IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

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NDRF set to induct women personnel

News

• The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) is all set to induct women personnel in its new battalions within the next one year.

NDRF

• The NDRF is a specialised force that was raised in 2006 for specific tasks of relief and rescue during natural and man-made disasters or threatening situations.

Induct women personnel

• The Union Government had, in 2018, made a proposal to attach women contingents to NDRF battalions in the country.
• The NDRF will have four new battalions in addition to the 12, and they will be based in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the National Capital Region.
• The new battalions each having around 1,150 personnel will be drawn from the Assam Rifles, the Indo- Tibetan Border Police and the Border Security Force.

UNICEF says conflicts, climate crisis, online misinformation are big emerging threats to children

News

• Protracted conflicts, the worsening climate crisis, a rising level of mental illness among young people, and online misinformation are some of the most concerning emerging global threats to children,cautions the UNICEF.

Global threats to children

• 30 years since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UNICEF sounds the alarm on major growing and future challenges facing children.
• UNICEF outlines eight growing challenges for the world’s children including prolonged conflicts, pollution and the climate crisis, a decline in mental health, mass migration and population movements, statelessness and online misinformation.
• UNICEF also expresses concern that the majority of children will grow up as natives of a digital environment saturated with online misinformation.
• UNICEF warns that an online environment where truth can become indistinguishable from fiction has the potential to totally undermine trust in institutions and information sources, and has been demonstrated to skew democratic debate, voter intentions, and sow doubt about other ethnic, religious or social groups.
• Online misinformation is already leaving children vulnerable to grooming, abuse, and other forms of exploitation; skewing democratic debate; and, in some communities, even prompting resurgence in deadly diseases due to distrust in vaccines fuelled by online misinformation the results of which could be the creation of an entire generation of citizens who do not trust anything.
• UNICEF cautions that mental illness among adolescents has been on the rise in the years since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and that depression is now among the leading causes of disability in the young.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

Govt issues ordinance to ban e-cigarettes

News

• The Government issued an ordinance to ban e-cigarettes, making the production, import, export, transport, sale or advertisements of such “alternative” smoking devices a cognizable offence attracting jail term and fine.

Ban of e-cigarettes

• First time violators will face a jail term of up to one year and a fine of ₹1 lakh. For subsequent offences, a jail term of up to three years or a fine of ₹5 lakh.
• The storage of e-cigarettes shall now be punishable with imprisonment of up to six months or a fine of up to ₹50,000 or both.
• The Union Cabinet decided to ban production, import, distribution and sale of electronic cigarettes.
• Cabinet decided to ban e-cigarettes and similar products as they pose health risk to people, especially the youth.
• The ordinance also allows authorised officials to conduct searches in premises stating that where such searches are not permissible, authorities may attach properties, stocks of e-cigarettes or records maintained by the manufacturer, producer exporter, transporter, importer, stockist against whom a complaint has been made.
• It also said that the owner or occupier of the place which stock of e-cigarettes shall voluntarily prepare a list of such stock in his possession and without delay submit the stock to the nearest authorised officer.

Two out of three child deaths due to malnutrition: report

News

• Two-thirds of the 1.04 million deaths in children under five years in India are still attributable to malnutrition, according to the first comprehensive estimate of disease burden due to child and maternal malnutrition and the trends of its indicators in every State from 1990.

Malnutrition

• The disability-adjusted life year (DALY) rate attributable to malnutrition in children varies 7-fold among the States and is highest in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Assam, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Nagaland and Tripura.
• The report says the overall under-five death rate and the death rate due to malnutrition has decreased substantially from 1990 to 2017, but malnutrition is still the leading risk factor for death in children under five years, and is also the leading risk factor for disease burden for all ages considered together in most States.

Trump calls new border wall a ‘world-class security system’

News

• S. President Donald Trump signed his name on a newly constructed section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, calling it a “world-class security system” that will be “virtually impenetrable”.

World-class security system

• Since construction has begun on the new barrier, 30 to 50 people a day are trying to cross there instead of 300 to 500.
• The traffic in this sector has dropped dramatically.
• The concrete goes deep into the ground to prevent tunneling. And agents can see through it to spot possible threats on the Mexican side of the border.
• It has built 66 miles (106 kilometers) so far, has 251 miles (403 kilometers) in various stages of construction at 17 sites and contracts for 163 miles (262 kilometers) planned in the next 90 days. Additional land on private property is expected to take more time.
• Crews are installing 270 panels a day, each one with eight bollards.
• Arrests are still relatively high, topping 50,000 in 10 of the last 11 months, compared with only eight months over the previous decade.
• The Supreme Court gave Mr. Trump a green light to deny asylum to anyone who passes through another country on the way to the U.S. border with Mexico without having first sought protection in the third country.
• The Pentagon recently diverted $3.6 billion from 127 military construction projects to build 175 miles (280 kilometers) of barriers on the border.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

Dust cloud from asteroid collision shaped life on Earth 466 million years ago, say scientists

News

• Scientists said dust spawned by a gigantic collision in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter 400 million years earlier triggered an ice age on Earth that ushered in a significant increase in marine biodiversity.

Gigantic collision

• The event, occurring when life was concentrated in the seas and far before vertebrates first walked on land, set in motion evolutionary changes in invertebrates fundamental to marine ecosystems as they adapted to global cooling.
• The inner solar system was filled with enormous amounts of dust after an asteroid more than 150 km in diameter was struck by a smaller object perhaps 20 km wide. It was the solar system’s largest-known breakup event in the past 2 billion years.
• Solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface was reduced for at least 2 million years by the dust in space and in the planet’s atmosphere.
• Another cooling mechanism was that the iron-rich meteoritic dust fertilized large parts of the ocean surface leading to increased plankton productivity and drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
• The researchers found traces of dust in sedimentary rocks formed at the time containing special helium isotopes and rare minerals that revealed its extraterrestrial origin.
• Invertebrate groups that experienced diversification included horseshoe crab-like trilobites, clams, clam-like brachiopods and a group called gastropods that included snails and slugs.
• The cooling event unfolded gradually, enabling marine life during the Ordovician Period to adapt, unlike the sudden impact that erased the dinosaurs.
• Earth’s climate changed from being tropical to semitropical worldwide to becoming divided into climate zones as it is today with frozen poles and tropical conditions at the equator.

State govt. to release ₹1,000 cr. to build houses for flood victims

News

• Karnataka State government decided to release from its coffers ₹1,000 crore for construction of houses and ₹510 crore for repair of damaged roads.

Flood- affected areas

• A Cabinet meeting decided to release the funds from the State exchequer for flood-hit districts.
• A total ₹5 lakh each would be given to families whose houses were totally damaged. In the first phase, ₹1 lakh would be given per family for laying the foundation for new houses.
• It was roughly estimated that nearly 40,000 houses were completely damaged owing to the recent floods.
• A sum of ₹25,000 would be given to each family whose house had been partially damaged. Funds available under the Karnataka Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan (Planning, Allocation, and Utilisation of Financial Resources) Act, 2013, would be utilised for construction of houses of SCs and STs.
• A sum of ₹30,444 crore had been allocated for the welfare of the SCs and STs in 2019-20. Funds under the Act would also utilised for construction of roads in SC/ST colonies.
• Funds of ₹510 crore under the PWD would be utilised for construction and repair of roads in flood- affected areas.

NHAI identifies 950-km highway projects to be built at ₹30,000 cr. under PPP

News

• The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has identified 950 km of highway projects that will be built at ₹30,000 crore under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

950 km of highway projects

• The projects are spread across eight States.
• The NHAI has identified various stretches on a pan-India basis that will be constructed through the PPP mode on the build-operate-transfer (toll) basis.
• These stretches have been selected on the basis of consultation with the prospective bidders.
• The Authority has already invited the proposal for annual pre-qualification for construction of 4 or 6 lane of National Highways for these stretches.

In 12 years, 227 acres in CRZ reclaimed

News

• The coastal ecology of Maradu has been impaired with around 227 acres of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) area the size of 171 football fields, according to a rough estimate having been reclaimed between 2002 and 2014.

Coastal ecology

• The massive conversion of the CRZ area in Maradu, where the Supreme Court has ordered the demolition of four apartment complexes that have come up in violation of CRZ norms.
• There has been “widespread reclamation work carried out in the wetland areas of Maradu municipality for construction activities,” during the 12-year period.
• Of the 101 reclamation works carried out during the period, 71 were completed. The developers did not spare land forms, including filtration ponds, intertidal zones, mangroves, mangrove buffer zones, and waterbodies, during the period.
• Around 40 acres of mangroves in the mangrove buffer zone were encroached upon during the said period. Almost all reclamation works, except one, seemed to have affected the intertidal zone.
• The researchers analysed satellite images from Google Earth corresponding to 2005, 2010, and 2018 to take stock of the changes in land use/land cover due to urbanisation in the local body.
• A qualitative comparison of the images indicated that major changes have occurred in land use and cover over the past two decades resulting in substantial decrease in vegetation cover, while the increase in built-up space is obvious.
• While the built-up area seems to have increased by up to three times over the past two decades, the vegetation area [trees and dense trees] seems to have decreased by more than half during the past two decades.
• On the ecological impacts of reclamation, the report said the removal of mangroves has resulted in significant [negative] impact on the environment, including water pollution, depletion of fisheries, loss of carbon sink and biodiversity and protection against coastal hazards.

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