National Current Affairs – UPSC/IAS Exams- 16th September 2019

World Ozone Day

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: World Ozone Day is observed on 16 September every year to spread awareness among people about the depletion of Ozone Layer and search possible solutions to preserve it.

More on the Topic: 

• The theme of World Ozone Day 2019 is ’32 years and Healing’. This year’s theme celebrates three decades of remarkable international cooperation to protect the Ozone Layer and the climate under the Montreal Protocol.
• It also reminds the people to keep up the momentum to ensure healthy people and a healthy planet.
• In 2018, the latest Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion was completed. This assessment shows that the parts of the Ozone Layer have recovered at a rate of 1-3% per decade since 2000.
• Even at the protected rates, Northern hemisphere and mid-latitude ozone will heal completely by the 2030s. The Southern Hemisphere will follow in the 2050s and Polar Regions by 2060. No doubt Ozone Layer protection efforts also contribute in fighting with the climate change.

About Montreal Protocol:

• The Montreal Protocol was signed on 16 September, 1987 on substances that deplete the Ozone Layer and marks the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.
• United Nations General Assembly in its resolution 49/114 in 1987 choose this day. Basically, it is an international treaty planned to protect ozone layer by reducing the production of substances supposed to be responsible for ozone layer depletion.
• The Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol became the first treaties in the history of the United Nations to achieve universal ratification on 16 September, 2009.

About Ozone:

• Ozone (composed of three atoms of oxygen) occurs both in the Earth’s upper atmosphere (stratosphere) and at ground level (troposphere). It can be good or bad, depending on where it is found.
• Ozone occurs naturally in the Earth’s upper atmosphere (Stratosphere) where it forms a protective layer that shields us from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.
• In the Earth’s lower atmosphere (troposphere) near ground level, ozone is formed when pollutants react chemically in the presence of sunlight. Surface level ozone is a harmful air pollutant.

Ozone Depleting Substances:

• Main cause of depletion of Ozone layer is human activity mainly human-made chemicals that contain chlorine or bromine..The chief ozone depleting substances include chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), carbon tetrachloride, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and methyl chloroform. Halons, sometimes known as brominated fluorocarbons, also contribute mightily to ozone depletion. ODS substances have a lifetime of about 100 years.

Source: Hindustan Times, Wikipedia

M.Visvesvaraya

Topic: Eminent Persons in news

In News: September 15, the birth anniversary of M.Visvesvaraya, is celebrated as  Engineer’s day in India.

More on the Topic:

• He was an engineering pioneer of India whose genius reflected in harnessing of water resources and building and consolidation of dams across the country.
• He was the chief engineer responsible for the construction of the Krishna Raja Sagara Dam in Mysore.
• He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the British Indian Empire by King George V for his contributions to the public good in 1915.
• The design and patent of the automatic weir floodgates is also attributed to Sir M.Visvesvaraya.
• He was conferred India’s highest honour, the Bharat Ratna in 1955.

Source: Hindu

Karan Vandana Hybrid Wheat Variety

Topic: Agriculture

In News: Karan Vandana, a new hybrid wheat variety which is resistant to yellow rust and white blast and can give significantly higher yield than normal varieties, is to be launched soon across the country.

More on the Topic:

• It will reduce unit costs for farmers as well as return higher yield than normal varieties.It can be cultivated only in areas under full irrigation support.
• It has been developed by the Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR) under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

Yellow Rust:

• Yellow rust is a fungal disease that manifests as powdery yellow stripes on leaves.
• These yellow stripes hinder photosynthesis and stunt the growth of the plant.

About Wheat Blast:

• Wheat Blast is a fungal disease.
• It prevents maturation of the actual grain which affects reproduction by causing the host to produce fewer seeds.
• It can infect huge areas of cultivation resulting in more than 75% yield loss.

Source: Hindu Business line

Jaldoot

Topic: Government Policies

In News: Under the Jal Shakti Abhiyan campaign Union Minister for information and broadcasting Prakash Javdekar launched  “Jaldoot” a travelling exhibition in Pune.

More on the Topic:

• The exhibition consists of various information display panels and audio-visual components.
• The Song & Drama Division cultural troupes and artists will travel along the bus to create awareness about the Government’s initiative.
• The bus will visit 8 districts of Maharashtra in the next 2 months.
• The field units at those locations will conduct different activities like competitions, rallies, cultural programmes, on the sidelines of the visit of the bus, in order to create awareness on water conservation efforts.

About Jal Shakti Abhiyan:

• It is a time-bound, mission-mode campaign that would focus on 1,592 “water-stressed” blocks in 257 districts.
• The campaign will run through citizen participation during the monsoon season.
• Jal Shakti Abhiyan is a collaborative effort of various Ministries of the Government of India and State Governments, being coordinated by the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
• Under the campaign, teams of officers from the central government will visit and work with district administration in water stressed blocks, to ensure five important water conservation interventions.
• These will be water conservation and rainwater harvesting, renovation of traditional and other water bodies/tanks, reuse, bore well recharge structures, watershed development and intensive afforestation.

Source: Hindu

Electricity production from Radiative Cooling

Topic: Science and Technology

In News: Scientists have designed an inexpensive thermoelectric device that can harness the cold of space without active heat input. The device generates electricity enough to power an LED at night.

More on the Topic:

• The device can generate electricity at night when solar cells don’t work. Beyond lighting, This could be a broadly enabling approach to power generation suitable for remote locations, and anywhere where power generation at night is needed.
• The prototype device employs radiative cooling, in which a sky-facing surface passes its heat to the atmosphere as thermal radiation, losing some heat to space and reaching a cooler temperature than the surrounding air.
• This phenomenon explains how frost forms on the grass during above-freezing nights, and the same principle can be used to generate electricity, harnessing temperature differences to produce renewable electricity at night, when lighting demand peaks.
• According to the laws of thermodynamics, everything on Earth emits heat.At night, when one side of Earth turns away from the sun, its buildings & streets cool off.
• If no clouds are present to trap warmth, objects on the Earth can lose so much heat that they reach a lower temperature than the air surrounding them.

How the Device Works:

• This device releases the heat unevenly in a manner that the top side cooling is more than the bottom side cooling. It then converts the difference in heat into electricity.
• At its heart is the gadget called a thermoelectric generator, which uses the difference in temperature between opposite sides of the device to generate a current.
• When the device was connected to a voltage converter, it was able to power a white LED.

Source: PIB

Hindi Divas 2019

Topic: Polity and Governance

In News: Rashtriya Hindi Divas is observed across India every year on 14th September.

More on the Topic:

• The Constituent Assembly of India adopted Hindi written in Devnagari Script along with English as the official language of the country on September 14, 1949, under Article 343(1).
• Initially, English was granted the official language status for only 15 years since the adoption of the constitution. During these 15 years, Hindi’s reach was to be promoted for official purposes as well as in the education sector so that English would fade out, giving ground to Hindi.
• Imposition of Hindi was contested in many non-Hindi states, especially in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Violent protests broke out in southern India leading the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, to introduce the ‘Official Languages Act’ in 1963, which assured the continuation of English along with Hindi as the official language of the Union of India.
• Anti-Hindi protests of 1965 marked an important turn in India’s official language policy. The ‘Official Languages Act’ was amended in 1967 guaranteeing the “virtual indefinite policy of bilingualism” for all official purposes of the Union.
• Given the linguistic diversity of India, there is no national language as all the states are free to decide their own official languages.

Source:PIB

Farm loan waivers and Impacts on state treasuries

Topic: Economy

In News: The Reserve Bank of India shared the report of an Internal Working Group (IWG), which was set up in February to look at, among other things, the impact of farm loan waivers on state finances. The report has shown how farm loan waivers dented state finances and urged governments  both central and state  to avoid resorting to farm loan waivers.

More on the Topic:

• In essence, a farm loan waiver by the government implies that the government settles the private debt that a farmer owes to a bank.
• But doing so eats into the government’s resources, which, in turn, leads to one of following two things: either the concerned government’s fiscal deficit (or, in other words, total borrowing from the market) goes up or it has to cut down its expenditure.
• A higher fiscal deficit, even if it is at the state level, implies that the amount of money available for lending to private businesses both big and small will be lower.
• It also means the cost at which this money would be lent (or the interest rate) would be higher. If fresh credit is costly, there will be fewer new companies, and less job creation.
• If the state government doesn’t want to borrow the money from the market and wants to stick to its fiscal deficit target, it will be forced to accommodate by cutting expenditure.
• More often than not, states choose to cut capital expenditure that is the kind of expenditure which would have led to the creation of productive assets such as more roads, buildings, schools etc instead of the revenue expenditure, which is in the form of committed expenditure such as staff salaries and pensions. But cutting capital expenditure also undermines the ability to produce and grow in the future.
• As such, farm loan waivers are not considered prudent because they hurt overall economic growth apart from ruining the credit culture in the economy since they incentivise defaulters and penalise those who pay back their loans.

Significance of State Finances:

• Far too often, analyses of the Indian economy focuses on the Union government’s finances alone. But the ground realities are fast changing.
• The NIPFP study of state finances reveals that all the states, collectively, now spend 30 per cent more than the central government.
• Moreover, since 2014, state governments have increasingly borrowed money from the market. In 2016-17, for instance, total net borrowings by all the states were almost equal (roughly 86 per cent) of the amount that the Centre borrowed.

Model Mains Question: Comment on the ill effects of the farm loan waivers.

Source: Indian Express

New Delhi Declaration

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: The New Delhi declaration was adopted by the participating countries at the 14th CoP to the UNCCD.

More on the Topic:

• It comes with an action plan to save the planet from losing more land and to achieve SDG target of land degradation neutrality by 2030.
• The parties expressed support for new initiatives to improve human health, well-being and to advance peace and security.
• The declaration also stated that, World needs to consider land-based solutions for climate action and Biodiversity conservation to achieve the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement.
• It also special emphasis on, Community-driven transformative projects that are gender-sensitive at local, national and regional levels to drive implementation.

About UNCCD:

• Established in 1994.
• It is the sole legally binding international agreement linking environment and development to sustainable land management.
• It is the only convention stemming from a direct recommendation of the Rio Conference’s Agenda 21.
• Focus areas: The Convention addresses specifically the arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, known as the drylands, where some of the most vulnerable ecosystems and peoples can be found.
• Aim: Its 197 Parties aim, through partnerships, to implement the Convention and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The end goal is to protect land from over-use and drought, so it can continue to provide food, water and energy.
• The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is the nodal Ministry for this Convention.

Source: Hindu