Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

All nations that signed the pact under UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, at the COP27.

About current situation:

• As per the Paris Agreement on Climate Change of 2015, the focus is to drive down greenhouse gas emissions and keep the rise in average global temperature to well below 2°C and as close to 1.5°C as possible by the end of the century.
• Current temperature rise stands at 1.2°C to 1.3°C over the pre-industrial average, the highest in about 12,000 years since the last Ice Age.
• UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report 2022 says global warming is projected to rise to 1.8°C with a 66% probability, even if all the Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs (voluntary pledges submitted under the Paris pact) are implemented.
• At 2°C, up to 20% decline in snowmelt water for irrigation, diminished water for farming and human settlements due to glacier mass loss, and a two-fold increase in flood damage could happen, while up to 18% of species on land could go extinct.
• Global annual emissions during 2021 at 52.8 Gigatonnes (GtCO2e), represents a slight increase compared to 2019, the pre-COVID year, and that the outlook for 2030 is not bright.
• The latest Sixth Assessment Report (SAR) of the IPCC says that biodiversity loss, Arctic ice loss, threat to coastal settlements and infrastructure, conflicts & migration of affected people and urban challenges to energy and water access could also arise.
• Tipping points means moments that cascade into irreversible changes, with a domino effect on other elements such as heat waves, Greenland ice sheet collapse, West Antarctic ice sheet collapse, thawing of the boreal permafrost, and tropical coral reef die offs, all of which are expected to happen at 1.5°C.
• G20 members account for 75% of emissions, although it is the richer countries that are responsible for accumulated emissions since the industrial revolution.

Objectives of COP27

• The COP27 is described as the conference of implementation.
• Aim: to review progress, raise ambition on emissions cuts and draw up funding plans to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change.
• Countries most affected by the effects of a changing climate have been seeking loss and damage payments from the richer industrialised nations in the form of a separate loss and damage fund.
• To move away from fossil fuels and to peak emissions by 2025.
•  “10 New Insights on Climate Science” released at COP27 – shows continuing high emissions from fossil fuels.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The United States Department of Treasury has taken off India’s name from the from its Currency Monitoring List of major trading partners. In its biannual report to Congress, the US’ Treasury Department conveyed that along with India, it had also removed Mexico, Thailand, Italy and Vietnam from the list. With this, seven economies that are now on the current monitoring list include Japan, China, Korea, Singapore, Germany, Malaysia and Taiwan.

US’ Currency Monitoring List

• The Currency Monitoring List closely follows the currency policies of some of the US’ major trade partners. 
• If a country appears on the list, it is regarded as a “currency manipulator”. 
• A ‘currency manipulator’ is a designation that the US government authorities give to countries that according to the US, engage in “unfair currency practices” for trade benefits.
• Thus, inclusion in the list simply means that the country is artificially lowering the value of its currency to get an advantage over others.
• This is because a lower currency value leads to reduced export costs from that country. 
• The status is reported by the US Department of Treasury in form of a semi-annual report in which it tracks global economic developments and reviews foreign exchange rates. 
• It also closely monitors and reviews the currency practices of 20 major trading partners of the US.

What does it mean?

• Removal of India from the list by the US’ Treasury Department can be seen as a positive news both in terms of market aspect and India’s monetary policy-making. 
• If Indian market experts are to be believed, the development means that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) can now take robust measures to manage the exchange rates effectively, without being tagged as a currency manipulator. 
• This may also be a big win from a markets standpoint and also signifies the growing role of India in global growth.
• To manage exchange rates amid the rupee fall, the Reserve Bank of India had recently taken measures like greater purchases of dollars at the time of excess inflows and selling dollars at the time of outflows. 
• Experts are also seeing this as a good news from a view-point that the Rupee could appreciate on account of this.

Reasons for removal of  India from the list:

• India was removed from the Monitoring List as they now only met one of the three criteria for two consecutive reports.
• India has been on the list for about two years.

Three Criteria of the Currency Monitoring List

• The US treasury usually puts a country’s name on the list if the said nation has intervened in the currency market by higher levels than 2% of its GDP over a year, and had a current account surplus above a stipulated level. 
• Its net purchases of foreign currency, too, also need to exceed 2% of GDP over one year.
• A country that meets two of the three criteria in the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 gets included in the list. 
• If the country meets all three criteria. it gets termed as ‘currency manipulator’ by the US Department of Treasury. 
• Once a country appears on the currency monitoring list, it will remain there for at least two consecutive reports “to help ensure that any improvement in performance versus the criteria is durable and is not due to temporary factors”.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center has announced the recovery of debris from the Challenger spaceship that exploded 73 seconds after liftoff killing all seven astronauts aboard 37 years ago.

The Challenger space shuttle disaster

• The spacecraft broke apart on January 28, 1986 after it suffered a major malfunction less than 2 minutes into its flight with investigations revealing freezing temperatures having affected the integrity of O-ring seals in the solid rocket booster segment joints.
• The O-ring seals are used to keep fluids from leaking and components sealed.
• The last Challenger mission, dubbed STS-51L, was commanded by Francis R “Dick” Scobee and piloted by Michael J Smith. 

About the mission

• The shuttle mission, which was NASA’s 25th, was supposed to be a six-day mission wherein, the seven-member crew was to deploy a large communications satellite, deploy and retrieve an astronomy payload to study Halley’s Comet. 
• The teacher, also the first civilian to head to space, was to conduct lessons for schoolchildren from orbit.
• The primary objective of the STS-51L mission was to launch the second Tracking and Data Relay System (TDRS) satellite into orbit.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Union Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare, addressed the 16th Asian Conference on Diarrhoeal Disease and Nutrition (ASCODD) at Kolkata today. 

• The theme of the ASCODD was “Prevention and control of cholera, typhoid and other enteric diseases in low and middle-income countries through community participation: beyond the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic”.
• Initiatives under Digital India initiative such as Online Registration System, eHospital for hospital management, eSanjeevani telemedicine app so that people could get treatment from the comfort of their homes.
• The conference program focuses on the latest issues in 

• Enteric infections, 
• Nutrition, 
• Policy, and Practice including roadmap to end Cholera by 2030,
• Cholera vaccine development and rapid diagnostics, 
• Contemporary perspectives of antimicrobial resistance of enteric bacteria: 
• New Initiatives and challenges, enteric bacterial infections, including Shigella spp, epidemiology, burden, and vaccines against other viral infections, including Hepatitis, lessons learned about diarrhoea research during the COVID pandemic.

Diarrhoea

• Diarrhoea is a condition where an individual experiences a high frequency of loose and watery stools. 
• Usually, it is not a life-threatening disease and the duration of its symptoms usually varies as there are many causal factors.

Caused by

• A Variety of bacterial, viral and parasitic organisms.
• Infection is spread through contaminated food or drinking-water, or from person to person as a result of poor hygiene.
• Associated with other symptoms: nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain or weight loss.
• Measures to treat diarrhoea:
• Rehydration with oral rehydration salts (ORS) solution
• Rehydration may require intravenous fluids in case of severe dehydration or shock.
• Zinc supplements
• Nutrient-rich foods.

Achievements of India

• India successfully ran a free vaccination program with record break vaccination of more than 219 crores.
• India provided vaccinations to other nations so that it can win over the pandemic together. Effective use of safe and affordable vaccines,
• Various Health initiatives under Digital India initiative:

• Online Registration System,
• eHospital for hospital management,
• eSanjeevani telemedicine app

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 1

The Prime Minister has paid  tributes to Acharya Kripalani on his Jayanti.

Jivatram Bhagwandas Kripalani (1888 – 1982), popularly known as Acharya Kripalani, was an independence activist, Indian politician and an Educationist.

Educationist:

• Kripalani was also well-known for his work in the field of education. From 1912 to 1927, he taught at various places before becoming wholly involved in freedom movement.
• He earned the moniker ‘Acharya’ around 1922 when he was teaching at the Gujarat Vidyapith, founded by the Mahatma a couple of years before.

Independence Activist

• He was involved in the organization of Non-Cooperation Movement and the Civil Disobedience movements and Quit India Movement.
• He was the President of Indian National Congress (INC) at the time of independence.
• He served in the Interim government of India (1946–1947) and the Constituent Assembly of India.

Political Career: Post-independent India

• Post-independence, he left the Congress and became one of the founders of the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party (KMPP). This party subsequently merged with the Socialist Party of India to form the Praja Socialist Party (PSP).
• He remained in opposition for the rest of his life and was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1952, 1957, 1963 and 1967 as a member of Praja Socialist Party.
• Kripalani moved the first-ever No confidence motion in Lok Sabha in 1963, immediately after the India-China War.
• He remained a critic of Nehru’s policies and Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian rule. He was arrested during Emergency.
• An Environmentalist: He, along with Vinoba Bhave, was involved in preservation and conservation activities throughout the 1970s.
• Books: My Times, his autobiography published posthumously in 2004 and Gandhi: His Life and Thought (1970).

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

A new satellite-based system will now help governments detect methane emissions and tackle them. 

• The Methane Alert and Response System (MARS) was launched at the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
• MARS is a part of global efforts to slow climate change by tackling the global warming gas. 
• The data-to-action platform was set up as part of the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) strategy to get policy-relevant data into the right hands for emissions mitigation. 
• The system will be the first publicly available global system to connect methane detection to notification processes transparently.
• It will use state-of-the-art satellite data to identify significant emission events, notify relevant stakeholders, and support and track mitigation progress.
• MARS partners will also provide technical or advisory services, such as help in assessing mitigation opportunities.
• UNEP will monitor the event location and make the data and analysis available to the public between 45 and 75 days after detection.

Methane Gas

• Methane is an 80 times more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. 
• It accounts for a small portion of human-induced greenhouse gas emissions compared to carbon dioxide. 
• But it is thought to be 80 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping atmospheric heat in the 20 years following its release.

Source of Methane Emissions:

• More than half of global methane emissions stem from human activities in three sectors: fossil fuels (35%), waste (20%) and agriculture(40%).
• Fossil fuel sector: Oil and gas extraction, processing and distribution account for 23%. Coal mining alone accounts for 12% of emissions.
• Waste sector: Landfills and wastewater make up about 20% of global anthropogenic emissions.
• Agricultural sector: Livestock emissions from manure and fermentation represent roughly 32%. Further, rice cultivation accounts for 8% of global anthropogenic emissions.
• India: Agriculture – 61%, Energy sector – 16.4%, waste – 19.8% (as per Global Methane tracker)
• Methane enters the atmosphere due to leaks in oil and gas industries, rearing livestock and the decomposition of waste in landfills.
• Currently, only 2 per cent of global climate finance goes to methane.
• Global methane emissions in 2030, can be reduced by 57 per cent using available strategies and technologies. This reduction can cause lower global warming by around 0.25°C in 2050 and 0.5°C by the end of the century.

More Information

• As UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report showed before this climate summit, the world is far off track on efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
• We must cut methane emissions by at least 30 per cent by 2030 — the goal of the Global Methane Pledge — to keep the 1.5°C temperature limit within reach, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 
• The global mean temperature in 2022 is currently estimated to be about 1.15 degrees Celsius (°C) above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average,” with a range of 1.02°C to 1.28°C.
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) scientists recently found 50 “super-emitters” of methane gas in central Asia, the west Asia and the southwestern United States.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 1

It is the “first and tallest bronze statue of a founder of a city,” as per ‘World Book of Records’. The monument is named as the “Statue of Prosperity“.

• It has been built to commemorate the contribution of Kempegowda, the founder of the city, towards the growth of Bengaluru.
• Renowned sculptor and Padma Bhushan awardee Ram Vanji Sutar has designed the statue.

Nadaprabhu Kempegowda

• Nadaprabhu Kempegowda is a 16th-century chieftain of the Vijayanagara empire.
• He belonged to the Vokkaliga community in south Karnataka.

Contributions 

• He is credited as the founder of Bengaluru City. 
• It is said that he conceived the idea of a new city while hunting with his minister and later marked its territory by erecting towers in four corners of the proposed city.
• He is also known to have developed around 1,000 lakes in the city to cater to drinking and agricultural needs.
• One of his social reforms was to prohibit the custom of amputating the last two fingers of the left hand of unmarried women during “Bandi Devaru”, an important custom of Morasu Vokkaligas.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 1

Recently, the Prime Minister of India paid tributes to Maulana Azad on his birth anniversary.

• Maulana Azad was a Indian Scholar and Muslim Leader of Indian National Congress during Indian Independence Movement. 
• Post Indian Independence, he became the First Minister of Education in Indian Government. 
• He played an important role in Hindu-Muslim unity and never supported India’s partition.

Personal details

• Born: November 11, 1888; Place of Birth: Mecca, Saudi Arabia
• Political Ideology: Liberalism; right-winged; Egalitarian
• Publications: Ghubar-e-Khatir (1942-1946); India Wins Freedom (1978); weekly called “Al-Hilal” and “Al-Balagh”.
• On February 22, 1958 Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, one of the foremost leaders of the Indian freedom struggle passed away.
• For his invaluable contribution to the nation, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was posthumously awarded India’s highest civilian honour, the ‘Bharat Ratna’ in 1992.
• He was the founder of the Jamia Milia Islamia Institution in Delhi along with fellow khilafat leaders which has blossomed into a renowned University today.
• His birthday, November 11, is celebrated as National Education Day in India.

Contributions of Maulana Azad:

Before independence

• Hindu-Muslim unity: During his young age, he rose to prominence through his work as journalist, publishing works critical of British Raj and espousing causes of Indian nationalism. He worked for Hindu-Muslim unity through the Al-Hilal newspaper.
• Khilafat movement: Maulana Azad was a prominent Leader in Khilafat Movement in which he came in close contact with National Leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Vallabh Bhai Patel and Jawahar Lal Nehru.
• Non-cooperation movement: Maulana Was disheartened by the Rowlatt Act of 1919 and worked to organise the Non-Cooperation Movement and Protests in opposition of the Act. He Organised several agitations and worked in the able guidance of Gandhi Ji and his principles.
• Dharasana Satyagraha: He was one of main organisers of the Dharasana Satyagraha in 1931 and emerged as one of the most important national leaders of the time, prominently leading causes of Hindu-Muslim unity as well as espousing secularism and socialism.
• Protest against Two Nation Theory: Maulana criticised Jinnah over Two Nation Theory and believed that Hindu and Muslims can co-exist in Independent India.
• Quit India Movement: He played a significant role in the Quit India Movement by meeting a large number of People in rallies and led agitations and protests against Colonial Government. He served as the Congress president from 1940 to 1945, during which the Quit India movement was launched.
• India’s independence: He negotiated with the British Cabinet mission for India’s independence. Further, he was strictly against India’s partition even after acceptance of partition by Gandhiji.

Post-Independence

• Member of Constitution assembly: He was a member of constituent assembly and helped in shaping the Constitution of India.
• Education: He was the first Union Minister of education. He played a pivotal role in foundation of IIT, UGC, AICTE, Sahitya Academy, Lalit Kala Academy, Sangeet Natak Academy and many other educational initiations in India.
• Research: He held portfolios of Natural resources and scientific research. He played a pivotal role in foundation of CSIR and scientific research laboratories in India.

Maulana’s contributions in Indian Independence are very significant and vital. He considered Gandhiji as his Ideal and worked on his principles and political lines. His contributions will be remembered and acknowledged by generations to come. For his service to the nation, he was posthumously awarded the country’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

As per the BIOTECH-PRIDE guidelines of the Government of India, IBDC is mandated to archive all life science data generated from publicly-funded research in India.

Features

• IBDC has accumulated over 200 billion bases from 2, 08, 055 submissions from more than 50 research labs across India.
• IBDC dashboard provides customized data submission, access, data analysis services, and real-time SARS-CoV-2 variant monitoring across India.
• IBDC is mandated to archive all life science data generated from publicly-funded research in India.
• Supported by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), it has been established at Regional Centre of Biotechnology (RCB), Faridabad with a data ‘Disaster Recovery’ site at National Informatics Centre (NIC), Bhubaneshwar.
• It has a data storage capacity of about 4 petabytes and houses the ‘Brahm’ High Performance Computing (HPC) facility. 
• The computational infrastructure at IBDC is also made available for researchers interested in performing computational-intensive analysis. 

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Differences in altitude make a primate species in the same Himalayan habitat choose between flowers and fruits as food options beyond their staple menu of leaves, a new study has revealed.

Himalayan Gray Langur

• The Himalayan Gray Langur or the Chamba Sacred Langur ( Semnopithecus ajax) is a colobine, meaning leaf-eating monkey. 
• It is considered an endangered species globally as its population is estimated to be less than 1,500 mature individuals in 15-20 groups.
• The Himalayan Gray Langur was once considered a sub-species of the Semnopithecus entellus, commonly known as the Bengal Sacred Langur or Hanuman Langur, but it was separated as a species in 2005.
• In India, most langurs comes under the genus Semnopithecus.
• Prior to 2001, Semnopithecus entellus (Hanuman Langur) was considered only one species, with several subspecies.
• It was in 2001 that these subspecies were recommended as separate species under the genus Semnopithecus.
• Accordingly, seven different species have been recognised which include Semnopithecus ajax.
• In the Indian Subcontinent, their distribution is reported from Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and from Pakistan and Nepal.
• S ajax is an endangered species according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List but after reassessment in 2004, it was re-designated as ‘Critically Endangered’.
• It is considered endangered due to its restricted range habitat.

Findings

• Three primatologists studied the diet composition of five such groups in and around the Kalatop-Khajjiar Wildlife Sanctuary in Himachal Pradesh between September and November 2020. 
• They especially concentrated on two groups, one inhabiting the Kalatop forest at an average altitude of 2,396 metres, and the other based in the Khajjiar forest at an average altitude of 2,188 metres.
• The domains of the two groups were only 208 metres apart, but the altitudinal gap made a huge difference when the monkeys took a break from feeding on the leaves of some 20 species of plants, primarily the Himalayan ivy ( Hedera nepalensis) and the Himalayan oak ( Quercus oblongata).
• While the Kalatop group satisfied their craving for something different by feeding on flowers. 
• The Khajjiar group ate fruits for a change of taste. 
• Flowers and fruits constituted 11.11% and 15.49% of the diet of the two groups respectively.