Daily Prelims Notes 24 December 2020

December 24, 2020
Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
Category: DPN

Table Of Contents

Subject: Environment

Context: The India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative published a scientific paper on Tuesday on the health and economic impact of air pollution in Lancet Planetary Health, which documents the trends in health loss due to air pollution and its economic impact in every state of India.

Concept:

As many as 1.7 million deaths in India — 18 per cent of the total deaths in the country — were attributable to air pollution in 2019.
The economic impact of this health loss due to lost productivity was huge, resulting in 1.4 per cent loss of the country’s GDP in 2019 .
The findings in the paper highlight that the disease burden due to household air pollution is reducing in India but the same has increased due to ambient outdoor air pollution.
Meanwhile, household air pollution is decreasing in India resulting in 64 per cent reduction in the death rate attributable to it from 1990 to 2019, whereas the death rate from outdoor ambient air pollution has increased during this period by 115 per cent.

Household Air Pollution

With the continual improvement in our quality of life, indoor air quality has become an important area of concern in the 21st century.
Indoor air quality is affected by many factors, including the type and running conditions of indoor pollution sources, ventilation conditions, as well as indoor activities.
According to WHO, around three billion people, mostly women in the villages of India and in other parts of the world still cook and heat their homes using dirty solid fuels.
These include waste wood, charcoal, coal, dung and abundantly available crop wastes. These are burnt on open fireplaces, cooking stoves etc. This generates a large amount of air pollutants such as sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrous oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), and particulate matter (PM).
A number of air pollutants have been recognised to exist indoors, including NOx, SO2, ozone (O3), CO, volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds (VOCs), PM, radon and microorganisms.
Some of these pollutants (NOx, SO2, O3, and PM) are common to both indoor and outdoor environments and some of them may originate from outdoors.
These air pollutants can be inorganic, organic, biological or even radioactive. The effect of these air pollutants on humans depends on their toxicity, concentration and exposure time and may vary from person to person.
The most common effect is called sick building syndrome (SBS), in which people experience uncomfortable or acute health effects such as irritation of nose, eyes and throat, skin ailments, allergies and so on.

2. PERMANENT COURT OF ARBITRATION

Subject: International Organisations

Context: Cairn Energy Plc won a major relief on Wednesday as the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague ruled that the Indian government’s retrospective tax demand against the global oil and gas major was “inconsistent” with the UK-India bilateral treaty.

Concept:

The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) is an intergovernmental organization located at The Hague in the Netherlands.
The PCA is not a court in the traditional sense but provides services of an arbitral tribunal to resolve disputes that arise out of international agreements between member states, international organizations or private parties.
The cases span a range of legal issues involving territorial and maritime boundaries, sovereignty, human rights, international investment, and international and regional trade.
It was established in 1899 by the first Hague Peace Conference of 1899 Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes. At the second Hague Peace Conference, the earlier Convention was revised by the 1907 Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes.
The organization is not a United Nations agency. But the PCA is an official United Nations Observer.

Membership of the PCA

Parties to the Convention on the Pacific Settlement of disputes of 1899 (71 member states) and 1907 (101 member states) are automatically parties to the PCA.
As 51 are parties to both conventions, the PCA has 121 member states: 119 members of the United Nations, as well as Kosovo and Palestine.
India is a party of the PCA according to the Hague Convention of 1899.

3. BAUL FOLK MUSIC

Subject : Culture

Context : The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has made attempts to reach out to Bengali folk singer Basudeb Das Baul, days after he hosted Union Home Minister for lunch at his home in Bolpur.

Concept :

Baul Music is a form of folk music, unique to Bangladesh and West Bengal of India.
The word Baul means “afflicted with the wind disease” and the Baul singers are traditionally wandering minstrels singing their particular form of folk music.
The lyrics and music are soul searching, quite comparable to the genre of Sufi music. The lyrics in Baul music urge man to search for God within himself and decry the role of mosques and temples in the quest of God.
Lalon Shah is regarded as the most celebrated Baul saint in history.
Baul singers usually traveled alone and had their characteristic musical accompaniments.
They usually carried either a khamak, a string instrument with one or two strings attached to the head of a small drum or an ektara, a plucked single string drone.
Other instruments were a khanjani, a tambourine without jangles, mandira or kartal which are small bell-shaped cymbals or ramchaki, a pair of wooden clappers with jangles.
In 2005, the Baul tradition of Bangladesh was included in the list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

4. TANSEN MUSIC FESTIVAL

Subject: Culture

Context: The five-day Tansen Music Festival will begin from December 26 and continue till December 30 in the city of Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh. The event would be kickstarted with recitations of ‘Harikatha’ and ‘Milad’.

Concept:

‘TansenSamaroh’ is one of the most prestigious events of the country in the field of Indian classical music.
This event is organised by the UstadAlauddin Khan Kala EvamSangeet Academy by the Culture department of the Madhya Pradesh government.
The five-day festival is celebrated every year in the month of December in Behat village of Gwalior district, Madhya Pradesh.
It is celebrated in the memory of one of the most eminent singers of Indian history, ‘MianTansen’

MianTansen

He was a prominent figure of Hindustani classical music.
He began his career and spent most of his adult life in the court and patronage of the Hindu king of Rewa, Raja Ramchandra Singh (1555–1592), where Tansen’s musical abilities and studies gained widespread fame.
This reputation brought him to the attention of the Mughal Emperor Akbar, who sent messengers to Raja Ramchandra Singh, requesting Tansen to join the musicians at the Mughal court.
Akbar considered him as a Navaratnas (nine jewels), and gave him the title Mian, an honorific, meaning learned man.
Tansen is remembered for his epic Dhrupad compositions, creating several new ragas, as well as for writing two classic books on music Sri Ganesh Stotra and Sangita Sara.

5. INS VIKRAMADITYA

Subject: Defence

Context: The Navy Chief’s views revived the discussion among the forces on whether India needs a third aircraft carrier – apart from INS Vikramaditya and the under-construction Indigenous Aircraft Carrier 1 (IAC 1).

Concept:

INS Vikramaditya is the country’s most powerful aircraft carrier.
It was built in 1987 and had served the Soviet navy (named as Baku). It was later renamed Admiral Gorshkov under the Russian navy.
The Indian navy purchased the vessel in 2004 and commissioned it in November 2013 at Severodvinsk in Russia.
It can carry over 30 aircraft comprising MiG-29Ks, Kamov-28s, Kamov-31s, ALH-Dhruv and Chetak helicopters.
It was retrofitted with a Barak missile system under joint development with Israel.
It is based at its home port at Karwar in Karnataka.

6. ANTARTIC STATIONS

Subject: Science & tech

Context: Indian contingent in Antarctica is not worried about the virus spreading. The two Indian permanent stations, Maitri and Bharati, are at least 5,000 km away from the Chilean base in which 36 people have been found infected with the novel coronavirus.

Concept:

India presently has two research stations at Antarctica namely ‘Maitri’ and ‘Bharati’. New station ‘Bharati’ has just been constructed and established in March, 2013.
Maitri station has been in operation since 1989.
At both the stations, research and investigations are undertaken to understand the Polar processes and phenomenon. Observations and studies are carried out in atmospheric, biological, geological, ecological sciences etc.

Maitri

In the year 1988an ice-free, rocky area on the Schirmacher Oasis was selected to build the second research station named Maitri
The building was erected on steel stilts, and has stood the test of time — conducting experiments in geology, geography and medicine
India built this station close to a freshwater lake around Maitri known as Lake Priyadarshini.
Maitri accomplished the mission of geomorphologic mapping of Schirmacher Oasis.

Bharati

About 3000 km east of Maitri, the new Indian research base ‘Bharati’ is located between Thala Fjord &Quilty bay, east of Stornes Peninsula in Antarctica
The station with a very small footprint was commissioned on 18 March 2012 to facilitate year-round scientific research activity by the Indian Antarctic program.
Bharati made India an elite member of the club of 9 nations that have multiple stations in the region.

7. COMPRESSED BIO GAS

Subject: Science & tech

Context : Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan had said in November that India was set to receive investments of Rs 2 lakh crore in 5,000 CBG plants.

Concept :

Bio-gas is produced naturally through a process of anaerobic decomposition from waste / bio-mass sources like agriculture residue, cattle dung, sugarcane press mud, municipal solid waste, sewage treatment plant waste, etc.
After purification, it is compressed and called CBG, which has pure methane content of over 95%.

What is CBG?

Compressed Bio-Gas is exactly similar to the commercially available natural gas in its composition and energy potential.
With calorific value (~52,000 KJ/kg) and other properties similar to CNG, Compressed Bio-Gas can be used as an alternative, renewable automotive fuel.

How it works?

CBG produced at these plants will be transported through cascades of cylinders to the fuel station networks of OMCs for marketing as a green transport fuel alternative.
The entrepreneurs would be able to separately market the other by-products from these plants, including bio-manure, carbon-dioxide, etc., to enhance returns on investment.
This initiative is expected to generate direct employment for 75,000 people and produce 50 million tonnes of bio-manure for crops.
There are multiple benefits from converting municipal solid waste into CBG on a commercial scale:

Responsible waste management, reduction in carbon emissions and pollution.

Additional revenue source for farmers.

Boost to entrepreneurship, rural economy and employment.

Support to national commitments in achieving climate change goals.

Reduction in import of natural gas and crude oil.

Buffer against crude oil/gas price fluctuations.

8. UMANG APP

Subject : Governance

Context : India’s digital infrastructure has been a global case study for modernisation and has amazed large tech corporations in private sectors across the globe. Making them more unified, relevant to each region and taking the services to the last mile is UMANG which has been in operation for the last three years.

Concept :

The UMANG is an acronym for Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance.
It is an all-in-one single, unified, secure, multi-channel, multi-platform, multi-lingual, multi-service mobile app, powered by a robust back-end platform providing access to high impact services of various organizations.
It was in 2017 to bring major government services on a single mobile app, with a larger goal to make the government accessible on the mobile phone of our citizens.
About 660 services from 127 departments & 25 states and about 180 utility bill payment services are live and more are in pipeline.
UMANG user base has crossed 2.1 Crore including Android, iOS, Web and KaiOS.
Citizens can also access their Digilocker from UMANG and give their feedback after availing any service through Rapid Assessment System (RAS) which has been integrated with UMANG.

Key features

Unified Platform: It brings together all government departments and their services on a single platform to provide better and easier services to citizens.
Mobile-First Strategy: It aligns all government services with the mobile-first strategy to leverage mobile adoption trends.
Integration with Digital India Services: It provides seamless integration with other Digital India Services like Aadhaar, DigiLocker, and PayGov. Any new such service will automatically be integrated with the platform.
Uniform Experience: It is designed to enable citizens to discover, download, access, and use all government services easily.
Secure and Scalable: It supports Aadhaar-based and other authentication mechanisms for service access. The sensitive profile data is saved in an encrypted format and no one can view this information.

9. PM- AASHA

Subject : Government Schemes

Context : According to the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), better bet is the Price Deficiency Payment Scheme, as it is easy to execute and can cover all crops and farmers.

Concept :

To correct the policy bias in MSP operations, the Centre introduced PM-AASHA (Pradhan Mantri-AnnadataAaySanrakshanAbhiyan) in 2018, as an effort to ensure MSP for all 23 crops.
The new Umbrella Scheme includes the mechanism of ensuring remunerative prices to the farmers and is comprised of-

Price Support Scheme (PSS),

Price Deficiency Payment Scheme (PDPS)

Pilot of Private Procurement & Stockist Scheme (PPPS).

The other existing schemes of Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD) for procurement of paddy, wheat and nutri-cereals/coarse grains and of Ministry of Textile for cotton and jute will be continued for providing MSP to farmers for these crops.

Price Deficiency Payment Scheme (PDPS)

Under PDPS it is proposed to cover all oilseeds for which MSP is notified.
In this direct payment of the difference between the MSP and the selling/modal price will be made to pre-registered farmers selling his produce in the notified market yard through a transparent auction process.
All payment will be done directly into registered bank account of the farmer.
This scheme does not involve any physical procurement of crops as farmers are paid the difference between the MSP price and Sale/modal price on disposal in notified market.

10. RAJAJI AND JIM CORBETT NATIONAL PARK

Subject : Environment

Context : The Rajaji Tiger Reserve is set to welcome the first big cat from Jim Corbett Tiger Reserve on Thursday, in the first such relocation in Uttarakhand aimed at tiger population management.

Concept :

Rajaji National Park

It is nestled between the Shivalik ranges and the Indo-Gangetic plains.
Broadleaved deciduous forests, riverine vegetation, scrubland, grasslands and pine forests form the range of flora in this park.
The park is spread over three districts of Uttarakhand: Haridwar, Dehradun and PauriGarhwal.
The Ganga and Song rivers flow through the park.
It is at the northwestern limit of distribution for both elephants and tigers in India and has the largest population of elephants in Uttarakhand.
The Park is also home to the Great Pied Hornbill, Himalayan Pied Kingfisher and the fire tailed sunbird.
This area is the first staging ground after the migratory birds cross over the Himalayas into the Indian subcontinent.
In 2015, Rajaji National Park was notified as a tiger reserve by the central government. Benefits of Tiger Reserve – Protected area for Tigers, Tourist attraction, Huge Development fund for the Park, Eco-Tourism development.

Jim Corbett National Park

Corbett National Park, also called Jim Corbett National Park, natural area in southern Uttarakhand state, northern India.
It was established as Hailey National Park in 1936 and it is India’s oldest national park.
The park is located in the foothills of the Himalayas—about 35 miles (50 km) northwest of Ramnagar.
It mainly occupies the broad Patlidoon Valley, through which the Ramganga River flows in a westerly direction.
The forest cover includes species of sal (Shorea), teak, oak, silver fir, spruce, cypress, birch, and bamboo. A reed forest was planted to afford natural cover for the park’s animals.
The park was established mainly for the protection of the Bengal tiger (Pantheratigristigris); it is there that India’s Project Tiger was established in 1973 to provide havens for tigers in the country’s national parks.

11. NUTRITION GARDEN

Subject: Governance

Context: Nutritional Garden, an initiative of the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), is expected to bring in drastic changes in the food habits of many families from Kottoor, an adopted village of KVK.

Concept:

It is a year-long project under which the institute supplies locally available and indigenous seeds to the families nearby so that they can grow vegetables in their kitchen garden and ensure uninterrupted supply of vegetables for their household needs.
KVK has also included three anganwadis in the panchayat under the scheme, aiming to ensure nutrition supply to children, adolescents and pregnant women from the region
Beneficiary families were offered vermi compost units along with the seeds, they were able to generate fertilizers from kitchen waste.
KVK is promoting an integrated farming model for residents and many have started rearing poultry and goats along with vegetables.
Apart from seed supply and training, KVK also carries out nutrition intake surveys among the beneficiary families to review the impact of the garden on their nutrition intake.
It evaluates the food consumption time of children and adults and assesses the vegetable intake by the family members.

KrishiVigyan Kendra

A KrishiVigyan Kendra (KVK) is an agricultural extension center in India.
Usually associated with a local agricultural university, these centers serve as the ultimate link between the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and farmers, and aim to apply agricultural research in a practical, localized setting.
All KVKs fall under the jurisdiction of one of the 11 Agricultural Technology Application Research Institutes (ATARIs) throughout India.
KVKs provide several farm support activities like providing technology dissemination to farmers, training, awareness etc.
To achieve these, KVKs undertake:

Farm advisory service.

Training programme for different categories of people.

Training programme for the extension functionaries.

Front line demonstration.

On farm testing