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Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Wetlands vanishing 3 times faster than forests: report.

News

  • Wetlands, among the world’s most valuable and biodiverse ecosystems, are disappearing at an alarming speed amid urbanisation and agriculture shifts, conservationists said, calling for urgent action to halt the erosion.

Beyond News

  • The convention, adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar nearly a half-century ago, issued its first-ever global report on the state of the world’s wetlands.
  • The 88-page report found that around 35% of wetlands which include lakes, rivers, marshes and peatlands, as well as coastal and marine areas like lagoons, mangroves and coral reefs were lost between 1970 and 2015.
  • Today, wetlands cover more than 12 million square km , the report said, warning that the annual rates of loss had accelerated since 2000.
  • While the world has been increasingly focused on global warming and its impact on oceans and forests, the Ramsar Convention said wetlands remain “dangerously undervalued”.
  • Directly or indirectly, they provide almost all of the world’s consumption of freshwater and more than 40% of all species live and breed in wetlands.
  • Animals and plants who call wetlands home are particularly vulnerable, with a quarter at risk of extinction, the report said.
  • Wetlands also provide a livelihood for more than one billion people, while mitigating floods and protecting coastlines.
  • They are also a vital source of food, raw materials and genetic resources for medicines.
  • The Ramsar Convention has been ratified by most of the world’s nations, including the U.S., China and India, and has designated more than 2,300 sites of international importance.

CO2 emissions cost India $210 billion every year: study.

News

  • Carbon dioxide emissions are costing the Indian economy up to $210 billion every year, according to a global study which found that India is likely to suffer highest economic damage from climate change after the US.

Findings

  • Previous research has focused on how rich countries benefit from the fossil fuel economy, while damages accrue primarily to the developing world. However, researchers from University of California San Diego in the US found that the top three counties with the most to lose from climate change are US, India and Saudi Arabia.
  • Researchers estimated country-level contributions to the social cost of carbon (SCC) using recent climate model projections, empirical climate-driven economic damage estimations and socioeconomic forecasts.
  • The country-level SCC for the India alone is estimated to be about $86 per tonne of CO2. At current emission levels, the Indian economy loses $210 billion annually.
  • For US, the cost is about $50 billion per tonne. This means that the nearly five billion metric tonnes of CO2 the US emits each year is costing the US economy about $250 billion. The model accounts for everything that happens in the economy today that is sensitive to environmental conditions.
  • This includes agricultural yields, vector borne disease, reduced worker productivity due to heat, increased frequency of extreme precipitation resulting in infrastructure damages or any of the other many ways that human systems get impacted by climate conditions.
  • For the first time, researchers have developed a data set quantifying what the social cost of carbon will be for the globe’s nearly 200 countries.

Archaeologists discover ‘massive’ ancient building in Egypt

News

  • Egypt says archaeologists have discovered a “massive” ancient building in the town of Mit Rahina, 20 kilometres, or 12 miles, south of Cairo.

Beyond News

  • The Antiquities Ministry said archaeologists also uncovered an attached building that includes a large Roman bath and a chamber likely for religious rituals.
  • Secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the building is likely part of the residential block of the area, which was the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis.
  • Memphis, founded around 3,100 BC, was home to Menes, the king who united Upper and Lower Egypt.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

Adultery no longer a criminal offence as SC scraps Section 497 of IPC

News

  • A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, scrapped the pre-Independence provision of adultery in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which treats a married woman as a commodity owned by her husband.

Beyond News

  • Section 497 (adultery) gives a husband the exclusive right to prosecute his wife’s lover. If found guilty, the adulterer faces five years behind bars.
  • A similar right is not conferred on a wife to prosecute the woman with whom her husband has committed adultery. Secondly, the provision does not confer any right on the wife to prosecute her husband for adultery. Further, Section 497 does not take into account cases where the husband has sexual relations with an unmarried woman.
  • A woman has sexual autonomy within marriage. Marriage does not mean ceding autonomy of one to the other. Ability to make sexual choices is essential to human liberty. Even within private zones, an individual should be allowed her choice.

New telecom policy aims to provide broadband access to all citizens by 2022

News

  • The Union Cabinet approved the new telecom policy that aims to provide broadband access to every citizen at 50 Mbps speed by the year 2022.

Beyond News

  • The National Digital Communications Policy 2018, which envisions attracting $100 billion investments into the country’s digital communications sector, aims at creating at least 40 lakh new jobs in the sector in the next four years.
  • The policy aims at expanding the IoT ecosystem to five billion connected devices, create globally recognised IPRs in India and create a fund for R&D in new technologies.
  • It also pitches for leveraging Artificial Intelligence and Big Data to enhance the quality of services offered, spectrum management and network security while also establishing India as a global hub for cloud computing.
  • The policy has called for a review of levies and fees including licence fee, universal service obligation fund levy and spectrum usage charges, on the sector. This is expected to help the debt-laden telecom sector.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Cyber threats on Android devices rise in India: report

News

  • More than 6,31,000 cybersecurity threats were detected on Android devices in Indians between April and June this year, according to a report by Quick Heal, a provider of security products and solutions.

Beyond News

  • On a daily basis, Quick Heal detected more than 2,000 malware, 3,000 potentially unwanted applications (PUA) and 1,000 adware, according to the report.
  • The top ten Android malware of Q2 2018 include Android.Smsreg.DA, Android.Airpush.J, and Android.Guerrilla.M, amongst others, which were propagated through third-party app stores. The PUA family comprised 46.2% of the total detections in the year.
  • The threats increased compared to the previous quarter.
  • What makes the data all the more alarming is the low awareness about the need for adequate security amongst mobile users, according to the report.
  • Most users install advance security software on their laptops and desktops but often neglect their mobile devices. This leaves a major gap in their overall security posture and presents a lucrative opportunity to cybercriminals.
  • The increase in the number of mobile-based threats such as Banking Trojan and cryptomining attacks is indicative of a growing shift towards exploiting vulnerable mobile devices to compromise sensitive personal information of mobile users, the report stated.

IAF successfully test fires air-to-air Astra missile

News

  • The Indian Air Force on Wednesday successfully test fired the indigenously developed Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile Astra from a Su-30 aircraft, the Defence Ministry said.
  • The missile, tested at the Kalaikunda Air Force Station, “successfully engaged a manoeuvring target with high precision.”

Karnataka is home to nearly 2,500 leopards

leopard endangered

News

  • There are nearly 2,500 leopards in Karnataka as per the first-ever estimates of the spotted cat conducted in the State and possibly the country.
  • The study included habitats outside reserved forests, rocky outcrops, private lands, etc., and is reckoned to be the first such exercise in the country on leopard population estimation carried out over such large areas.

Findings

  • A release stated that the team submitted pictures of 363 individually identified leopards from the camera trapping work to the Forest Department. Based on the figures derived using camera trapping, it has been estimated that there are a total of 2,500 leopards in the State.
  • It said through a sampling-based camera trap exercise, individual leopards were identified using the rosette patterns on their bodies that are unique to each animal.
  • Later, using statistical methodologies, researchers estimated both density (number of animals/unit area) and abundance (total number of animals in the study area) in what is called ‘capture-recapture’ method which was first used to estimate fish numbers in the United States, and was later adapted for estimating densities of several other wildlife species including tigers, giraffes, rhinoceroses, dolphins, jaguars, etc.
  • The leopard study also had a spin-off in that it resulted in the first-ever documentation of the honey badger from the State, apart from the documentation of chinkara, an antelope, in southern Karnataka.
  • This study, which combined science, applied conservation and outreach, threw light on the importance of lesser known areas for conservation in the State.

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