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Subject: Environment

  • What are Cloudbursts? Why are they rising across India?

    Over 20 people have been killed in destruction caused by cloudbursts and flash floods in different parts of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand over the last three days.

    What are Cloudbursts?

    • A cloudburst is a localised but intense rainfall activity.
    • Short spells of very heavy rainfall over a small geographical area can cause widespread destruction, especially in hilly regions where this phenomenon is the most common.
    • Not all instances of very heavy rainfall, however, are cloudbursts.
    • A cloudburst has a very specific definition: Rainfall of 10 cm or more in an hour over a roughly 10 km x 10-km area is classified as a cloudburst event.
    • By this definition, 5 cm of rainfall in a half-hour period over the same area would also be categorized as a cloudburst.

    How is it different from normal rainfall?

    • To put this in perspective, in a normal year, India, as a whole, receives about 116 cm of rainfall over the entire year.
    • This means if the entire rainfall everywhere in India during a year was spread evenly over its area, the total accumulated water would be 116 cm high.
    • There are, of course, huge geographical variations in rainfall within the country, and some areas receive over 10 times more than that amount in a year.
    • But on average, any place in India can be expected to receive about 116 cm of rain in a year.
    • During a cloudburst event, a place receives about 10% of this annual rainfall within an hour.

    How common are cloudbursts?

    • Cloudbursts are not uncommon events, particularly during the monsoon months.
    • Most of these happen in the Himalayan states where the local topology, wind systems, and temperature gradients between the lower and upper atmosphere facilitate the occurrence of such events.
    • However, not every event that is described as a cloudburst is actually, by definition, a cloudburst.
    • That is because these events are highly localized.
    • They take place in very small areas which are often devoid of rainfall measuring instruments.

    Why are they so destructive?

    • The consequences of these events, however, are not confined to small areas.
    • Because of the nature of terrain, the heavy rainfall events often trigger landslides and flash floods, causing extensive destruction downstream.
    • This is the reason why every sudden downpour that leads to destruction of life and property in the hilly areas gets described as a “cloudburst”, irrespective of whether the amount of rainfall meets the defining criteria.
    • At the same time, it is also possible that actual cloudburst events in remote locations aren’t recorded.

    Can cloudbursts be forecasted?

    • The India Meteorological Department forecasts rainfall events well in advance, but it does not predict the quantum of rainfall — in fact, no meteorological agency does.
    • The forecasts can be about light, heavy, or very heavy rainfall, but weather scientists do not have the capability to predict exactly how much rain is likely to fall at any given place.
    • Additionally, the forecasts are for a relatively large geographical area, usually a region, a state, a meteorological sub-division, or at best a district.
    • As they zoom in over smaller areas, the forecasts get more and more uncertain.
    • Theoretically, it is not impossible to forecast rainfall over a very small area as well, but it requires a very dense network of weather instruments and computing capabilities that seem unfeasible with current technologies.
    • As a result, specific cloudburst events cannot be forecast. No forecast ever mentions a possibility of a cloudburst.
    • But there are warnings for heavy to very heavy rainfall events, and these are routinely forecast four to five days in advance.
    • Possibility of extremely heavy rainfall, which could result in cloudburst kind of situations, are forecast six to 12 hours in advance.

    Are cloudburst incidents increasing?

    • There is no long-term trend that suggests that cloudbursts, as defined by the IMD, are rising.
    • What is well established, however, is that incidents of extreme rainfall, as also other extreme weather events, are increasing — not just in India but across the world.
    • While the overall amount of rainfall in India has not changed substantially, an increasing proportion of rainfall is happening in a short span of time.
    • That means that the wet spells are very wet, and are interspersed with prolonged dry spells even in the rainy season.
    • This kind of pattern, attributed to climate change, does suggest that cloudburst events might also be on the rise.

     

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  • Concept of ‘Lifestyle for the Environment’

    Context

    In the midst of a global climate crisis, and as India gets closer to hosting the G20 presidency, it is important to recognise our country’s leadership at both ends of the climate debate: By walking the talk on our climate commitments as well as leading people-powered climate action.

    Power of individual and collective action to address the climate change

    • Adopting eco-friendly behaviours: According to the United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP), if one billion people out of the global population of close to eight billion adopt eco-friendly behaviours in their daily lives, global carbon emissions could drop by approximately 20 per cent. 
    • Such eco-friendly behaviours include turning off ACs, heaters and lights when not in use, as this, for instance, can conserve up to 282 kilowatts of electricity per day.
    • Avoiding food wastage can reduce an individual’s carbon footprint by 370 kg per year.

    The concept of Lifestyle for Environment

    • In November 2021, at the CoP 26 in Glasgow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in addition to announcing the panchamrit, or five climate-related commitments of the country, also articulated the concept of “Lifestyle for the Environment” (LiFE).
    • Mindful and deliberate utilisation: The concept advocate for mindful and deliberate utilisation by people worldwide, instead of “mindful and wasteful consumption”.
    • LiFE was launched on June 5, 2022, World Environment Day, by PM Modi, with a vision of harnessing the power of individual and collective action across the world to address the climate crisis.
    • The objective of the movement is to nudge individuals and communities to adopt simple and specific climate-friendly behaviours in their daily lifestyles.
    •  For instance, an individual can carry a reusable cloth bag instead of a plastic bag.
    • By making such daily actions an integral part of our collective social norms, LiFE aims to activate a global community of “Pro Planet People” and steer the world towards a sustainable model of development.
    • Global precedents: There are already precedents of pro-planet initiatives around the world.
    • For example, Denmark promotes the use of bicycles by limiting parking within the city centre and providing exclusive bike lanes.
    • Japan has its unique “walk-to-school” mandate, which has been in practice since the early 1950s.
    •  LiFE, however, is planned as a first-of-its-kind global movement, led by India in partnership with other countries, that will provide the world with a unique people-powered platform to relentlessly focus on bringing individual and collective actions to the core of the climate action narrative.

    How the LiFE moment can change people’s behaviour

    • 1] Consume responsibly: The prevailing perception that climate-friendly behaviour necessarily implies a frugal lifestyle has played a major role in preventing populations worldwide from adopting a sustainable lifestyle.
    • LiFE plans to methodically break down this mental model by nudging the world to consume responsibly, rather than consuming less.
    • Using behavioural technique: Building on the unique insights from Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), LiFE will deploy a range of tested behavioural techniques, including nudges, social and behaviour change communication and norm influencing to make mindful consumption a mass movement.
    • 2] Produce responsibly: Our society reflects our markets and vice versa.
    • If sustainable choices are not supported from the supply-side, any change in our consumption patterns will only be temporary.
    • By nudging the consumption patterns of the society at scale, LiFE can also trigger a huge boost for the sustainability market.
    • Several green industries and a large number of jobs are likely to be initiated as a positive externality of LiFE.
    • 3] Live responsibly: The Covid pandemic is a wake-up call to all of us that no matter how much technological progress we make as a global society, we all remain at the mercy of the natural world.
    • As a global community of people with a shared natural world, a threat to one is a threat to all.
    • In this context, through its multi-dimensional, multi-cultural and global approach, the LiFE movement can play a pivotal role in not merely reversing the effects of climate change but, at a broader level, mainstream a harmonious and mindful way of living.

    Conclusion

    As the world moves in fits and starts towards its shared commitment to achieve ambitious climate goals, the time is ripe for India to lead the LiFE movement and mainstream it into the climate narrative.

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  • Species in news: Great Indian Bustard

    The critically endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB) has adopted an altogether new behaviour of giving clutch of two eggs at a time after getting additional protein diet during the monsoon season.

    Great Indian Bustards

    • GIBs are the largest among the four bustard species found in India, the other three being MacQueen’s bustard, lesser florican, and the Bengal florican.
    • GIBs’ historic range included much of the Indian sub-continent but it has now shrunken to just 10 percent of it. Among the heaviest birds with flight, GIBs prefer grasslands as their habitats.
    • GIBs are considered the flagship bird species of grassland.

    Protection accorded

    • Birdlife International: uplisted from Endangered to Critically Endangered (2011)
    • Protection under CITES: Appendix I
    • IUCN status: Critically Endangered
    • Protection under Wildlife (Protection) Act: Schedule I

    Threats

    • Overhead power transmission
    • Poor vision: Due to their poor frontal vision, can’t detect powerlines in time and their weight makes in-flight quick maneuvers difficult.
    • Windmills: Coincidentally, Kutch and Thar desert are the places that have witnessed the creation of huge renewable energy infrastructure.
    • Noise pollution: Noise affects the mating and courtship practices of the GIB.
    • Changes in the landscape: by way of farmers cultivating their land, which otherwise used to remain fallow due to frequent droughts in Kutch.
    • Cultivation changes: Cultivation of cotton and wheat instead of pulses and fodder are also cited as reasons for falling GIB numbers.

    On the brink of extinction

    • The GIB population in India had fallen to just 150.
    • Pakistan is also believed to host a few GIBs and yet openly supports their hunting.

    Supreme Court’s intervention

    • The Supreme Court has ordered that all overhead power transmission lines in core and potential GIB habitats in Rajasthan and Gujarat should be undergrounded.
    • The SC also formed a three-member committee to help power companies comply with the order.

    Conservation measures

    • In 2015, the Central government launched the GIB species recovery program.
    • Under the program, the WII and Rajasthan Forest departments have jointly set up conservation breeding centers where GIB eggs are harvested from the wild.
    • They have been incubated artificially and hatchlings raised in a controlled environment.

    Try this PYQ

    Q.Consider the following pairs:

    Protected Area: Well-known for

    1. Bhiterkanika, Odisha — Salt Water Crocodile
    2. Desert National Park, Rajasthan — Great Indian Bustard
    3. Eravikulam, Kerala — Hoolock Gibbon

    Which of the pairs given above is/are correctly matched? (CSP 2014)

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 1 and 2

    (c) 2 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

     

    [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”vnzgy9fcv3″ question=”Please leave a feedback on this” opened=”1″]Post your answers here.[/wpdiscuz-feedback]

     

     

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  • What is causing Arctic Amplification?

    Finnish researchers have found that the Arctic is heating four times faster than the rest of the planet.

    Arctic is warming faster

    • The warming is concentrated in the Eurasian part of the Arctic, where the Barents Sea north of Russia and Norway is warming at an alarming rate — seven times faster than the global average.
    • Other studies indicate that the Arctic amplification is four times the global rate.

    What is Arctic Amplification?

    • Global warming has hastened due to anthropogenic forces or human activities since pre-industrial times and has increased the planet’s average temperature by 1.1 degrees Celsius.
    • While changes are witnessed across the planet, any change in the surface air temperature and the net radiation balance tend to produce larger changes at the north and south poles.
    • This phenomenon is known as polar amplification; these changes are more pronounced at the northern latitudes and are known as the Arctic amplification.

    What causes amplification?

    • Among the many global warming-driven causes for this amplification, the ice-albedo feedback, lapse rate feedback, water vapour feedback and ocean heat transport are the primary causes.
    • Sea ice and snow have high albedo (measure of reflectivity of the surface), implying that they are capable of reflecting most of the solar radiation as opposed to water and land.
    • In the Arctic’s case, global warming is resulting in diminishing sea ice.
    • As the sea ice melts, the Arctic Ocean will be more capable of absorbing solar radiation, thereby driving the amplification.
    • The rate at which the temperature drops with elevation i.e. lapse rate decreases with warming.
    • Studies show that the ice-albedo feedback and the lapse rate feedback are responsible for 40% and 15% of polar amplification respectively.

    What do the previous studies say?

    • The extent of Arctic amplification is debated, as studies show various rates of amplification against the global rate.
    • Studies have shown that the Arctic was warming at twice the global rate prior to the beginning of the 21st century.
    • Already the Arctic surface air temperature has likely increased by more than double the global average over the last two decades.

    What are the consequences of Arctic warming?

    • The causes and consequences of Arctic amplification are cyclical — what might be a cause can be a consequence too.
    • The Greenland ice sheet is melting at an alarming rate, and the rate of accumulation of sea ice has been remarkably low since 2000.
    • This is also marked by young and thinner ice replacing the old and thicker ice sheets.
    • Greenlandic ice sheet holds the second largest amount of ice, after Antarctica, and therefore it is crucial for maintaining the sea level.
    • In 2019, this was the single biggest cause for the rise in the sea level, about 1.5 metres.

    Visible impacts

    • If the sheet melts completely, the sea level would rise by seven metres, capable of subsuming island countries and major coastal cities.
    • The warming of the Arctic Ocean and the seas in the region, the acidification of water, changes in the salinity levels, are impacting the biodiversity, including the marine species and the dependent species.
    • The warming is also increasing the incidence of rainfall which is affecting the availability and accessibility of lichens to the reindeer.
    • The Arctic amplification is causing widespread starvation and death among the Arctic fauna.
    • The permafrost in the Arctic is thawing and in turn releasing carbon and methane which are among the major greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.
    • Experts fear that the thaw and the melt will also release the long-dormant bacteria and viruses that were trapped in the permafrost and can potentially give rise to diseases.

    What is the impact on India?

    • In recent years, scientists have pondered over the impact the changing Arctic can have on the monsoons in the subcontinent.
    • The link between the two is growing in importance due to the extreme weather events the country faces, and the heavy reliance on rainfall for water and food security.
    • A study says that reduced sea ice in the Barents-Kara sea region can lead to extreme rainfall events in the latter half of the monsoons — in September and October.
    • The changes in the atmospheric circulation due to diminishing sea ice combined with the warm temperatures in the Arabian Sea contribute to enhanced moisture and drive extreme rainfall events.

    Steps taken by India

    • In 2014, India deployed IndARC, India’s first moored-underwater observatory in the Kongsfjorden fjord, Svalbard.
    • It aims to monitor the impact of the changes in the Arctic Ocean on tropical processes such as the monsoons.

     

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  • African cheetahs still stuck in transit

    India’s ambitious project to translocate African cheetahs has missed an unofficial deadline of August 15.

    Asiatic Cheetah

    • Cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal was declared extinct in India in 1952.
    • The Asiatic cheetah is classified as a “critically endangered” species by the IUCN Red List, and is believed to survive only in Iran.
    • It was expected to be re-introduced into the country after the Supreme Court lifted curbs for its re-introduction.

    Distribution of cheetahs in India

    • Historically, Asiatic cheetahs had a very wide distribution in India.
    • There are authentic reports of their occurrence from as far north as Punjab to Tirunelveli district in southern Tamil Nadu, from Gujarat and Rajasthan in the west to Bengal in the east.
    • Most of the records are from a belt extending from Gujarat passing through Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha.
    • There is also a cluster of reports from southern Maharashtra extending to parts of Karnataka, Telangana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
    • The distribution range of the cheetah was wide and spread all over the subcontinent. They occurred in substantial numbers.
    • The cheetah’s habitat was also diverse, favouring the more open habitats: scrub forests, dry grasslands, savannahs and other arid and semi-arid open habitats.

    What caused the extinction of cheetahs in India?

    • The major reasons for the extinction of the Asiatic cheetah in India:
    1. Reduced fecundity and high infant mortality in the wild
    2. Inability to breed in captivity
    3. Sport hunting and
    4. Bounty killings
    • It is reported that the Mughal Emperor Akbar had kept 1,000 cheetahs in his menagerie and collected as many as 9,000 cats during his half-century reign from 1556 to 1605.
    • The cheetah numbers were fast depleting by the end of the 18th century even though their prey base and habitat survived till much later.
    • It is recorded that the last cheetahs were shot in India in 1947, but there are credible reports of sightings of the cat till about 1967.

    Conservation objectives for their re-introduction

    • Based on the available evidence it is difficult to conclude that the decision to introduce the African cheetah in India is based on science.
    • Science is being used as a legitimising tool for what seems to be a politically influenced conservation goal.
    • This also in turn sidelines conservation priorities, an order of the Supreme Court, socio-economic constraints and academic rigour.
    • The issue calls for an open and informed debate.

    Issues in re-introduction

    • Experts find it difficult whether the African cheetahs would find the sanctuary a favorable climate as far as the abundance of prey is concerned.
    • The habitat of cheetahs is needed to support a genetically viable population.

     

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  • Development vs sustainability

    Context

    • According to NITI Aayog, “600 million people in India face high to extreme water stress with nearly 70% of water being contaminated; India is placed at 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index”.
    • The latest global environmental ranking by Yale and Columbia Universities puts India at the bottom among 180 countries.

    What is development?

    • Economic development means different things to different people. On a broad scale, anything a community does to foster and create a healthy economy can fall under the auspice of economic development.

    What is sustainability?

    • The integration of environmental health, social equity and economic vitality in order to create thriving, healthy, diverse and resilient communities for this generation and generations to come. The practice of sustainability recognizes how these issues are interconnected and requires a systems approach and an acknowledgement of complexity.
    • Sustainability is the balance between the environment, equity, and economy.

    What sustainability do for us?

    • Sustainable practices support ecological, human, and economic health and vitality.
    • Sustainability presumes that resources are finite, and should be used conservatively and wisely with a view to long-term priorities and consequences of the ways in which resources are used.
    • In simplest terms, sustainability is about our children and our grandchildren, and the world we will leave them.

    Definition of carrying capacity of earth

    • Carrying capacity: Carrying capacity is the maximum number of a species an environment can support indefinitely. Every species has a carrying capacity, even humans. The species population size is limited by environmental factors like adequate food, shelter, water, and mates. If these needs are not met, the population will decrease until the resource rebounds.

    Mother earth has reached its carrying capacity now

    • No species has altered the Earth’s natural landscape the way humans have.
    • Global climate change, mass extinction, and overexploitation of our global commons are all examples of the ways in which humans have altered the natural landscape.
    • Our growing population, coupled with rising affluence and per capita impact, is driving our planet closer to its tipping point.
    • With population expected to reach 5 billion by 2050, many wonder if our natural resources can keep up with our growing demands.

    Enrich your mains answer with this

    8 Billion dreams, ambitions, aspirations and only one earth to support them all . Human population, now nearing 8 billion, cannot continue to grow indefinitely. There are limits to the life-sustaining resources earth can provide us. In other words, there is a carrying capacity for human life on our planet.

    Development vs environment issues

    • Unemployment: For India, the national context is shaped by high youth unemployment, millions more entering the workforce each year, and a country hungry for substantial investments in hard infrastructure to industrialise and urbanise.
    • Growth with low emission footprint: India’s economic growth in the last three decades, led by growth in the services sector, has come at a significantly lower emissions footprint.
    • Infrastructure: But in the coming decades, India will have to move to an investment-led and manufacturing-intensive growth model to create job opportunities and create entirely new cities and infrastructure to accommodate and connect an increasingly urban population.

    Why a Carbon Fee and Dividend is Imperative

    It is clear that we will soon pass the limit on carbon emissions, because it requires decades to replace fossil fuel energy infrastructure with carbon-neutral and carbon negative energies.

    What could India do to pursue an industrialization pathway that is climate-compatible?

    • A coherent national transition strategy is important in a global context where industrialised countries are discussing the imposition of carbon border taxes while failing to provide developing countries the necessary carbon space to grow or the finance and technological assistance necessary to decarbonise.
    • What India needs is an overarching green industrialisation strategy that combines laws, policy instruments, and new or reformed implementing institutions to steer its decentralised economic activities to become climate-friendly and resilient.
    Case study for value addition

    • Bhutan: Bhutan remains, for example, the first and only carbon-negative country in the world, and they have also recently prevented the COVID-19 pandemic from overwhelming its population, with only one Bhutanese citizen  passing away from the virus to date.

     

     

    Way forward

    • India should set its pace based on its ability to capitalise on the opportunities to create wealth through green industrialisation.

    Mains question

    Do you think mother earth has reached its carrying capacity? Discuss this in context of development vs environment debate.

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  • Centre to file review petition on Eco-Sensitive Zones in SC

    Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has said that the Ministry will file a review petition in the Supreme Court urging a relook into its judgment on eco-sensitive zones.

    Why in news?

    • The Supreme Court has earlier directed that every protected forest, national park and wildlife sanctuary across the country should have a mandatory eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) of a minimum one km starting from their demarcated boundaries.

    Why such move?

    • The purpose of declaring ESZs around national parks, forests and sanctuaries is to create some kind of a “shock absorber” for the protected areas.
    • These zones would act as a transition zone from areas of high protection to those involving lesser protection.

    What are the Eco-sensitive Zones (ESZs)?

    • Eco-Sensitive Zones (ESZs) or Ecologically Fragile Areas (EFAs) are areas notified by the MoEFCC around Protected Areas, National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries.
    • The purpose of declaring ESZs is to create some kind of “shock absorbers” to the protected areas by regulating and managing the activities around such areas.
    • They also act as a transition zone from areas of high protection to areas involving lesser protection.

    How are they demarcated?

    • The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 does not mention the word “Eco-Sensitive Zones”.
    • However, Section 3(2)(v) of the Act, says that Central Government can restrict areas in which any industries, operations or processes or class of industries, operations or processes shall be carried out or shall not, subject to certain safeguards.
    • Besides Rule 5(1) of the Environment (Protection) Rules, 1986 states that central government can prohibit or restrict the location of industries and carrying on certain operations or processes on the basis of certain considerations.
    • The same criteria have been used by the government to declare No Development Zones (NDZs).

    Defining its boundaries

    • An ESZ could go up to 10 kilometres around a protected area as provided in the Wildlife Conservation Strategy, 2002.
    • Moreover, in the case where sensitive corridors, connectivity and ecologically important patches, crucial for landscape linkage, are beyond 10 km width, these should be included in the ESZs.
    • Further, even in the context of a particular Protected Area, the distribution of an area of ESZ and the extent of regulation may not be uniform all around and it could be of variable width and extent.

     

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  • Coastal ecosystem norms

    This week, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India tabled a report in Parliament on whether steps taken by the Union Environment Ministry to conserve India’s coastal ecosystems have been successful.

    Why in news?

    • The CAG frequently undertakes ‘performance audits’ of government programmes and ministries.

    Centre’s obligations on conserving the coastline

    • The government has issued notifications under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, to regulate activities along India’s coasts particularly regarding construction.
    • The Coastal Regulation Zone Notification (CRZ), 2019 implemented by the Ministry, classifies the coastal area into different zones to manage infrastructure activities and regulate them.

    The three institutions responsible for the implementation of the CRZ are:

    1. National Coastal Zone Management Authority (NCZMA) at the Centre,
    2. State/Union Territory Coastal Zone Management Authorities (SCZMAs/UTCZMAs) in every coastal State and Union Territory
    3. District Level Committees (DLCs) in every district that has a coastal stretch and where the CRZ notification is applicable

    Functions under CRZ rules

    • These bodies examine if CRZ clearances granted by the government are as per procedure, if project developers are once given the go-ahead are complying with conditions and if the project development objectives under the Integrated Coastal Zone Management Programme (ICZMP) are successful.
    • They also evaluate the measures taken up by the government towards achieving the targets under Sustainable Development Goals.

    Why did the CAG undertake this audit?

    • The CAG has a constitutional mandate to investigate and report on publicly funded programmes.
    • The CAG conducted “pre-audit studies” and found that there were large-scale CRZ violations in the coastal stretches.
    • Incidences of illegal construction activities (reducing coastal space) and effluent discharges from local bodies, industries and aquaculture farms had been reported by the media and this prompted it to undertake a detailed investigation.

    What did the recent audit find?

    The audit pointed out various categories of violations.

    • There were instances of the Expert Appraisal Committees —who evaluate the feasibility of an infrastructure project and its environmental consequences — not being present during project deliberations.
    • There were also instances of the members of the EAC being fewer than half of the total strength during the deliberations.
    • The SCZMA had not been reconstituted in Karnataka and there was delayed reconstitution in the States of Goa, Odisha and West Bengal.
    • The DLCs of Tamil Nadu lacked participation from local traditional communities. In Andhra Pradesh, DLCs were not even established.
    • There were instances of projects being approved despite inadequacies in the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) reports.

    What problems did the CAG find in the States?

    • Lack of strategy: Tamil Nadu didn’t have a strategy in place to conserve the Gulf of Mannar Islands.
    • Lack of monitoring: In Goa, there was no system for monitoring coral reefs and no management plans to conserve turtle nesting sites.
    • No scientific oversight: In Gujarat, instruments procured to study the physiochemical parameters of soil and water of the inertial area of the Gulf of Kutch weren’t used.
    • Monitoring issues: Sea patrolling in Gahirmatha Sanctuary, in Kendrapara, Odisha did not happen.
    • No information in public domain: There was no website to disseminate the information related to the NCZMA, the CAG found, which is a clear violation of the mandated requirements of the Authority.

    What lies ahead?

    • These reports are placed before the Standing Committees of Parliament, which select those findings and recommendations that they judge to be the most critical to public interest and arrange hearings on them.
    • In this case, the Environment Ministry is expected to explain omissions pointed out by the CAG and make amends.

    Back2Basics: Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India

    • The CAG is the Constitutional Authority, established under Article 148 of the Constitution of India.
    • They are empowered to Audit all receipts and expenditure of the GoI and the State Governments, including those of autonomous bodies and corporations substantially financed by the Government.
    • The CAG is also the statutory auditor of Government-owned corporations.
    • It conducts supplementary audit of government companies in which the Government has an equity share of at least 51 per cent or subsidiary companies of existing government companies.
    • The reports of the CAG are laid before the Parliament/Legislatures and are being taken up for discussion by the Public Accounts Committees (PACs) and Committees on Public Undertakings (COPUs).

     

     

  • How to stop illegal mining of minor minerals

    Context

    While laws and monitoring have been made stringent for the mining of major minerals consequent to the unearthing of several related scams across the country, the fact is that rampant and illegal mining of minor minerals continues unabated.

    What are minor minerals?

    •  “Minor minerals” means building stones, gravel, ordinary clay, ordinary sand other than sand used for prescribed purposes, and any other mineral which the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, declare to be a minor mineral;
    • Regulation exclusively by States: Unlike major minerals, the regulatory and administrative powers to frame rules, prescribe rates of royalty, mineral concessions, enforcement, etc. are entrusted exclusively to the State governments.
    • The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notifications of 1994 and 2006 made environmental clearance compulsory for mining in areas more than or equal to five hectares.
    • The EIA was amended in 2016 which made environmental clearance mandatory for mining in areas less than five hectares, including minor minerals.
    • The amendment also provided for the setting up of a District Environment Impact Assessment Authority (EIAA) and a District Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC).

    The problem of illegal mining of minor minerals

    • The United Nations Environment Programme, in 2019, ranked India and China as the top two countries where illegal sand mining has led to sweeping environmental degradation.
    • No comprehensive assessment: Despite this, there is no comprehensive assessment available to evaluate the scale of sand mining in India.
    • Damage to the environment: Regional studies such as those by the Centre for Science and Environment of the Yamuna riverbed in Uttar Pradesh have observed that increasing demand for soil has severely affected soil formation and the soil holding ability of the land, leading to a loss in marine life, an increase in flood frequency, droughts, and also degradation of water quality.
    • Loss to exchequer: It is not just damage to the environment. Illegal mining causes copious losses to the state exchequer.
    • A State-wide review of the reasons behind non-compliance suggests a malfunction of governance due to weak institutions, a scarcity of state resources to ensure enforcement, poorly drafted regulatory provisions, inadequate monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, and excessive litigation that dampens state administrative capacity.

    Way forward: Use of technology

    • Use of satellite imagery: Satellite imagery can be used to monitor the volume of extraction and also check the mining process.
    • Recently, the NGT directed some States to use satellite imagery to monitor the volume of sand extraction and transportation from the riverbeds.
    • Drones, IoT and blockchain: Additionally, drones, the internet of things (IoT) and blockchain technology can be leveraged to monitor mechanisms by using Global Positioning System, radar and Radio Frequency (RF) Locator.
    • State governments such as Gujarat and judicial directions such as the High Court of Madras have employed some of these technologies to check illegal sand mining.

    Conclusion

    Protecting minor minerals requires investment in production and consumption measurement and also monitoring and planning tools. To this end, technology has to be used to provide a sustainable solution.

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  • In news: Continental Drift Theory

    This newscard is an excerpt from the original article published in TH which talks about the specie Lemurs who are supposed to jump into seas to find India which got drifted away from the Madagascar.

    Study on Lemurs

    • Many life forms in Madagascar have affinities to lineages found in India (3,800 km away) rather than Africa (413 km). This posed a ‘difficult enigma’ to naturalists.
    • One such species is the Lemurs.
    • We most likely see lemurs in a Hollywood animation movie; singing, dancing and playing pranks.
    • Zoologists was perplexed by the presence of lemurs, their relatives, and their fossils in Madagascar and India, but not in nearby Africa or the Middle East.
    • In the 1860s, he proposed that a large island or continent must have once existed between India and Madagascar, serving as a land bridge.
    • Over time, this island had sunk. He called this proposed island Lemuria.

    Existence of such Island in Indian legends

    • Tamil revivalists such as Devaneya Pavanar also took up the idea, in the form of a Tamil civilisation, lost to the sea as described in literature and in Pandyan legends.
    • They called this submerged continent Kumari Kandam.

    Basis of this legend: Continental Drift Theory

    • In the early 20th century, German geologist Alfred Wegener published a paper on his theory called continental drift.
    • It is a hypothesis that Earth’s continents were moving across Earth, and sometimes, even colliding into one another.
    • According to Wegener’s theory, Earth’s continents were once joined as a single, giant landmass, which he called Pangaea.
    • But over time, Pangaea broke apart and formed the continents as we know them today.
    • Wegener couldn’t explain why this phenomenon was happening, so at the time, his theory was heavily criticized by his colleagues.
    • But over the years, technological advances allowed scientists to study the Earth more closely, and geologists started to build on Wegener’s theory.

    Rise over to Plate Tectonics

    • Discoveries like seafloor spreading helped explain the “why” behind continental movement, and eventually, Wegener’s initial continental drift theory morphed into plate tectonic theory.
    • And now, the idea that Earth’s crust is slowly moving beneath our feet is widely accepted.

    The Seven Major Tectonic Plates

    There are seven major plates, and dozens of minor plates, that make up the outer crust of the Earth. The big seven are:

    1. North American plate
    2. Eurasian plate
    3. Pacific plate
    4. South American plate
    5. African plate
    6. Indo-Australian plate
    7. Antarctic plate

     

    The areas between these plates are known as plate boundaries, and their interactions cause some crazy things to happen on Earth’s surface.

    There are three types of plate boundaries:

    1. Divergent boundary
    • A divergent boundary is when two plates move away from each other, which creates a fracture in the lithosphere.
    • A well-known divergent boundary is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which runs approximately 10,000 miles from the Arctic Ocean all the way down to the south of Africa.
    1. Convergent boundary
    • A convergent boundary is when two plates collide with one another.
    • If the collision is between oceanic crust and continental crust, the denser oceanic crust slides underneath the other plate, which is a process known as subduction.
    • When two continental crusts collide, the rock folds and lifts at the boundary, creating mountains like the Himalayas (where the Indian plate meets the Eurasian plate).
    1. Transform Boundary
    • When two plates move parallel to one another, their meeting point is called a transform boundary. The friction causes tension.
    • Eventually, that tension needs to be released, which can cause earthquakes.
    • The San Andreas Fault is a well-known major transform boundary between the North American and Pacific plates—it caused the infamous San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

    How do we apply this theory here?

    • A landmass called Gondwana, split into two 165 million years ago — one containing what is now Africa and South America, the other comprising India, Madagascar, Australia and Antarctica.
    • Around 115 million years ago, Madagascar and India together broke free.
    • Around 88 million years ago, India moved northward, dropping a few parcels of land along the way to form Seychelles.
    • It joined the Eurasian mass 50 million years ago giving rise to the Himalayas and South Asia that we are familiar with.
    • Around 115 million years ago, it was the dinosaurs that ruled. Many life forms had not even evolved.

    Substantiation to this study

    (1) Fossil study

    • Supporting the Gondwana breakup, dinosaur fossils found in India and Madagascar are closely related and do not resemble species found in Africa and Asia.
    • Fragments of Laplatosaurus madagascarensis have been found in both India and Madagascar.

    (2) Molecular clocks

    • A powerful technique, the molecular clock, is used to estimate the time when two forms of life diverged from each other.
    • It is based on the observation that evolutionary changes in the sequence of an RNA or a protein molecule occur at a fairly constant rate.
    • The difference in the amino acids of, say the haemoglobin of two animals can tell you how long ago their lineages diverged.
    • Molecular clocks corroborate well with other evidence, such as the fossil record.
    • South India and Sri Lanka have only two genuses of the cichlid family of freshwater and brackish-water fishes — the Etroplus (a food fish in Kerala, where it is called pallathi) and Pseudetroplus.
    • Molecular comparisons show that the nearest relatives of Etroplus are found in Madagascar, and their common ancestor diverged from African cichlids 160 million years ago.

    India’s pivotal position

    • India occupies a pivotal position in the distribution of life forms in Asia, Madagascar and Africa. Gondwana creatures moved out of India.
    • Others crossed over to stay. For example, Asian freshwater crabs (Gecarcinucidae) are now found all over Southeast Asia but their most recent common ancestor evolved in India.
    • Fossil finds in the Vastan lignite mine in Gujarat by researchers have identified the earliest Indian mammal, a species of bat, and the earliest euprimate, a primitive lemur.
    • These were dated 53 million years ago, around the time (or just before) the India-Eurasian plates collided.

    What about the lemurs?

    • Madagascar is a large island, with a variety of climatic conditions. Evidence favours an ancestor primate crossing over from Africa.
    • No monkey, ape or large predator managed the crossing, so dozens of lemur species proliferated.
    • In India, we have the lorises, which are the closest extant relatives of the lemurs.
    • These are shy, nocturnal forest dwellers, with large, appealing eyes.
    • They are also believed to have survived oceanic rides from Africa.
    • They are mostly found in the Northeastern States (slow loris), and where Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu meet (slender loris).

     

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