IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

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Iceland commemorates first glacier lost to climate change

News:

Iceland unveiled a plaque to its Okjokull ice sheet on Sunday, the first of the country’s hundreds of glaciers to melt away due to climate change.

Beyond News:

• Scientists see the shrinking of glaciers as one of many warning signs that the earth’s climate is lurching toward dangerous tipping points.
• A ceremony to unveil the plaque was attended by scientists and locals at the glacier in west-central Iceland, which in 2014 no longer fulfilled the criteria to be classified as a glacier after melting throughout the 20th century.
• “Ok (Okjokull) is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path,” said the inscription on the plaque written by Icelandic author Andri Snaer Magnason.
• Icelanders call their nation the “Land of Fire and Ice” for its other-worldly landscape of volcanoes and glaciers, immortalised in literature. But the glaciers are melting and scientists say rising global temperatures are to blame.

Source: The Hindu

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

India largest SO2 emitter in world: Greenpeace

News:

India is the world’s largest emitter of anthropogenic sulphur dioxide, which is produced from coal burning, and greatly contributes to air pollution, a study claimed on August 19.

Beyond News:

• According to an analysis of a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) data released by environmental NGO Greenpeace on August 19, India has more than 15% of all anthropogenic sulphur dioxide (SO2) hotspots in the world detected by the OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument) satellite.
• The major SO2 emission hotspots in India are Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh, Neyveli and Chennai in Tamil Nadu, Talcher and Jharsuguda in Odisha, Korba in Chhattisgarh, Kutch in Gujarat, Ramagundam in Telangana and Chandrapur and Koradi in Maharashtra.
• However, as per country-wise world rankings, India was found at the top position in emitting SO2 as it has the maximum hotspots.
• According to the analysis, air pollution is a huge public health concern, with 91 per cent of the world’s population living in areas where outdoor air pollution exceeds guideline limits by the World Health Organization (WHO) and as a result, 4.2 million people die prematurely every year.

Source: The Hindu

Delimitation of Constituencies

News:

“SINCE THE bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir state into the Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh, delimitation of their electoral constituencies has been inevitable. While the government has not formally notified the Election Commission yet, the EC has held “internal discussions” on the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, particularly its provisions on delimitation.”

Beyond News:

•While the government has not formally notified the Election Commission yet, the EC has held “internal discussions” on the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, particularly its provisions on delimitation.
•Delimitation of Jammu and Kashmir’s Lok Sabha seats is governed by the Indian Constitution [As for Assembly seats, although the delimitation provisions of the J&K Constitution and the J&K Representation of the People Act, 1957, are similar to those of the Indian Constitution and Delimitation Acts, they mandate a separate Delimitation Commission for J&K]
•The main objective of delimitation is to provide equal representation to equal segments of a population.
•It also aims at a fair division of geographical areas so that one political party doesn’t have an advantage over others in an election.
•The last delimitation exercise — started in July 2002 and completed on May 31, 2008 — was based on the 2001 Census and only readjusted boundaries of existing Lok Sabha and Assembly seats and reworked the number of reserved seats.

Source: The Indian Express

Information Fusion Centre (IFC) for the Indian Ocean Region (IOR)

News:

The capabilities of Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) are being enhanced under the National Maritime Domain Awareness (NMDA) Project.

Beyond News:

• IFC-IOR is being established with the vision of strengthening maritime security in the region and beyond, by building a common coherent maritime situation picture and acting as a maritime information hub for the region
• It also aims to promote sharing of best practices in this field so as to yield better response to myriad security and safety challenges that IOR faces.
• Indian Navy is hosting a Maritime Information Sharing Workshop 2019 edition under the aegis of (IFC-IOR) at Gurugram, Haryana

Source: PIB

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

Draft National Resource Efficiency Policy 2019

News:

Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change had proposed a draft that aims to streamline the efficient use of these resources with minimum negative impact on environment

Beyond News:

•It also plans to offer tax benefits on recycled materials, green loans to small and medium Enterprises (SMEs) and soft loans to construct waste disposal facilities, apart from setting up Material Recovery Facilities (MRF).
•Idea of the national policy is to drive the country towards circular economy through efficient use of available material resources, based on principle of 6R and ‘green public procurement’.
(The 6R stands for reduce, reuse, recycle, redesign, re-manufacture and refurbish)

Source: PIB

The wild ones at the doorstep: tackling human-wildlife conflict in Kerala

News: A Royal Bengal Tiger fled its flooded habitat and strode into the safety of a house during the recent floods in Assam.

Beyond News:

• All these are suggestive of the fact that wild animals are forced to leave their territories when disturbed by man or nature.
• Their intrusion into human habitations have prompted suggestions that shortage of food and water are forcing the animals to leave the deep forests.
• Encroachment of forests, blocking of natural wildlife corridors for building roads, and setting up of resorts have hampered the free movement of wild animals in their own habitats.

“Wild animals never stray from their habitats. Instead, humans create such an impression, after encroaching upon their habitats,”

Source: The Hindu

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