Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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Supreme Court rules out blanket ban on manufacture, sale of firecrackers

News

• The Supreme Court ruled out a national ban on manufacture and sale of firecrackers but went on to impose restrictions on the public about bursting them during festivals, especially Diwali, which comes after two weeks from now.

Beyond News

• A Bench of Justices ruled against the manufacture and use of high decibel crackers and suggested community bursting of firecrackers.
• The restrictions have been put in to balance the popular interest of people to celebrate festivals with the public need for clean and noise-free environment.
• The court said that bursting of crackers should be restricted between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. for festivals like Diwali. For Christmas and New Year, the window would be for an hour starting a quarter of an hour before midnight.
• The local Station House Officer would be personally liable for any violation of the restrictions within their respective jurisdictions.
• The court further suggested the production of “green crackers”, community cracker bursting in major cities and a freeze on the production of series crackers or laris as alternative measures to curb pollution during Diwali.
• The court agreed with the Central government’s suggestion that crackers should be burst in areas pre-designated by the State governments.
• The Centre had proposed the use of “reduced emission firecrackers or improved firecrackers”. These are “low emission sound and light emitting functional crackers with PM reduction by 30-35% and signifcant reduction in nitrogen oxide and sulpher dioxide due to in-situ water generation as dust suppressant and low cost due usage of low cost oxidants”.
• The government said the PESO could be approached to ensure that fireworks with permitted chemicals and decibel levels are used. The PESO could run tests for banned ones like lithium, arsenic, antimony, lead, mercury.

Constitution Bench to decide an ‘independent mechanism’ to appoint Election Commissioners

News

• In a major step months before the General Elections, the Supreme Court found ambiguity in the appointment process of Election Commissioners and referred the question to a Constitution Bench for a “close look.”

Beyond News

• The order passed by a Bench came on a PIL seeking an “independent mechanism for appointment of ECs” outside the exclusive power of the government.
• The Supreme Courthad told the government that though so far the election commissioners appointed have been “outstanding people, very fair and politically neutral,” there is still a legitimate expectation that they should be selected through the “most transparent and just process” formalised in a law enacted by the Parliament.
• The court had observed that even the selection procedure of the CBI Director is formalised by a written law, but not that of Election Commissioners.
• The court had indicated to the government that it may intervene in the issue to achieve the constitutional objective under Article 324 (2) of the Constitution.

To tackle dengue, Health Dept. to focus on high-risk zones

News

• The Health Department has mapped areas in Chennai where higher incidence of dengue was reported in the last one month.

Beyond News

• The department, along with the Chennai Corporation, is taking up source reduction activities in these areas.
• The Health Department, in coordination with the Chennai Corporation, is focusing on ward-level preventive measures.
• The local body and Health Department have taken up an intensive drive, including issuing of notices to government offices, private institutions and households, for mosquito breeding sources.

Climate fund approves USD 43 million for India’s coastal communities

News

• Manama A UN-backed fund has approved USD 43.4 million for enhancing climate resilience for millions of people living in India’s coastal communities as part of its efforts to combat extreme impacts of climate change.

Beyond News

• The grant is a part of more than USD 1 billion approved by the Green Climate Fund for 19 new projects to help developing countries tackle climate change.
• The new project will be supported through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and is an essential step for India in reaching its goals outlined in the Paris Agreement and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
• These global compacts call on every nation to end poverty and hunger by 2030, and to take strong action to ensure no one is left behind in protecting vulnerable people from the extreme impacts of climate change.
• The 19 new projects amount to a total investment from GCF of USD 1,038 million, and including co-financing the projects will channel over USD 4,244 million of climate finance for low-emission, climate-resilient development.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Harvesting Sun’s heat

News

• Scientists have developed a material that can be used to harvest electricity from the Sun’s heat, paving the way for generating cheaper solar power on cloudy days and at nighttime.

Findings

• The innovation is an important step for putting solar heat-to-electricity generation in direct cost competition with fossil fuels.
• Storing solar energy as heat can already be cheaper than storing energy via batteries, so the next step is reducing the cost of generating electricity from the Sun’s heat with the added benefit of zero greenhouse gas emissions.
• Concentrated solar power plants convert solar energy into electricity by using mirrors or lenses to concentrate a lot of light onto a small area, which generates heat that is transferred to a molten salt.
• Heat from the molten salt is then transferred to a “working” fluid, supercritical carbon dioxide, that expands and works to spin a turbine for generating electricity.
• To make solar-powered electricity cheaper, the turbine engine would need to generate even more electricity for the same amount of heat, which means the engine needs to run hotter.
• This would mean dramatic reductions in human-made carbon dioxide emissions from electricity production.

Where Ganga meets the Bay of Pollution

News

• An exponential increase in the number of pilgrims coming to the Ganga Sagar Mela, which takes place at the Sagar Island every year during Makar Sankranti, has been responsible for the worsening water pollution, prompting scientists to raise serious concerns about the likely outbreak of several diseases.

Beyond News

• The number of pilgrims descending on the Sagar Island to take a dip at the place where the Ganga meets the Bay of Bengal, has risen from 2 lakh in 1990 to 20 lakh in 2018.
• The study noted a sharp deterioration in water quality parameters between the pre-mela and post-mela period. For instance, the concentration of faecal coliform bacteria, which was 22 MPN (most probable number) in 100 ml of water two weeks before the mela, was found to be 9,963 MPN two weeks after the mela.
• Researchers also pointed out that making the Ganga Sagar Mela pollution-free should be seen in the context of the Clean Ganga Mission and that the pollution wrought by the mela added to the pollutants which the river brings from upstream.

Sagar is the biggest island of the Sunderbans archipelago, with a population of about 2.12 lakh people. Several studies have shown that the island is at the frontline of climate change, facing serious erosion on its east and west sides due to rising sea level and tidal surges.

Only 32% of India is resilient to drought

News

• The increasing variations in rainfall, frequent drought and heat waves along with changes in evapotranspiration tend to alter the hydrological balance.

Findings

• This is turn affects the ecosystem productivity. A study was therefore carried out in India to assess the resilience of terrestrial ecosystem to drought at the district and State level.
• Based on data from 2000 to 2014, only 241 of 634 (about 38%) districts were found to be resilient to drought or dry conditions. The remaining 62% of districts were non-resilient to varying degrees slight (180 districts), moderate (80 districts) and severe (133 districts). While the resilient districts covered nearly 32% of the area of India, the remaining 68% was non-resilient, with the severely non-resilient districts alone covering nearly 30% of India. And only 10 of the 29 States and Union Territories had more than 50% resilient area.
• The study found about 75 districts had forest cover that was greater than 40% of the district area, and more than half of such districts were resilient. In contrast, about 65% of the districts with less than 20% forest cover were non-resilient.
• At 42%, districts with temperate climate had a higher tendency to be resilient than the ones with tropical (32%) and dry (38%) climate. About 48% of the country’s districts have temperate climate followed by tropical (30%) and dry (20%).
• Despite the dense forest cover in the Western Ghats, Kerala had only about 19% resilience while Sikkim had 100%. At 17%, Karnataka had even lesser resilience than Kerala.

Endangered albatross population faces new threat

News

• Giant mice are killing millions of endangered Tristan albatross chicks on a remote island in the South Atlantic, threatening the rare seabird species with extinction.

Findings

• According to a study for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), at least 2 million chicks are being lost on an annual basis.
• Just 2,000 pairs of albatrosses remain on the Gough Island a remote UK Overseas Territory, considered world’s most important seabird colonies, hosting more than 10 million birds. The albatrosses mate for life and produce just one egg every other year.
• The rodents that were introduced to the 91sqkm volcanic island by sailors during the 19th Century have learned to eat the eggs and chicks of the many millions of birds that make the island their home.
• Adapting to the limited resources on the island by developing a taste for seabird eggs and chicks, the mice have become “super-sized”.

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