Daily Prelims Notes 20 February 2024

Daily Prelims Notes

20 February 2024

Table Of Contents

1. Vaitarna River attack: Why the bull shark is among the most dangerous animals in the world
2. What’s behind the collapse in the price of nickel and how can the industry survive?
3. Scientists shocked to discover new species of green anaconda, the world’s biggest snake
4. La Nina impacted air quality in India in the winter of 2022
5. SpaceX launches Intuitive Machines’ private ‘Odysseus’ Moon lander
6. The recent report on local fintech players
7. Hundred years ago, Satyendra Nath Bose changed physics forever
8. Saturn’s moon Mimas may have ocean under its crust
9. Use dictionary meaning of ‘forest’, SC tells Centre

1. Vaitarna River attack: Why the bull shark is among the most dangerous animals in the world

Subject: Environment

Section: Species in news

Context:

• A fisherman from Maharashtra’s Palghar district was attacked by a bull shark in the Vaitarna river.

Vaitarna river:

• The Vaitarna River, which is close to the origin of the Godavari river, flows from the Trimbakeshwar Hills in Nashik through Palghar and drains into the Arabian Sea near Mumbai.
• The Tansa is its left bank tributary and the Pinjal, Dehraja, and Surya are its right bank tributaries.
• The Vaitarna is one of the most polluted rivers in India.

Bull shark:

• Also known as the Zambezi shark (informally zambi) in Africa and the Lake Nicaragua shark in Nicaragua.
• It is a species of requiem shark commonly found worldwide in warm, shallow waters along coasts and in rivers.
• It is known for its aggressive nature, and presence mainly in warm, shallow brackish and freshwater systems including estuaries and (usually) lower reaches of rivers. This aggressive nature is a reason for its population being listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.
• Bull sharks are euryhaline and can thrive in both salt and fresh water.
• Unlike the river sharks of the genus Glyphis, bull sharks are not true freshwater sharks, despite their ability to survive in freshwater habitats.
• It has the unique ability to inhabit fresh, saline, and brackish waters.
• This species is known for its adaptability, having been found far upstream in several major rivers worldwide and is considered particularly dangerous to humans due to its large size, freshwater presence, and proximity to human populations.
• It is often considered the most dangerous shark species.

Source: DTE

2. What’s behind the collapse in the price of nickel and how can the industry survive?

Subject: Geography

Section: Eco geography

Context:

• Australia’s nickel industry has received significant federal support and temporary relief from royalty payments following a drastic drop in global nickel prices, which posed a threat to thousands of jobs.

Details:

• The metal’s price plummeted from $50,000 in 2022 to $16,400 per tonne, largely due to an increase in supply from Indonesia, particularly from Chinese-operated mines.
• Australia included nickel in the Critical Minerals List.

China is the largest processor:

• China dominates the global processing of crucial minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite, which are vital for battery production and the future of clean-energy technologies.
• Holding the largest market share, China processes 35% of the world’s nickel, along with an additional 15% processed in Indonesia.
• It also controls about 80% of rare earths processing, 90% of lithium, and 70% each of gallium and germanium.
• The country’s low processing costs and competitive labor market provide it with a significant advantage, positioning suppliers in a role where they must accept market prices rather than influence them.
• Australia and Indonesia are among the top holders of nickel reserves globally, each possessing around 21 million tonnes.

China helped fund the oversupply:

• Australia’s mineral sector has faced challenges due to China’s strategy of investing in Indonesian mines to increase output and keep prices low, effectively creating an oversupply.
• In response, Australia is trying to diversify its processing capabilities by forming critical mineral partnerships with countries like India, Japan, Korea, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
• However, these efforts are threatened by potential strategic countermeasures, such as export bans by China on processed commodities like Gallium, Germanium, and rare earths, or actions to further increase oversupply.
• Despite being a leading producer of critical minerals essential for lithium-ion batteries and having superior environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards that attract investment, Australia’s lack of refining capacity means it often has to sell off the critical minerals it mines as byproducts, highlighting a significant gap in its ability to fully capitalize on its resources.

China’s stronghold will be hard to escape:

• Australia emphasizes the importance of establishing a domestic processing facility. This facility would allow Australia to offer minerals processed locally, adhering to higher environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards, thus providing a competitive advantage over minerals processed in other regions.

Nickel Ore Distribution in India

• The Sukinda valley in the Jajapur district of Odisha has significant occurrences of nickeliferous limonite.
• It appears as oxide here.
• Nickel occurs in sulphide form alongside copper mineralization in Jharkhand’s east Sighbhum district.
• Furthermore, it has been discovered in association with uranium deposits in Jaduguda, Jharkhand.
• Nickel is also found in significant quantities in Karnataka, Kerala, and Rajasthan.

Nickel Distribution in World:

• Indonesia is the world’s largest producer, followed by the Philippines and Russia. Australia has the highest reserves, followed by Brazil, Russia, and Cuba.

Source: DTE

3. Scientists shocked to discover new species of green anaconda, the world’s biggest snake

Subject: Environment

Section: Species in news

Recent findings about Green anacondas:

• Recent research has significantly altered the scientific understanding of the green anaconda, revealing that what was thought to be a single species is actually two genetically distinct species.
• This discovery challenges previous perceptions and highlights the importance of revising conservation strategies for these top jungle predators.
• The identification of substantial genetic differences between the two species of anacondas underscores the need for tailored conservation efforts to address threats like climate change, habitat degradation, and pollution.
• Additionally, this finding emphasizes the critical necessity of understanding the diversity of Earth’s flora and fauna.

Untangling anaconda genes:

• The known species, Eunectes murinus, has been named the “southern green anaconda” and is found in Peru, Bolivia, French Guiana, and Brazil.
• The newly identified species, Eunectes akayima or “northern green anaconda,” inhabits Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Trinidad, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.
• Genetic analysis revealed a significant divergence between the two species, estimated to have occurred nearly 10 million years ago, with a genetic difference of 5.5%, a substantial variation considering the genetic difference between humans and apes is about 2%.
• Despite their genetic differences and lack of obvious geographical barriers separating them, the two species appear nearly identical.

About Green anacondas:

• Green anacondas, known for being the world’s heaviest and among the longest snakes, are native to South America’s rivers and wetlands.
• They are notable for their speed and ability to capture and consume large prey.
• Historically recognized as one of four species, the green anaconda, also known as the giant anaconda, stands as a colossal figure in the reptile world.
• The largest females can exceed seven meters in length and weigh over 250 kilograms, making them apex predators in their environments.
• Adapted for aquatic life, they have their nostrils and eyes positioned atop their heads, allowing them to see and breathe while submerged.
• Their olive colour and large black spots camouflage them in the South American Amazon and Orinoco basins’ waterways, where they utilize their stealth, patience, and agility to ambush prey such as capybaras, caimans, and deer.
• Unlike venomous snakes, green anacondas employ their powerful bodies and large jaws to constrict and swallow their prey whole.

Their ecological role:

• As apex predators, green anacondas play a critical role in maintaining ecological balance, influencing the behaviour of various species and indicating the health of their ecosystems.
• Their sensitivity to environmental changes means that healthy anaconda populations reflect vibrant ecosystems, while declining numbers may signal environmental distress.

Source: DTE

4. La Nina impacted air quality in India in the winter of 2022

Subject: Geography

Section: Climatology

Context:

This is the first time that air quality in Indian cities has been linked to a La Nina event — and indirectly to climate change, which is making El Nino and La Nina more severe.

More on news:

• The study, by researchers at the Bengaluru-based National Institute of Advanced Studies and Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, has argued that the unusual air quality in some Indian cities in the winter of 2022 could be attributed to the record-breaking spell of La Nina prevailing at that time.
• Monsoon rainfall over India is known to be strongly influenced by El Nino and La Nina events, the alternating warming and cooling of the eastern Pacific Ocean that impacts weather across the world.
• A new study by Indian researchers has now suggested that even air quality in the country could be influenced by the two weather events.
• This is the first time that air quality in Indian cities has been linked to a La Nina event — and indirectly to climate change, which is making El Nino and La Nina more severe.
• A rare triple dip La Nina episode, said to be a mark of climate change, set off a peculiar air quality trend in the 2022-23 winter season, showed a new study.
• This period was characterized by improved air quality in north India and increased pollution levels in Peninsular India, the report published in the journal Elsevier February 18 stated.
• As per the report, Mumbai became the city to record the highest deterioration with a 30 per cent rise in Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 levels.
• This was followed by the cities of Coimbatore recording an increase in PM 2.5 levels by 28 per cent and Bengaluru, and Chennai recording a rise in the same by 20 per cent and 12 per cent respectively.
• A newly developed advanced NIAS-SAFAR air quality forecasting model was used. 
• This model is said to combine a chemical-transport model with an indigenously developed modern artificial intelligent algorithm.

What is the link between pollution and winter months in India?

• During October to January, northern Indian cities, particularly Delhi, experience very high concentrations of PM2.5. 
• A variety of meteorological factors such as temperature, moisture, heaviness in air, wind speed and direction, plays a role in trapping pollutants in the lower levels of the atmosphere. 
• These factors are also responsible for transporting pollutants from other regions, particularly those generated by agriculture waste burning in Punjab and Haryana, to Delhi and adjoining areas.
• The western and southern parts of the country have always had relatively lower levels of pollution, because of their proximity to oceans.
• The winter of 2022 showed a significant deviation from this normal. 
• Northern Indian cities, including Delhi, were cleaner than usual, while cities in the west and the south, like Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai, experienced worse-than-usual air quality.
• The study said PM2.5 concentrations in Ghaziabad that winter saw a reduction of about 33% from normal, while in Noida, the concentration was 28% below normal. Delhi saw a reduction of about 10%. Simultaneously, the concentrations in Mumbai rose by 30%, while Bengaluru registered a 20% rise.
• It was this anomalous behavior that the researchers had set out to study when they found themselves led to the possible effects of La Nina.

Wind direction

• The most crucial factor in explaining the anomaly of winter 2022 was a change in the normal wind direction.
• During this time, wind usually blows in the northwesterly direction: for example, from Punjab towards Delhi and further into the Gangetic plains.
• This is one of the main reasons why agricultural waste pollutants in Punjab and Haryana flow into Delhi.
• In the winter of 2022, however, the wind circulation was in the north-south direction. 
• The pollutants being carried from Punjab and Haryana bypassed Delhi and surrounding areas and flew over Rajasthan and Gujarat to southern regions.
• “There was no change in the local sources of emissions in Delhi and Mumbai. But the additional pollutant load from the northern states, which usually lands in Delhi and surrounding areas, moved in a different trajectory and reached peninsular India, some landing in Mumbai as well,” explained Gufran Beig, the lead researcher and one of the leading air pollution experts in the country.
• The local circulation of wind near Mumbai also had an anomalous behavior that year. 
• Wind currents alternate between blowing from the land to the sea every few days. 
• When blowing from the land towards the sea, the winds carry pollutants out of the city.
• In 2022, however, instead of changing direction every four to five days, the winds persisted in one direction for more than a week or 10 days, leading to greater accumulation of pollutants in Mumbai.

La Nina and climate change:

• La Nina events might produce noticeable changes in wind circulation over India.
• This one was a particularly strong event.
• And the impact on air circulation became evident only in the third year of La Nina. So, there may be an accumulative effect.
• It was not yet entirely clear whether El Nino would produce an opposite effect for air quality over India.
• The study did add that changes in wind patterns were not the only reasons for the unusual trends in air quality that year.
• It mentioned local meteorological conditions, unrelated to La Nina, that could also have resulted in the reduction of pollutant concentrations over northern India.

Triple Dip LaLina:

• The 2022-23 winters did coincide with the last phase of a rare triple-dip La Nina event, the first in the 21st century.
• This phenomenon, which was an influence of climate change, had impacted  the large-scale wind pattern playing a decisive role in prevention of stagnation conditions in cities of North India, thus improving air quality.
• In North India, Ghaziabad recorded the most significant improvement with a reduction of 33 per cent, which was closely followed by Rohtak and Noida with a reduction of 30 per cent and 28 per cent, respectively.
• Landlocked Delhi in the northern plains of India, notorious for its unhealthy air, also recorded an improvement with a reduction of about 10 per cent in the winter months of 2022-23.
• In contrast, the atmospheric pattern led to calmer conditions in peninsular Indian cities, accelerating transboundary pollution and significantly deteriorating air quality.
• To understand the association of La Nina-induced changes in large-scale wind pattern and variability in particulate pollutants in 2022 across various regions in the country, the study authors utilized the chemical transport model as a primary methodology. They also carried out sensitivity simulations to validate their findings.
• While extreme weather and changing climate patterns take a heavier toll on the planet, new trends in the frequency of severe pollution events are taking a toll on a regional scale, hence threatening health and food security, the study concluded.

About La Nina:

• It means the large-scale cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, together with changes in the tropical atmospheric circulation, namely winds, pressure and rainfall.
• It has the opposite impacts on weather and climate as El Nino, which is the warm phase of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

Weather Changes due to La Nina:

• The Horn of Africa and central Asia will see below average rainfall due to La Nina.
• East Africa is forecast to see drier-than-usual conditions, which together with the existing impacts of the desert locust invasion, may add to regional food insecurity.
• It could also lead to increased rainfall in southern Africa.
• It could also affect the South West Indian Ocean Tropical Cyclone season, reducing the intensity.
• Southeast Asia, some Pacific Islands and the northern region of South America are expected to receive above-average rainfall.
• In India, La Niña means the country will receive more rainfall than normal, leading to floods.

5. SpaceX launches Intuitive Machines’ private ‘Odysseus’ Moon lander

Subject: Science and tech

Section: Space tech

Context:

• SpaceX launched Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission, which could be the first private moon lander to make a lunar soft landing if it succeeds.

More on news:

• It will become the first American spacecraft to gently set down the moon’s surface since Apollo 17 moon landing in 1972.
• It will become the first private effort to reach the surface of the moon in one piece.
• Before it , three earlier events by an American company , Japanese company , and an Israeli non profit have failed.
• The launch of the Intuitive Machines mission comes just one month after another American company, Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, attempted to send Peregrine, its lander, to the moon.

Why is it called Odysseus:

• This particular spacecraft was named Odysseus after a contest among employees of Intuitive Machines of Houston- the company incharge of the mission.
• Mario Romero, the engineer who proposed the name, said the travels of the hero of the “Odyssey,” the ancient Greek epic poem, provided an apt analogy for the lunar mission.

Significance of the mission:

• If private companies can pull off this feat, at a much lower cost than its traditional NASA mission, it will open the door for much wider exploration of the moon and commercial endeavors.
• Intuitive Machines is aiming to become the first to land a commercially built spacecraft on the lunar surface.
• Intuitive Machines calls its spacecraft design Nova-C. 
• It is a hexagonal cylinder with six landing legs, about 14 feet tall and 5 feet wide.
• Intuitive Machines notes that the body of the lander is roughly the size of an old British police telephone booth.
• If successful, it would also be the first moon landing for the U.S. in more than 50 years.
• NASA is the primary customer for this mission, paying Intuitive Machines $118 million to take its payloads, which include a stereo camera to observe the plume of dust kicked up during landing and a radio receiver to measure the effects of charged particles on radio signals, to the moon’s surface.
• Odysseus is expected to touch down near the moon’s south pole, a region that has long been intriguing for scientists because water ice is thought to be relatively abundant within craters.
• Both Odysseus and Peregrine are part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS.
• The object of the program is to use commercial companies to send experiments to the moon rather than NASA building and operating its own moon landers.
• Astrobotic Technology and Intuitive Machines are part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which aims to spur development of moon landers by private-sector companies that NASA could eventually hire to transport cargo and scientific instruments to the lunar surface.
• NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program is part of the agency’s Artemis program, which seeks to return astronauts to the moon over the next few years.
• NASA recently announced delays in a pair of coming Artemis missions, pushing a lunar fly-around that was to launch later this year to 2025 and postponing the first Artemis landing attempt to the following year.

6. The recent report on local fintech players

Subject: Economy

Section: Monetary Policy

Context:

• In its recent report, the Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology expressed worries about foreign-owned fintech apps having too much control in India.

More About News

• The committee suggested that Indian-owned apps should be encouraged more.
• It pointed out that while the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) made up a large portion (73.5%) of all digital payments in terms of volume in the fiscal year 2022-23.
• However, its share of the total payment value was much smaller, at only 6.67%.

Usage Statistics

• NPCI’s data from December last year revealed:
  • Customers initiated a total of 5,642.66 million transactions using PhonePe.
  • Another 4,375 million transactions were made using Google Pay.
  • Only about 24.30 million transactions were made using BHIM.

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)

• NPCI is an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India.
• It is an initiative of RBI and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) under the provisions of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007.
• The objective of NPCI is to create a robust Payment & Settlement Infrastructure in India.
• For this, NPCI was incorporated as a “Not for Profit” Company under the provisions of Section 25 of Companies Act 1956 (now Section 8 of Companies Act 2013).

UPI

• It was launched by NPCI.
• UPI is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood.
• It also caters to the “Peer to Peer” collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience.

What does the report infer about the existing ecosystem?

• Regulation of Digital Payment Apps
  • The Committee underscored the importance of regulating digital payment apps due to their increasing usage in India.
  • It highlighted that regulating local apps, compared to foreign ones, would be more practical for entities like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
• Domination of Foreign-Owned Fintech Apps
  • The Committee noted the dominance of fintech apps owned by foreign entities, such as PhonePe backed by Walmart and Google Pay, in the Indian fintech sector.
  • PhonePe holds the largest market share in terms of transaction volume, followed by Google Pay.
• Fintech Companies and Money Laundering Concerns
  • The Committee highlighted that fintech companies were being exploited by scamsters for money laundering purposes.
  • An example cited was the Abu Dhabi-based app called Pyppl, which was reportedly administered by Chinese investment scamsters.
  • This situation posed challenges for Indian law enforcement agencies in tracking the flow of illicit funds gathered through scams on the platform.

7. Hundred years ago, Satyendra Nath Bose changed physics forever

Subject: Science and tech

Section: Space tech 

Introduction :

• A fractured, disjointed picture of a new ‘quantum theory’ was emerging in the middle of the biggest upheaval in physics during 1924 .
• This year marks 100 years of Bose’s discovery.
• Bose was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1894 having mathematical prowess and studied Physics at Presidency College and met another brilliant man Meghnad Saha
• Bose and Saha were appointed as faculty members in Rajabazar Science College.
• At that time physics was changing rapidly and Einstein gave new space and time understanding with theory of relativity.
• The work of Max Planck, Niels Bohr and Einstein had shown that the old physics was incapable of dealing with the microscopic world — the world inside atoms.
• Bose and Saha were teachers of new physics but a challenging period as all the important papers were in German. But this was not a roadblock for them and both became early adapters and together they published the first English translation of Einstein’s papers on general relativity.
• Both of them immersed fully to fine a way out .
• Bose’s now became lecturer in Dhaka University and topic was Planck’s law of black-body radiation.
• Bose could not explain it to students to his satisfaction.

Planck’s law

• Planck’s law, named after Max Planck, founded in 1900.
• It describes the pattern that told physicists physics worked differently in the microscopic.
• It is also probably the most successful guess in the history of physics.
• Planck’s law is about radiation. All hot objects — from a bowl of hot soup to the Sun — emit radiation in a range of frequencies.
• Physicists typically simplify them to an ideal: as objects that can emit light but not reflect it, a.k.a. black bodies.

Earlier attempt by Planck:

Planck looked closely at the data and simply guessed the right formula. It worked like magic. The only problem: it violated the rules of physics.

Origin of idea:

• Just like matter is a collection of discrete atoms, energy too had to be a collection of discrete packets or ‘quanta’. This idea was the birthplace of quantum mechanics.
• Planck’s law was correct, but its derivation was not as it didn’t stand scrutiny. It had to wait until Bose.

Issues involved:

Several attempts to derive Planck’s law suffered from conceptual issue as results from both quantum physics and pre-quantum (or classical) physics was used, thus logically inconsistent.

Planck derivation:

Planck’s own original derivation was based on a model of the black body based on radiation mechanism and classical physics had part of it.

Earlier established theories:

• Einstein had explained the photoelectric effect using the hypothesis that light carries energies in packets.
• The American physicist Arthur Compton had demonstrated that light carries discrete units of momentum.

Issue solved by Bose derivation:

• According to Bose, Planck’s law was independent of the mechanism that produced it.
• Bose synthesized Einstein and Compton hypothesis and eliminated classical physics, thus stripped off essence of problem .
• Bose found the most probable way of distributing energy among quanta of radiation.
• Planck’s law was therefore simply a statistical property of the quanta of radiation, a.k.a. photons.
• The most important result implicit is that total number of photons is not conserved- photons could appear out of thin air and disappear into nothingnes

Bose’s paper pioneered the field of quantum statistics.

• The British physicist Paul Dirac while finalizing quantum theory obtained Bose’s statistics that fundamental particles can be in one of two categories depending on their statistics (i.e. the set of rules to describe them properly): bosons or fermions.
• Bosons : Bosons are the fundamental particles that have spin in integer values (0, 1, 2, etc.).
• Fermions: These have spin in odd half integer values (1/2, 3/2, and 5/2, but not 2/2 or 6/2).

Evaluation of Bose :

• The lecturer, Satyendra Nath Bose, had discovered the correct set of equations to use to work out the behaviour of collections of photons (particles of light).
• A paper from Bose was initially rejected by a journal and Bose mailed paper to Albert Einstein and Einstein loved the paper, translated it to German and sent it to a journal himself.
• Despite a long career in physics, Bose published sparsely and never produced another work of similar value.
• He once described himself as a comet that only came once and never returned. For a comet as bright, though, once can be quite enough.

8. Saturn’s moon Mimas may have ocean under its crust

Subject: Science and tech

Section: Space tech

What is Mima?

• Mimas is the smallest of the major moons of Saturn-known as the “big seven” or the “inner moons”.
• Nicknamed “Death Star” for the resemblance of its cratered surface to a space station in the Star Warsfranchise.

Presence of ocean under crust:

• Mimas was an unlikely candidate to host an ocean because the presence of these water bodies is generally marked by modifications of the surface by internal dynamics.
• Scientists analysed Mimas’s orbital motion based on data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and determined that the moon’s liberations — or oscillations — indicate it either has an elongated silicate core or a global ocean.

Possibility 1:

• If Mimas were solid, its librations would depend on gravity coefficient and changes in orbit on this and another factor called J2.
• By measuring its librations and orbital changes, scientists could determine the values for these numbers if Mimas is entirely solid.
• But calculations reached a dead end. Possibility of being elongated silicate layer is thus omitted.

Possibility 2: Mimas hosting a subsurface ocean.

• They used a theoretical approach to understand how an underground ocean would affect the moon’s movement, depending on the shape of three deformed layers, the gravity coefficients, and the number of liberations.
• The outer Icy layer is considered viscoelastic (i.e. both viscous and elastic) in the liberational model.
• And the interior interfaces are assumed to be hydrostatic (i.e. at rest).
• The resulting calculations suggested the ice sheet would have to be 20-30 km thick to match observations.
• These figures agreed closely with the findings of a 2022 study as well.
• Further, the amount of heat released at the surface of Mimas was estimated to be around 25milliwattper sq. m, which should reduce the moon’s eccentricity — a measure of the extent to which its orbit’s shape deviates from a perfect circle — by a factor of two in 4-5 million years.
• Based on these values, the scientists ran simulations and found that its ocean may have formed 2-25 million years ago.
• The predicted surface heat also matched observations of Enceladus — a Saturn moon that has a global ocean beneath its crust — indicating Mimas may have a hydrothermally active core even if surface activity doesn’t indicate that.

Conclusion:

Mimas may have a liquid ocean around 20-30 km under its heavily cratered ice shell.

9. Use dictionary meaning of ‘forest’, SC tells Centre

Subject: Environment

Section: Environmental Laws and Organisations

Context:

• Supreme Court in a significant order, on petitions challenging the amendments introduced in 2023 to the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, and directed –
• That the expression ‘forest’ will continue to have a “broad and all-encompassing” meaning for the time being as held in 1996 order and include 97 lakh square km of undeclared forest lands under the ambit of ‘forest’.

Details:

Objective(intent) of 1980 act:

The 1980 statute was enacted to check further deforestation leading to ecological imbalance.

What is the concern:

 Section 1A introduced through the amended Act 2023 had “circumscribed or substantially diluted” the definition of forest to two categories —

1. declared forests and
2. lands recorded as forests in ‘government records’ after 1980.

Centre arguments:

Section 1A- expanded the term ‘government records’ contained in the provision to include lands recognised as forest by any State or Union Territory, local body, council or recognised communities.

Present status:

However, SC directed the government to revert to the “dictionary meaning” of ‘forest’ as upheld by SC in a 1996 decision in the T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad case.

Broad meaning of Forest:

• To preserve green expanses(forest) irrespective of their nature, classification or ownership.
• “The adoption of this dictionary meaning to forests was made to align with the intent of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980.
• The expression ‘forest’ will not be confined to lands recorded as forests in the government records only.

Present directions of SC wrt amendment 2023:

• SC said that the same dictionary meaning would continue till the States and Union Territories prepare a “consolidated record” of all the lands recorded as ‘forest’ in government records, including forest-like areas, unclassed and community forest lands.
• As Part of Rule 16 of a notification issued by the Environment Ministry on November 29, 2023, and would take a year “and also in align with the principles in N. Godavarman Thirumulpad must continue to be observed,”
• Environment Ministry shall have to issue circular to the States and Union Territories.
• States and UTs will prepare “comprehensive record” as per the Godavarman Thirumulpad case and will have to prepare records by March 31, 2024.
• The Environment Ministry has to publish these records on its website by April 15, 2024.
• In addition to these, the establishment of “zoos or safaris” by any government or authority should not be consented to without the final approval of the top court.
• The court listed the case again in July 2024.