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GS Paper: GS3

  • Biojet fuel that powered the IAF aircraft

     

    In his monthly Mann ki Baat radio address, PM hailed the use of biofuel in an Indian Air Force transport aircraft.

    What did PM cite?

    • IAF’s An-32 aircraft successfully used a 10% blend of Indian biojet fuel and took off from Leh’s Kushok Bakula Rimpoche Airport on January 31.
    • This was the first time that this mix was used in both engines of an aircraft.
    • Leh is at an altitude of 10,682 ft above mean sea level and is among the world’s highest and most difficult operational airfields.
    • Even during clear weather, operating an aircraft at Leh is a challenge, given the reduced power output of the engines in the rarefied atmosphere, turbulent winds, and proximity of the mountains.

    What is Biojet fuel?

    • Biojet fuel is prepared from “non-edible tree borne oil” and is procured from various tribal areas of India.
    • This fuel is made from Jatropha oil sourced from Chattisgarh Biodiesel Development Authority (CBDA) and then processed at CSIR-IIP, Dehradun.
    • Generally, it is made from vegetable oils, sugars, animal fats and even waste biomass, and can be used in existing aviation jet engines without modification.
    • Jatropha oil is suitable for conversion to jet fuel. This biojet fuel has received wide acceptance from the airline industry.

    Why it matters?

    • Evaluating the performance of biojet fuel under conditions prevalent in Leh was considered extremely important from an operational perspective.
    • The success of the flight validated the capability of the aircraft’s engines to operate smoothly with biojet fuel at the extremities of the operational envelope.
    • The tests were conducted by a team comprising test pilots from the Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE), Bengaluru and pilots from the operational squadrons.
    • The successful test flight also demonstrated the IAF’s capability to absorb newer technology, while sponsoring indigenization.

  • Future for the World’s Children Report 2020

    The Future for the World’s Children Report 2020 was recently released.

    About the report

    • The report was released by a commission of over 40 child and adolescent health experts from around the world after assessing 180 countries.
    • It was commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO), UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and The Lancet medical journal.

    What is Flourishing Index?

    • Flourishing is the geometric mean of Surviving and Thriving.
    • For Surviving, the authors selected maternal survival, survival in children younger than 5 years old, suicide, access to maternal and child health services, basic hygiene and sanitation, and lack of extreme poverty.
    • For Thriving, the domains were educational achievement, growth and nutrition, reproductive freedom, and protection from violence.

    Threats to Children

    • The report highlights the distinct threat posed to children from harmful marketing.
    • Evidence suggests that children in some countries see as many as 30,000 advertisements on television alone in a single year, while youth exposure to vaping (e-cigarettes) advertisements increased by more than 250% in the U.S. over two years, reaching more than 24 million young people.
    • Studies in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the U.S. — among many others — have shown that self-regulation has not hampered commercial ability to advertise to children.
    • Children’s exposure to commercial marketing of junk food and sugary beverages is associated with the purchase of unhealthy foods and overweight and obesity, linking predatory marketing to the alarming rise in childhood obesity.
    • The number of obese children and adolescents increased from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016 — an 11-fold increase, with dire individual and societal costs, the report said.

    What is Sustainability Index?

    • Under the Sustainability Index, the authors noted that promoting today’s national conditions for children to survive and thrive must not come at the cost of eroding future global conditions for children’s ability to flourish.
    • It ranks countries on excess carbon emissions compared with the 2030 target.
    • This provides a convenient and available proxy for a country’s contribution to sustainability in future.

    Highlights of the SI

    • The report noted that under realistic assumptions about possible trajectories towards sustainable greenhouse gas emissions, models predict that global carbon emissions need to be reduced from 39·7 gigatonnes to 22·8 gigatonnes per year by 2030 to maintain even a 66% chance of keeping global warming below 1·5degrees C.
    • No country in the world is currently providing the conditions we need to support every child to grow up and have a healthy future alarmed the report.

    India’s performance

    India ranked 77th on a sustainability index that takes into account per capita carbon emissions and ability of children in a nation to live healthy lives and secures 131st spot on a flourishing ranking that measures the best chance at survival and well-being for children.

    Performance of nations in SI

    •  Norway leads the table for survival, health, education and nutrition rates – followed by South Korea and the Netherlands.
    • The central African Republic, Chad and Somalia come at the bottom.
    • However, when taking into account per capita CO2 emissions, these top countries trail behind, with Norway 156th, the Republic of Korea 166th and the Netherlands 160th.
    • Each of the three emits 210 per cent more CO2 per capita than their 2030 target, the data shows, while the U.S., Australia, and Saudi Arabia are among the 10 worst emitters.
    • The lowest emitters are Burundi, Chad and Somalia.
    • According to the report, the only countries on track to beat CO2 emission per capita targets by 2030, while also performing fairly — within the top 70 — on child flourishing measures are Albania, Armenia, Grenada, Jordan, Moldova, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Uruguay and Vietnam.

  • [pib] Bay of Bengal Offshore Sailing Expedition (BBSE)

     

    Indian Naval Sailing Vessels Mhadei and Tarini set sail for the Bay of Bengal Offshore Sailing Expedition from the Indian Naval Ocean Sailing Node at Goa.

    BBSE

    • This would be the maiden major mixed crew sailing expedition of the Indian Navy with crew composition of five naval officers including two women officers in each boat.
    • It would be covering a total distance of 6,100 Nautical miles each and will be at sea for 55 days.
    • The prolonged voyage of nearly three months during this expedition would showcase harnessing of renewal energy namely wind energy to propel the boats.
    • The expedition is also in pursuance of the GOI mission of ‘Nari Shakti’ providing opportunity to women officers at par with men.
    • The sailing vessels as part of the expedition would make replenishment halts at ports of Phuket, Yangon, Chittagong and Colombo.

    About the vessels

    • Mhadei and Tarini inducted in the Indian Navy on 08 February 2009 and 18 February 2017 respectively have been the vessels of choice for the naval expeditions in various sailing expeditions, including three circumnavigations and thus have thousands of miles tucked under their belt.
    • Mhadei has successfully completed two circumnavigations, three Cape to Rio trans-Atlantic races and several other expeditions around various continents.
    • The vessel has covered in excess of 1,36,000 nautical miles.
    • Tarini created history in 2017-18 when six Indian Naval women officers sailed the vessel on maiden circumnavigation voyage titled Navika Sagar Parikrama.
    • She thereafter also participated in mixed crew Kochi to Seychelles sail training expedition during the 10th-anniversary celebration of the IONS.

  • Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF)

     

    At 100 light-years from Earth, a low-mass star was sending signals in a pattern that suggested that an exoplanet was orbiting the star confirmed the Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF).

    Habitable-zone Planet Finder

    • NASA’s Kepler mission observed a dip in the host star’s light, suggesting that the planet was crossing in front of the star during its orbit.
    • To confirm, researchers turned to an instrument called Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF). It has confirmed that there is indeed an exoplanet.
    • HPF is an astronomical spectrograph, built by Penn State University scientists, and recently installed on the 10m Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory in Texas.
    • The instrument is designed to detect and characterize planets in the habitable zone — the region around the star where a planet could sustain liquid water on its surface — around nearby low-mass stars.
    • The newly confirmed planet, called G 9-40b, is the first one validated by HPF. It is about twice the size of Earth and orbits its star once every six Earth-days.

    How it works

    • A spectrograph is an instrument that splits light into its component wavelengths.
    • Scientists then measure the properties of light over a specific portion of the spectrum and draw conclusions on what is responsible for the trends they observe.

    Why need HPF?

    • Kepler’s observations alone were not enough to confirm a planet. It was possible that a close stellar companion was responsible for the dip in the star’s light.
    • Precision spectroscopic observations from HPF ruled out this possibility.
    • Shooting a high-power laser into the air, researchers generated a “laser guide star”, and subsequent observations found no evidence of blending of light or other stellar companions.
    • Finally, using HPF, an analysis of a set of radial velocities helped provide estimates for the planet’s mass.

  • Tilhan Mission

    The government will launch Tilhan Mission to make the country self-reliant in oilseed production.

    Why such mission?

    • India is the fourth largest vegetable oil economy in the world after the USA, China and Brazil.
    • Today, the oilseeds account for 13% of the cropped area in the country.
    • Still, India is the largest importer of palm oil in the world.

    Oilseed production in India

    • Total Oilseeds production in the country during 2019-20 is estimated at 34.19 million tonnes which is higher by 2.67 million tonnes than the production of 31.52 million tonnes during 2018-19.
    • Further, the production of oilseeds during 2019-20 is higher by 4.54 million tonnes than the average oilseeds production.

  • [pib] ASKDISHA Chatbot

     

    In order to resolve queries of railway passengers over the internet pertaining to various services offered, Indian Railways had introduced the services of Artificial Intelligence-based ASKDISHA chatbot in October 2018 for the benefit of the users.

    ASKDISHA Chatbot

    • IRCTC had launched this chat bot to answer various queries about ticket booking, cancellation and various value-added services.
    • The chatbot is a special computer programme designed to simulate conversation with users, especially over the internet.
    • It was jointly developed by IRCTC and CoRover Private Limited, a Bangalore-based startup.
    • The first-of-its-kind initiative by IRCTC is aimed at facilitating accessibility by answering users’ queries pertaining to various services offered to railway passengers.

    What is the new update?

    • The ASKDISHA Chatbot was initially launched in English language but in order to further enhance the customer services rendered.
    • To further strengthen the services of the chatbot, IRCTC has now powered voice-enabled ASKDISHA to converse with customers in Hindi language also in the e-ticketing site irctc.co.in.
    • The customers can now ask queries to ASKDISHA in Hindi language by voice as well as text.
    • On an average, around three thousand enquiries are being handled by ASKDISHA in Hindi language on daily basis and the figure is increasing day by day which also shows the acceptability of the new feature by the customer.
    • IRCTC plans to launch ASKDISHA in more languages along with many other additional features in the near future.

  • Conquering the green frontier

    Context

    India has to forge a different development model -one that will shift India’s workforce from agriculture to globally leading, resource-efficient businesses.

     How India can deliver sustainable prosperity?

    • The two intertwined forces: Just as liberalisation and globalisation transformed the economy in the past, two different yet intertwined forces will likely transform the economy in the future.
    • First–High competitiveness: India must have globally leading companies across a range of key sectors such as financial services and manufacturing.
      • Global productivity frontier: These super competitive businesses should define the global productivity frontier so that they can surpass the production processes of the best companies in the world.
    • Second-Long term sustainability: India must also adopt a resource-efficient, low-carbon development pathway to utilise scarce natural resources effectively. There is no other way.
      • Apocalyptic air pollution.
      • Dire water shortages.
      • Rising temperatures and-
      • Extreme climate events- have already brought us to the brink of an environmental crisis.
      • The need for India’s leadership for achieving the target: Moreover, note that the world needs India’s leadership to achieve the 2 degree Celsius global warming target.
      • In short, India’s growth has to be green.
    • What is the problem in achieving these goals?
      • No nation has ever attempted these twin transformations — high competitiveness and long-term sustainability — simultaneously.
      • The traditional development model: The traditional development model has been a farm-to-factory development model with economies transitioning from traditional agriculture to resource-intensive, urban manufacturing.
      • India has to forge a different development model — one that will shift India’s workforce from agriculture to globally leading, resource-efficient businesses.
      • Also, these companies must use the most advanced green technologies and business models.
      • India’s development model will, therefore, need to take the Indian economy from “the farm-to-green frontier”.

    Three focus area for green transformation

    • The productivity transformation driven by super competitive businesses is well underway.
      • We now need to consider a comprehensive policy package that will enable us to simultaneously undertake a green transformation.
      • Global best practices and India’s own experiences suggest three focus areas for such a transformation.
    • India has the third-largest start-up ecosystem in the world and our larger companies are also pursuing innovation-driven growth.
    • Specific and stable policy goals
      • Specific and stable policy goals need to be established to set detailed green targets for various sectors.
      • A macro-economic model that factors in-
      • Current skills.
      • Sectoral connections.
      • Relative emission and-
      • Financial constraints are necessary to inform such targets going forward.
      • Such a model can then be used to evaluate various green growth scenarios.
      • Decarbonisation approaches in the green frontier scenario will drive the growth of green industries, green jobs, green skills, green entrepreneurs and green finance.
    • Pursuing the policy goals: Global and Indian experience highlights that green targets will have to be pursued in a stable manner across decades.
      • Most large emitters and pollutants are associated with long-lived (20-30 plus years useful life) assets.
      • The basic requirement for investment in green assets: Investments in green assets will only be possible if there is the sanctity of contracts, pricing stability, and consistent policies that are backed up by the full force of law.
      • Implementation: Finally, these specific and stable policy goals need to be implemented urgently to avoid lock-in with high-carbon assets.
    • Revamp the institutional framework: India may need to revamp its existing institutional framework for environmental governance in order to align it with the country’s green transformation.
      • Four levels of institutional structure: As demonstrated by global best practices, a comprehensive institutional framework could include four levels — super sovereign, sovereign, state/province and city.
      • Council for monitoring: An independent council or board may also be required to monitor, report, and verify green targets.
    • Appropriate financing capacity: Indian policymakers and entrepreneurs will unleash market forces that will drive the growth of waste management, solar panels, electric vehicles, super-efficient appliances, recyclable food packaging, clean coal, etc.
      • These green industries will require massive investments and appropriate financing capacity will have to be created to support their growth.
      • Preliminary estimates suggest that India’s green transformation may require an average investment of $95 billion to $125 billion per year, aggregating over $1 trillion in the next decade.
      • A “green super fund” could be established to jumpstart green investments by pooling together international and domestic capital.
      • Dual roles of financial institution: Such a financial institution could play a dual role in mediating and mitigating risk for global capital, as well as identifying sectoral project pipelines.
      • The success of financial institution: Indian financial institutions have been very successful in building up new industries such as microfinance, EdTech, and affordable healthcare, which have delivered both financial and social returns; however, financial support for green industries will have to be orders of magnitude larger.
      • Moreover, the “green super fund” may have to be able to invest across the capital structure (debt plus equity) as well as across the company lifecycle (early stage, growth capital, infrastructure investments, and so on).

    Conclusion

    Our future depends on how we resolve our environmental challenges. Further, we are the world’s third-largest carbon emitter and will play a crucial role in getting the planet to a low-carbon trajectory. Simply put, we must urgently transform our economy to get to the green frontier.

  • Changes in Crop Insurance Scheme

    The Centre has decided to restrict its premium subsidy in its flagship crop insurance schemes to 30% for unirrigated areas and 25% for irrigated areas (from the existing unlimited), and to make enrolment of farmers in the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS) voluntary from the 2020 Kharif season.

     Other changes in crop insurance schemes

    • The government has given flexibility to states/UTs to implement PMFBY and RWBCIS, and given them the option to select any number of additional risk covers/features like prevented sowing, localised calamity, mid-season adversity, and post-harvest losses.
    • Earlier, these risk covers were mandatory.

    Why such a move?

    By capping the subsidy for premium rates up to 30%, the Centre wants to dis-incentivize certain crops in such areas where growing these crops involve high risks in terms of crop insurance premiums.

    What were the schemes?

    • At present, under PMFBY and RWBCIS, farmers pay a premium of 2% of the sum insured for all foodgrains and oilseeds crops of Kharif; 1.5% for all foodgrains and oilseeds crops of Rabi; and 5% for all horticultural crops.
    • The difference between actual premium rate and the rate of insurance premium payable by farmers, which is called the Rate of Normal Premium Subsidy, is shared equally between the Centre and the states.
    • However, states and UTs are free to extend additional subsidy over and above the normal subsidy from their budgets.
    • Until now, there was no upper limit for the central subsidy.
    • The Cabinet decided to cap the Centre’s premium subsidy under these schemes for premium rates up to 30% for unirrigated areas/crops and 25% for irrigated areas/crops.

    How many farmers are covered under these two schemes?

    • During 2018-19, about 5.64 crore farmers are enrolled with PMFBY for an insured sum of Rs 2,35,277 crore, and 30% of the gross cropped is insured.
    • When the government approved PMFBY four years ago, it was described as a path-breaking scheme for farmers’ welfare” under which there was no upper limit on government subsidy.
    • Even if balance premium was 90%, it was to be borne by the Government
    • While PMFBY is based on yield, RWBCIS is based on proxies and farmers are provided insurance protection against adverse weather conditions such as excess rainfall, wind and temperature.
    • The number of insured farmers under RWBCIS is relatively low.

    Impact of the move

    This change will have two main implications.

    • First, it may bring down the rates of overall premium as the state governments now will not be required to invite bids factoring these risks.
    • Second, it will make these schemes less attractive for farmers.
    • However, states/UTs can offer specific single peril risk/insurance covers like hailstorm etc under PMFBY.

    Burden of premium

    • One interpretation of this decision is that the burden of premium subsidy will go up for the states.
    • Example: In the old regime, if a farmer’s Kharif crop was insured for Rs 1,00,000 and the rate of actuarial premium was 40%, then the premium paid by the farmer was 2% (Rs 2,000), and the remaining premium was shared by the Centre and the state equally (19% or Rs 19,000).
    • In the new regime, for the same sum insured (Rs 1,00,000) and the same rate of premium (40%), the Centre will give subsidy for premium rates up to 30%.
    • This means that from the Kharif 2020 season , the Centre will have to pay premium at the rate of 14% (out of 30%, the farmer’s share is 2%, and the Centre’s and state’s 14% each).
    • The state has to bear the entire burden of the premium subsidy in cases where the rate of premium goes beyond the threshold of 30%.

    No insurance of certain crops

    • Another interpretation is that the Centre may stop supporting insurance of certain crops in certain areas where the rate of premium is more than 30%.
    • The Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare in consultation with other stakeholders/agencies will have to prepare State specific, alternative risk mitigation programme for crops/areas having high rate of premium.
    • While the average premium rate under PMFBY and RWBCIS at the national level was 12.32% for 2018-19, for some crops in certain districts, the rate of premium has been higher than 30% in recent years.
    • For instance, the rate of premium for Kharif groundnut has reached 49% in Rajkot of Gujarat, and the rate for Rabi paddy crop Ramnathapuram (Tamil Nadu) has reached 42%.

    Impact on states

    • The states are already defaulting on their share, and the Centre’s new cap will put an additional financial burden on them.
    • Madhya Pradesh has not paid its share of premium even for Kharif 2018, which comes to Rs 1,500 crore. As a result, farmers have not got their claims.
    • In fact, most states have delayed the payment of their share of premium.
    • Sources said that in some states, the expenditure on premium of PMFBY is more than 50% of their budget for agriculture.

    Immediate implications

    • That move will lead to a rise in the rates of premium, as the area covered under insurance and the number of enrolled farmers is expected to come down significantly.
    • As of now the schemes are compulsory for all loanee farmers and optional for other farmers.
    • Non-loanee farmers under the crop insurance schemes are much fewer than loanee farmers.
    • If the latter opt out of the schemes, the number of insured farmers will drastically come down.
    • In such a scenario the rate of premium of certain crops in some areas may go beyond 30%.

    Back2Basics

    Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana – Min Premium, Max Insurance

  • [pib] International protection for Great Indian Bustard, Bengal Florican and Asian Elephant

    India’s proposal to include Great Indian Bustard, Asian Elephant and Bengal Florican in Appendix I of UN Convention on migratory species was unanimously accepted at the undergoing CMS CoP in Gandhinagar.

    Great Indian Bustard

    • The Great Indian Bustard, an iconic, critically endangered and conservation dependent species, exhibits transboundary movements, and its migration exposes it to threats such as hunting in the boundary area of Pakistan-India and power-line collisions in India.
    • Inclusion of the species in Appendix I of CMS will aide in transboundary conservation efforts facilitated by International conservation bodies and existing international laws and agreement.

    Asian Elephant

    • The Government of India has declared Indian elephant as National Heritage Animal. It is also provided with the highest degree of legal protection by listing it in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
    • The Great Indian Bustard is a Critically Endangered species with a small population of about 100–150 individuals that is largely restricted to Thar desert in Rajasthan, India.
    • The species has disappeared from 90% of this range; their population has reduced by 90% within 50 years (six generations), and their threats are expected to increase in future.

    Bengal Florican

    • The Bengal Florican an iconic, critically endangered species of topmost conservation priority, exhibits transboundary movements, and its migration exposes it to threats such as land-use changes, collision with power transmission line at the boundary area of India-Nepal and probable power-line collisions.
    • Inclusion of the species in Appendix I of CMS will aid in transboundary conservation efforts facilitated by International conservation bodies and existing international laws and agreement.
    • It populations has declined as a result of habitat loss, hunting and the species no longer breeds outside Protected Areas in the Indian subcontinent, except in a few areas of Assam.

  • Buddah Nullah

    The Punjab govt. has approved ₹650 crore in the first phase for rejuvenation of the highly polluting Buddah Nullah — a seasonal tributary of Sutlej in Ludhiana.

    Buddah Nullah

    • Buddah Nullah or Budha Nala is a seasonal water stream that runs through the Malwa region of Punjab.
    • It passes through highly populated Ludhiana and drains into Sutlej River, a tributary of the Indus river.
    • It has also become a major source of pollution in the region as well the main Sutlej river, as it gets polluted after entering the highly populated and industrialized Ludhiana city, turning it into an open drain.
    • Also, since a large area in south-western Punjab solely depend on the canal water for irrigation, and water from Buddha Nullah enters various canals after Harike waterworks.

    Why such move?

    • The pollution in the Buddah Nullah is a major threat to public health and environment and the main sources of pollution in the nullah are direct flow of pollutants by industries and dairies.
    • Also, treated effluents from existing STPs, based on UASB technology, does not meet the required quality and overflow from sewer lines add to the problem.
    • The NGT has already directed the government to take proactive steps to immediately address the problem.