GS Paper: GS1-15.Geographical features and their location- Changes in critical geographical features (including water-bodies and ice-caps) and in flora and fauna and the effects of such changes.

A proposed museum reflecting the “culture and heritage of the people living in char-chaporis” has stirred up a controversy in Assam.

Do you know?

Phumdis are a series of floating islands, exclusive to the Loktak Lake in Manipur. They cover a substantial part of the lake area and are heterogeneous masses of vegetation, soil and organic matter, in different stages of decay.

What are char-chaporis?

• A char is a floating island while chaporis are low-lying flood-prone riverbanks.
• They are used interchangeably as they keep changing shapes — a char can become a chapori, or vice versa, depending on the push and pull of the Brahmaputra.
• Prone to floods and erosion, these areas are marked by low development indices.
• While Bengali-origin Muslims primarily occupy these islands, other communities such as Misings, Deoris, Kocharis, Nepalis also live here.
• In the popular imagination, however, chars have become synonymous to the Bengali-speaking Muslims of dubious nationality.

Who are the Miyas?

• The ‘Miya’ community comprises descendants of Muslim migrants from East Bengal (now Bangladesh) to Assam.
• They came to be referred to as ‘Miyas’, often in a derogatory manner.
• The community migrated in several waves — starting with the British annexation of Assam in 1826, and continuing into Partition and the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

Hundreds of migrants have taken advantage of the warm weather and calm seas in the English Channel to reach the UK in a flurry of small boat crossings.

Try this PYQ:

Q.Which one of the following pairs of islands is separated from each other by the ‘Ten Degree Channel’?

(a) Andaman and Nicobar

(b) Nicobar and Sumatra

(c) Maldives and Lakshadweep

(d) Sumatra and Java

English Channel

• The English Channel is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France.
• It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end.
• It is the busiest shipping area in the world.
• It is about 560 km long and varies in width from 240 km at its widest to 34 km in the Strait of Dover.
• It is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe.

Very recently, a medicane named Ianos made landfall along the coast of Greece and caused heavy rainfall and flooding on the islands of Zakynthos, Kefalonia and Ithaca.

Try this PYQ:

In the South Atlantic and South-Eastern Pacific regions in tropical latitudes, cyclone does not originate. What is the reason?

(a) Sea surface temperatures are low

(b) Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone seldom occurs

(c) Coriolis force is too weak

(d) Absence of land in those regions

What are Medicanes?

• Medicanes are extra-tropical hurricanes observed over the Mediterranean Sea.
• Medicanes occur more in colder waters than tropical cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons.
• Hence, the cores of these storms are also cold, as compared to the warm cores of tropical cyclones.
• Warmer cores tend to carry more moisture (hence rainfall), are bigger in size and have swifter winds.
• The main societal hazard posed by Medicanes is not usually from destructive winds but through life-threatening torrential rains and flash floods.

Why in news?

• This year is a mild La Niña, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
• La Niña is the cooling phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, as opposed to the warming El Niño phase.
• It is characterized by the unusual cooling of the central and east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean.
• A La Niña produces more rain in the central-eastern part, where most of the Mediterranean cyclones develop.

China and Nepal are expected to announce the latest official height of Mt. Everest.

Try this PYQ:

Q.When you travel to the Himalayas, you will see the following:

1. Deep gorges
2. U-turn river courses
3. Parallel mountain ranges
4. Steep gradients causing land-sliding

Which of the above can be said to be the evidences for the Himalayas being young fold mountains?

(a) 1 and 2 only

(b) 1, 2 and 4 only

(c) 3 and 4 only

(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4

Mt. Everest

• Mount Everest or Sagarmatha, Earth’s highest mountain above sea level, is located in the Himalayas between China and Nepal -– the border between them running across its summit point.
• Its current official elevation – 8,848m – places it more than 200m above the world’s second-highest mountain, K2, which is 8,611m tall and located in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
• The mountain gets its English name from Sir George Everest, a colonial-era geographer who served as the Surveyor General of India in the mid-19th century.
• Considered an elite climbing destination, Everest was first scaled in 1953 by the Indian-Nepalese Tenzing Norgay and New Zealander Edmund Hillary.

Everest’s first survey

• The mission to measure the world’s highest peak was taken up on a serious note in 1847 and culminated with the finding of a team led by Andrew Waugh of the Royal Surveyor General of India.
• The team discovered that ‘Peak 15’ — as Mt Everest was referred to then — was the highest mountain, contrary to the then-prevailing belief that Mt Kanchenjunga (8,582 m) was the highest peak in the world.
• Another belief, prevailing even today, is that 8,840 m is not the height that was actually determined by the 19th-century team.
• That survey, based on trigonometric calculations, is known as the Great Trigonometric Survey of India.

Why is the height being measured again?

• Everest’s current official height– 8,848m– has been widely accepted since 1956, when the figure was measured by the Survey of India.
• The height of the summit, however, is known to change because of tectonic activity, such as the 2015 Nepal earthquake.
• Its measurement over the decades has also depended on who was surveying.
• Another debate is whether the height should be based on the highest rock point or the highest snow point.