National Current Affairs – UPSC/KAS Exams- 2nd April 2019

Earth Hour

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: Famous monuments across the world went  dark on March 31st night to observe the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Earth Hour to spark global awareness and action on nature and the environment.

More on the Topic:

• Since 2007, Earth Hour has been a movement to bring awareness to climate change, while promoting action to preserve the climate and environment.
• Earth Hour 2019 with its campaign #Connect2Earth aims to create awareness regarding the importance of saving nature as our lives depend on its health. Participation will mark Earth Hour by switching off unnecessary lights for the hour to symbolise a commitment to change beyond the hour.
• Starting as a symbolic lights out event in Sydney in 2007, Earth Hour is now the world’s largest grassroots movement for the environment, inspiring millions of people to take action for our planet and nature.

About World Wide Fund for Nature:

• It is international non-governmental organization working in the field of the wilderness preservation and reduction of human impact on the environment.
• It was formerly named World Wildlife Fund.
• It is world’s largest conservation organization with over five million supporters worldwide, working in more than 100 countries, supporting around 1,300 conservation and environmental projects.
• It was founded in 1961 and is headquartered in Gland, Switzerland. WWF aims to stop degradation of planet’s natural environment and build future in which humans live in harmony with nature.
• Currently, its work is organized around these six areas: food, climate, freshwater, wildlife, forests, and oceans.
• It publishes Living Planet Report every two years since 1998 and it is based on Living Planet Index and ecological footprint calculation.

Source: The Hindu

International Solar Alliance

Topic: International Relations

In News: Bolivia has joined the International Solar Alliance by signing the framework agreement on International Solar Alliance.

More on the Topic:

• The International Solar Alliance (ISA) is an alliance of more than 122 countries initiated by India, most of them being sunshine countries, which lie either completely or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, now extended to all members of UN.
• The primary objective of the alliance is to work for efficient exploitation of solar energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
• The alliance is a treaty-based inter-governmental organization. Countries that do not fall within the Tropics can join the alliance and enjoy all benefits as other members, with the exception of voting rights.
• The initiative was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the India Africa Summit, and a meeting of member countries ahead of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in November 2015. The framework agreement of the International Solar Alliance opened for signatures in Marrakech, Morocco in November 2016, and 122 countries have joined.
• It is headquartered in India. The interim Secretariat is located at the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) in Gwal Pahari, Gurugram, India.
• The alliance is also called International Agency for Solar Policy and Application (IASPA).

Source: The Hindu

El Nino

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: The weather office established the development of rain busting El Nino over the Pacific Ocean, which will persist till June this year. The persistence of the phenomenon could negatively impact the June to September southwest monsoon season which delivers 70% of the country’s annual rainfall.

More on the topic:

• El Niño and La Niña are opposite phases of what is known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle.
• The ENSO is a recurring climatic pattern involving temperature changes in the waters of the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean, and changes in the patterns of upper and lower level winds, sea level pressure, and tropical rainfall across the Pacific Basin.
• El Nino is often called the warm phase and La Nina is called the cold phase of ENSO. These deviations from the normal surface temperatures can have a large-scale impact on the global weather conditions and overall climate.
• El Nino: refers to the large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate interaction linked to a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central Equatorial Pacific. It is associated with high pressure in the western Pacific. El Nino adversely impacts the Indian monsoons and hence, agriculture in India.
• The cool surface water off the Peruvian coast goes warm because of El Nino. When the water is warm, the normal trade winds get lost or reverse their direction. Hence, the flow of moisture-laden winds is directed towards the coast of Peru from the western Pacific (the region near northern Australia and South East Asia).
• This causes heavy rains in Peru during the El Nino years robbing the Indian subcontinent of its normal monsoon rains. The larger the temperature and pressure difference, the larger the rainfall shortage in India.

Source: The Hindu

Community Radios

Topic: Governance

In News: Community radio stations across the country have assured the Election Commission to contribute their best for voter education and awareness.

More on the Topic

• The Commission organised a workshop in New Delhi for training and capacity building of the community radios for voter education and awareness.
• Community Radio is one of the best medium to reach to the last voter of the country. It can play an important role in strengthening democarcy by developing content in their local dialects and deepening the process of voter education and awareness up to the grass root level.

About Community Radios

• The Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial and public broadcasting.
• They broadcast content that is popular and relevant to a local, specific audience.Community radio stations are operated, owned, and influenced by the communities they serve.
• They are generally nonprofit and provide a mechanism for enabling individuals, groups, and communities to tell their own stories, to share experiences and, in a media-rich world, to become creators and contributors of media.

Source:The Hindu

Govt wants powers to probe complaints against Information Commissioners

Topic: Governance

In News: The government has proposed setting up bureaucrat-led committees that would sit and decide on complaints against the Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) and Information Commissioners (ICs).

More on the Topic:

• This proposal was sent to the CIC seeking its views. It was signed by an Under Secretary in the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
• The Indian Express has learnt that the proposal envisages setting up of two committees — one, to receive and decide on complaints against the CIC and a second one for complaints against Information Commissioners.

Criticism:

• A committee with majority bureaucrats scrutinising complaints against Information Commissioners will skew checks and balances in favour of the political executive.
• Section 14(1) of RTI Act insulates them, saying they can be removed only by the President after the Supreme Court, on a Presidential reference, has, on inquiry, called for the removal. That’s why the proposal is being opposed by the full Commission.
• As of now, when there is a complaint against any Information Commissioner, the convention is to place it in the Commission’s meeting. It has been the practice that the CIC attends to complaints against ICs and if there is a complaint against the CIC, it is attended to by the sitting Information Commissioners.

What the Law says:

• Section 14 (1) of the RTI Act states that Commissioners can be removed only by the President on the ground of proved misbehavior or incapacity after the Supreme Court, on a reference made to it by the President, has, on inquiry, reported that the CIC or any IC ought on such ground be removed.
• Section 14 (3) states the President may remove a Commissioner if he/she is adjudged an insolvent, has been convicted of an offence which involves moral turpitude, engages during his/her term of office in any paid employment outside, is unfit to continue in office by reason of infirmity of mind or body; or has acquired such financial or other interest as is likely to affect prejudicially his functions as the CIC or an IC.

Source: The Hindu

India gains access to Bolivian lithium reserves

Topic: International Relations

In News: India has leveraged its way into the Bolivian lithium reserves after signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Bolivia for development and industrial use of lithium, a prime component used to power electric vehicles and cell phones.

More on the Topic:

• This move will make Bolivia, which is known to have one-fourth of the world’s lithium reserves, one of the major provider of metal for India’s e-mobility and e-storage needs.
• The two countries have also agreed to facilitate mechanisms for the commercialization of Lithium Carbonate and Potassium Chloride produced in Bolivia.
• Additionally, India has also proposed a follow-up visit to Bolivia by a delegation from National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage of India for taking forward the cooperation in the area of battery storage solutions .
• This agreement is supposed to form the backbone for the recently launched FAME India policy (Faster Adoption and Manufacture of (Hybrid and) Electric Vehicles) and will also give a substantial push to India’s ambition to have at least 30 per cent of its vehicles run on electric batteries by 2030.

About Lithium Batteries:

• A lithium-ion battery or Li-ion battery (abbreviated as LIB) is a type of rechargeable battery in which lithium ions move from the negative electrode to the positive electrode during discharge and back when charging.
• Li-ion batteries use an intercalated lithium compound as one electrode material, compared to the metallic lithium used in a non-rechargeable lithium battery.
• Lithium-ion batteries are common rechargeable batteries for portable electronics, with a high energy density, no memory effect (other than LFP cells) and low self-discharge. LIBs are also growing in popularity for military, battery electric vehicle and aerospace applications

Source: The Hindu