IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

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Fossils show Kutch desert was once a forest

News

• The hot arid desert of Kutch was once a humid sub-tropical forest with a variety of birds, freshwater fish and possibly giraffes and rhinos, a team of researchers said.

Discovery of fossils

• Conclusions are based on the discovery of a tranche of vertebrate fossils from nearly 14 million years ago in a geological time period known as the Miocene. After the discovery, they took nearly 12 years for analysis.
• The fossils, consisting mostly of ribs, and parts of teeth and bones, were unearthed from Palasava village of Rapar taluk in Kutch, 
• The bulk of fossils unearthed in Kutch have so far been mainly marine organisms, due to their proximity to the Arabian Sea. Geological changes eventually closed off the salt-flats’ connection to the sea and the region turned into a large lake, eventually becoming salty wetlands.
• The findings point to clues on how mammals dispersed between Africa and the Indian subcontinent when part of India was in the Gondwanaland supercontinent that existed nearly 300 million years ago.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

Tax resolution, amnesty scheme

News

• The government has announced a new scheme aimed at eliminating the bulk of pending tax dispute cases besides providing partial amnesty to those having tax dues.

Sabka Vishwas Scheme

• Finance Minister, in Budget announced the Sabka Vishwas (Legacy Dispute Resolution) Scheme, 2019. This scheme will be operationalised from September 1 with the window being open till December 31.
• The two main components of the scheme are dispute resolution and amnesty.
• The dispute resolution component is aimed at liquidating the legacy cases of central excise and service tax that are subsumed in GST and are pending in litigation at various forums.
• The amnesty component of the scheme offers taxpayers the opportunity to pay any outstanding tax and be free of any other consequence under the law.
• The most attractive aspect of the scheme is that it provides substantial relief in the tax dues for all categories of cases as well as full waiver of interest, fine, penalty.
• According to the government, the scheme offers a relief of 70% from the duty demand if it is less than ₹50 lakh and 50% if it is more than ₹50 lakh for all cases pending adjudication or appeal in any forum.
• As the objective of the scheme is to free as large a segment of the taxpayers from the legacy taxes as possible, the relief given thereunder is substantial.

UN team alleges violation of rights in Kashmir

News

• The information blackout in Kashmir amounted to a collective punishment for the people of the region, experts of the United Nations Human Rights Council said.

United Nations Human Rights Council

• In a statement, they said the communication lockdown and denial of fundamental rights to the Kashmiri people violated fundamental rights.
• The shutdown of Internet and telecommunication networks, without justification from the government, is inconsistent with the fundamental norms of necessity and proportionality. The blackout is a form of collective punishment for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, without even a pretext of a precipitating offence, experts of the United Nations Human Rights Council said.
• They declared that they had received information about an increase in the arrest of political figures, journalists, human rights activists, and protesters.
• They were worried about reports of night raids in private homes and arrest of young people.
• The experts alleged that live ammunition was being used on protesters in Kashmir and that amounted to the violation of the fundamental right to life.

Modi in France, to meet Macron ahead of G-7 summit

News

• Indian Prime Minister arrived in Paris on the first leg of his three-nation tour during which he will have a summit interaction with President Emmanuel Macron to further boost the comprehensive bilateral strategic partnership.

Centre signs pact to digitise all gram panchayats

News

• Common Service Centre SPV, which provides government services to people in rural areas, said on Thursday that it has signed a pact with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) to convert all gram panchayats in the country to ‘digital panchayats’.

Aim: The move is aimed at providing speedy delivery of government services to people in rural areas and promoting rural BPO (business processing outsourcing) across all 2.5 lakh panchayats in the country.

Digital panchayats’

• According to the memorandum of understanding signed between MoPR and CSC e-Governance, Gram Panchayat Bhawans will host common service centres (CSCs), so that all government services and social schemes are made easily available to villagers.
• In Gram Panchayat Bhawans, CSCs will also regularly update data for all schemes and programmes being run by other central and state government departments.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

Pallikaranai marsh: Chennai’s only surviving wetland ecosystem

News

• At 80 sq km, the Pallikaranai wetland is the only surviving wetland ecosystem of the Chennai city and is among the last few remaining natural wetlands of South India.

Pallikaranai wetland

• It is an ecosystem teeming with a variety of flora and fauna 115 species of birds, 10 species of mammals, 21 species of reptiles, 10 species of amphibians, 46 species of fishes, 9 species of butterflies, and 114 species of plants.
• It is also home to reptiles such as Russell’s viper and birds such as the glossy ibis, grey-headed lapwings and pheasant-tailed jacana.
• Besides the dump, indiscriminate construction, dumping of waste water (by a Metrowater treatment plant and from nearby residential and commercial spaces) into the marsh are affecting the ecosystem.
• Once spread over 5,000 hectares, in 50 years, have lost 90% of the ecosystem due to development and city expansion. In 2007, as an effort to protect the remaining wetland from shrinking further, the undeveloped areas in the region were notified as a reserve forest.
• In March 2018, the state government announced that it would commence the eco-restoration of the wetland.

Chandrayaan 2 sends first moon picture

News

• The Indian Space Research Organisation has released the first moon image captured by Chandrayaan 2.
• The image was taken at a height of about 2,650 km from the lunar surface. The Mare Orientale basin and Apollo craters are identified in the picture.

Trafficking figures bode ill for tigers

News

• India, with the world’s largest wild tiger population, topped in the trafficking of tigers and tiger body parts over 19 years since 2000, a new TRAFFIC analysis from Geneva has revealed.

Findings

• The analysis said that there has been no respite for the “heavily-hunted” tiger with an estimated average of more than 120 individuals seized each year from 2000 to 2018.
• Apart from tiger skin and bones, live tigers are also traded illegally in a number of cases.
• Overall, the analysis estimated that 2,359 tigers and tiger body parts were seized during the period across 32 countries and territories globally, resulting from 1,142 seizure incidents. Around 95% of these seizures were recorded in countries that are home to tigers.
• India, with the world’s largest wild tiger population, remains the country with the highest overall number of seizures and the most tigers seized. It accounted for 40.5% of total incidents (463) and 26.5% of tigers seized (626).
• Outside the tiger’s range, 56 seizures were recorded, of which Taiwan and Mexico reported the largest number of tigers seized throughout the 19-year period. There were 39 seizures in Taiwan and 13 in Mexico.
• Analysis of the more recent years of the dataset turned up a few surprising findings, including a four-fold increase in the yearly average seizure incidents in Indonesia between 2015 and 2018.
• Even now, Indonesia continues to see large tiger parts seizures, including one earlier this month of at least a dozen tiger skins in an East Javan workshop that made traditional dance masks.
• Currently, there are around 3,900 tigers left in the wild, the bulk of them in India.

Nepal bans single use plastics on Everest region

News

• Nepal will make the Everest region a plastic-free zone by 2020 by banning single-use plastics, a move that will curb excessive pollution on the highest point of the Earths surface.

Plastic-free zone

• International environmentalists have expressed their concern that Nepal has not done enough to protect the fragile environment of the world’s highest peak.
• Plastic items fewer than 30 microns thickness had been banned.
• These items include plastic bags, straws, soda and water bottles and most food packaging.
• Last year, 56,303 foreign trekkers and mountaineers visited the Everest region.

 

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