migrated between States annually from 2011 to 2016.
• It also warns of the negative impact on education for children who are left behind as their parents migrate: Test scores were lower among left-behind children aged 5-8.
• The report, however, acknowledges that India has taken steps to address the issue.
• Some State governments have also taken steps for migrant children’s education. It, however, observes that most interventions are focused on keeping children in home communities instead of actively addressing the challenges faced by those who are already on the move.
• The report sees the growth of slums and informal settlements where schools are often scarce due to migration as a challenge. 18% of the students displaced by a riverfront project in Ahmedabad dropped out and an additional 11% had lower attendance.
• The report shows there is only one urban planner for every 1,00,000 people in India, while there are 38 for every 1, 00,000 in the United Kingdom.

Delhiites’ life expectancy reduced by 10 years due to pollution: report

News

• If air pollution levels in the Capital adhered to World Health Organization (WHO) standards, a typical Delhiite would live 10 years longer, a report released by the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute stated.

Findings

• The report, said the average Indian would live 4.3 years longer if the country’s air quality met the WHO standards, which are more stringent than that of the Indian government.
• In comparison, the average resident of Beijing and Los Angeles would lose six years and one year respectively due to high pollution, the report also said.
• The concentration of fine particulate matter had increased by an overall 69% in India in the past two decades. The sustained exposure to particulate pollution used to reduce life expectancy by 2.2 years in 1998.
• As of 2016, the average life expectancy at birth could have gone up from 69 years to 73 years if the WHO standards were complied with.
• This would be a greater gain than that from solving the problems of unsafe water and poor sanitation, the report added.
• The AQLI reveals that the average person on the planet is losing 1.8 years of life expectancy due to particulate pollution exceeding the WHO guideline — more than devastating communicable diseases like tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, behavioural killers like cigarette smoking, and even war.
• Apart from India, China and Bangladesh were the other countries witnessing a large loss in life expectancy due to pollution, the report further stated.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

India, Russia to build stealth frigates

News

• India  signed a $500 mn deal with Russia to locally manufacture two stealth frigates with technology transfer.
• The agreement was signed between Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) and Rosoboronexport of Russia.

Beyond News

• The $500 mn deal is for material, design and specialists assistance from Russia for the two ships. Balance work will be done by GSL, and it will have a whole lot of Indian equipment including BrahMos missiles.
• The cost of the engines for the ships which would come directly from Ukraine and the cost of constructing them at GSL are in addition. While the ships are built by Russia, the engines are supplied by Zorya Nashproekt of Ukraine. Four gas turbine engines, gear boxes and specialist support will cost around $50 mn per ship, the source stated.
• In October 2016, India and Russia signed an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) for four Krivak or Talwar stealth frigates two to be procured directly from Russia and two to be built by GSL. Of late, GSL has maintained a good track record. It has delivered 28 ships ahead of schedule in the last four years.
• India recently signed a $1 bn deal with Russia for direct purchase of two frigates. The basic structures of the two frigates are already ready at Yantar shipyard in Russia and will be finished now.
• After the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) accorded approval for the deal, GSL was selected for the project in February 2017. Following this GSL completed the price negotiations with Russia as well as the Defence Ministry and the Indian Navy. The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) has already cleared the deal.
• India had earlier procured six frigates weighing 4000 tonnes of the same class in two different batches, the Talwar class and the upgraded Teg class. The four ships to be built will weigh 300 tonnes more than the earlier ones and will be armed with BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, Navy officials had said earlier.
• Russia was declared the lowest bidder in the Army’s Very Short Range Air Defence (VSHORAD) deal and last month India signed a $5.43 bn deal for five S-400 long range air defence regiments. The series of deals with Russia come in the backdrop of looming US sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) law.

China launches twin BeiDou navigation satellites

News

• China sent two new satellites of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) into space on a Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province.

Beyond News

• The satellites entered a medium earth orbit more than three hours later and will work with 17 other BDS-3 satellites already in space. They are also the 42nd and 43rd satellites of the BDS satellite family, Xinhua news agency reported.
• With the successful launch, the basic BDS constellation deployment is complete. China plans to provide navigation services with the BDS-3 to countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative by the end of this year.
• Named after the Chinese term for the Big Dipper constellation, the BeiDou system started serving China in 2000 and the Asia-Pacific region in 2012.
• China plans to launch another six BDS-3 satellites to the medium earth orbits, three satellites to the inclined geosynchronous earth orbit and two satellites to the geostationary earth orbit from 2019 to 2020. The system will provide first-class services around the globe by the end of 2020.

BASIC nations push for ‘climate finance’

News

• Ahead of the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP), Environment Ministers and top climate change negotiators from Brazil, South Africa, China and India (BASIC) convened in Delhi and said the countries as a group would continue to push for developed countries on their earlier commitment to providing $100 billion annually from 2020.

Beyond News

• So far only a fraction of these monies have actually been provided, the BASIC group stated.
• This year’s edition of the COP the 24th such meeting will see representatives from at least 190 countries, think-tanks, and activists converge in Katowice, Poland from December 2 to 14 to try to agree on a Rule Book that will specify how countries will agree to take forward commitments taken at the 21st COP in Paris in 2015.
• At that meeting, countries had agreed to take steps to limit global warming to 2C below pre-industrial levels.
• A key aspect to make this possible is climate finance, but countries so far aren’t agreed on what constitutes climate finance: do investments made by private companies in developed countries in new green technology count? Does improving efficiency in a thermal plant count?
• Ministers reiterated that public finance is the fulcrum of enhanced climate ambition by developing countries and urged developed countries to fulfil their climate finance commitments.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

NASA picks ancient Martian river delta for rover landing

News

• NASA has picked an ancient river delta as the landing site for its uncrewed Mars 2020 rover, to hunt for evidence of past life on the earth’s neighbouring planet.

Findings

• Even though the Red Planet is now cold and dry, the landing site, Jezero Crater, was filled with a 500-meter deep lake that opened to a network of rivers some 3.5 to 3.9 billion years ago.
• The delta is a good place for evidence of life to be deposited and then preserved for the billions of years that have elapsed since this lake was present.
• Experts believe the 45-km wide basin could have collected and preserved ancient organic molecules and other signs of microbial life.
• At least five different kinds of rocks, including “clays and carbonates that have high potential to preserve signatures of past life,” are believed to lie in the crater, just north of the Martian equator, the US space agency said in a statement.
• Carbonate rock is produced by the interaction of water, atmospheric gases and rock, and leaves clues about habitable environments.
• Scientists have debated where to land the rover for the past four years, and whittled down their decision from more than 60 possible sites.
• The $2.5 billion rover is planned to launch in July 2020, and land in February 2021.
• Mars 2020 is designed to land inside the crater and collect samples that will eventually be returned to Earth for further analysis, perhaps by the later 2020s.
• But first, the rover has to make it to the surface intact and upright, dodging a field of boulders, sand traps and the edges of the delta.
• Mars 2020 will use the same sky crane landing that successfully delivered NASA’s unmanned Curiosity rover to a location called Gale Crater on Mars back in 2012.

Coast Guard vessel joins Ennore clean-up operation

News

• The Indian Coast Guard continued clean-up operations at the Kamarajar Port in Ennore, where nearly two tonnes of oil leaked into the sea while being transferred from a merchant ship.

Beyond News

• The Coast Guard’s dedicated pollution-control vessel, Samudra Pehredar, arrived at the port after being summoned from Visakhapatnam to help in the clean-up operations.
• The merchant ship MT Coral Stars is unlikely to be allowed to leave the port till the clean-up is completed. A fine might be imposed on the company operating the ship, but those issues will be dealt with after the oil is cleaned up.
• Oil industry sources claimed that over 80% of spilt oil had been removed. The port and TNPCB have asked that the cleaning be speeded up since rain has been forecast. Meanwhile, there is no issue with availability of fuel or LPG stocks as bottling plants have enough stock of LPG and crude oil is received from the Chennai port.
• The Coast Guard also issued a notice under Section 356 (J) of Merchant Shipping Act, 1958 to Atlantic Shipping Pvt Ltd, Chennai, that had chartered the ship.
• The Coast Guard has advised the shipping company to undertake all the remedial actions mentioned in the notice.

‘Robo-nose’ could replace sniffer dogs

News

• Scientists have developed an artificial “robot nose” device made from living mouse cells that could be used instead of dogs to sniff out narcotics and explosives.

Beyond News

• The researchers developed the prototype based on odour receptors grown from the genes of mice that respond to target odours.
• The receptors were identified in the 1990s, but there are significant technical hurdles to produce all these receptors and monitor the activity so that we can use that in an artificial device.
• “E-noses” that exist now use various chemical compounds to detect smells instead of receptor stem cells.
• Human, dog and mouse genomes contain around 20,000 genes, which contain instructions to create proteins that smell, taste, feel, move and do everything that our bodies do. About 5% of mouse genes have been identified as instructions to make odour receptors.
• In contrast, humans only use about 2%of their genes to make odour receptors.

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