Subject: Environment Context: Land use change is prime trigger for COVID-19 and responsible for 30 percent of new diseases since 1960 according to IPBES. Concept: The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is an independent intergovernmental body, established by member States in 2012. Objective of IPBES: Strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity […]
Subject: Environment Context: ‘Birds of God’ project is a true success because of the involvement of the community. There has never been such a quick turnaround to a conservation project in India, where one year a species was being hunted and in the next, it stopped. To celebrate the conservation story, the Nagaland government held […]
Subject : Environment Context :Aenigmachannagollum, a dragon snakehead fish that lives in underground aquifers, and which first announced its surfacing in social media posts in 2018. Concept : Aenigmachanna Gollum has a surprisingly large number of primitive characters, and detailed molecular phylogenetic analyses including of its Mitochondrial DNA suggested an ancient separation from Channidae. Many […]
Subject : Environment Context : Study predicts massive habitat decline for the Himalayan brown bear by 2050 due to climate change. Concept : The Himalayan brown bear is one of the largest carnivores in the highlands of Himalayas. It occupies the higher reaches of the Himalayas in remote, mountainous areas of Pakistan and India, in […]
Subject: Environment Context : Delhi woke up to high levels of air pollution on Friday as air quality index (AQI) slipped into ‘very poor’ category while some parts of the city saw AQI turn ‘severe’. Concept: Besides concentration of particulates (PM 2.5 ,PM 10), the CPCB also monitors gas concentrations, including of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), […]
Subject: Environment Context : The sighting of a pair of critically endangered Asian king vultures and a juvenile in the Sigur plateau is a cause for optimism that the species may be re-establishing itself in the region. Concept : The Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR), encompassing both the Sigur plateau and the Moyar valley, is believed […]
Subject: Environment Context : Every year in October, Delhi’s air quality starts to dip and a war of words between different governments erupts. Concept : Air pollution in Delhi and the whole of the Indo Gangetic Plains is a complex phenomenon that is dependent on a variety of factors. The first and foremost is the […]
Subject: Environment Context: PM issued a commemorative coin of Rs.75 and dedicated 17 biofortified varieties of 8 crops to the nation. Concept: What is biofortification? Biofortification is the process of increasing nutritional value of food crops by increasing the density of vitamins and minerals in a crop through either conventional plant breeding; agronomic practices or […]