IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

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UN warns of rising seas, storm surges

News

• The same oceans that nourished human evolution are poised to unleash misery on a global scale unless the carbon pollution destabilising Earth’s marine environment is brought to heel, warns a draft UN report obtained by AFP.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

• Destructive changes already set in motion could see a steady decline in fish stocks, a hundred-fold or more increase in the damages caused by superstorms, and hundreds of millions of people displaced by rising seas, according to the “special report” on oceans and Earth’s frozen zones, known as the cryosphere.
• As the 21st century unfolds, melting glaciers will first give too much and then too little to billions who depend on them for fresh water.
• Without deep cuts to man made emissions, at least 30% of the northern hemisphere’s surface permafrost could melt by century’s end, unleashing billions of tonnes of carbon and accelerating global warming even more.
• The 900-page scientific assessment is the fourth such tome from the UN in less than a year, with others focused on a 1.5-Celsius cap on global warming, the state of biodiversity, and how to manage forests and the global food system.
• Humanity must overhaul the way it produces and consumes almost everything to avoid the worst ravages of climate change and environmental degradation.
• By 2050, many low-lying megacities and small island nations will experience “extreme sea level events” every year.
• Even if the world manages to cap global warming at two degrees Celsius, the global ocean waterline will rise enough to displace more 250 million people.

Source: The Hindu

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

North East Rural Livelihood Project (NERLP)

News:

A study finds that North East Rural Livelihood Project (NERLP) improves livelihoods of 300,000 households in 11 districts of Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim.

Beyond News:

• It is a World Bank aided, multi-state livelihood project under the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), launched in 2012
  •Aim: to improve rural livelihoods especially that of women, unemployed youth and the most disadvantaged, in four North Eastern States.
  •The project has focussed on five development strategies, namely, social empowerment, economic empowerment, partnership development, project management and livelihood & value chain developments.

Source: PIB india

Fit India 

News

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a nation-wide campaign to encourage people to inculcate physical activity and sports in their everyday lives, named ‘Fit India Movement’.

Beyond News:

• Envisioned by the Prime Minister, the nation-wide Fit India Movement aims to motivate every Indian to incorporate simple, easy ways of staying fit in their everyday life.[on the occasion of National Sports Day.]
  •National Sports Day: It is celebrated on 29 August, on the birth anniversary of hockey legend Major Dhyan Chand.

Source: PIB india

Centre gives over ₹47,000 cr to 27 States for green activities

News

• The Environment Ministry released over ₹47,000 crores to 27 states for compensatory afforestation and other green activities, including prevention of forest fire, biodiversity management and soil conservation.

Green activities

• Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh got the maximum share of the fund.
• Out of a total allocation of ₹47,436 crores to the states, Odisha received ₹5,933.98 crores while Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh got ₹5,791.70 crores and ₹5,196.69 crores respectively.
• The corpus will be utilised for compensatory afforestation, wildlife management, forest fire prevention, work related to soil and moisture conservation in forests, voluntary relocation of villages from protected areas, management of biological resources and biodiversity, research in forestry and monitoring of CAMPA works among others.
• This fund is not to be used for salaries, travelling and other allowances to regulate contractual and casual employees of the state forest departments. I appeal to the state chief ministers that this fund be used to rapidly increase the green cover.

Source: The Hindu

Special Tiger Force for Corbett Reserve set up.

News

• The Uttarakhand government has decided to form a Special Tiger Force for Corbett Tiger Reserve, a move which will help serve as the much needed second layer of protection for the big cat.

Special Tiger Force

• The decision to set up the force was taken by the State Cabinet. The force will have 85 posts.
• The STPF will be effective in checking illegal human intrusion into the reserve through villages located on its fringes and serve as a second layer of protection for tigers at the CTR.
• Illegal intruders from fringe areas have been behind poaching incidents in the reserve in the past.
• The decision is in line with Government of India guidelines for providing three-tier protection to tigers at reserves.
• The first layer of protection is provided in the inner range by beat level forest guards through regular patrols. The second layer of protection is what the STPF will take care of.
• The third layer of protection comes from intelligence-gathering mechanisms in which forest, police and central intelligence agency personnel work together to prevent crimes like the poaching of tigers, the official said.
• The STPF will be deployed at the maximum on the extremely sensitive southern fringe of the reserve bordering Uttar Pradesh through which criminal elements keep trying to intrude into reserve areas.

Source: The Hindu

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

T.N.’s Dindigul lock and Kandangi saree get GI tag

News

• Two well-known products from Tamil Nadu Dindigul lock and Kandangi saree have been given the Geographical Indication (GI) tag by The Geographical Indications Registry in Chennai.

Geographical Indication tag

• The Dindigul locks are known throughout the world for their superior quality and durability, so much so that even the city is called Lock City.
• Government institutions such as prisons, godowns, hospitals, and even temples use these locks instead of other machine-made ones.
• More than 3,125 lock manufacturing units are limited to an area of 5 km in and around Dindigul. They are concentrated in Nagelnagar, Nallampatti, Kodaiparailpatti, Kamalapatti and Yagappanpatti.
• The abundance of iron in this region is the reason for the growth of the industry. There are over 50 varieties of locks made by the artisans using raw materials such as MS flat plates and brass plates procured from the nearby towns, including Madurai and Salem.
• The Kandangi sarees are manufactured in the entire Karaikudi taluk in Sivaganga district.
• They are characterised by large contrast borders and some are known to have borders covering as far as two-thirds of the saree which is usually around 5.10 m-5.60 m in length.

Source: Pib India, The Hindu

Star tortoise, otters get higher protection at CITES

News

• India’s proposal to upgrade the protection of star tortoises (Geochelone elegans), the smooth-coated otter (Lutrogale perspicillata) and small-clawed otters (Anoyx cinereus) in CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species on Wild Fauna and Flora) have been approved.

Highest degree of protection

• These species have been listed under Appendix I of CITES and will now enjoy the highest degree of protection as there will be a complete international ban enforced on their trade.
• The upgradation was approved at the Conference of the Parties (COP18) held at Geneva.
• Appendix I of CITES lists species that are the most endangered among CITES-listed animals and plants.
• They are threatened with extinction and CITES prohibits international trade in specimens of these species except when the purpose of the import is not commercial, for instance for scientific research,” the CITES website states.
• 90% of trade of star tortoises occurs as part of the international pet market.
• The species is categorized as ‘vulnerable’ by the International Union of Conservation of Nature and a decline greater than 30% was predicted by 2025 if the exploitation continued or expanded.
• In case of the small-clawed otter and smooth-coated otter, which are traded for their fur in the international market, numbers are also declining due to habitat loss.

Source: The Hindu

Gujarat coast put on high alert after inputs of possible entry by Pak commandos

News

• A high security alert has been sounded in Gujarat after intelligence agencies shared inputs about the possibility of Pakistan-trained commandos entering the Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat from the Harami Nala creek area.

High security alert

• The Border Security Force (BSF) found two single-engine Pakistani boats abandoned in the ‘Harami Nala’ area and a search operation had been launched.
• Fearing “underwater attacks,” by Pakistani commandos, security is up at all major ports such as the Kandla Port and the Adani Port in Mundra and other infrastructures.
• The ports have directed shipping agents to inform their vessels and maintain a watch and report any suspicious activity to the Coast Guard, marine police stations or port control rooms.
• In an alert, the authorities of the Deendayal Port Trust in Kandla directed the adoption of strict security measures.

Source: The Hindu

RBI says currency in circulation soars 17% to ₹21.1 lakh crore in FY19

News

• Despite the many an effort to shift to digital payments and usher in a digital payment economy, the currency in circulation has jumped by a hefty 17% to ₹21.10 lakh crore as of March 2019, the Reserve Bank says in its annual report for 2019.

Currency in circulation

• The demand for the ₹500 bill, which is the second highest denomination after the ₹2,000 note, has soared the highest and now accounts for over 51% of the value of currency in circulation.
• The value and volume of banknotes in circulation increased by 17% and 6.2% to ₹21.10 lakh crore and 1,08,759 million pieces, respectively, in FY19.
• The annual report notes a 59% increase in retail electronic payment transactions to 23.3 billion.
• The share of the ₹500 bill stood at 42% as of end June 2018, while the same for the ₹2,000 notes, declined in value to ₹6.58 lakh crore as of March 2019. The combined basis, the share of the high value ₹500 and ₹2,000 bills was almost stable at 82%.
• There was a sharp fall in the instance of fake currency detections in FY19 to 3.17 lakh pieces down from 5.22 lakh in FY18 and 7.62 lakh in FY17.
• The RBI’s note printing cost has come down marginally to ₹4,811 crore in FY19 from ₹4,912 crore in FY18, reflecting normalisation in operations post-demonetisation.
• Over 21,000 fake pieces each of the newly introduced ₹500 and ₹ 2,000 notes were found in the reporting year.
• The Reserve Bank will introduce varnished banknotes of ₹100 denomination on a field trial basis to increase the life of the banknotes and also look at ways to make them disabled-friendly in FY20.

Skull discovered in Ethiopia yields new clues on how humans evolved

News

• A “remarkably complete” 8-million-year-old skull of an early human has been unearthed in Ethiopia, scientists announced, a discovery that has the potential to alter our understanding of human evolution.

Human evolution

• The skull, known as MRD, was discovered not far from the younger Lucy the ancient ancestor of modern humans and shows that the two species may have co-existed for about 100,000 years.
• Toumai (of the species Sahelanthropus tchadensis) is around 7 million years old and is considered by some palaeontologists to be the first representative of the human lineage. It was discovered in Chad in 2001. Ardi (for Ardipithecus ramidus, another species of hominid) was found in Ethiopia in 1994 and is believed to be around 4.5 million years old.
• The new skull, MRD, belongs to the species Australopithecus anamensis.
• The finding challenges a previously held belief about how humans evolved.
• Though small, the skull has been determined to be that of an adult. Facial reconstructions show a hominid with cheekbones projected forward, a prominent jaw, a flat nose and a narrow forehead.
• The skull represents a mixture of characteristics of Sahelanthropus like Toumai and Ardipithecus like Ardi as well as more recent species.

Source: The Hindu

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