AUSINDEX-19                                                                                                                                             

India to set up agriculture institute in Malawi                                                                                         

Air pollution killed 1.2 million people in India in 2017, says study                                                       

Global Report on Food Crises 2019                                                                                                         

Early brain function affected in poor kids                                                                                               

Enzyme to curb bacteria cell growth discovered                                                                                   

AFSPA scaled back in Arunachal                                                                                                           

Starting May, ISRO to launch a string of ‘defence’ satellite                                                               

AUSINDEX-19

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests

Context :

• The third edition of bilateral maritime exercise between Royal Australian and Indian Navies AUSINDEX-19 is set to begin from  02 April 2019.

AUSINDEX-19 :

• AUSINDEX, an acronym for Australia India Exercise

• The bilateral maritime exercise is aimed to strengthen mutual cooperation and enhance interoperability between the Royal Australia Navy (RAN) and Indian Navy (IN) by providing opportunities for interaction and exchange of professional views between the personnel of the two navies.

• The third edition of AUSINDEX would involve exercises in all three dimensions with focus on Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) and shall be held in three phases.

  • The harbour phase

  • The sea phase

  • Second Harbor Phase

Background :

• A sign of the strengthening of bilateral and defense cooperation between the two countries as envisaged in the Framework for Security Cooperation (FSC) announced by the Australian and Indian Prime Ministers in 2014.

• The maiden edition of the exercise was held in September 2015 at Visakhapatnam.

• Australia hosted the second editionof the exercise off Freemantle in June 2017, wherein ships of the Eastern Fleet of the Indian Navy (IN) exercised with Royal Australian Navy (RAN) ships and submarines.

• The complexity of the biennial maritime exercise over the past four years has steadily increased.

Significance :

• The number of units being fielded by both navies in the bilateral exercise is the highest till date.

• The increased scale of participation signifies the importance attached to the exercise by both countries while the enhanced complexity is indicative of the interoperability between the two navies.

• Overall, the exercise underscores India’s vision of SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and shared objectives of the two countries towards ensuring good order in the maritime domain and solidarity with friendly and harmonious countries.

                                                                                                                                                             Source :- PIB

India to set up agriculture institute in Malawi

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests

Context :

• India has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development Consultancy Service (NABCONS) for setting up the India-Africa Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development (IAIARD) in Malawi, a landlocked country in southeastern Africa.

• The agreement is an an attempt to complement the efforts of the Government of India to enhance capacity in the areas of agro-financing and entrepreneurship development for African countries.

India-Africa Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development (IAIARD) :

• IAIARD will be a pan-African institute wherein trainees not only from Malawi but also from other African countries, will receive training to develop their human resources and build their capacity

• IAIARD will develop training programmes in the areas of micro-financing and agro-financing, among others.

• Indian government will bear the entire expenditure on faculty from India, the travel, logistics and training course expenses for students from other African countries for an initial period of three years

• This institute will be the first of its kind developed in an African country by India. This will further strengthen bilateral relations with Malawi and India's relations with the African Union

                                                                                                                      Source :- PIB; Business Standard

 Air pollution killed 1.2 million people in India in 2017, says study

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

Context :

• The State Of Global Air Report 2019, produced by the Boston-based Health Effects Institute (HEI) has revealed that 1.2 million Indians died due to ailments triggered by air pollution in 2017.

Key findings of the Report :

• Air pollution ranks fifth among global risk factors for mortality globally, exceeded only by behavioral and metabolic factors: poor diet, high blood pressure, tobacco exposure, and high blood sugar.

  • Globally, air pollution (PM 2.5, household and ozone emissions) is estimated to have contributed to about 4.9 million deaths — 8.7% of all deaths globally and 5.9% of all life years lost to disability, in 2017.

• India and China have the highest health burden from air pollution, followed by Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nigeria.

• In 2017, exposure to PM 2.5 pollution was found to be the third leading risk factor globally for Type 2 diabetes-related deaths and disability after high blood sugar and excessive body weight.

  • Globally, such exposure contributed to about 2.76 lakh deaths and 15.2 million life years lost to disability in 2017.

  • This burden was highest in India followed by China, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil.

India’s stand :

• Air pollution is now the third-highest cause of death among all health risks, ranking just above smoking, in India.

  • Over 1.2 million Indians died early due to exposure to unsafe air in 2017.

  • Out of the 1.2 annual premature deaths, 673,100 deaths were due to exposure to outdoor PM2.5, and more than 481,700 deaths were due to exposure to household air pollution in India.

• About 60% of India’s population was exposed to household pollution in 2017. However, the report also recognises that the proportion of households cooking with solid fuels in India has dipped from 76% in 2005 to 60% (846 million) in 2017, due to a major government program of shifting households from solid fuels to liquefied petroleum gas.

• Entire Indian population lives in areas with PM2.5 concentrations above the WHO Air Quality Guideline of 10 µg/m3, and only about 15 % of the population lives in areas with PM2.5 concentrations below the WHO’s least-stringent target of 35 µg/m3.

• Exposure to PM2.5 pollution contributed to 55,000 deaths and 2.7 million life years lost from type 2 diabetes in 2017.

• It can be noted that India has initiated major steps to address pollution sources: the Pradhan MantriUjjwalaYojana Household LPG program, accelerated Bharat Stage VI vehicle standards, and the new National Clean Air Programme.

  • These and future initiatives have the potential, if fully implemented as part of a sustained commitment to air quality, to result in significant health benefits in coming years.

                                                                                                                                  Source :- The Hindu

Global Report on Food Crises 2019

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERVARNANCE - Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate.

Context :

• Global Report on Food Crises 2019 ,a report released jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), World Food Programme (WFP) and EU.

Key Findings :

• Approximately 113 million people in 53 countries experienced high levels of food insecurity last year. These crises are primarily driven by conflict and climate-related disasters.

• According to the report, nearly two-thirds of those facing acute hunger come from just eight countries: Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

• And although there were 11 million fewer people believed to be in food crisis in 2018 compared with 2017, in 17 countries, acute hunger either remained the same or increased, the report indicates.

• Moreover, an additional 143 million people in another 42 countries are just one step away from acute hunger. Climate and natural disasters pushed another 29 million people into acute food insecurity in 2018, says the report, and that number excludes 13 countries - including North Korea and Venezuela - because of data gaps.

Main drivers of Acute food Insecurity and Malnutrition : 

• Conflict and insecurity

• Climate shocks

• Economic instability

• Disease outbreaks

Concern :

• Despite a slight drop in 2018 in the number of people experiencing acute food insecurity – the most extreme form of hunger – the figure is still far too high.

          Way forward :

• We must act at scale across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus to build the resilience of affected and vulnerable populations. To save lives, we also have to save livelihoods.

                                                                                                                                                     Source :- The Hindu

Early brain function affected in poor kids

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

Context :

• According to new research from the University of East Anglia, children born into poverty show key differences in early brain function.

• The team carried out the study in Uttar Pradesh, the highly populated region in India.

Key Findings :

• The  study aimed at looking at the functional brain development of children born into poorer backgrounds to see why many do not reach their full potential.

• A portable ‘functional near infrared spectroscopy’ (fNIRS) device was used to measure the brain activity of 42 children aged between four months and four years in rural settings.

• Researchers studied the brain function of children aged between four months and four years in rural India.

• They found that children from lower-income backgrounds, where mothers also had a low level of education, had weaker brain activity and were more likely to be distracted.

• The children’s ‘visual working memory’ — or how well they are able to store visual information and detect changes in the visual environment when they occur were investigated.

• The results of the study were compared with children from families in Midwest America.

• Factors such as parental education, income, caste, religion, the number of children in the family, and economic status were taken into account.

• The research team found that the children in India from families with low maternal education and income showed weaker brain activity and poorer distractor suppression in the left frontal cortex area of the brain that is involved in working memory.

Need of the Study :

• Each year, 250 million children in low and middle-income countries fail to reach their developmental potential.

• Therefore, there is a growing need to understand the global impact of poverty on early brain and behavioural development.

• Although the impact of adversity on brain development can trap children in an intergenerational cycle of poverty, the massive potential for brain plasticity is also a source of hope.

                                                                                                                                   Source :- The Hindu

Enzyme to curb bacteria cell growth discovered

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.

Context :

• The study has been published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, USA says that Scientists at the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB) have discovered a new enzyme which helps in breaking cell walls of bacteria.

More about the news:

• It is crucial to know how cells grow in bacteria to understand the anti-bacterial resistance to currently available antibiotics.

• Scientists all over the world are trying to understand this phenomenon.

• Scientists at the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB) have been working on how e. Coli bacteria cells function, divide and grow to understand diseases like cholera, leprosy and tuberculosis for the past decade.

• The team has been researching on how the cell governs the synthetic machinery to build the cell wall in the first place, identified the principal players behind the process and discovered the new mechanism or enzyme through which the cell regulates growth of its wall.

• Other bacteria, too, have the same enzyme working on cell division as the cell wall is fundamental for bacterial growth and division.

• Therefore, by blocking this ‘scissors enzyme’ from functioning, new ways to target microbes could be found, leading to a new wave of antibiotic drugs.

• In contrast, the classical antibiotic drugs target the last stage of cell synthesis to prevent cell growth like penicillin that hits the machinery that creates the cell wall — a mesh-like structure of cross-linked sugars and peptides.

Significance:       

• The discovery could help in providing new antibiotic drugs to combat anti-bacterial resistance. Antibiotics are medicines used to prevent and treat bacterial infections

                                                                                                                                  Source :- The Hindu

AFSPA scaled back in Arunachal

GS PAPER - 03 SECURITY - Security challenges and their management in border areas.

Context :

• After 32 years, the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, which gives sweeping powers to security forces, was partially removed from three of nine districts of Arunachal Pradesh but would remain in force in the areas bordering Myanmar.

What does the AFSPA mean?

• In simple terms, AFSPA gives armed forces the power to maintain public order in “disturbed areas”.

• They have the authority to prohibit a gathering of five or more persons in an area, can use force or even open fire after giving due warning if they feel a person is in contravention of the law.

•  If reasonable suspicion exists, the army can also arrest a person without a warrant; enter or search premises without a warrant; and ban the possession of firearms.

• Any person arrested or taken into custody may be handed over to the officer in charge of the nearest police station along with a report detailing the circumstances that led to the arrest.

What is a “disturbed area” and who has the power to declare it?

• A disturbed area is one which is declared by notification under Section 3 of the AFSPA.

• An area can be disturbed due to differences or disputes between members of different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities.

• The Central Government, or the Governor of the State or administrator of the Union Territory can declare the whole or part of the State or Union Territory as a disturbed area.

• A suitable notification would have to be made in the Official Gazette. As per Section 3, it can be invoked in places where “the use of armed forces in aid of the civil power is necessary”.

Origin of AFSPA :

• The Act came into force in the context of increasing violence in the Northeastern States decades ago, which the State governments found difficult to control.

•  The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Bill was passed by both the Houses of Parliament and it was approved by the President on September 11, 1958. It became known as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958.

SC Judgment  - AFSPA:

• SC in its judgement arrived at  certain conclusions including

  •  a suo-motto declaration can be made by the Central government, however, it is desirable that the state government should be consulted by the central government before making the declaration;

  • AFSPA does not confer arbitrary powers to declare an area as a ‘disturbed area’;

  • the declaration has to be for a limited duration and there should be a periodic review of the declaration 6 months have expired;

  • while exercising the powers conferred upon him by AFSPA, the authorised officer should use minimal force necessary for effective action, and

  • theauthorised officer should strictly follow the ‘Dos and Don’ts’ issued by the army.

Committees to review AFSPA:

• On November 19, 2004, the Central government appointed a five member committee headed by Justice B P Jeevan Reddy to review the provisions of the act in the north eastern states.

• The committee submitted its report in 2005, which included the following recommendations:

  •  AFSPA should be repealed and appropriate provisions should be inserted in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967;

  • The Unlawful Activities Act should be modified to clearly specify the powers of the armed forces and paramilitary forces and

  • grievance cells should be set up in each district where the armed forces are deployed.

• The 5th report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission on public order has also recommended the repeal of the AFSPA.

                                                                                                                                                     Source :- The Hindu

Starting May, ISRO to launch a string of ‘defence’ satellite

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Achievement of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.

Context :

• The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is expected to launch a number strategic earth observation (EO) satellites in 2019-2020.

ISRO Future Launch :

• RISAT-2B,  - is a radar imaging satellite. It has all weather capability to take images of the earth. It is a part of ISRO’s RISAT series

• Cartosat-3,  - is remote sensing satellite. It is an advanced version of Cartosat-2 series with improved spatial and spectral characteristics. It has an enhanced resolution of 0.25 metre for cartographic applications and high-resolution mapping.

• RISAT-2BR1,

• GISAT-1(ne series),

• RISAT-2BR2,

• GISAT-2,

• RISAT-1A, and

• GSAT-32 - is a communication satellite. It will replace GSAT-6A, which was lost in a failed launch. It seeks to boost point-to-point communications for military.

                                                                                                                                                              Source :- The Hindu

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