National Current Affairs – UPSC/KAS Exams- 3rd December 2018
India to host G20 summit in 2022
Topic: International Relations
IN NEWS: For the first time, India will host the annual G20 summit in 2022, when the country celebrates its 75th anniversary of Independence.
About G20:
- The G20 (or Group of Twenty) is an international forum for the governments and central bank governors from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
- Spain is a permanent guest invitee. Founded in 1999 with the aim to discuss policy pertaining to the promotion of international financial stability,the G20 has expanded its agenda since 2008 and heads of government or heads of state, as well as finance ministers and foreign ministers, have periodically conferred at summits ever since.
- Membership of the G20 consists of 19 individual countries plus the European Union (EU). The EU is represented by the European Commission and by the European Central Bank.
- Collectively, the G20 economies account for around 90% of the gross world product (GWP), 80% of world trade (or, if excluding EU intra-trade, 75%), two-thirds of the world population, and approximately half of the world land area.
Source: The Hindu
The Sahariya tribal community
Topic: Culture
IN NEWS: Sahariyas are in the news related to their poor socio economic status.
More on the Topic:
- The Saharia, Sahar, Sehariya, or Sahariya are an ethnic group in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India.
- Though the 70,000-strong community has been classified as a particularly vulnerable tribal group because of its low development indices, the benefits of additional days of work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the supply of essential items under the Antyodaya Yojana are not fully available to them.
- Daily wage labour and agriculture are the main sources of livelihood in the region, but the payments under the MGNREGS are not made on time, while wheat and ghee are supplied on festive occasions.
- The Sahariyas have benefited from special reservation made for them, but a lot more still needs to be done for their upliftment.
- The Mandana artwork is carried out by Sahariyas.
Source:The Hindu
Mangroves mitigated Gaja’s impact
Topic: Environment and Ecology
In news: Muthupet in Tiruvarur district was among the coastal towns that faced the wrath of Cyclone Gaja. But considering the extent of the damage elsewhere, this town seems to have been spared the worst, due to its mangrove forests.
More on the Topic:
- Mangroves functioned as a shield and broke the velocity of the wind. During the 2004 tsunami, Pichavaram mangrove forests saved Cuddalore district of Tamilnadu from the drastic effects of the waves.
About Mangroves
- Mangroves are plants that survive high salinity, tidal regimes, strong wind velocity, high temperature and muddy anaerobic soil – a combination of conditions hostile for other plants.
- The mangrove ecosystems constitute a symbiotic link or bridge between terrestrial and marine ecosystems. They are found in the inter-tidal zones of sheltered shore, estuaries, creeks, backwaters, lagoons, marshes and mud-flats.
Mangroves in India
- In World’s total mangrove vegetation, India’s share stands at 3%. Currently Mangrove cover in India is 4740 km² which is 0.14 % of the country’s geographical area. Sundarbans in West Bengal accounts for almost half of the total area. As compared to 2013 there is a net increase of 112 sq km in the mangrove cover.
Top five states with maximum Mangrove cover are as follows:
- West Bengal (2106 km2)
- Gujarat (1107 km2)
- Andaman & Nicobar Island (617 km2)
- Andhra Pradesh (367 km2)
- Odisha (231 km2)
Source: The Hindu
NASA rocket to image Earth’s leaky atmosphere
Topic: Science and Technology
In news: NASA is set to launch a sounding rocket to get a closer look at the how the Earth’s atmosphere is slowly leaking into space.
More on the Topic:
- The VISIONS-2 mission, short for Visualizing Ion Outflow via Neutral Atom Sensing-2, is scheduled to launch by the agency.
- VISIONS-2 will fly two rockets into the northern polar cusp, where it will use an imaging technique to map oxygen outflow from the aurora.
- Using this technique, VISIONS-2 takes a different approach from many other missions, which attempt to combine data from many outflow events.
- Instead, VISIONS-2 hopes to acquire a great deal of data about a single oxygen outflow event. Not all outflow events are the same, but understanding one in great detail would provide significant scientific value.
- The aurora borealis is of keen interest to the VISIONS-2 team, but not just for its otherworldly glow. The aurora play are fundamental drivers in the process of atmospheric escape, whereby planets, including Earth, gradually leak their atmosphere into space.
- The Earth is losing weight. There have been enough observations to know that anywhere from a hundred to several hundred tons of atmosphere are going into space every day.
- Understanding atmospheric escape on Earth has applications all over the Universe – from predicting which far off planets might be habitable, to piecing together how Mars became the desolate, exposed landscape it is today.
About Aurora:
- To escape Earth, oxygen would require something like 100 times the energy that it typically has. For that there is a need of processes that energize that oxygen enough to escape.
- The aurora, it turns out, is one such process. The aurora are formed when energetic electrons, accelerated in the electric and magnetic fields in near-Earth space, crash into and excite atmospheric gases, which emit bright hues of red, green, and yellow as they relax back to a lower energy state.
- But these unruly electrons also create a cascade of havoc in the process, including driving electric currents that heat the upper atmosphere in splotchy patches.
- In some cases, that heating is sufficient to give stray oxygen atoms enough energy to escape. “It’s like putting a heating element into your soup — eventually, it’s going to start boiling.
Source: The Hindu
Train 18: the country’s ‘fastest train’
Topic: Science and Technology
In news: India’s first engine-less train-breached the 180 kmph speed threshold during a test run in the Kota-Sawai Madhopur section, becoming the country’s fastest train.
Top features and facilities:
- Aerodynamically designed driver cabins at both ends for quicker turn-around at destinations.
- Alternate coaches are motorised to ensure even distribution of power and faster acceleration or deceleration
- Regenerative braking system to save power
- Inter-connected, fully sealed gangways
- Automatic doors with retractable footsteps
- Disabled-friendly toilets
- Emergency talk-back units to contact train crew
- CCTVs in all coaches for safe and secure travel
Source: The Hindu
Central guidelines for crèches at workplaces
Topic: Polity and Governance
In news:The Centre has prepared guidelines for setting up of crèches at workplaces, which prescribe trained personnel to man the facility as well as infrastructure requirements and safety norms.
Background:
- Parliament passed the Maternity Benefit Amendment Act, 2017, enhancing paid maternity leave from a period of 12 weeks to 26 weeks. The law is applicable to all institutions with 10 or more employees. It also makes it mandatory for every organisation with 50 or more employees to have a crèche.
Highlights of the Guidelines:
- The guidelines made public last month recommend that a crèche be either at the workplace or within 500 metres of it. Alternatively, it could also be in the beneficiaries’ neighbourhood.
- The facility should be open for eight to 10 hours and if the employees have a shift system, then the crèche should also be run accordingly.
- A crèche must have a minimum space of 10 to 12 square feet per child to ensure that she or he can play, rest and learn. There should be no unsafe places such as open drains, pits, garbage bins near the centre.
- The crèches should have at least one guard, who should have undergone police verification. There should also be at least one supervisor per crèche and a trained worker for every 10 children under three years of age or for every 20 children above the age of three, along with a helper.
- The government has also recommended that no outsiders such as plumbers, drivers, electricians be allowed inside the crèche when children are present.
- A crèche monitoring committee with representations from among crèche workers, parents and administration should be formed. There should also be a grievance redressal committee for inquiring into instances of sexual abuse. The guidelines are not mandatory but are a yardstick for NGOs and organisations for setting up of creches.
Source: The Hindu
Andamans, the home of the Sentinelese tribals
Topic: Culture
In news:The reported death of John Allen Chau, an American visitor, on North Sentinel Island in an attack by the indigenous people has turned the international spotlight on this tiny 60 sq km piece of land in the Andamans.
How many Sentinelese are there?
- In July 2017, the Secretary, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, who visited the Andaman and Nicobar islands reported that the estimated population of Sentinelese was 50 individuals.
- No accurate census has been made. North Sentinel Island lies west of Port Blair, part of the archipelago made up of about 200 islands. After the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, many feared for the population on the island, but an aerial survey showed that the islanders had survived.
When did they reach the islands?
- Research scholars have, on the basis of genetic pointers, suggested that the earliest settlers in the Andamans came about 35,000 years ago, while others say it could have been much earlier. They are thus believed to be descendants of the earliest humans to migrate out of the African continent.
Do Sentinelese exist in isolation?
- The inhabitants of North Sentinel Island are considered fiercely hostile. They are unique survivors on a small forested land for thousands of years and have continued their existence without making attempts to reach out to the modern world.
The Threats:
- The continued existence of ancient people in North Sentinel Island with no real contact with modernity is enough evidence of their ability to persist without outside help.
- When other groups, such as the Andamanese, the Onge and later the Jarawa made contact with outsiders, there was a destructive impact on them. The Sentinelese have so far escaped the disease and disruption that overtook the others.
- The Centre relaxed the Restricted Area Permit system to boost tourism and enable foreigners to visit 29 islands in Andaman and Nicobar, including North Sentinel. The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes has called for a review of the decision.
Source: The Hindu
Recent DAC approvals
Topic: Governance
In news:Nirmala Sitharaman accorded approval for acquisition of defence equipment for about Rs 3,000 crore which included the procurement of the ARV along with Brahmos.
More on the Topic:
- The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) gave a nod to procure and fit the two stealth missile frigates, being built in Russia, with the indigenuous BrahMos cruise missiles.
- The indigenously-designed BrahMos missile is a tested and proven supersonic cruise missile and will form the primary weapon on-board
- The DAC also approved the procurement of Armoured Recovery Vehicles (ARVs) for the Indian Army’s Main Battle Tank (MBT) Arjun.
- These recovery vehicles are designed and developed by DRDO and will be manufactured by M/S Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML). ARVs ensure efficient and speedy repair and recovery operations during combat.
Defence Acquisition Council:
- It is constituted to counter corruption and speed up decision-making in military procurement.
- Defence minister is the head of the council.
Functions of DAC:
- Will give policy guidelines to acquisitions, based on long-term procurement plans
- Will also clear all acquisitions, including imported equipment and those produced indigenously or under a foreign licence
Source: The Hindu
Pulicat lake
Topic: Environment and Ecology
In news:The cyclonic storm, ‘Gaja,’ which had caused havoc in the neighbouring Tamil Nadu, has proved to be a boon for the migratory birds, which have made it to the Pulicat lake, the second largest brackish water lagoon in the country.
More on the Topic:
- There has been a decline in the arrival of migratory birds at the lake of late due to climate change.
- Over 1,500 birds, including flamingos, storks and pelicans, have arrived so far this year against more than 8,000 during the last season as the south-west monsoon played truan.
About Pulicat Lake:
- Pulicat Lagoon is the second largest brackish water lagoon in India, after Chilika Lake. Pulicat Lagoon is considered to be the second largest brackish water body in India measuring 759* km2.
- The Lagoon is one the three important wetlands to attract North-East Monsoon rain clouds during October to December season to Tamil Nadu.
- The lake encompasses the Pulicat Lake Bird Sanctuary. The barrier island of Sriharikota separates the lake from the Bay of Bengal and is home to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.
Source: The Hindu
