IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

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3 of world’s 10 fastest-growing urban areas are in Kerala: Economist ranking

News

• Three cities in Kerala feature among the fastest-growing urban areas across the world, according to a ranking released by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) survey.
• The three cities Malappuram, Kozhikode and Kollam  are the only places from India to feature in the top 10 rankings.

Fastest-growing urban areas

• While Malappuram is the fastest growing city over the past five years with a 44.1 per cent change, Kozhikode occupies the fourth slot with a change percentage of 34.5 per cent. Kollam, the third city, has jumped 31.1 per cent, the ranking says.
• Thrissur from Kerala also finds a mention in the list at 13th position. Thrissur’s ranking has seen a 30.2 per cent jump between 2015 and 2020. Gujarat’s Surat comes in at 26th position with 26.7 per cent change, while Tamil Nadu’s Tiruppur is ranked the 30th fastest growing city in the world in the last five years.
• Other than India, the top 10 ranking includes three cities from China and one from Nigeria, Oman, UAE and Vietnam each.
• The EIU is part of The Economist magazine and provides forecasting and advisory services through research and analysis.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

US-Iran tensions: Govt advises Indians against travelling to Iraq; DGCA tells airlines to remain vigilant

News

• In light of the prevailing tensions between Iran and the US, India’s Ministry of External Affairs advised its citizens not to travel to Iraq.

Not to travel to Iraq

• It also asked Indian nationals in Iraq to be alert and avoid travel within the country.
• Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said they have asked Indian airlines to remain vigilant and take all precautions in airspaces over Iran, Iraq, Gulf of Oman and waters of Persian Gulf.
• The aviation body, however, has not issued any formal instruction.

Kerala minister slams Centre over ‘denial’ of NDRF aid for floods

News

• The Union government has sanctioned an assistance of Rs 5,908 crore from the National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF) to seven flood-hit states.
• However, demands for financial assistance by Kerala were allegedly ignored.

Financial assistance

• A high-level committee, chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, had approved NDRF assistance to Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh.
• An MHA official said all states are given advance funds to meet disasters through the SDRF. Once this is spent, states ask for additional funds.
• This is examined and clarifications sought from states. Kerala has just sent in its clarifications. Its requirements will be met the next time. Also, it must be noted that Kerala has not even spent all the funds it was given last year, the official said.

Four apartments in Kochi will be brought down on Jan 11-12

News

• Over two days on January 11 and 12, four residential complexes in the Maradu neighbourhood of Kochi in Kerala will be razed through controlled implosion.
• The four apartments have been ordered to be brought down by the Supreme Court for the violation of Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) rules.

Gujarat: Govt announces Rs 31.45 crore for farmers hit by locust menace

News

• Stating that over 25,222 hectares got affected by the locust menace last month, the state government announced a relief package of Rs 31.45 crore which will cover over 11,000 farmers in Banaskantha and Patan districts.

Relief package

• The state’s agriculture minister said that swarms of locusts from Rajasthan and Pakistan invaded the farms in North Gujarat and caused massive loss to standing crops like cumin, mustard, wheat and castor.
• Farmers who have reported more than 33 per cent loss will get a compensation of Rs 18,500 up to a maximum of two hectares.
• Apart from the compensation given as per State Disaster Response Fund norms of the central government, the state government will be giving Rs 5,000 per hectare to the farmers (maximum of two hectares).
• A total of 285 villages were affected by the locust menace, which includes 280 villages of Banaskantha and five in Patan.

The package was declared after a survey of the affected region was conducted. This relief package is in addition to the Rs 3,795 crore relief package announced by the state government for all the farmers of the state after unseasonal rain hit the state in the end of October 2019.

US bans airlines from flying over Iraq, Iran after missile attack on troops

News

• The US Federal Aviation Administration said it would ban U.S. carriers from operating in the airspace over Iraq, Iran, the Gulf of Oman and the waters between Iran and Saudi Arabia after Iran launched a missile attack on US-led forces in Iraq.

Missile attack 

• Tehran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles from Iranian territory against at least two Iraqi military bases hosting US-led coalition personnel, the US military said.
• The FAA said it issued the airspace ban due to heightened military activities and increased political tensions in the Middle East, which present an inadvertent risk to U.S. civil aviation operations.
• Several non-U.S. airlines had flights over parts of Iraq and Iran at the time, according to FlightRadar24 data. They are not directly affected by the FAA ban, but foreign carriers and their national regulators typically consider U.S. advice carefully when deciding where to fly.
• Before the latest guidance, the FAA had already prohibited U.S. carriers from flying below 26,000 feet over Iraq and from flying over an area of Iranian airspace above the Gulf and Gulf of Oman since Iran shot down a high-altitude U.S. drone last June.
• Singapore Airlines Ltd said after the attack on U.S. bases in Iraq that all of its flights would be diverted from Iranian airspace.
• Carriers are increasingly taking steps to limit threats to their planes after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down in 2014 by a missile over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
• An international aviation team has been activated to support “effective coordination and communication” between airlines and countries as tensions mount in the Middle East after a U.S. drone strike killed an Iranian military commander, global airlines body IATA said on Tuesday.
• Airlines and the United Nations’ aviation agency have started to monitor strategic airspace over Iran and Iraq. With some commercial carriers still serving those countries and others flying over their airspace, the International Air Transport Association also issued a statement reminding countries of their obligation to communicate potential risks to civil aviation.
• The team brings together airlines, regulators and air navigation service providers to ensure any potential risks to aviation are shared quickly.
• Airspace controlled by Iran and Iraq are seen as strategic for commercial aviation in the Middle East. If there were the need to shut down the airspace, carriers would have to be rerouted which would lead to greater congestion and fuel costs, said the source.

 ‘2019 second hottest year on record’: EU’s climate monitoring service

News

• 2019 was the second hottest year on record and ended the hottest decade in history, the European Union’s climate monitoring service announced.

Second hottest year

• As per the data released by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), worldwide temperatures last year were second only to 2016, in which temperatures were boosted 0.12 degrees Celsius by an exceptionally strong El Nino natural weather event.
• The data suggested that the average temperature in 2019 was only a few hundredths of a degree below the 2016 level. The last five years have been the hottest on record, and the period of 2010-2019 was the hottest decade since records began, C3S said.
• Globally temperatures in 2019 were 0.6 Celsius warmer than the 1981-2010 average. Earth’s temperature over the last five years was 1.1C-1.2C warmer than pre-industrial times. Last year was Europe’s hottest ever.
• 2019 was just 0.04C cooler than 2016, which saw temperatures boosted by a once-in-a-century strength El Nino. Atmospheric carbon concentrations continued to rise in 2019, reaching their highest levels on record.
• Last year, the United Nations had said that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions needed to come down 7.6 per cent each year to 2030 in order to limit temperature rises to 1.5C.
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has also warned that going beyond 1.5 degrees celsius means the “bringing of eve wider-ranging and more destructive climate impacts” including storm and heatwaves.
• 2020, too, started on a sombre note as it witnessed climate-related disasters such as the fires pulverising Australia and massive flooding killing scores of people in Indonesia.

Taking stock of infant deaths: in Rajasthan, Gujarat and the rest of India

News

• Every day, India witnesses the death of an estimated 2,350 babies aged less than one year. Among them, an average 172 are from Rajasthan and 98 from Gujarat.
• In 2014, of every 1,000 children born in the country, 39 did not see their first birthday. Today, that figure has come down to 33. That is 1,56,000 fewer deaths every year.
• As outrage continues over the deaths of babies in J K Lon Hospital in Kota, Rajasthan, and in the civil hospital in Rajkot, Gujarat, the fact remains that India has the most child deaths in the world.
• In 2017, UNICEF estimated 8,02,000 babies had died in India.

High mortality numbers

• India has an annual birth cohort of approximately 26 million. The infant mortality rate (IMR) in the country currently stands at 33 per 1,000 live births. This means babies numbering in the region of 8,50,000 die every year in India, or an average daily toll to 2,350.
• Gujarat has an annual birth cohort of 1.2 million. In 2017, the infant mortality rate in the state was 30 per 1,000 live births. This means the state sees about 36,000 deaths a year, or an average 98 a day.
• In Rajasthan, an estimated 1.65 million births take place every year. The infant mortality rate is 38 per 1000 live births which implies an estimated 62,843 deaths annually, or an average 172 every day.
• On January 1, 2020, according to a UNICEF estimate, India, with an estimated 67,385 babies born that day, accounted for 17% of the estimated 392,078 births globally. This is higher than the 46,299 babies born in China that day, the 26,039 born in Nigeria and 16,787 born in Pakistan.
• Among the factors that have been proved detrimental to child survival are lack of education in the mother, malnutrition (more than half of Indian women are anaemic), age of the mother at the time of birth, spacing, and whether the child is born at home or in a facility.
• According to the National Family Health Survey-4, only 78.9% births in India happen in a facility. This means 21.1% or about 54 lakh births in a year still happen outside of a facility where hygiene levels can be low, sometimes without the help of a trained health worker.
• Apart from the obvious infection risks in a non-institutional birth, vaccine compliance too is usually worse in these cases.
• According to the Health Ministry, the vaccination cover in India after several rounds of Intensified Mission Indradhanush (MI) and the original MI, now stands at 87%. This means over 33 lakh children continue to miss out on some or all vaccinations every year.

Measures in place for sick newborns

• Special newborn care units (SNCUs) have been established at district hospitals and sub-district hospitals with an annual delivery load more than 3,000 to provide care for sick newborns: that is, all type of neonatal care except assisted ventilation and major surgeries.
• It is a separate unit in close proximity to the labour room with 12 or more beds, and managed by adequately trained doctors, staff nurses and support staff to provide 24×7 services.
• According to officials in the Health Ministry, approximately 1 million children are admitted to the 996 SNCUs in the country every year with an average death rate of 10%.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

Active volcanoes on Venus; Fresh lava on the planet confirms

News

• New research suggests that planet Venus has active volcanoes.
• The study shows that lava flows on Venus may be only a few years old, suggesting that Venus could be volcanically active today, making it the only planet in our solar system, other than Earth, with recent eruptions.

Active volcanoes

• • The new research has used data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Venus Express orbiter to confirm that the lava flows are recent and Venus could have currently active volcanoes.
  • The Visible Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) on the Venus Express orbiter has measured the amount of infrared light emitted from part of Venus’ surface during its nighttime, shedding new light on volcanism on the planet.
  • This allowed scientists to differentiate the fresh lava flows on the surface of Venus from the older ones.
  • Earlier, the ages of lava eruptions and volcanoes on Venus could not be identified because the alteration rate of fresh lava was not well constrained.
  • Their experiment showed that an abundant mineral in basalt olivine reacts rapidly with the atmosphere and within weeks becomes coated with the iron oxide minerals magnetite and hematite.
  • The USRA team also found that the observations of this change in mineralogy by Venus Express would only take a few years to occur.The new results suggest that these lava flows on Venus are very young, which in turn would imply that Venus does indeed have active volcanoes.

Centre notifies new Wetland Conservation Rules, asks states, UTs to set up authority

News

• The Ministry of Environment has notified the new Wetland Conservation Rules that prohibit setting up or expansion of industries, and disposal of construction and demolition waste within the wetlands.
• The ministry has also directed that each state and Union Territory will have to set up an authority that will define strategies for conservation and wise use of wetlands within their jurisdiction.

Wetland Conservation Rules

• The authority shall prepare a list of all wetlands of the State or UT within three months from the date of publication of these rules, develop a comprehensive list of activities to be regulated and permitted within the notified wetlands and their zone of influence.
• It shall recommend mechanisms for maintenance of ecological character through promotional activities for land within the boundary of notified wetlands.
• It also directed the authority, to be headed by the state or UT’s environment minister, to undertake measures for enhancing awareness among stakeholders and local communities on values and functions of wetland.
• A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, and it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem.
• The new Rules also prohibit the conversion for non-wetland uses including encroachment of any kind, besides setting up of any industry and expansion of existing industries within the notified wetlands.
• It prohibited manufacture, handling, storage or disposal of construction and demolition waste covered under the Construction and Demolition Waste Management Rules, 2016 hazardous substances, electronic waste covered under the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2016 solid waste dumping and discharge of untreated wastes and effluent from industries, cities, towns, villages and other human settlements, within such bodies.
• The authority will also include one expert each in the fields of wetland ecology, hydrology, fisheries, landscape planning and socioeconomics to be nominated by the state government.
• The ministry has created a web portal for sharing information regarding implementation of Wetlands Rules where the central government, state governments and UTs are required to upload all relevant information and documents pertaining to wetlands in their jurisdiction.
• States/UTs are encouraged to develop their own portals and hyperlink the same to the national portal. They are also encouraged to upload other project documents and publications to enable sharing and exchanging good practices related to wetlands management in general, and implementation of regulatory framework in particular.
• In September last year, the ministry had announced that more than 100 wetlands, essential for combating land degradation, have been identified in India and will be restored in the next five years.

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