National Current Affairs – UPSC/IAS Exams- 28th November 2019

India: Climate Change and its cost

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: India is witnessing signs of climate change all around. Its ill-effects are now visible across the country.

More on the Topic:

• Impact on Health: Warming oceans and a changing climate are resulting in extreme weather patterns which have brought about an increase of infectious diseases both new and re-emerging.
• Mosquito-borne diseases are probably the greatest threat to humans as they include malaria, elephantiasis, Rift Valley fever, yellow fever, and dengue fever. Studies are showing higher prevalence of these diseases in areas that have experienced extreme flooding and drought.
• Global climate change is bound to have substantial negative impacts on mental health and wellbeing, effects which will primarily be felt by vulnerable populations and those with pre-existing serious mental illness.
• Impacts on Economy: Global warming’s made India’s economy 31 per cent smaller than it would otherwise have been according to a new Stanford study highlighting how temperature changes have widened inequalities between cool countries like Norway while dragging down growth in hot places like India.
• The World Bank calculates climate change will shave nearly 3 per cent off India’s GDP and depress living standards of nearly half its population by 2050.
• The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction estimates India’s suffered $79.5 billion in economic losses in 19 years due to climate-change disasters.
• Impact on Agriculture: Farmers can’t get through a season if weather patterns start to alter. This year farmers of Southern and Western India faced difficulties due to unexpected changes in the weather.
• In parts of Karnataka, there wasn’t enough rain in June-July, so farmers postponed crop sowing. But then heavy, unseasonal rains in August destroyed a quarter of their crops. Kodagu, the coffee-growing region, was particularly badly hit.

What Lies Ahead:

• The UN has been warning of climate change with disastrous consequences. By 2030, India will lose the equivalent of 34 million full-time jobs due to global warming, particularly in agriculture and construction, an International Labour Organisation forecast, based on the discredited global temperature target of a 1.5-degree C rise.
• One immediate solution before us is to plant millions of trees and ensure as many survive as possible to help suck up pollution.
• India’s the third-largest emitter of heat-trapping carbon dioxide (behind China and the US. So shifting away from coal use to renewable power and other low-carbon infrastructure would be a key step to mitigating local pollution.
• There is a need for a people’s movement to make combating toxic air and climate change a top priority.

Source: Hindu Business line

Gold Smuggling

Topic: Economy

In News: IMPACT’s new report reveals India to be one of the largest gold smuggling hubs in the world. As a result, gold that is tied to conflict, human rights abuses, and corruption in Africa and South America is entering legal international markets through India.

More on the Topic:

• IMPACT’s research reveals that one third of the world’s gold passes through India, the heart of the world’s gold manufacturing sector. With its gold jewellery exports on the rise, India has become one of the world’s leading trading hubs with illicit gold entering country, being transformed into goods, and leaving for international markets, including North America.

The report identifies three primary factors which allow a problem of this magnitude:

• Tax breaks: To boost India’s refinery sector, the government introduced tax breaks in 2013 for gold doré –also known as unrefined gold. This has led to traders covering up questionable provenance claims by falsifying documentation of gold doré to take advantage of lower taxes. Gold doré imports shot from 23 tons in 2012 to over 229 tons in 2015 as a result of these tax breaks.
• Falsified origin documents: Gold doré imports have spiked, with the majority coming from producing countries that lack strong internal controls or are linked to supply chains with weak evidence of due diligence. Analysis of trade data reveals more declared gold imports to India than some countries are capable of producing, such as in the Dominican Republic and Tanzania, as well as instances of paperwork fraud like in Ghana.
• Complicit allies: Refined gold is being smuggled into India primarily from the United Arab Emirates, while key traders and refiners in Africa’s Great Lakes region with links to India have been identified as being part of the illicit gold trade.

To tackle the problem, IMPACT calls on India to take immediate steps to:

• Harmonize its taxes, including between doré and refined gold to discourage smuggling;
• Enhance regulatory controls at the border to require additional, valid information for all imports of all artisanal gold.
• Actors including Gold traders, refiners, and jewellers of India’s gold industry should implement due diligence on their gold supply chains.

Source: Hindu

Nagrik Kartavya Paalan Abhiyan

Topic: Government Initiatives

In News: Union HRD Minister launched the kartavya.ugc.ac.in portal on the occasion of ‘Constitution Day’ , as a part of year long Nagrik Kartavya Paalan Abhiyan being observed throughout the country.

More on the Topic:

• The portal will be used primarily for holding monthly essay competitions for students as well as other activities like quizzes, debates, poster making etc pertaining to Nagrik Kartavya Paalan Abhiyan.
• Government is running a Nagrik Kartavya Palan Abhiyan from 26th November 2019 to 26th November 2020, to create mass awareness about the Fundamental Duties as enshrined in our Constitution.

Source: PIB

Crime Against Children Report

Topic: Reports and Indices

In News: The Child Rights and You recently released a report “How Vulnerable are Children in India to crime?”

More on the Topic:

• The report was based on the analysis of National Crime Records Bureau for 2016-17. The report says that the states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh topped the list of states for crimes against children. There were over 19,000 cases in both the states.
• The highest increase in crimes between the years 2016 and 2017 was seen in Jharkhand.
• Child Labour: The Child labor in the country saw a substantial increase of 126%. In 2016 child labor was 204 and it increased to 462 in 2017.
• Child Marriage: There was an increase of 21.17%. The numbers were based on the cases registered under Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA), 2006.
• Though the numbers in child labor and child marriage has increased, CRY considers it as a positive step. This is because among all the other child crimes, these two are the most unreported.

Way Ahead:

• CRY has suggests that there has to be increase in financial investments in child protection. The focus should be on capacity building among officials working in child protection systems.

Source: Hindu

Buyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration (BRUIE)

Topic: Science and Technology

In News: NASA has developed Buyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration (BRUIE) robot for underwater exploration in extra-terrestrial, icy waters.

Provisions of the bill:

• This is not a swimming, submarine type of vehicle. It’s a wheeled vehicle designed to drive upside down on ice sheets. BRUIE is buoyant, which keeps it pressed against the ice ceiling.
• It will search for life in ocean worlds beyond Earth. It could be used to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa or Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
• As these moons are believed to have liquid water oceans beneath thick crusts of ice, they may be the most promising locations in our solar system to search for evidence of extra-terrestrial life.
• It will be rolling into Antarctica soon to perform driving upside down under sea ice, since they are the closest Earth analog to the seas of an icy moon which makes them an ideal testing ground for it.
• NASA is already constructing the Europa Clipper orbiter, scheduled for launch in 2025 to study Jupiter’s moon Europa, laying the groundwork for a future mission that could search for life beneath the ice.

Source: Hindu

Exercise Mitra Shakti

Topic: Defence Sector Cooperation

In News: India-Sri Lanka joint military training exercise Mitra Shakti– 2019 is scheduled to be conducted in Pune.

More on the Topic:

• The exercise aims to build and promote positive relations between armies of India and Sri Lanka for counter-insurgency & counter-terrorism operations in the urban and rural environment under United Nations mandate.
• The joint exercise also aims for incorporating the current dynamics of United Nations peacekeeping operations through practical & comprehensive discussions and tactical exercises.

Source: PIB

New Snake Species Found in Arunachal Pradesh

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: Recently, a new species of non-venomous burrowing snake, named Trachischium apteii has been found in the forested area of the Tally Valley Wildlife Sanctuary near the town of Ziro in Arunachal Pradesh.

More on the Topic:

• It belongs to a group of fossorial (adapted to digging) snakes that live mostly underground, and surface mainly during or after a heavy monsoon shower.

Source: Hindu

Currency Swap Arrangement for SAARC

Topic: International Relations

In News: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has revised the framework on currency swap arrangement for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries for 2019-2022.

More on the Topic:

• The SAARC currency swap facility came into operation in November 2012.
• The RBI will continue to offer a swap arrangement within the overall corpus of USD 2 billion.
• The swap drawals can be made in US dollar, euro or Indian rupee. The framework provides certain concessions for swap drawals in Indian rupee.
• The facility will be available to all SAARC member countries, subject to their signing the bilateral swap agreements.

Currency Swap Arrangement:

• The word swap means exchange. A currency swap between the two countries is an agreement or contract to exchange currencies with predetermined terms and conditions.
• Central banks and Governments engage in currency swaps with foreign counterparts to meet short term foreign exchange liquidity requirements or to ensure adequate foreign currency to avoid Balance of Payments (BOP) crisis till longer arrangements can be made.

Model Mains Question: Discuss the relevance of SAARC in Indian foreign policy?

Source: Money Control