IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

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Farmers continue to burn stubble despite ban

News

• Burning stubble, the rice chaff left over after harvesting, is linked to winter air-pollution in Punjab as well as down-wind Delhi.

Air-pollution

• In 2013, the National Green Tribunal issued a directive to Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh asking them to ban such stubble burning.
• The Centre has spent about ₹600 crore in subsidising farm equipment via village cooperatives to enable farmers to access them and avoid stubble burning.
• In 2018, Punjab had disbursed about 8,000 farm implements to individual farmers and set up 4,795 custom hiring centres, from where such machinery could be leased. The cost of hiring these machines was about ₹5,000 an acre.
• The success of these efforts has been mixed even though stubble-fires in 2018 were fewer than in 2017 and 2016, according to satellite maps by independent researchers.

1-in-3 young children undernourished or overweight: UNICEF

News

• A third of the world’s nearly 700 million children under five years old are undernourished or overweight and face lifelong health problems as a consequence, according to a grim UN assessment of childhood nutrition.

Undernourished or overweight

• Problems that once existed at opposite ends of the wealth spectrum have today converged in poor and middle-income countries, the report showed.
• Despite a nearly 40% drop from 1990 to 2015 of stunting in poor countries, 149 million children four or younger are today still too short for their age, a clinical condition that impairs both brain and body development. Another 50 million are afflicted by wasting, a chronic and debilitating thinness also born of poverty.
• At the same time, half of youngsters across the globe under five are not getting essential vitamins and minerals, a long-standing problem UNICEF has dubbed “hidden hunger.” Over the last three decades, however, another form of child malnutrition has surged across the developing world: excess weight.
• Across all age groups, more than 800 million people in the world are constantly hungry and another two billion are eating too much of the wrong foods, driving epidemics of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
• Among children under five, diet during first 1,000 days after conception is the foundation for physical health and mental development. Only two-in-five infants under six months are exclusively breastfed, as recommended. Sales of milk-based formula have risen worldwide by 40%, and in upper middle-income countries such as Brazil, China and Turkey by nearly three-quarters.
• Missing vitamins and minerals, meanwhile, can lead to compromised immune systems, poor sight and hearing defects. A lack of iron can cause anaemia and reduced IQ.
• The rise of obesity, however, is plain to see. The problem was virtually non-existent in poor countries 30 years ago, but today at least 10% of under five year olds are overweight or obese in three-quarters of low-income nations.
• Cheap, readily available junk food, often marketed directly to kids, has made the problem much worse.
• A single degree Celsius of warming since the late-19th century has amplified droughts responsible for more than 80% of damage and losses in agriculture. Earth’s average surface temperature is set to rise another two or three degrees by 2100.
• Taxes on sugary foods and beverages; clear, front-of-package labelling; regulating the sale of breast milk substitutes; limiting the advertising and sale of ‘junk food’ near schools these and other measures could make a difference, it concluded.

Swiss glaciers shrink 10% in five years: study

News

• Switzerland’s glaciers have lost a tenth of their volume in the past five years alone a melting rate unmatched during observations stretching back more than a century, a study showed.

Glaciers shrink

• Measurements on 20 Swiss glaciers have shown that melt rates this year have reached “record levels”, according to the annual study on the state of the glaciers.
• The study, released amid growing global alarm over climate change, found that intense heatwaves over the summer in Switzerland had dashed hopes that an exceptionally snow-filled winter would limit the glacier melt this year.
• Snow cover on the glaciers was between 20 and 40% higher than usual, with depths of up to six metres measured in some places as late as June.
• A recent study by glaciologists indicated that more than 90% of the some 4,000 glaciers dotted throughout the Alps could disappear by the end of this century if greenhouse gas emissions are not reined in.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

Our share of river waters will no more go to Pakistan: PM Modi

News:

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India would put to use its share of water from the rivers flowing to Pakistan and ensure that every single drop is used for country’s farmer.
• Prime Minister said the river waters that rightfully belonged to India had been flowing to Pakistan for the last 70 years. It would not happen any more.

Strict pollution control measures

News

• Starting, stringent pollution control measures, including a ban on the use of diesel generator sets, will be imposed across Delhi and NCR towns to fight pollution.

Pollution control measures

• The measures under “very poor” and “severe” categories of the GRAP (Graded Response Action Plan) will be in place. GRAP was notified in 2017 and it includes a set of guidelines to be followed when air quality deteriorates.
• Earlier, diesel generator sets have been banned in Delhi under GRAP, but this is the first time there will be a ban in NCR towns. The ban will have exemption only for emergency services.
• Also, there will be increased parking fees. Frequency of mechanised cleaning and sprinkling of water on roads under GRAP will be increased.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

IMF cuts India’s growth projection to 6.1% in 2019

News

• The IMF slashed India’s GDP growth projection for the year 2019 to 6.1%, which is 1.2% down from its April projections.

Growth projection

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in April said India will grow at 7.3% in 2019. Three months later it projected a slower growth rate for India in 2019, a downward revision of 0.3%.
• As against India’s real growth rate of 6.8% in 2018, the IMF in its latest World Economic Outlook projected India’s growth rate at 6.1% in 2019 and noted that the Indian economy is expected to pick up the next year at 7.0% in 2020.
• IMF said that in India, monetary policy and broad-based structural reforms should be used to address cyclical weakness and strengthen confidence. A credible fiscal consolidation path is needed to bring down India’s elevated public debt over the medium term.
• This should be supported by subsidy-spending rationalisation and tax-base enhancing measures. Governance of public sector banks and the efficiency of their credit allocation needs strengthening, and the public sector’s role in the financial system needs to be reduced.
• Reforms to hiring and dismissal regulations would help incentivise job creation and absorb the country’s large demographic dividend. Land reforms should also be enhanced to encourage and expedite infrastructure development.

Global economy is in a synchronised slowdown

• The global economy is in a “synchronised slowdown” amidst growing trade barriers and heightened geopolitical tensions, the IMF warned as it downgraded the 2019 growth rate to 3%, the slowest pace since the global financial crisis.
• Idiosyncratic factors causing macroeconomic strain in several emerging market economies; and structural factors, such as low productivity growth and aging demographics in advanced economies are also responsible for this slow growth rate.
• The growth projection for 2019 is the slowest pace since the global financial crisis in 2008.
• About half of this is driven by recoveries or shallower recessions in stressed emerging markets, such as Turkey, Argentina, and Iran, and the rest by recoveries in countries where growth slowed significantly in 2019 relative to 2018, such as Brazil, Mexico, India, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.
• The automobile industry is contracting owing also to idiosyncratic shocks, such as disruptions from new emission standards in the euro area and China that have had durable effects.

Exports dip 6.57% in September; import contracts 13.58%

News

• India’s exports contracted by 6.57% to $26 billion in September mainly due to significant dip in shipments from key sectors such as petroleum, engineering, leather, chemicals, and gems & jewellery.

Exports contracted

• Imports too declined by 13.85% to $36.89 billion, narrowing trade deficit to $10.86 billion in September.
• Trade deficit in September last year stood at $14.95 billion.
• Out of 30 key export sectors, as many as 22 showed negative growth in September.
• Shipments of gems and jewellery, engineering goods, and petroleum products contracted by 5.56%, 6.2% and 18.6%, respectively.
• Oil imports declined by 18.33% to $8.98 billion, and non-oil imports fell by 12.3% to $27.91 billion.
• Cumulatively, during April-September 2019, exports were down 2.39% to $159.57 billion while imports contracted by 7% to $243.28 billion.
• Gold imports plunged 50.82% to $1.27 billion in the month.

High quality fake notes back: NIA

News

• The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has said “high quality” fake currency notes have “resurfaced”, with Pakistan being the “main source”.

Fake currency notes

• One of the reasons cited by the Government in 2016, when it scrapped the ₹500 and ₹1,000 currency notes, was to wipe out fake currency notes in circulation.
• The circulation of high quality FICN was one of the six major emerging challenges cited by the NIA at the meeting. The others listed by the agency are increase in Khalistani activities, collection of evidence from cyber space and capacity enhancement of cyber forensic labs.
• The NIA is the nodal agency for FICN related cases and has so far investigated 48 such cases, of which 13 ended in conviction.
• The high quality notes were being pushed through the “western border and Nepal.Bangladesh had emerged as the source of low quality FICNs.
• Over ₹50 crore in fake currency notes have been seizedin the past three years, the government had informed the Lok Sabha.

 ‘Foreign’ plastic invades Great Nicobar Island

News

• The pristine beaches of the Great Nicobar Island, India’s southernmost territory, are under threat from plastic.
• A survey of five beaches in the islands recorded the presence of plastic bottles.

Threat from plastic

• Sixty of these were analysed and found to be of ‘non-Indian origin,’ according to researchers.
• Major portion of the litter (40.5%) was of Malaysian origin. It was followed by Indonesia (23.9%) and Thailand (16.3%). Other countries contributed a minor portion.
• The litter of Indian origin only amounted to 2.2%.
• About 10 countries including India contributed to the plastic litter in the island. They were Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, India, Myanmar, China and Japan.
• The overwhelming contribution from Indonesia and Thailand was likely due to its proximity to the island; the plastic is likely to have made its way to the island because of water currents via the Malacca Strait, which is a major shipping route.
• The huge quantities of marine debris observed on this island might be due to improper handling of the solid waste from fishing/mariculture activity and ship traffic.
• The Great Nicobar Island of Andaman has an area of about 1044 sq. km.
• According to the 2011 census, has a population of about 8,069.
• The island is home to one of the most primitive tribes of India- the Shompens.
• The island includes the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve (GNBR) comprising of the Galathea National Park and the Campbell Bay National Park.
• The island harbours a wide spectrum of ecosystems from tropical wet evergreen forests, mountain ranges and coastal plains.
• The island is also home to giant robber crabs, crab-eating macaques, the rare megapode as well as leatherback turtles.

Biggest threat

• Plastic pollution has emerged as one of the severest threats to ocean ecosystems and its concentration has reached 5,80,000 pieces per square kilometre.
• Plastic represents 83% of the marine litter found.
• The remaining 17% is mainly textiles, paper, metal and wood.

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