59th BRO Raising Day                                                                                                 

Road accidents still cause most deaths: WHO report                                              

Purple frog, believed to have co-existed with dinosaurs, set to be crowned Kerala’s state amphibian                                                                                             

GRIHA Council launches rating system to evaluate environmental performance of schools                                                                                                                     

B2B tech start-ups tripled since 2014: Study                                                            

Iran should not breach nuclear deal                                                                           

59th BRO Raising Day

GS PAPER  - 02 Governance - Statutory, regulatory and various quasi-judicial bodies Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context :

• Border Roads Organisation (BRO) is celebrating its 59th Raising Day.

Border Roads Organisation (BRO) :

• BRO is a leading road construction agency under the Ministry of Defence with a primary role of providing road connectivity in border areas.

• It executes road construction and maintenance works along the Northern and Western frontiers primarily to meet the strategic requirements of the Army and is responsible for over 53,000 Km roads.

• The BRO has also constructed roads in friendly foreign countries like Bhutan, Myanmar, Afghanistan etc. thus contributing towards our strategic objectives in the region.

• Currently, the organisation maintains operations in twenty-one states, one UT (Andaman and Nicobar Islands), and neighbouring countries such as Afghanistan, Bhutan, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka.

• The BRO operates and maintains over 32,885 kilometres of roads and about 12,200 meters of permanent bridges in the country.

                                                                                                                                                              Source :- PIB

Road accidents still cause most deaths: WHO report

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Context :

• World Health Organisation (WHO)’s Global Status report on Road Safety has stated that road accidents are the leading cause of death among people in the 5-29 age-group worldwide.

Key Highlights :

• According to the report, more than 1.35 million lives are lost each year and 50 million sustain injuries due to road accidents.The report has been released during the ongoing Road safety Week.

• Since 2008, India has maintained the dubious distinction of being world number one in road crash deaths.

• According to the WHO report, India might be losing 2, 99,000 people each year due to road accidents. However, the government pegs the number of road accident deaths at nearly 1, 50,000 people each year.

• India is a signatory to the Brasilia Declaration on Road Safety which was adopted at the second global high-level conference on road safety held in Brazil in 2015.

  • It lays down recommendations on strengthening existing legislations, adopting sustainable transport and strengthening post-crash response.

Major causes of increase in road accident death toll:

• Rapid urbanisation

• Poor safety

• Lack of enforcement of rules

• Riding/ driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol

• Speeding

• Not paying heed to safety measures such as wearing seat-belts or helmets.

                                                                                                                          Source :- The Hindu

Purple frog, believed to have co-existed with dinosaurs, set to be crowned Kerala’s state amphibian

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Context :

• There is an ongoing campaign in Kerala to declare ‘Maveli’, the purple frog as Kerala’s State Amphibian, making it first of its kind in India.

Purple Frog :

• The purple frog was discovered in 2003.

• The scientific name of the species is Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis.

• It is also known as Maveli frog or Pignose Frog.

• It has also been listed as endangered on the red list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN).

• Researchers have found that the Purple frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis), which lives almost its entire life in underground tunnels, comes out to the surface for a single day in a year to breed.

• Once it lays it’s eggs, the bloated frogs characterised by a protruding snout and powerful hind legs return to the earth’s deepest layers.

• The Purple frog feeds mostly on soil-mites,ants and termites using its fluted tongue.

• The male and female frogs mate underground and once in a year,they come out on the surface to lay thousands of eggs near seasonal streams in the months of May-June.

• It’s endemic to this part of the southern Western Ghats and cannot be found anywhere else.

• Described for the first time in 2003 by two scientists in the jungles of Kerala, the species sparks feverish imagination among herpetologists worldwide for a number of reasons.

• It’s evolutionary roots suggest it could have shared space with dinosaurs going back almost 70 million years ago.

• This could help scientists understand how it’s population may have evolved and learned to overcome the challenges of shifting land masses.

• A year after it was documented, the frog’s closest relatives were found in Seychelles, an island in the Indian Ocean off East Africa.

• This discovery led many to ask whether the species could indeed be living proof of the theory of Gondwanaland.

                                                                                                                     Source :- Indian Express

GRIHA Council launches rating system to evaluate environmental performance of schools

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context :

• In a bid to evaluate the environmental performance of existing schools across India, GRIHA Council released a rating tool ‘GRIHA for Existing Day Schools’.

‘GRIHA for Existing Day Schools’:

• Griha variant will work as an integrated tool to evaluate performance and provide solutions for enhanced energy and water efficiencies, increased thermal and visual comfort, and decreased operational and maintenance costs

• The rating system also aimed at familiarises the students with the concepts of sustainability by involving them, under the guidance of their teachers, on evaluating the environmental impact of schools on the environment.

• Further,It also seeks to help students and teachers in establishing contact with nature and with each other using the approach of co-creation and understanding.

GRIHA :

• GRIHA Rating is developed by TERI(The Energy and Resources Institute) and adopted by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) as the national rating system for green buildings in India.

• It is a rating tool that helps people to assess the performance of their building against certain nationally acceptable benchmarks.

• GRIHA evaluates the environmental performance of a building holistically over its entire life cycle thereby providing a definitive standard for what constitutes a green building.

                                                                                                                                        Source :- The Hindu Business line

B2B tech start-ups tripled since 2014: Study

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context :

• According to the new study, titled ‘B2B Tech Startup Ecosystem and Role of Corporate Accelerators in India’, B2B tech startups have more than tripled (from 900 to 3200+) since 2014.

Key Highlights :  

• According to a survey,the number of business-to-business(B2B) startups has jumped four times to 3,200 in 2018 from 800 in 2014.This has enabled faster growth of the ecosystem by attracting huge number of investments.

• India has five unicorns in the B2B space including e-commerce delivery platform Delhivery, payment gateway BillDesk, trading platform Udaan, enterprise software provider Freskworks, and India’s first unicorn InMobi — a mobile marketing and ad platform.

• However, among these 3,200 startups, majority (70 per cent) have emerged in key industry verticals including enterprisetech, fintech, and healthtech while remaining belongs to industrial, HRtech etc

• Further,the report has also called for an intense growth of accelerators and incubators for the domestic startups to spread their wings encouraging small town to come up in the innovation space.

• Startup accelerators and incubators are organizations that seek to help startups attain success.They help new and startup companies to develop by providing services such as management training or office space

Reasons for Rise in B2B:

• The rise in B2B startups has been attributed to the -

  • Digital transformation of businesses including enterprises,

  • Financial institutions,

  • Hospitals,

  • Small businesses, government etc.,

  • Increase in funding from $797 million in 2014 to $3.7 billion in 2018.

                                                                                                                Source :- Hindu Business Line

Iran should not breach nuclear deal

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India's interests, Indian diaspora.

Context :

• Europe has warned Iran that it would re-impose sanctions on Iran if it violates parts of the 2015 nuclear deal.

More about the news:

• This statement came after Iran President is expected to announce that Iran would restart part of its halted nuclear programme in response to the U.S withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal.

• However,Iran does not plan to pull out of the agreement.

Joint  Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) :

• Iran Nuclear deal which is known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was announced in 2015.

• It ended 12 years of deadlock over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

• The deal limited the Iranian programme to reassure the rest of the world that it would be unable to develop nuclear weapons, in return for sanctions relief.

• At its core, the JCPOA is a straightforward bargain. Iran’s acceptance of strict limits on its nuclear programme in return for an escape from the sanctions that grew up around its economy over a decade prior to the accord. Under the deal, Iran unplugged two-thirds of its centrifuges, shipped out 98% of its enriched uranium and filled its plutonium production reactor with concrete.

• Iran’s compliance with the nuclear-related provisions of the JCPOA will be verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

• In return, all nuclear-related sanctions were lifted in January 2016, reconnecting Iran to global markets.

Which Countries are involved?

• The six major powers involved in the nuclear talks with Iran were in a group known as the P5+1:

  • The UN security council’s five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the UK and the US – and Germany.

• The nuclear deal is also enshrined in a UN security council resolution that incorporated it into international law.

• The 15 members of the council at the time unanimously endorsed the agreement.

Key provisions of The Deal :

• Limits on uranium enrichment

• Limits on number of nuclear centrifuges (centrifuge is a device used to enrich uranium)

• Restrictions on plutonium enrichment- Stopping Iran from operating at Arak nuclear site which was used to make plutonium

• Allowing International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for inspections.

• Further,the deal has also increased the breakout time to 1 year. Breakout time is the time it would take Iran to produce enough bomb-grade material for a single nuclear weapon.However,the deal does not cover Iran’s Ballistic Missile programme.

Why does Donald Trump want to scrap it ?

• Trump and opponents to the deal say it is flawed because it gives Iran access to billions of dollars but does not address Iran’s support for groups the U.S. considers terrorists, like Hamas and Hezbollah.

• They note it also doesn’t curb Iran’s development of ballistic missiles and that the deal phases out by 2030.

• They say Iran has lied about its nuclear program in the past.

Implications of U.S. Sanctions on Iran :

• Other countries have promised to uphold it but their ability to do so will depend on how their companies can be firewalled from U.S. sanctions if they continue their engagement with Iran.

• The sanctions often referred to as “secondary sanctions”, which primarily target non-US companies engaging in business in or with Iran entirely outside US jurisdiction.

                                                                                                                 Source :- The Hindu

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