National Current Affairs – UPSC/KAS Exams- 01st April 2019

Climate change may hit India’s wind power

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: Increased warming in the Indian Ocean and the resultant weakening of the Indian summer monsoon may come in the way of India’s goal of leading the world’s wind power generation.

More on the Topic:

• Analysing the available wind and atmospheric data from 1980-2016, researchers from Harvard University, U.S., and National Climate Center in Beijing, China, found the potential electricity production of windmills across India had decreased by about 13%. And this trend might continue.
• The researchers showed that 63% of the annual production of electricity from wind is contributed by winds in spring (March-May) and summer (June-August). Interestingly, they found a decrease in wind power during these months. This could be due to the weakening of the Indian summer monsoon during this period.
• Summer winds in India are driven by the temperature contrast between the Indian subcontinent and the Indian Ocean, and the warming in the Indian Ocean reduced this contrast. Also, warming of the Equatorial Indian Ocean resulted in a decline in the wind speed.
• The Indian government has set a target of 60 GW of cumulative wind power capacity by 2022.
• The researchers say that this goal can be beneficial only if planners in India take these historical reconstructions into account while setting up wind power installations in the future.
• The findings can provide suggestions on where to build more wind turbines to minimise the influences of climate change.

About Wind Power capacity of India:

• Wind power generation capacity in India has significantly increased in recent years. As of 31 December 2018 the total installed wind power capacity was 35.288 GW, the fourth largest installed wind power capacity in the world.Wind power capacity is mainly spread across the South, West and North regions.

Source: The Hindu

Poisoned cattle carcass kills 37 vultures

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: At least 37 vultures belonging to three endangered species died in eastern Assam’s Sivasagar district  after feeding on pesticide-laced cattle carcass.

More on the Topic:

• Forest officials and a wildlife rescue team from the Vulture Conservation Breeding Centre (VCBC) rescued an equal number of vultures in a critical condition.
• Most of the 37 vultures that died are Himalayan griffon. A few are oriental white-backed and slender-billed vultures.
• A study by the Bombay Natural History Society and other organisations in the 1990s found that the population of the Gyps group — Himalayan griffon, white-backed and slender-billed are among its members — in India and Nepal declined from about 40 million by 99.9% in just two decades.

Vulture Species Found In India

Critically Endangered

• White-Rumped Vulture (Gyps bengalensis)
• White-Backed Vulture (Gyps africanus)
• Ruppell’s Vulture (Gyps rueppellii)
• Indian Vulture (Gyps indicus)
• Slender-Billed Vulture (Gyps tenuirostris)

Endangered

• Cape Vulture (Gyps coprotheres)
• Near Threatened
• Himalayan Vulture (Gyps himalayensis)

Least Concern

• Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus)
• Critically Endangered
• White-Rumped Vulture (Gyps bengalensis)

Source: The Hindu

IIT Madras converts petroleum waste toluene into useful product

Topic: Science and Technology

In News: Using platinum nanocatalyst, a two-member team at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has successfully converted petroleum waste-product toluene into benzoic acid.

More on the topic:

• Benzoic acid is used as a food preservative (E210) and medicine for fungal/bacterial infection. Toluene is converted into benzoic acid through selective and controlled oxidation in the presence of a catalyst — binaphthyl-stabilised platinum nanoparticles (Pt-BNP).
• When used alone, a large quantity (four parts of TBHP to 1 part of toluene) of TBHP would be required for the conversion, which will not be economically favourable. In order to reduce the amount of TBHP used, the researchers also used molecular oxygen.
• “In the presence of molecular oxygen, only two parts of TBHP are needed for the conversion. So molecular oxygen behaves as a co-oxidiser. Molecular oxygen is cheap, so using it along with TBHP helps in reducing the cost.

Source: The Hindu

Ramappa temple

Topic: Art and Culture

In News: Ramappa Temple at Palampet near Warangal  may get the World heritage status in near future.

More on the Topic

• The Siva temple is perhaps the only one in the country that is known by the name of the architect rather than the king who commissioned it or its presiding deity.
• The stunning dance sculptures and friezes of the temple appear as if they have been machined into shape on black dolomite, rather than being chiselled.
• The temple is built on a valley and it rests on bricks that are scientifically shown to float in water. “The Ramappa Temple is a jewel of the Kakatiya era and it stands out.”

Source:The Hindu

Small cats of northeast India

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: A team has used camera trap technology to estimate activity patterns of some, rarely studied small cats of northeast India.

More on the Topic:

• Northeast India is home to nine wild cats, including the ‘standard four’: the clouded leopard, Asiatic golden cat, marbled cat and leopard cat.
• The results, published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa, reveal that all four cats occurred together only in three of the 10 sites surveyed.
• Analyses of activity patterns showed that Asiatic golden cats and marbled cats were strongly diurnal, the clouded leopard largely crepuscular and nocturnal, and the leopard cat mostly nocturnal.
• Like others across southeast Asia, this study also found that the activity times of the marbled cat and leopard cat did not overlap much, in areas where they occurred together and otherwise.

Source: The Hindu

ISRO launches EMISAT and other satellites

Topic: Science and Technology

In News: In the first of its kind, EMISAT, a satellite meant to provide intelligence to the armed forces, was launched from the Sriharikota spaceport by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

More on the Topic

• SLV-C45 successfully injected EMISAT in a 748-km orbit and 28 other satellites in a 504-km orbit.
• EMISAT, with its core payload or brain coming from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), was released first into its planned slot from the fourth stage or PS4.
• Thereafter, the mission team fired the fourth stage — still carrying the other satellites — twice to bring it down to 504 km from the Earth.

New PSLV variant

• A new fourth variant of the launcher, called the QL, was used in this mission. Its first stage was fitted (or ‘strapped on’) with two additional rockets.
• ISRO has started reusing PS4 as an innovated, low-cost, space-friendly test bed for its own microgravity experiments and those of others.
• It has been gradually putting additional support systems also on every new PS4; the power generating solar panels are new this time. This is the third such mission.
• The PS4-fourth stage hosts three payloads in this mission. It carries an ISRO test of Automatic Identification System (AIS) related to tracking ships on sea.

Satellite Launched

• AMSAT, or the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation, India, has sent a payload called the Automatic Packet Repeating System. This is expected to help amateur radio operators to get improved locational accuracy in their tracking and monitoring activity.
• The third one, the Advanced Retarding Potential Analyser for Ionospheric Studies, has been sent up by ISRO’s university, the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology.
• The other 28 international satellites are 25 3U type, two 6U type and one 2U type nano satellites. They are from Lithuania (two), Spain (1), Switzerland (1) and the United States (24).
• All these satellites are being launched under commercial arrangements,

Source: The Hindu