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IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

India-Luxembourg Virtual Summit

Source: PIB india

News

• A Virtual Summit will be held between Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and Prime Minister of Luxembourg  Mr Xavier Bettel.
• This will be the first stand-alone Summit meeting between India and Luxembourg in the past two decades.

Strengthening bilateral relationship

• The leaders will discuss the entire spectrum of bilateral relationship, including strengthening of India-Luxembourg cooperation in the post-COVID world.
• They will also exchange views on international and global issues of mutual interest.
• India and Luxembourg have continued to maintain high level exchanges in the recent past. The two Prime Ministers have met previously on three occasions.

Pakistan becomes ‘Pavlovian’ whenever India is mentioned: India at UNGA

Source: Indian Express.

News

• India has slammed Pakistan for making “irrelevant and irresponsible” remarks in the UN, saying the General Assembly is a forum for serious debate, not frivolous allegations.

Irrelevant and irresponsible remarks

• India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador said while speaking in the UN General Assembly on ‘question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council’.
• Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN, in his speech, made references to the Line of Control as he voiced opposition to India’s UNSC membership.
• At present, the UNSC comprises five permanent members and 10 non-permanent member countries which are elected for a two-year term by the General Assembly of the United Nations.
• The five permanent members are Russia, the UK, China, France and the United States and these countries can veto any substantive resolution. There has been growing demand to increase the number of permanent members to reflect the contemporary global reality.

India, Brazil, South Africa, Germany and Japan are strong contenders for permanent membership of the UNSC which has the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

Sputnik V vaccine could be produced in India and China

Source: LiveMint

News

• President Vladimir Putin called for a joint effort by the BRICS countries on the development of the coronavirus vaccines as he suggested that Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 could be produced in China and India, which are members of the five-nation bloc.

Joint effort

• The summit, hosted by President Putin, was attended by Indian Prime Minister , Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
• Putin said that Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine that was registered in August could be produced in China and India, both members of the BRICS.
• Russia became the world’s first country to register a coronavirus vaccine, dubbed Sputnik V.
• Sputnik V vaccine has shown 92 per cent efficacy in preventing COVID-19.
• The vaccine has been named Sputnik-V. The name is a reference to the surprise 1957 launch of the world’s first satellite by the Soviet Union.

The 12th BRICS summit was originally scheduled to be held in Saint Petersburg in July but had to be postponed due to the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) is known as an influential bloc that represents over 3.6 billion people, or half of the world’s population. The BRICS countries have a combined GDP of USD 16.6 trillion.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

Second Successful Flight Test of QRSAM System

Source: PIB india

News

• In yet another flight test, the Quick Reaction Surface to Air Missile (QRSAM) System tracked the target accurately and successfully neutralised the airborne target.

Second flight test

• The flight test, second in the series was conducted at around 1542 hrs from the Integrated Test Range, Chandipur, off the coast of Odisha.
• The test was carried out once again, against the high performance Jet Unmanned Aerial Target called Banshee, which simulates an aircraft.
• The Radars acquired the target from a long range and tracked it till the mission computer automatically launched the missile.
• Continuous guidance was provided through Radar data link. Missile entered the terminal active homing guidance and reached the target close enough for proximity operation of warhead activation.
• The flight test was conducted in the deployment configuration of the weapon system comprising of Launcher, fully Automated Command and Control System, Surveillance System and Multi Function Radars.
• The QRSAM weapon system, which can operate on the move, consists of all indigenously developed subsystems. All objectives of the test were fully met. The launch was carried out in the presence of the users from Indian Army.
• A number of range instruments like Radar, Telemetry and Electro Optical Sensors were deployed which captured the complete flight data and verified the performance of the missile.

The first in the series test of QRSAM took place achieving the milestone of a direct hit. Second test proved the performance parameters of warhead.

Vulture numbers ‘stabilising’, MoEF launches action plan to increase population

Source: Indian Express

News

• Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change launched a Vulture Action Plan 2020-25 for the conservation of vultures in the country.

Vulture Action Plan 2020-25

• Vulture numbers saw a steep slide — as much as 90 per cent in some species — in India since the 1990s in one of the most drastic declines in bird populations in the world.
• The ministry has been carrying out a conservation project for vultures since 2006, the plan is to now extend the project to 2025 to not just halt the decline but to actively increase the vulture numbers in India.
• There are nine recorded species of vultures in India — the Oriental white-backed, long-billed, slender-billed, Himalayan, red-headed, Egyptian, bearded, cinereous and the Eurasian Griffon.
• Between the 1990s and 2007, numbers of three presently critically-endangered species – the Oriental white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed vultures crashed massively with 99 per cent of the species having been wiped out.
• The number of red-headed vultures, also critically-endangered now, declined by 91% while the Egyptian vultures by 80%.
• The Egyptian vulture is listed as ‘endangered’ while the Himalayan, bearded and cinereous vultures are ‘near threatened’.
• The MoEFCC released the Action Plan for Vulture Conservation 2006 with the DCGI banning the veterinary use of diclofenac in the same year and the decline of the vulture population being arrested by 2011.
• The Central Zoo Authority (CZA) and Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) also established the Vulture Conservation Breeding Programme, which has been successful and had three critically-endangered species bred in captivity for the first time.
• Eight centres have been established and, so far, 396 vultures of the three species have successfully fledged.
• The ministry has now also launched conservation plans for the red-headed and Egyptian vultures, with breeding programmes for both.
• The Vulture Safe Zone programme is being implemented at eight different places in the country where there were extant populations of vultures, including two in Uttar Pradesh.
• Attempts are made to secure the population of vulture by ensuring the minimum use of Diclofenac and an area is declared a Vulture Safe Zone only when no toxic drugs are found in undercover pharmacy and cattle carcass surveys, for two consecutive years, and the vulture populations are stable and not declining.
• The action plan aims to carry forth what has already been set in motion by ensuring that sale of veterinary NSAIDs is regulated and livestock are treated only by qualified veterinarians.
• The Ministry also plans on carrying out safety testing of available NSAIDs on vultures and to develop new ones which do not affect vultures.

UT forest dept to adopt four-step strategy to improve green cover, AQI

Source: Financial Express

News

• The UT Forest department has adopted a four-step strategy to improve the green cover and Air Quality Index of Chandigarh.

Four-step strategy

• The strategy includes covering all plain space with grass, plantation etc, adopting technique of curbing soil erosion, developing techniques to avoid maximum vehicular chaos, jams etc with the assistance of engineering wing, and focusing on the Index biodiversity by planting medicinal and indigenous species.
• The UT forest department has already stopped the plantation of eucalyptus trees in Chandigarh.
• As per the Forest Survey of India-2019 report, the green cover of Chandigarh is 46 per cent, almost 13 per cent more than the target for every state and UT.
• In Chandigarh, certain roads were earmarked for the plantation of specific plants, including Amaltas, Babool, Ashoka tree etc.
• The responsibility of plantation in the city rests on the Municipal Corporation and the UT forest department.
• Sector 38 to Sector 56, reserved forest areas, nurseries, Botanical Garden along with a few parks fall under the purview of the forest department, while the remaining area comes under the MC’s horticulture wing.

The 2019-20 Greening Chandigarh Action Plan had a target of plantation of 2.53 lakh and the forest department achieved the surplus task by planting and distributing 2.80 lakh plants.

Chandigarh is also among the 112 Indian cities identified as Non-Attainment Cities for not meeting the prescribed standards of air quality.

Habitat destruction, violation of tribal rights: Greens to strengthen stir against hydel project in Kerala

Source: Indian Express

News

• Environmentalists and tribal communities in Kerala are set to strengthen their resistance against a small hydel power project, powered by the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) in the Vazhachal forest division, citing widespread concerns of habitat destruction and violation of tribal rights on forest land.

Habitat destruction and violation of tribal rights

• The KSEB recently issued an order to clear hard wood and rosewood trees in the allocated forest area in Vazhachal division to kickstart work for the Anakkayam Small Hydro Electric Project which has been designed as a tailrace development to generate power from the water flowing out of the Sholayar dam.
• The power developed from the project will have high value because the generation mainly occurs in the summer season due to assured release of 12.3 TMC of water in the Sholayar reservoir.
• The 7.5 MW project, first mooted in the 90s and which was given administrative sanction recently at a cost of Rs 139.62 crores, is set to come up in nearly eight hectares of forest land located in the buffer zone of the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve (PTR).
• Environmentalists say the project, if implemented, will involve the construction of a 5.5 km-long and 3.65-m wide tunnel through blasting works and thereby render irreparable damage to a forest area already ecologically sensitive.
• The consequences will extend to loss of precious flora and fauna species along with huge impact for nearby tribal settlements.
• Another aspect of the resistance against the hydel project is the absence of consent from the local Kadar tribe which holds the right of Community Forest Resources (CFR) as per the Forest Rights Act, 2006.
• The site of the hydel project comes within the 400 sq kms of forest land that were given as CFR to the Kadar tribe which has the responsibility to protect and conserve the habitat.
• This is the first place in Kerala where CFR were accorded to a tribe.