7^th JULY 2019 DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS

India gets its 38th WORLD UNESCO World HERITAGE SITE as Pink City Jaipur

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

Context :

India’s nomination of the Jaipur City, Rajasthan got inscribed on the World Heritage List of UNESCO during the 43rd Session of the World Heritage Committee held at Baku, Azerbaijan.
The excerpts of proposed statement of the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) before the World Heritage Committee was presented by India.
India now has 38 World Heritage Sites , that include 30 Cultural properties, 7 Natural properties and 1 mixed site.

Outstanding universal Value of Jaipur :

The City of Jaipur is an exceptional urban example in indigenous city planning and construction in South Asia
Unlike other medieval cities of the region, Jaipur was deliberately planned as a new city on the plains open for trade as opposed to hilly terrain and military cities of past, though its planning still ensured a response to the surrounding hill tops in all directions.
The site selected within the valley that lay to the south of Amber hills was comparatively flat and unmarred by any previous construction.
Besides an exemplary planning, its iconic monuments such as the Govind Dev temple, City Palace, Jantar Mantar and Hawa Mahal excel in artistic and architectural craftsmanship of the period.
Jaipur is an expression of the astronomical skills, living traditions, unique urban form and exemplary foresighted city planning of an 18th century city from India.
Jaipur is an exemplary development in town planning and architecture that demonstrates amalgamation and important interchange of several ideas over the late medieval period.

World Heritage Site :

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as of special cultural or physical significance.
The list is maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 UNESCO member states which are elected by the General Assembly.
Each World Heritage Site remains part of the legal territory of the state wherein the site is located and UNESCO considers it in the interest of the international community to preserve each site.
The sites are designated as having “outstanding universal value” under the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage 1972.
It provides a framework for international cooperation in preserving and protecting cultural treasures and natural areas throughout the world.
There are three types of sites: Cultural, Natural, and Mixed.
- Cultural heritage sites include hundreds of historic buildings and town sites, important archaeological sites, and works of monumental sculpture or painting.
- Natural heritage sites are restricted to those natural areas that:
  - Furnish outstanding examples of Earth’s record of life or its geologic processes
  - Provide excellent examples of ongoing ecological and biological evolutionary processes.
  - Contain natural phenomena that are rare, unique, superlative, or of outstanding beauty,
  - Furnish habitats for rare or endangered animals or plants or are sites of exceptional biodiversity.
- Mixed heritage sites contain elements of both natural and cultural significance.

Source :- PIB

SC pulls up Kerala for denying relief to endosulfan victims

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

Context :

A contempt plea by four minors raised non-compliance with the January 2017 order.

Issue :

Thousands of children [have] already lost their lives due to the non-availability of proper medical care. The economic backwardness of the area prevents persons like the petitioners from giving proper care to their children on time.
The victims said even a list prepared by the State government of victims entitled to ₹5 lakh compensation has around 6,000 people.
The petition said unnamed, forgotten victims continue to live in dire straits despite the Supreme Court order of January 2017.
the Supreme Court order specifically directed the State government to release the entire undisbursed payment of compensation, quantified as ₹5 lakh each, to all the affected persons.

Claim by kerala governemnt :

In January, 2019, the Kerala government had claimed it earmarked over ₹180 crore for payment of compensation to victims, some of whom were terminally-ill from the effects of the pesticide, which was aerially sprayed on cashew plantations adjoining habitations where the victims were located.
Responding to the contempt petition by the four children, the State, said the four victims were classified in the ‘Other’ category list and were not eligible for ₹5 lakh compensation.
A Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee in early July, 2019, however, found no reason and justification for the government of Kerala to categorise these four individuals in the ‘Other’ category and to deny them payment of compensation.

Endosulfan :

Endosulfan pesticide was used widely on crops like cashew, cotton, tea, paddy, fruits and others until 2011, when the Supreme Court banned its production and distribution.
The health effects of the chemical include neurotoxicity, late sexual maturity, physical deformities, poisoning, among others.
Over the years, other studies have confirmed these findings, and the health hazards associated with Endosulfan are now widely known and accepted.
Insecticides Act of 1968 recommends restricted use of endosulfan.
The Stockholm Convention, a global treaty to protect human health and environment from such chemical compounds, has declared endosulfan a persistent organic pollutant and 73 countries have banned its use.

Persistent Organic Pollutants:

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are organic compounds that are resistant to environmental degradation.
It is due to this, they have been observed to persist in the environment, and are capable of long-range transport, bioaccumulation in human and animal tissue, biomagnification in food chains, and to have potential significant impacts on human health and the environment.
In 1995, the United Nations Environment Programme Governing Council (GC) decided to begin investigating POPs, initially beginning with a short list of the following twelve POPs, known as the ‘dirty dozen’. DDT was one among them

.

Endosulfan has been classified has highly hazardous by USA and European Union.
The Industrial Toxicological Research Centre in India also classifies Endosulfan as extremely hazardous.

Source :- The Hindu

University of Hyderabad’s inhibitor increases effectiveness of malaria drugs

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Awareness in the field of bio technology

Context :

Researchers from the University of Hyderabad have identified a small inhibitor that blocks an enzyme (Rad51) that plays a crucial role in repairing DNA damage in the malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum.

Malaria :

Malaria is a disease caused by Plasmodium parasites that are transmitted to people through the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes.
There are 5 parasite species that cause malaria in humans, and 2 of these species – P. falciparum and P. vivax – pose the greatest threat.
In most cases, malaria is transmitted through the bites of female Anopheles mosquitoes.

World Malaria Report 2018 :

According to the World Malaria Report 2018,more than 200 million people were affected by malaria in 2017.
African Region carries a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden. In 2017, the region was home to 92% of malaria cases and 93% of malaria deaths.
India is the only country among the 11 highest-burden countries that saw substantial progress in reducing disease burden: it saw a 24% decrease in 2017 compared to 2016.

Source :- The Hindu

Is seawater the ultimate answer?

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

Context :

With warnings from India’s top policy-makers and reports of major cities in India struggling to stave off a water crisis, there’s talk about exploring technologies to harness fresh water.
Experts point out that the one idea that’s been around for a while is desalination, or obtaining freshwater from salt water.
It is important to note that desalination technology is not an esoteric idea — the city of Chennai already uses desalinated water. However, it only has a limited application, given the operation costs.

What is desalination technology?

To convert salt water into freshwater, the most prevalent technology in the world is reverse osmosis (RO).
A plant pumps in salty or brackish water, filters separate the salt from the water, and the salty water is returned to the sea. Fresh water is sent to households.
RO desalination came about in the late 1950s. While the principle is simple, engineering such plants has to factor in various constraints, for instance, salt levels in the source water that is to be treated, the energy required for the treatment and disposing of the salt back into the sea.
Osmosis involves ‘a solvent (such as water) naturally moving from an area of low solute concentration, through a membrane, to an area of high solute concentration.
A reverse osmosis system applies an external pressure to reverse the natural flow of solvent and so seawater or brackish water is pressurised against one surface of the membrane, causing salt-depleted water to move across the membrane, releasing clean water from the low-pressure side.
Seawater has Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) — a measure of salinity — close to 35,000 parts per million (ppm), or equivalent to 35 g of salt per one litre/kg of water.
An effective network of RO plants reduce this down to about 200-500 ppm.
There are about 18,000 desalination plants in the world across 150 countries and nearly half of Israel’s water is sourced through desalination.

How Popular is it in India ?

Years of water crises in Chennai saw the government set up two desalination plants between 2010 and 2013.
These were at Minjur, around 30 km north of Chennai, in 2010, and Nemmeli, 50 km south of Chennai, in 2013. Each supplies 100 million litres a day (MLD).
Taken together, they meet little under a fourth of the city’s water requirement of 830 MLD.
As a matter of fact, buoyed by the success of these plants, Chennai’s water authorities are planning to install two more plants with capacities of 150 MLD (to be operational by 2021) and 400 MLD, at a cost of around ₹1,260 crore (funded by the German agency, KfW) and ₹4,000 crore (funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency), respectively.
In November 2018, Gujarat Chief Minister, Vijay Rupani, announced plans of setting up a 100 MLD RO plant at the Jodiya coast in Jamnagar district.
This would go a long way in ‘solving’ the water availability problems in the drought-prone Saurashtra region.
Other plants of a similar size are expected to come up in Dwarka, Kutch, Dahej, Somnath, Bhavnagar and Pipavav, which are all coastal places in Gujarat.
There are also a slew of desalination plants that cater to industrial purposes.
However, for now, India’s real-world experience with desalination plants is restricted to Chennai.

Problems with RO Plant :

Because RO plants convert seawater to fresh water, the major environmental challenge they pose is the deposition of brine (highly concentrated salt water) along the shores.
Ever since the Chennai plants have started to function, fishermen have complained that the brine being deposited along the seashore is triggering changes along the coastline and reducing the availability of prawn, sardine and mackerel.
Environmentalists second this saying that hyper salinity along the shore affects plankton, which is the main food for several of these fish species.
Moreover, the high pressure motors needed to draw in the seawater end up sucking in small fish and life forms, thereby crushing and killing them — again a loss of marine resource.
Another unexpected problem was that the construction of the RO plants required troves of groundwater.
This was freshwater that was sucked out and has since been replaced by salt water, rendering it unfit for the residents around the desalination plants.
On an average, it costs about ₹900 crore to build a 100 MLD-plant and, as the Chennai experience has shown, about five years for a plant to be set up.
To remove the salt required, there has to be a source of electricity, either a power plant or a diesel or battery source.
Estimates have put this at about 4 units of electricity per 1,000 litres of water. Therefore, each of the Chennai plants needs about 400,000 units of electricity. It is estimated that it cost ₹3 to produce 100 litres of potable water.

Is RO water Healthy ?

In the early days of RO technology, there were concerns that desalinated water was shorn of vital minerals such as calcium, magnesium, zinc, sodium, potassium and carbonates.
They are collectively referred to as TDS.
Higher quantities of these salts in desalination plants tend to corrode the membranes and filtration system in these plants.
So ideally, a treatment plant would try to keep the TDS as low as possible.
Highly desalinated water has a TDS of less than 50 milligrams per litre, is pure, but does not taste like water. Anything from 100 mg/l to 600 mg/l is considered as good quality potable water.
It is important to note that most RO plants, including the ones in Chennai, put the water through a ‘post-treatment’ process whereby salts are added to make TDS around 300 mg/l. Several of the home-RO systems that are common in affluent Indian homes, too employ post-treatment and add salts to water.

Technological alternatives :

The alternative desalination technology used is thermal energy sourced from the ocean. There is a low-temperature thermal desalination (LTTD) technique.
In essence, this technique works on the principle that water in the ocean 1,000 or 2,000 feet below is about 4º C to 8º C colder than surface water.
So, salty surface water is collected in a tank and subject to high pressure (via an external power source). This pressured water vapourises and this is trapped in tubes or a chamber.
Cold water plumbed from the ocean depths is passed over these tubes and the vapour condenses into fresh water and the resulting salt diverted away.
The National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), a research organisation based in Chennai, has been working on this technology for decades. In 2005, it set up a 100,000 litre-a-day plant in Kavaratti, Lakshwadeep islands and this has been providing water to about 10,000 residents.
Other than the plant at Kavaratti, there are plants of similar capacity proposed at Minicoy and Agatti islands. There are also 1.5 lakh litres a day plants proposed at Amini, Androth, Chetlat, Kadamat, Kalpeni and Kiltan islands.
However, the most ambitious research project is a 10 million litre a day plant that is proposed to be built in the deep ocean, 50 kilometres away from the Chennai coast. This exploits an approach called Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion.
While the LTTD technique draws power from diesel sets, this massive new plant will draw power from the vapour generated as a part of the desalination process.
This vapour will run a turbine and thereby will be independent of an external power source.
While great in theory, there is no guarantee it will work commercially.
For one, this ocean-based plant requires a pipe that needs to travel 50 kilometres underground in the sea before it reaches the mainland.
The NIOT has in the past had significant problems in managing such a pipe.
Then, RO is commercially proven and the dominant technology and therefore it could be hard to convince private players to invest in such a technology.

7th JULY 2019 DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS

India gets its 38th WORLD UNESCO World HERITAGE SITE as Pink City Jaipur

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

Context :

India’s nomination of the Jaipur City, Rajasthan got inscribed on the World Heritage List of UNESCO during the 43rd Session of the World Heritage Committee held at Baku, Azerbaijan.

The excerpts of proposed statement of the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) before the World Heritage Committee was presented by India.

India now has 38 World Heritage Sites , that include 30 Cultural properties, 7 Natural properties and 1 mixed site.

Outstanding universal Value of Jaipur :

The City of Jaipur is an exceptional urban example in indigenous city planning and construction in South Asia

Unlike other medieval cities of the region, Jaipur was deliberately planned as a new city on the plains open for trade as opposed to hilly terrain and military cities of past, though its planning still ensured a response to the surrounding hill tops in all directions.

The site selected within the valley that lay to the south of Amber hills was comparatively flat and unmarred by any previous construction.

Besides an exemplary planning, its iconic monuments such as the Govind Dev temple, City Palace, Jantar Mantar and Hawa Mahal excel in artistic and architectural craftsmanship of the period.

Jaipur is an expression of the astronomical skills, living traditions, unique urban form and exemplary foresighted city planning of an 18th century city from India.

Jaipur is an exemplary development in town planning and architecture that demonstrates amalgamation and important interchange of several ideas over the late medieval period.

World Heritage Site :

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as of special cultural or physical significance.

The list is maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 UNESCO member states which are elected by the General Assembly.

Each World Heritage Site remains part of the legal territory of the state wherein the site is located and UNESCO considers it in the interest of the international community to preserve each site.

The sites are designated as having “outstanding universal value” under the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage 1972.

It provides a framework for international cooperation in preserving and protecting cultural treasures and natural areas throughout the world.

There are three types of sites: Cultural, Natural, and Mixed.

Cultural heritage sites include hundreds of historic buildings and town sites, important archaeological sites, and works of monumental sculpture or painting.

Natural heritage sites are restricted to those natural areas that:

Furnish outstanding examples of Earth’s record of life or its geologic processes

Provide excellent examples of ongoing ecological and biological evolutionary processes.

Contain natural phenomena that are rare, unique, superlative, or of outstanding beauty,

Furnish habitats for rare or endangered animals or plants or are sites of exceptional biodiversity.

Mixed heritage sites contain elements of both natural and cultural significance.

Source :- PIB

SC pulls up Kerala for denying relief to endosulfan victims

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

Context :

A contempt plea by four minors raised non-compliance with the January 2017 order.

More in news:

The Honourable Supreme Court has ordered the Kerala government to pay ₹5 lakh compensation to four minors affected by the toxic pesticide endosulfan in the State within two months.

If the victims are not paid the money within the period, they are at liberty to revive the contempt action against the Kerala government, the court said.

Issue :

Thousands of children [have] already lost their lives due to the non-availability of proper medical care. The economic backwardness of the area prevents persons like the petitioners from giving proper care to their children on time.

The victims said even a list prepared by the State government of victims entitled to ₹5 lakh compensation has around 6,000 people.

The petition said unnamed, forgotten victims continue to live in dire straits despite the Supreme Court order of January 2017.

the Supreme Court order specifically directed the State government to release the entire undisbursed payment of compensation, quantified as ₹5 lakh each, to all the affected persons.

Claim by kerala governemnt :

In January, 2019, the Kerala government had claimed it earmarked over ₹180 crore for payment of compensation to victims, some of whom were terminally-ill from the effects of the pesticide, which was aerially sprayed on cashew plantations adjoining habitations where the victims were located.

Responding to the contempt petition by the four children, the State, said the four victims were classified in the ‘Other’ category list and were not eligible for ₹5 lakh compensation.

A Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Indira Banerjee in early July, 2019, however, found no reason and justification for the government of Kerala to categorise these four individuals in the ‘Other’ category and to deny them payment of compensation.

Endosulfan :

Endosulfan pesticide was used widely on crops like cashew, cotton, tea, paddy, fruits and others until 2011, when the Supreme Court banned its production and distribution.

The health effects of the chemical include neurotoxicity, late sexual maturity, physical deformities, poisoning, among others.

Over the years, other studies have confirmed these findings, and the health hazards associated with Endosulfan are now widely known and accepted.

Insecticides Act of 1968 recommends restricted use of endosulfan.

The Stockholm Convention, a global treaty to protect human health and environment from such chemical compounds, has declared endosulfan a persistent organic pollutant and 73 countries have banned its use.

Persistent Organic Pollutants:

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are organic compounds that are resistant to environmental degradation.

It is due to this, they have been observed to persist in the environment, and are capable of long-range transport, bioaccumulation in human and animal tissue, biomagnification in food chains, and to have potential significant impacts on human health and the environment.

In 1995, the United Nations Environment Programme Governing Council (GC) decided to begin investigating POPs, initially beginning with a short list of the following twelve POPs, known as the ‘dirty dozen’. DDT was one among them

.

Endosulfan has been classified has highly hazardous by USA and European Union.

The Industrial Toxicological Research Centre in India also classifies Endosulfan as extremely hazardous.

Source :- The Hindu

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Awareness in the field of bio technology

Context :

Researchers from the University of Hyderabad have identified a small inhibitor that blocks an enzyme (Rad51) that plays a crucial role in repairing DNA damage in the malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum.

More in News:

Plasmodium falciparum is a protozoan parasite that causes malaria.

Both strands of the malaria parasite DNA get broken naturally. When DNA repair is prevented, it can lead to the accumulation of several double-strand breaks causing death of the parasites.

Also, certain anti-malaria drugs such as artemisinin are designed to kill the parasites by causing such breaks in the DNA.

So when the inhibitor is used along with such drugs, the effectiveness of the drugs increases drastically in both drug-sensitive and drug-resistant malaria.

DNA double-strand breaks occur naturally in malaria parasites due to errors during replication.

To repair DNA double-strand breaks. In the present study, they demonstrated that the inhibitor targets and prevents the Rad51 enzyme from functioning.

It is important to note that the Rad51 enzyme is essential for the homologous recombination repair mechanism.

The use of the inhibitor in combination with either of two first-line malaria drugs namely artemisinin(ART) and chloroquine (CQ) might slightly bring down recovery time.

Malaria :

Malaria is a disease caused by Plasmodium parasites that are transmitted to people through the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes.

There are 5 parasite species that cause malaria in humans, and 2 of these species – P. falciparum and P. vivax – pose the greatest threat.

In most cases, malaria is transmitted through the bites of female Anopheles mosquitoes.

World Malaria Report 2018 :

According to the World Malaria Report 2018,more than 200 million people were affected by malaria in 2017.

African Region carries a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden. In 2017, the region was home to 92% of malaria cases and 93% of malaria deaths.

India is the only country among the 11 highest-burden countries that saw substantial progress in reducing disease burden: it saw a 24% decrease in 2017 compared to 2016.

Source :- The Hindu

7^th JULY 2019 DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS