IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

IASTODAY CAPSULES are available free -date wise => CLICK HERE

Children face rising risk of diabetes, high cholesterol

News

• Indian children are facing the double burden of malnutrition and rising risk of non-communicable diseases including diabetes, high cholesterol, chronic kidney disease and hypertension, the findings of the Health Ministry’s recently released Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) 2016-18 show.
• The report presents data on the shifting conditions of both undernutrition and overweight, obesity among Indian children from 0-19 years.

Gold standard methods

• This was the largest micronutrient survey ever implemented globally and used gold standard methods to assess anaemia, micronutrient deficiencies and biomarkers of non-communicable diseases among children for the first time in India.
• Abdominal obesity among children and adolescents showed that prevalence of abdominal obesity increased with the level of mother’s schooling and household wealth.
• The highest percentage of children with abdominal obesity was observed in Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa (7% each), while the lowest percentage was observed in Bihar (0.3%).
• For adolescents, the highest percentage of abdominal obesity was observed in Delhi (7%) and Tamil Nadu (6%) and the lowest percentage was observed in Assam (0.2%).
• The survey noted that overall 8% of children aged 5-9 years and 6% of adolescents aged 10-19 years had a high subscapular skinfold thickness an anthropometric measurement used to evaluate nutritional status by estimating the amount of subcutaneous fat for their age.
• A much higher prevalence was observed among children and adolescents residing in urban areas as compared to rural settings.
• The largest prevalence was observed in Goa (21%) and Delhi (15%) with lowest prevalence being recorded from Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand (3%) and for adolescents in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Assam (2%).

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

India to work with China, Pakistan to gauge impact of climate change

News

• To better gauge the impact of climate change on the Hindu Kush mountains, which includes the Himalayas, and spruce up data-gathering, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) will collaborate with meteorological agencies in China and Pakistan, among others, to provide climate forecast services to countries in the region.

Impact of climate change 

• The IMD organised a workshop to discuss ways to establish a regional climate centre that will provide forecasting services and climate analyses.
• It will be under the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and take a few years to take shape.
• The Hindu-Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region is considered the Third Pole [after the North and South Poles], and has significant implications for climate. However, data-gathering here is sparse.
• They are discussing a system whereby countries can share data and improve forecasts and predictions. The WMO proposal was to have nodal centres in Islamabad, Delhi and Beijing.
• The HKH region spans Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
• It traverses about 5 million square kilometres and hosts a large and culturally diverse population. The Third Pole, which contains vast cryospheric zones, is also the world’s largest store of snow and ice outside the polar region.
• Alongside forecasting weather over long periods, the regional centres would provide data services, training and capacity-building, research and development.
• A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlighted the threat to the HKH region from global warming.
• Floods would become more frequent and severe in the mountainous and downstream areas of the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra river basins, because of an increase in extreme precipitation events. The severity of floods was expected to more than double towards the end of the century.

Cabinet approves ₹5.5 lakh package for PoK families who settled outside J-K after Partition

• News
  The Union Cabinet approved a one-time payment of ₹5.5 lakh as a resettlement package for the 5,300 displaced families who had come from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and initially settled outside Jammu and Kashmir but later relocated to the State.

One-time payment

• In 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the resettlement package for those PoK families who had settled in Jammu and Kashmir after the Partition on separate occasions.
• The families which had come from PoK but had settled outside Jammu and Kashmir were left out of the package.
• These families had later resettled in Jammu and Kashmir.

Water train from Jolarpet makes its last trip to Chennai

News

• The water train from Jolarpet, considered a lifeline for parched Chennai residents, made its final run.

Water train- a lifeline

• Since July, when the service started, it has made 159 trips.
• The first trip had 25 lakh litres of water pumped from Parsampettai, near the railway yard, which is nearly 3.5 km away from the ground level water sump at Mettusakkarakuppam.
• Pipelines were laid up to Parsampettai, from where wagons were filled with water intended for the Metrowater filling point located in Chennai. With each trip, around 2.75 million litres of water was brought from Jolarpet in 50 wagons.
• In June, when the city was reeling under acute water shortage, Chief Minister announced that government had sanctioned funds to the tune of ₹65 crore for transporting 10 mld (million litres per day) drinking water from Jolarpet to Chennai for six months.
• Pipelines were laid along the Second Main Road, South Jagannathan Nagar, Villivakkam, to decant water received by train.
• It ran along the railway track and linked to a conduit line that normally carried water from the Puzhal lake in Red Hills.
• The water was sent to the Kilpauk water works from where it would reach areas in central and north Chennai.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

Yamuna pollution: NGT body slams Delhi Jal Board, NDMC

News

• A Monitoring Committee appointed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for the cleaning of the Yamuna has slammed multiple government bodies, including the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), South Delhi Municipal Corporation and the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) for pollution of storm water drains in the city.

Pollution of storm water drains

• The storm water drains are supposed to carry away excess rainwater, but many of them carry untreated sewage and flow into the Yamuna due to lack of proper mechanism to treat sewage.
• Following court orders and health concerns raised by some residents, the committee had inspected residential areas in Greater Kailash 1, Defence Colony, and Nizamuddin (west), through which Barapulla and Kushak drains pass.
• The SDMC was also directed to instal cameras to catch trucks that were dumping construction waste near the drains.

With 89 artificial ponds, Delhi govt. makes an effort to protect Yamuna

News

• In a first, the Delhi government had created 89 artificial ponds for idol immersion across the city to prevent the Yamuna from getting polluted.
• This initiative has fetched results with the Delhi government claiming that there has been no reports of idol immersion in the Yamuna.

Prevent the Yamuna from getting polluted

• Some of the ponds were as deep as eight feet and is 20×30 feet in size.
• To make use of the artificial ponds, the government had held meetings with various puja committees ahead of the immersion and had given advertisements with details of all the 89 locations.
• Various government bodies, including the municipal corporations, Delhi Jal Board and Revenue Department, which is the nodal agency, worked in shifts to prevent the Yamuna from getting polluted.
• Durga puja organisers were also happy with the arrangement, though there were some operational difficulties.

CLICK HERE TO SEE DATE WISE CURRENT AFFAIRS