Current Affairs India

Forecasting oceanographic parameters (both in surface and subsurface) at different time scales is extremely important for a wide spectrum of users ranging from the weathermen to fishermen, and from the navy to the off-shore industries.  Currently, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) is forecasting the waves in the Indian waters as well as over the Indian Ocean.  Recently, INCOIS has brought up a new system for the forecasting of the dynamic and thermodynamic features of the Indian Ocean. The new Indian Ocean Forecasting System (IOFS) is the first of its kind in the country and the set-up of the system is being developed indigenously at INCOIS. Initially the 6 hourly forecasts of SST, surface currents, MLD and depth of 20oC isotherm (as an indicator of thermocline depth) will be made available for 5 days in advance.

Currenta Affairs International

On the 22 of April, ironically being observed world over as Earth Day, the Deepwater Horizon rig drilling in Gulf of Mexico, blew up killing 11 workers and creating one of the worst oil spills in history. The oil well being drilled off the coast of Louisiana was owned British Petroleum (BP). The well which has been temporarily capped now, spilled an estimated 5-9 million barrels or an equivalent of one Exxon Valdez every 3-5 days. Exxon Valdez was the tanker, which had sunk off the Alaskan coast in 1989 and is held as the benchmark on oil spills in the oceans. The only other oil spill in open seas that is bigger than Deepwater was the one in Persian Gulf during the Iraq War.The record of Big Oil on spills have been dismal – from Nigeria to Ecuador – oil spill has been more the norm than the exception.

India, which accounts for 2.5 per cent geographical area of the world, supports 17% of global population. The population of the country now stands at 1,198 million, and  likely to touch 1,613.8 million mark by 2050. In order to ensure food security for ever-increasing population of the country,  additional land needs to be brought under cultivation, the productivity of existing agricultural land to be enhanced, and  suitable measures need to be taken  up to prevent the fertile cultivated land from degradation. Wastelands which are currently lying either unutilized or partially utilized may contribute significantly to food security. Hence the need of  a National Wastelands Atlas to meet the needs of future generations.

The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) through its National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) has worked extensively in quest for techno-economically viable solutions for desalination.

Low Temperature Thermal Desalination (LTTD) is one process that uses the availability of a temperature gradient between two water bodies or flows to evaporate the Warmer water at low pressure and condense the resultant vapour with the colder water to obtain Freshwater. While ocean, with its temperature variation across its depth, presents one such scenario of two water bodies, a coast based thermal power plant discharging huge amounts of condenser reject water into the nearby ocean represents an alternate scenario. Te simplicity of LTTD process also enables to control the quality of product water in order to provide either good quality drinking water or boiler grade water as the situation warrants.

The ICZM loan will provide assistance to implement the Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) project with overall cost of Rs.1155.63crore, in which, the World Bank will contribute an amount of Rs.897crore (77.7%), Government of India Rs.177.49crore (15.5%) and the States Rs.80.02crores (6.9%).  The CBIPMP project will aim to remediate ten highly polluted sites, two in Andhra Pradesh and eight in West Bengal on a pilot basis, develop a National Plan for rehabilitation of polluted sites and build human and technical capacity in selected Pollution Control Boards for undertaking environmentally sound remediation of polluted sites. The estimated cost of the project, to be implemented for a period of five years, is Rs. 339.26 crores.

The Pangolin or scaly ant eaters are curious animals.  Two types of pangolins are found in the country, Indian and Chinese. The latter is more common in the North East. There are seven species of Pangolins around the world. But there is no available data on the number of Chinese Pangolins found in the wild. They are in great demand in the South Asian countries.

The Pangolin has an elongated tapering body, it possesses a special characteristic appearance and it has large overlapping scales on the body. These scales   act like protective armour. The scales are absent on the  snout, chin, sides of face, throat, belly and inner surface of limbs. Scales may be regarded as hair or rather as spines enormously enlarged and flattened. The shape and topography of scales change with wear and tear. Colour varies from different shades of brown to yellow.  The scale-less areas of the body are covered with white, brown or even black bristle like hair.  The underside of the body has some coarse bristle-like hair which can be seen in-between the scales.

India inc. will have to monitor, report and get their emissions externally verified and strengthen strategic and operational actions on mitigation voluntary emission intensity reduction target by 2020, since industries would be subject to individual carbon emission caps or sectoral energy benchmarks, says the joint study of ASSOCHAM and E&Y on ‘Reducing Carbon Footprint in the Power Sector’.

The study points out that India’s greenhouse gas emissions increased by 58 per cent from 1994-2009 from 1.2 billion to 1.9 billion tones, primarily resulting from coal based power sector that nearly doubled its share in emissions. The power sector accounted for 719.30 million tones of emission until recently as against 355.03 million tones in 1994, which represents a growth of around 102 per cent.

Tigers are on the brink of extinction because only about 3,200 tigers are left in the world today, a report has said.

The still existing ones included six sub-species: Sumatran, Bengalese, Amurese, Indo-Chinese, South Chinese, and Malayan tigers, said the report released by the Indonesian Forestry Ministry on July 11, 2010, a day before delegates of 13 countries met for talks to save tigers in Bali on July 12, 2010.

Madhya Pradesh is using a number of Information Technology (IT) applications including Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) mobile phone for conserving its forest and wildlife treasures, especially tiger reserves.

In Kanha and Satpura Tiger Reserve, the entire forest staff has been equipped with the PDA phones not just only to report sighting of wildlife, but also illegal felling of trees deep inside the forests.

The subject of energy is compelling, even fascinating. It is a recorded fact of history that all civilizations depended for survival and prosperity on their ability to access energy in sufficient quantities in the form of food and fuel. The advancement of the past two centuries highlights this truism. By the same token, anxiety about continued and continuous access to energy in requisite quantities has resulted in irrational reactions ranging from overt pessimism to undue optimism.

Many years back the Russian astrophysicist Nicolai Kardashev propounded his theory about stages of civilizations based on their access to three energy sources. He categorized the latter as planetary, stellar and galactic. Others have calculated that our own planet has up to now only reached the 0.72 level in the first, planetary, category and may take a century or two to marshal energy resources on a planet-wide scale. Technology and human ingenuity would lead to newer sources of energy as also to better utilization of existing sources and quantities.

Launching the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission on 11th January, 2010, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh set out a vision for building a Solar India. Now efforts are on to giving wings to his dream. An important step in this direction is the recent announcement of a set of guidelines or ground rules for off-grid or decentralized applications.

The National Solar Mission will be implemented in 3 stages leading to an installed capacity of 20,000 MW of grid power, 2,000 MW of off-grid solar applications and 20 million sq. m. solar thermal collector area and solar lighting for 20 million households by the end of the 13th Five Year Plan in 2022.

Noise pollution or environmental noise is displeasing to human beings and animals. Unwanted sound can damage physiological and psychological health of humans. It can cause hypertension, high stress levels, tinnitus which leads to forgetfulness, severe depression and at times panic attacks, hearing loss, sleep disturbances, and other harmful effects.

Noise also has a detrimental effect on animals by causing stress, increasing risk of mortality by changing the delicate balance in predator/prey detection and avoidance. Impact of noise on animal life can also result in the reduction of usable habitat which in the case of endangered species may be part of the path to extinction. One of the best known cases of damage caused by noise pollution is the death of certain species of whales, brought by about the loud sound of military sonar.

In a move to ensure compliance with noise regulations, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has initiated the process of developing a noise monitoring network across the country.

Initially, the pollution watchdog plans to install five monitoring stations each in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Lucknow, for which it has already floated global tender.

With growing importance being placed on climate change and mitigation strategies, India’s space agency ISRO is in the process of launching a satellite to study greenhouse gases

“In the next 2-3 years, ISRO will carry out the first of the launches which will be dedicated to (studying) greenhouses gases like carbondioxide, carbon monoxide, nitric oxide and things of that kind,” Planning Commission Member and former chief of ISRO, Dr K Kasturirangan told reporters in Chennai today.

In a new research into the impact of melting ice on global sea level, scientists have found that thinning ice in Antarctica is contributing nearly 10 per cent of the sea level rise and Pine Island Glacier is the major source.

Using Autosub, an autonomous underwater vehicle, an international team, led by the British Antarctic Survey, has captured ocean and sea-floor measurements, which revealed a 300 metre high ridge on the sea floor.

THE horrific on-going disaster caused by oil spewing out from British Petroleum’s (BP) well in the Gulf of Mexico is going from bad to worse, showing little signs of abating. It is already by far the biggest oil spill in the US and rapidly becoming one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in the US if not the world. The oil slick is spreading by the day and threatening new areas. The federal government has banned fishing in more than 37 per cent of the US part of the Gulf of Mexico, double the area under a fishing ban imposed mid-May.

BP is responding in a manner typical of large multinational corporations (MNCs), especially oil companies, trying to minimise the damage while spending as little money as possible, evading legal liability, and treating the whole episode as primarily a public relations issue. BP is once again showing that Big Oil is the dirtiest of businesses, in more ways than one.

Backgrounder

Noise, by definition, is unwanted sound. What is pleasant to some ears may be extremely unpleasant to others, depending on a number of factors.

Sources of noise

The natural environment contains many sources of noise, i.e., wind, volcanoes, oceans and animal sounds are all familiar intrusions accepted at various levels. Man-made noise – such as those from machines, automobiles, trains, planes, explosives, and public address system, music system, bands, firecrackers, etc. are more contentious.

As per a study sponsored by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, which was conducted by ELCINA-Electronic Industries Association of India mobile phones and televisions share is considerable towards e-waste.

1). The total units of mobile phones sold during 2007-08 were about 930 lakhs.

2). Compound annual growth rate for Mobile Phones during the year 2007-2008 was 73%.

Sixteen Biosphere Reserves have been designated in the country. They are : Nilgiri (Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka), Nanda Devi (Uttrakhand), Nokrek (Meghalaya), Manas and Dibru-Saikhowa (Assam), Sundarban (West Bengal), Gulf of Mannar (Tamil Nadu), Great Nicobar (Andaman & Nicobar Islands), Similipal (Orissa), Dehang-Debang (Arunachal Pradesh), Khangchendzonga (Sikkim), Pachmarhi (Madhya Pradesh), Achanakmar-Amarkantak (Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh), Agasthyamalai (Tamil Nadu and Kerala), Katchchh (Gujarat) and Cold Desert (Himachal Pradesh).

World Environment day (WED) is aimed at generating awareness about the environment and drawing political attention and public action. This is a day, which calls for environmental conservation through global action. It is on June5 that United Nations Conference on the Human Environment began. It was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972 at the Stockholm Conference.   A resolution, adopted by the General Assembly the same day, led to the creation of the United Nations EnvironmentProgramme (UNEP).

“Stockholm was without doubt the landmark event in the growth of international environmentalism,” writes John McCormick in the book Reclaiming Paradise. “It was the first occasion on which the political, social and economic problems of the global environment were discussed at an intergovernmental forum with a view to actually taking corrective action.”