Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Propping up glaciers to avoid cataclysmic sea level rise

News

• As global warming outpaces efforts to tame it, scientists have proposed building massive underwater structures to prevent an Antarctic glacier the size of Britain from sliding into the sea and lifting the world’s oceans by several metres.

Beyond News

• The more modest of two engineering schemes which is still on the scale of a Panama or Suez Canal to shore up Thwaites Glacier would require the construction of Eiffel Tower-sized columns resting on the seabed to support the glacier’s ocean-facing edge, or ice shelf.
• Option Two is a 100-metre tall underwater wall, or berm, running 80-100 kilometers (55-60 miles) beneath the ice shelf to block bottom-flowing warm water that erodes the glacier’s underbelly, rendering it unstable.
• The ambitious projects, detailed in the European Geophysical Union journal The Cryosphere, reflect a gathering awareness that slashing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions while essential may not happen quickly enough to avoid catastrophic climate change impacts.
• Geoengineering schemes once dismissed as impractical, unnecessary or outright dangerous injecting particles into space to deflect the sun, storing CO2 in the ground, planting millions of square kilometres in biofuels have rapidly moved from the margins toward the centre of scientific and policy discussion.
• Until recently, sea level rise was caused mainly by ocean water expanding under the influence of global warming. Today, the biggest driver is run off from ice sheets sitting atop the island of Greenland and the continent of Antarctica.
• Taken together, Greenland and West Antarctica more vulnerable to global warming than East Antarctica contain enough frozen water to lift the ocean watermark by about 12 metres.
• Wolovick and Moore ran computer models to test their geoengineering schemes, taking into account the known variables influencing glacier-ocean dynamics.
• The underwater towers which could be built with material dredged from the continental shelf or quarried from exposed rock stood a 30 percent change of significantly slowing the glacier’s disintegration.
• The researchers also emphasised that geoengineering solutions do not lessen the need for reducing humanity’s output of greenhouse gases, which hit record levels in 2017.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

SC for live streaming, video recording of court proceedings

News

• The Supreme Court agreed to live-streaming and video recording of court proceedings.

Beyond News

• The apex court said that necessary rules for balancing rights of public and protecting dignity of litigants will be placed soon.
• Live-streaming of court proceedings will effectuate the “public right to know” and bring in more transparency in judicial proceedings, the court said.

Highlights of the Aadhaar verdict

News

• Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court,led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra upheld the validity of Aadhaar but with riders.

 Highlights from the verdict.

• Justice A.K. Sikri said there is no possibility of duplicating Aadhaar due to the biometrics and added that it collects only minimum demographic and biometric details. He also said Aadhaar is “unique in an unparallelled way.”
• The Bench struck down section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, which allows private entities to use Aadhaar for verification purposes.
• Section 33(2) that allows UIDAI to share data with specially authorised officers in the interest of national security, was also struck down.
• Three of five judges were of the view that Aadhaar is valid.
• Aadhaar requirement by CBSE, NEET, and UGC has been struck down, but Aadhaar-PAN linkage has been upheld.
• Seeding Aadhaar with mobile phone numbers and bank accounts is not needed. Schools too, cannot insist on Aadhaar for admission of students.
• Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, in his judgment, said that passing the Aadhaar Act as a Money Bill was a fraud on the Constitution. In this, he dissented from the majority opinion. He also held section 7 of the Act, which makes Aadhaar mandatory for state subsidies, as unconstitutional.
• Data collected for authentication purposes can ben held for only six months. The Aadhaar Act had said that data can be held for five years.
• Justice Chandrachud ordered service providers to delete any information collected by them after linking Aadhaar with SIMs.
• Justice Ashok Bhushan concurred with the majority but differed on a couple of points he held that beneficiaries cannot be denied services or subsidies in the name of Aadhaar, and that the passage of the Act as a Money Bill can be subjected to judicial review.

State seeks ₹5,000-cr special Central aid

News

• Kerala has sought a special assistance of ₹5,000 crore as grant from the Centre, apart from a 10% hike in the allocation under various Centrally-sponsored schemes and an additional assistance of ₹4,796 crore from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) to help the State tide over the devastation caused by the floods last month.

Beyond News

• Chief Minister raised the demand during a meeting with Prime Minister in New Delhi. Briefing the media after the meeting, he said the special assistance of ₹5,000 crore was aimed at reviving the flood-battered economy and rebuilding damaged assets.
• Pointing out that the World Bank-ADB team had assessed the flood damages at ₹25,000 crore, Chief Minister said Kerala needed a generous dose of Central aid for rehabilitation and reconstruction,sought the Prime Minister’s intervention for an additional loan of ₹16,000 crore over the next two years and ₹2,500 crore as assistance to take up housing projects for families displaced by the floods.
• Chief Minister also flagged the need to raise another ₹3,000 crore from the Central road fund to repair flood-damaged roads.
• The State would submit a revised memorandum to the Ministry of Finance by October seeking funds for post-flood reconstruction.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

UN team assesses damage, reviews flood relief work

News

• The United Nations team that visited Kerala took stock of the damage caused by the recent floods and the relief work carried out in some of the worst-hit areas.

Beyond News

• The team comprised officials of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), UN Women, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UN Resident Co-ordinator Office (UNRCO), and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
• The post-flood drought-like situation because of the low water level in rivers was also reviewed by the team.

Centre hikes import duty on select goods

News

• The government released a list of 19 categories of items on which it would be hiking import duties, which include white goods such as air-conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines as well as non-essential items such as gems, travel bags and aviation turbine fuel (ATF).
• The new rates will be applicable from September 27.

Beyond News

• The Central Government has taken tariff measures, by way of increase in the basic customs duty to curb import of certain imported items, the government said in a statement. These changes aim at narrowing the current account deficit (CAD).
• These changes in rates of basic customs duty (BCD) will be effective from September 27, 2018. The total value of imports of these items in the year 2017-18 was about ₹86,000 crore.
• The significant increases in customs duties of selective items which the government perceives to be non-essential imports appears to be aimed at reducing the drain of currency reserves and boost domestic demand.
• Curbing imports through tariffs would help in shoring up the rupee to 68-70 levels against the U.S. dollar.

TN forest Dept. formulates new strategies to prevent human-animal conflicts

News

• Officials from the Nilgiris division of the Forest Department have formulated strategies to minimise human-animal conflicts in the Kil Kotagiri range, including plans to unify the extremely small forest range with another, and setting up anti-poaching watcher camps to keep tabs on elephant herds.

Beyond News

• The Kil Kotagiri range had previously been part of a larger jurisdiction which had been under the control of the Nilgiris forest division.
• However, with the notification of the buffer zone of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR), around two-thirds of the range, which had been referred to as the Nilgiris North Eastern Slope, had been transferred to the management of the tiger reserve, leaving only a small sliver of territory requiring constant monitoring from the forest department.
• As the majority of the range is now under the control of the field director of the MTR, the anti-poaching watchers too, who were involved in anti-depredation work at Kil Kotagiri, now report only to Mudumalai, leading to a lack of staff strength in the Kil Kotagiti range to help deal with human-animal 
• In order to better manage the Kil Kotagiri forests, there are plans by the forest department to unify the range with the Kotagiri forest range, and also to set up permanent anti-poaching watcher camps.
• The mechanism would be similar to the one used by the forest department in Gudalur, where elephants are monitored continuously. People living nearby to where the animals are grazing are being warned not to stray outdoors after dark.

India’s Mars probe completes four years in orbit: ISRO

News

• India’s maiden interplanetary mission the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) has completed four years orbiting the red planet, according to ISRO.

Beyond News

• The mission, launched on November 5, 2013, placed itself into the Martian orbit on September 24, 2014.
• Though the designed mission life of MOM was six months, it has been sending scientific data for four years.

Cassini spots dust storms on Saturn s moon Titan

News

• NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have revealed giant dust storms in the equatorial regions of Saturn’s moon Titan, making it the third space body after Earth and Mars where dust storms have been observed.

Beyond News

• The observation, obtained with Cassini’s Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, is helping scientists to better understand the fascinating and dynamic environment of Saturn’s largest moon.
• The findings, showed an active dust cycle, in which organic dust can be raised from large dune fields around Titan’s equator.

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