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  • Guidelines for Import of Exotic Species

    The Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) has issued an advisory saying people importing “exotic live species” will have to make a voluntary disclosure.

    Practice questions for mains:

    Q. What are Zoonotic Diseases? Discuss how the illicit trade in wildlife has resulted in the spread of zoonotic diseases of the scale of the ongoing COVID-19?

    What is the new Advisory?

    • According to the advisory, the phrase “exotic live species” includes “animals named under the Appendices I, II and III of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora”.
    • It does not include species from the Schedules of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972.
    • This will create a process where all imports will be screened.
    • As of now, the imports are being made through the Director-General of Foreign Trade and State Forest departments are not kept in the loop.
    • For new “exotic live species”, the importer should obtain a no-objection certificate from the Chief Wildlife Warden (CWLW) of the State.
    • For existing species, stocks shall be declared by the owner/ holder (stock, as on 1 January 2020) to the Chief Wildlife Warden (CWLW) of the concerned State or UT.

    Why need such advisory?

    • Many exotic species of birds, reptiles and amphibians are imported into India for commercial purposes.
    • Some of the most sought after exotic species in India are Ball python, Scarlet Macaw, sea turtles, sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps), marmoset and grey African parrots.
    • These imports were happening through the Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), but they were beyond the purview of the forest departments and the chief wildlife wardens weren’t aware of them.
    • Wildlife experts have long been asking for stringent laws and guidelines to document and regulate numbers of exotic species being kept as pets by individuals and breeders in India.

    Significance

    • The move comes as the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) has raised global concern about illegal wildlife trade and zoonotic diseases.
    • Often these species are illegally trafficked into the country to avoid lengthy documentation and scrutiny.

    Issues with guidelines

    • Matters such as the spread of invasive species as well as zoonotic diseases had not been taken care of in the advisory.
    • There is a growing domestic trade in exotic species of wildlife that is unfortunately not listed under the various appendices of CITES (such as sugar gliders, corn snakes).
    • Hence limiting the scope of the latest advisory to only those species covered under CITES drastically limits the scope of the advisory itself.
    • It does not have the force of law and could potentially incentivize illegal trade by offering a long amnesty period.

    Back2Basics: CITES

    • CITES stands for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
    • It is as an international agreement aimed at ensuring “that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival”.
    • It was drafted after a resolution was adopted at a meeting of the members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 1963.
    • It entered into force on July 1, 1975, and now has 183 parties.
    • The Convention is legally binding on the Parties in the sense that they are committed to implementing it; however, it does not take the place of national laws.
    • India is a signatory to and has also ratified CITES convention in 1976.

    CITES Appendices

    • CITES works by subjecting international trade in specimens of selected species to certain controls.
    • All import, export, re-exports and introduction from the sea of species covered by the convention has to be authorized through a licensing system.

    It has three appendices:

    • Appendix I includes species threatened with extinction. Trade-in specimens of these species are permitted only in exceptional circumstances.
    • Appendix II provides a lower level of protection.
    • Appendix III contains species that are protected in at least one country, which has asked other CITES Parties for assistance in controlling trade.

  • National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ‘India Rankings 2020’

    The National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranking list has been released by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).

    Practice question for mains:

    Q. What is NIRF? Discuss the parameters and methodology used in the ranking. Also, discuss its key features and limitations.

    About NIRF

    • The NIRF is a methodology adopted by the Ministry of HRD to rank institutions of higher education in India.
    • The Framework was approved and on 29 September 2015.
    • There are separate rankings for different types of institutions depending on their areas of operation like universities and colleges, engineering institutions, management institutions, pharmacy institutions and architecture institutions.
    • The ranking framework evaluates institutions on five broad generic groups of parameters, i.e. Teaching, Learning and Resources (TLR), Research and Professional Practice (RP), Graduation Outcomes (GO), Outreach and Inclusivity (OI) and Perception (PR).

    Why need such rankings?

    • Rankings help universities to improve their performance on various ranking parameters and identify gaps in research and areas of improvement.
    • The ranking is necessary for transparency and healthy competition.

    Highlights of the 2020 rankings

    • IIT Madras retains 1st Position in Overall Ranking as well as in Engineering,
    • Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru tops the University list.
    • IIM Ahmedabad tops in Management Category and AIIMS occupies the top slot in Medical category for a third consecutive year.
    • Miranda College retains 1st position amongst colleges for a third consecutive year.
    • Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Sciences, Delhi secures 1st position in “Dental” category, dental institutions included for the first time in India Rankings 2020.

  • Nature Index, 2020

    India has ranked twelfth, globally in science research output as per the recently-released Nature Index table 2020. The top five positions have gone to the United States of America, China, Germany, United Kingdom and Japan.

    Note: This nature index has nothing to do with nature conservation. It has only mentioned the rankings of research institutes in natural and physical sciences.

    What is the Nature Index?

    • The Nature Index is a database of author affiliation information collated from research articles published in an independently selected group of 82 high-quality science journals.
    • It serves as an indicator of high-quality research in the Natural and Physical Sciences.
    • The database is compiled by Nature Research, a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals.
    • The index provides a close to the real-time proxy of high-quality research output and collaboration at the institutional, national and regional level.

    India’s achievements

    • Globally the top-rated Indian institutions in this list are CSIR, a group of 39 institutions at the 160th position and IISc Bangalore at the 184th
    • Three of the autonomous institutions of the DST have found their place among the top 30 Indian Institutions.
    • Keeping out CSIR, which is a cluster of institutions, IACS Kolkata is among the top three institutions in quality Chemistry Research in India.
    • NCASR Banglore ranks 4th among academic institutions in life sciences, 10th in Chemistry and Physical Sciences, 10th among Indian academic institutions, and 469th in the global ranking.

  • Lonar Lake colour changes to pink

    The colour of water in Maharashtra’s Lonar Lake, formed after a meteorite hit the Earth some 50,000 years ago, has changed to glaring.

    Make a note of all saltwater lakes in India. Few of them are Pulicat, Pangong Tso, Chilika, and Sambhar Lakes etc.

    About Lonar Lake

    • Lonar Lake, also known as Lonar crater, is a notified National Geo-heritage Monument, saline (pH of 10.5), Soda Lake, located at Lonar in Buldhana district, Maharashtra.
    • It was created by an asteroid collision with earth impact during the Pleistocene Epoch.
    • It is one of the four known, hyper-velocity, impact craters in basaltic rock anywhere on Earth.
    • It sits inside the Deccan Plateau—a massive plain of volcanic basalt rock created by eruptions some 65 million years ago.
    • Its location in this basalt field suggested to some geologists that it was a volcanic crater.

    Why there’s a color change?

    • The salinity and algae can be responsible for this change.
    • There is no oxygen below one meter of the lake’s water surface.
    • There is an example of a lake in Iran, where water becomes reddish due to increase in salinity.
    • The level of water in the Lonar Lake is currently low as compared to the few past years and there is no rain to pour fresh water in it.
    • The low level of water may lead to increased salinity and change in the behaviour of algae because of atmospheric changes.

  • Crisis of today should not blind us to the crisis of tomorrow

    Covid-19 pandemic has overwhelmed the governments across the world. And the destruction caused by it would impact not only our present but the future as well. So, what this means to our climate future? First and foremost, it will leave the governments with less fund to invest for the greener outcomes. What would be the other impacts? And how can we avoid turning blind eye to the crises waiting for us in the near future? Read the article to know…

    Cyclones amid pandemic-what do it signal?

    • The very language used to describe the effects of climate change is now being deployed, correctly, to shape our understanding of a covid-ravaged near future: poverty, the failure of markets, uncertainty, and an overwhelmed government.
    • In less than a month, we have been given a glimpse of how the climate crisis can yank at the seams of a state already undone.
    • We saw Cyclone Amphan transform from a tropical storm to one of the largest cyclones South Asia has ever seen in a matter of hours, aided by warmer than usual waters in the Bay of Bengal.
    • We also saw Cyclone Nisarga barrel down on Maharashtra, the second pre-monsoon cyclone to hit the west coast in 127 years.
    • Governments would have been hard-pressed to deal with such extremes even in the best of times.

    So, how COVID-19 would impact response to climate change?

    •  There are two strands of opinion.
    • The optimistic one sees this as a moment to remake our states and societies in a measured response.
    • This includes directing economic packages to areas that increase our resilience to natural disasters and technologies that reduce our emissions.
    • This could be an opportunity to reinforce sustainable behaviour — fewer morning commutes and less air travel, for example.
    • The other strand is more dire, arguing that this will amount to a lost decade or two as our attention is focused on keeping the teetering ship of economy afloat.
    • In this reading, present concerns will trump preparations for an uncertain future.
    • Between these two strands there is consensus that we are at a critical juncture.
    • What we do now will determine the flow of events decades into the future.

    What our climate future holds?

    We will have to face the following 3 problems in the future owing to the Covid-19 pandemic today.

    1. Scarcity of funds

    • It has been two months since India’s lockdown, and we know enough to have a rational conversation about our climate future.
    • Perhaps the most important news relates to public and private debt.
    • The government has raised its borrowing limit, states will need to borrow more to tide over shortfalls and the private sector has seen returns from investments dry out.
    • All three are already heavily indebted, meaning the cost of capital for future borrowing will only grow.
    • That leaves limited fiscal room to finance the building blocks of resilience: everything from grain to health, employment schemes, irrigation, efficient water systems and river management infrastructure.
    • It could mean that efforts to reduce our energy emissions are left without patient pools of long-term capital.

    2. Underdeveloped knowledge infrastructure

    • The knowledge infrastructure needed to react to climate change might be left similarly underdeveloped.
    • Climate change distinguishes itself from other policy fields in the wide range of analytical tasks it demands, from predicting weather trends to understanding how specific seed varieties react to droughts.
    • Thinking about climate change requires a lot of people exploring varied questions simultaneously.
    • That involves funding an ecosystem of thinkers from diverse disciplines.
    • Only the state can provide for multi-year studies, institutional support and the like.
    • These are inherently long-term investments and only really start paying off over decades.
    • It means that hamstrung investment in coming years will leave a knowledge vacuum in the future.

    3. Impact on the psychology of the government

    • The Indian government, reacting to a million crises erupting across the economy, will be hard-pressed to plan for a hazy but sinister future.
    • Promises of a greener, less turbulent future will falter against the turbulence of today.
    • This instinct will be shared by governments across the world.
    • This might well numb the effects of the global climate negotiation architecture.

    Way forward

    • Crafting a response that carefully balances present and future will take a great deal of collective effort.
    • Foremost, it will require policy ideas that deliberately marry employment and industrial priorities with green outcomes.
    • Ideas such as pushing to manufacture solar equipment or electric vehicles in India should, at some point, coalesce into something that looks like a climate plan for the country.
    • This task will fall to universities, NGOs, think tanks and individuals working together in disciplined debate.

    Consider the question “Do you agree with the view that the corona crisis would adversely impact our efforts towards mitigating the impact of climate change? Giver reasons in support of your argument.”

    Conclusion

    We should be careful not to drag ourselves through one crisis only to emerge into another longer, less predictable, and unstoppable one. So, balancing the present problems and their solutions with an eye on a certain and stable future is the need of the hour.

  • Strategic importance of Daulat Beg Oldie, Ladakh

    In the reporting on the LAC stand-off, the Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie (DSDBO) road has often appeared in news.

    Practice questions for mains:

    Q. Discuss how India’s all-weather border infrastructure has created new festering points for the Sino-Indian border skirmished.

    Daulat Beg Oldie

    • DBO is the northernmost corner of Indian Territory in Ladakh, in the area better known in Army parlance as Sub-Sector North.
    • DBO has the world’s highest airstrip, originally built during the 1962 war but abandoned until 2008 when the Indian Air Force (IAF) revived it as one of its many Advanced Landing Grounds (ALGs) along the LAC.

    The DSDBO Road

    • DSDBO is an all-weather 255-km long road 255-km long built by India over nearly 20 years.
    • Running almost parallel to the LAC, the DSDBO road, meandering through elevations ranging between 13,000 ft and 16,000 ft, took India’s Border Roads Organisation (BRO) almost two decades to construct.
    • Its strategic importance is that it connects Leh to DBO, virtually at the base of the Karakoram Pass that separates China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region from Ladakh.

    A trigger for PLA incursions

    • Of the possible triggers cited for the PLA targeting of Indian Territory along the LAC in eastern Ladakh, the construction of DSDBO all-weather road is possibly the most consequential.
    • The Chinese build-up along the Galwan River valley region overlooks and hence poses a direct threat to the DSDBO road.

    Significance of DSDBO Road

    • The DSDBO highway provides the Indian military access to the section of the Tibet-Xinjaing highway that passes through Aksai Chin.
    • The road runs almost parallel to the LAC at Aksai Chin, the eastern ear of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir state that China occupied in the 1950s, leading to the 1962 war in which India came off worse.
    • The DSDBO’s emergence seemingly panicked China, evidenced by the 2013 intrusion by the PLA into the nearby Depsang Plains, lasting nearly three weeks.
    • DBO itself is less than 10 km west of the LAC at Aksai Chin. A military outpost was created in DBO in reaction to China’s occupation of Aksai Chin.
    • It is at present manned by a combination of the Army’s Ladakh Scouts and the paramilitary Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).

    Other strategic considerations

    • To the west of DBO is the region where China abuts Pakistan in the Gilgit-Baltistan area, once a part of the erstwhile Kashmir principality.
    • This is also the critical region where China is currently constructing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK), to which India has objected.
    • As well, this is the region where Pakistan ceded over 5,180 sq km of PoK to China in 1963 under a Sino-Pakistan Boundary Agreement, contested by India.

    Also read:

    https://www.civilsdaily.com/burning-issue-india-china-skirmish-in-ladakh/

     

  • Challenger Deep: the deepest spot in the ocean

    On June 7, astronaut and oceanographer Kathy Sullivan, who was the first American woman to walk in space in 1984, became the first woman and the fifth person in history to descend to the deepest known spot in the world’s oceans, called the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench.

    The ocean relief can be divided into various parts such as Continental Shelf, Continental Slope, Continental Rise or Foot, Deep Ocean basins, Abyssal plains & Abyssal Hills, Oceanic Trenches, Seamounts and Guyots.

    Revise these ocean bottom relief  features from your basic references.

    Also revise India’s Deep Ocean Mission.

    What is Challenger Deep?

    • The Challenger Deep is the deepest known point in the Earth’s seabed hydrosphere (the oceans), with a depth of 10,902 to 10,929 m.
    • The deepest part is called the Challenger Deep, which is located below the surface of the western Pacific Ocean.
    • The first dive at Challenger Deep was made in 1960 by Lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss scientist Jacques Piccard on a submersible called ‘Trieste’.
    • The British Ship HMS Challenger discovered Challenger Deep between 1872-1876.
    • In 2012, film director James Cameron reached the bottom of the Mariana trench after a descent that lasted 2 hours and 36 minutes.
    • Cameron reached a depth of about 10,908 metres on a dive in his submersible called the ‘Deepsea Challenger’ and became the first to complete a solo submarine dive to this spot.

    Why explore deep oceans?

    • Ocean exploration, however, is not randomly wandering in hopes of finding something new.
    • It is disciplined and organized and includes rigorous observations and documentation of biological, chemical, physical, geological, and archaeological aspects of the ocean.
    • Most of the existing knowledge of the oceans comes from shallower waters, while deeper waters remain relatively unexplored, even as humans are relying more on these areas for food, energy and other resources.
    • Further, finding out more about the deep ocean areas can potentially reveal new sources for medical drugs, food, energy resources and other products.
    • Significantly, information from the deep oceans can also help to predict earthquakes and tsunamis, and help us understand how we are affecting and getting affected by the Earth’s environment.

    What does it take to reach the deep ocean?

    • Vehicles called Human Occupied Vehicles (HOVs) may be used that carry scientists to the deep sea.
    • Alternatively, there are unmanned Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) that are linked to ships using cables and can be steered by scientists remotely.
    • Even so, it is difficult for most private citizens to travel more than 100 feet below the surface of the ocean.
    • Further, technical divers can go as deep as 500 feet or more, but with an array of tanks filled with different gas blends.

    Why is it so difficult to explore deep oceans?

    • Most recreational divers can’t explore more than about 120 feet down due to the amount of air needed to keep lungs pressurized at depth.
    • Such depths could lead to nitrogen narcosis, the intoxication by nitrogen that starts to set in around that depth (most of our atmosphere is nitrogen, not oxygen).
    • Waters at such depths of several kilometres exert tremendous pressure which human bodies cannot sustain.

  • Species in news: Asiatic Lion

    Asiatic lions have now significantly risen in number at an estimated population of 674 in the Gir forest region of Gujarat. Unlike in previous years, this count was estimated not from a Census, but from a population “observation” exercise called Poonam Avlokan.

    Try this question from CSP 2017:

    Q. The term ‘M-STrIPES’ is sometimes seen in the news in the context of

    (a) Captive breeding of Wild Fauna

    (b) Maintenance of Tiger Reserves

    (c) Indigenous Satellite Navigation System

    (d) Security of National Highways

    Asiatic Lion

    • Indian Lion (Panthera Leo Persica) is listed as Endangered and exists as a single population in Gujarat.
    • It is one of five big cat species found in India and Gir National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary is the only habitat for Asiatic lions.
    • Historically, it inhabited much of Western Asia and the Middle East up to northern India.
    • On the IUCN Red List, it is listed under its former scientific name Panthera leo persica as Endangered because of its small population size and area of occupancy.
    • More than two dozen lions died last year in an outbreak of canine distemper virus (CDV) and Babesiosis.

    What is Poonam Avlokan?

    It includes two methods:

    • Block counting method — in which census enumerators remain stationed at water points in a given block and estimate abundance of lions in that block, based on the direct sighting of lions who need to drink water at least once in 24 hours during the summer.
    • Other teams keep moving in their respective territories and make their estimates based on inputs provided by lion trackers and on chance sightings.

    Back2Basics: Lion Census in India

    • The first Lion Census was conducted by the Nawab of Junagadh in 1936; since 1965, the Forest Department has been regularly conducting the Lion Census every five years.
    • The 6th, 8th and 11th Censuses were each delayed by a year, for various reasons.
    • This year it was postponed after the lockdown was announced.

  • Permafrost and the hazards of its Thawing

    The principal reason that led to the recent 20,000-tonne oil leak at an Arctic region power plant in Russia that is now being recognised is the sinking of ground surface due to permafrost thaw.

    Try this question from Mains 2017:
    Q. What is Cryosphere? How does the Cryosphere affect global climate?

    What is Permafrost?

    • Permafrost is ground that remains completely frozen at 0 degrees Celsius or below for at least two years.
    • It is defined solely based on temperature and duration.
    • The permanently frozen ground, consisting of soil, sand, and rock held together by ice, is believed to have formed during glacial periods dating several millennia.

    Where are they found?

    • These grounds are known to be below 22 per cent of the land surface on Earth, mostly in polar zones and regions with high mountains.
    • They are spread across 55 per cent of the landmass in Russia and Canada, 85 per cent in the US state of Alaska, and possibly the entirety of Antarctica.
    • In northern Siberia, it forms a layer that is 1,500 m thick; 740 m in northern Alaska.
    • At lower latitudes, permafrost is found at high altitude locations such as the Alps and the Tibetian plateau.

    How climate change is eating away at these grounds?

    • The Earth’s polar and high altitude regions — its principal permafrost reservoirs — are the most threatened by climate change.
    • Arctic regions are warming twice as fast compared to the rest of the planet, its current rate of temperature change being the highest in 2,000 years.
    • In 2016, Arctic permafrost temperatures were 3.5 degrees Celsius higher than at the beginning of the 20th century.
    • A study has shown that every 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature can degrade up to 39 lakh square kilometre due to thawing.
    • This degradation is expected to further aggravate as the climate gets warmer, putting at risk 40 per cent of the world’s permafrost towards the end of the century– causing disastrous effects.

    The threat to infrastructure

    • Thawing permafrost is also ominous for man-made structures overhead.
    • The Russian oil leak occurred recorded temperatures in Siberia at more than 10 degrees Celsius above average, and called them “highly anomalous” for the region where the power plant is located.
    • As temperatures rise, the binding ice in permafrost melts, making the ground unstable and leading to massive potholes, landslides, and floods.
    • The sinking effect causes damage to key infrastructure such as roads, railway lines, buildings, power lines and pipelines.
    • These changes also threaten the survival of indigenous people, as well as Arctic animals.

    A ticking time bomb

    • Beneath its surface, permafrost contains large quantities of organic leftover from thousands of years prior — dead remains of plants, animals, and microorganisms that got frozen before they could rot.
    • It also holds a massive trove of pathogens.
    • When permafrost thaws, microbes start decomposing this carbon matter, releasing greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide.
    • Researchers have estimated that for every 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature, these grounds could release GHGs to the tune of 4-6 years’ of emissions from coal, oil, and natural gas.
    • Along with greenhouse houses, these grounds could also release ancient bacteria and viruses into the atmosphere as they unfreeze.

    Back2Basics
    https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/thawing-of-permafrost/

    Also read:

    Ambarnaya River Oil spill in Russia

  • Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF)

    The RBI has created a Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) with an outlay of Rs. 500 Cr.

    Possible prelims question:
    Q. Which of the following is the major aim of Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) recently created by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)?
    a) Promotion of UPI payments

    b) Deploying Points of Sale (PoS) infrastructure

    c) Creation of digital wallets

    d)All of the above

    Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF)

    • PIDF aims to encourage acquirers to deploy Points of Sale (PoS) infrastructure — both physical and digital modes in tier-3 to tier-6 centres and north eastern states.
    • The setting of PIDF is in line with the measures proposed by the vision document on payment and settlement systems in India 2019-2021.
    • It is also in line with the RBI’s proposal to set up an Acceptance Development Fund which will be used to develop card acceptance infrastructure across small towns and cities.

    Its working

    • The PIDF will be governed through an Advisory Council and managed and administered by RBI.
    • It will also receive recurring contributions to cover operational expenses from card-issuing banks and card networks.
    • RBI will also contribute to its yearly shortfalls, if necessary.

    Why need PIDF?

    • Over the years, the payments ecosystem in the country has evolved with a wide range of options such as bank accounts, mobile phones, cards, etc.
    • To provide further fillip to digitization of payment systems, it is necessary to give impetus to acceptance infrastructure across the country, more so in under-served areas.