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Daily Current Affairs for UPSC, IAS, UPPSC/UPPCS, BPSC, MPPSC, RPSC and All State PCS Examinations

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iFLOWS- MUMBAI

Why in News ?

• Mumbai city is set to get a highly advanced state of art and integrated flood warning system named iFlows, which receives heavy monsoon rainfall every year resulting into floods and halting financial capital of India.

What is iFlows?

• IFLOWS-Mumbai is developed as a state of art Integrated Flood Warning system for Mumbai to enhance the resilience of the city of Mumbai by providing early warning for flooding specially during high rainfall events and cyclones.
• IFLOWS-Mumbai is developed by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
• MoES initiated the development of IFLOWS-Mumbai in July 2019 using the in-house expertise available within the Ministry of Earth Sciences in close coordination with Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai.
• It is built on a modular structure and comprises of seven modules, namely Data Assimilation, Flood, Inundation, Vulnerability, Risk, Dissemination Module, and Decision Support System
• The system incorporates field data from the rain gauge network stations set up by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) and Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), weather models from National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), (IMD), thematic layers on land use, infrastructure, etc provided by MCGM.
• The system has provisions to capture the urban drainage within the city and predict the areas of flooding.

Why iFlows System is so important for Mumbai ?

• Extreme precipitation events are on the rise in India driven by warming temperatures and changes in the monsoon due to climate change.
• Mumbai has been facing disastrous floods in the city continuously for last couple of decades.
• Regular floods halts the financial capital of India and causes severe loses especially to Municipal corporation named BMC.
• The worst affected flood occurred on 26th July, 2005 when the city received a rainfall of 94cm in span of 24 hours, paralyzing the city completely.
• This system can help prepare citizens and authorities about flood before they can occur and thus early preparedness could save a lot of lives and properties.

Lonar Lake

Why in NEWS ?

• Recently, the colour of water in Maharashtra’s Lonar lake, has changed to pink with experts attributing it to the salinity and presence of algae in the water body.

About the Lonar Lake

• Located around 500 km from Mumbai, the Lonar lake is in Buldhana district of Maharashtra.
• Is a the world's third largest Crater, formed after a meteorite hit the Earth some 50,000 years ago.
• The lake, which is a notified national geo-heritage monument, has saline water with pH of 10.5.
• Is a popular tourist hub and also attracts scientists from all over the world.

About Lake’s colour change

• Typically, the colour of the lake appears to be like emerald green has adopted a pinkish hue.
• Though this is not the first time that the colour of water has changed but authorities are trying to find out the real reason behind the major colour change occurred.
• The possible reasons could be-

• Salinity and algae can be responsible for this colour change of Lonar Lake.
• There is no oxygen below one meter of Lonar Lake's water surface. There is an example of a lake in Iran where water becomes reddish due to an increase in salinity.
• The level of water in the Lonar Lake is currently low as compared to the past few years and there is no rain to pour fresh water in it.
• The low level of water may lead to increased salinity and change in the behaviour of algae because of atmospheric changes The low level of water may lead to increased salinity and change in the behaviour of algae because of atmospheric changes.
• In case of a natural phenomenon, there are fungi which generally give a greenish colour to water most of the times. This seems to be a biological change in the Lonar crater during lockdown which lowered the number of fungi largely changing colour to pink.

What is a Crater Lake Landform?

A crater lake is a depression created by a volcanic crater or caldera that is filled with water.

Crater Lake Landforms Have 2 Main Characteristics:

1. Created by a volcano or meteor impact.
2. A crater or caldera filled with water.

Other Example of a Crater Lake Landform:

• The crater lake picture is of Lake Pinatubo, Philippines.

How are Crater Lakes Formed?

• When a volcano is no longer active, the crater or caldera may fill with water from rainfall and melting snow that may also feed the lake. A caldera is created by the collapse of a volcanic crater and the land around it. In a few cases, the volcano is still active, with vents that release gases under the lake which may cause the water to become acidic and unable to support life.
• A lake can also exist in an impact crater, created by the fall of a meteor or in one case a nuclear weapon test (like in Kazakhstan). Sometimes these are also called crater lakes.

Nature Index 2020

Why in NEWS ?

• Recently, India is placed at 12th place globally in science research output in released Nature Index table 2020 with top 5 being USA, China, Germany, UK and Japan.

What is the Nature Index?

• The Nature Index 2020 Annual Tables highlight the institutions and countries that dominated high quality research in the natural sciences .
• The rankings are based on an institution’s or country’s share of articles published in the 82 prestigious scientific journals selected by an independent panel of experts and tracked by the Nature Index database
• The database is compiled by Nature Research, a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals.
• Nature Research's flagship publication is Nature, a weekly multidisciplinary journal first published in 1869.
• The Nature Index provides a close to real-time alternative of high-quality research output and collaboration at the institutional, national and regional level.
• The Nature Index is updated monthly and also releases annual tables of country.
• Institution wise, Chinese academy of Sciences(CAS), China topped the rating followed by Harvard University, USA.

Nature Index, 2020 on India

• Three of the autonomous institutions of the Department of Science & Technology(DST), have found their place among top 30 Indian Institutions as per Nature Index 2020 ratings. These are

1. The Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata at 7th position.
2. Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore at 14th position and
3. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata at 30th position.

• Globally, the top-rated Indian institutions in this list are Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), at the 160th position and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore at the 184th position.

Advisory For Exotic Live Species in India

GOVERNMENT ISSUES ADVISORY TO STREAMLINE THE PROCESS FOR IMPORT AND POSSESSION OF EXOTIC LIVE SPECIES IN INDIA.

ABOUT

• Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has decided to collect stock information from the holders of exotic live species through voluntary disclosure in next six months.
• The following are proposed:

• Developing an inventory of exotic live species in India through Voluntary Disclosure Scheme to streamline CITES compliance.
• Procedure for Import of exotic live species.
• Registration/Declaration of progenies of the imported exotic live species,
• The processes under this Advisory shall be dealt online through the Parivesh Portal

• Exotic live species are animal or plant species moved from their original range (location) to a new one. These species are introduced to a new location most often by people.
• The phrases “exotic live species” used in this advisory mean only “the animals named under the Appendices I, II and III of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora” and does not include species from the Schedules of the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972.
• The registration will be done for the stock of animals, new progeny, as well as for import and exchange.

BENEFIT

• This will help in better management of the species and guide the holders about proper veterinary care, housing and other aspects of well-being of the species.
• The database of exotic animals will also help in control and management of zoonotic diseases on which guidance would be available from time to time to ensure safety of animals and humans.
• The declarer would not be required to produce any documentation in relation to the exotic live species if the same has been declared within six months of the date of issue of the advisory. For any declaration made after 6 months, the declarer shall be required to comply with the documentation requirement under the extant laws and regulations.

GOVERNMENT VIRTUALLY RELEASES “INDIA RANKINGS 2020” FOR HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

ABOUT

• Ministry of Human Resource Development released “India Rankings 2020” of Institutions of Higher Education in various categories on the basis of their performance on five broad categories of parameters.
• The ranking framework evaluates institutions on five broad generic groups of parameters, i.e. Teaching, Learning and Resources (TLR), Research and Professional Practice (RP), Graduation Outcomes (GO), Outreach and Inclusivity (OI) and Perception (PR). Ranks are assigned based on total sum of marks assigned for each of these five broad groups of parameters
• A total number of 3771 unique institutions offered themselves for ranking under “Overall”, category-specific and / or domain-specific rankings for India Rankings 2020.
• This is the fifth consecutive edition of India Rankings of the institutions of higher education in India.
• In 2020, an addition to nine rankings i.e. one domain “Dental” has been introduced for the first time bringing the total tally to 10 categories / subject domains

PURPOSE

• These rankings acts as a guide to students for selection of universities based on a set of criteria and helps universities to improve their performance on various ranking parameters and identify gaps in research and areas of improvement.
• This ranking of Institutions at national level instills a competitive spirit amongst institutions to perform better and secure higher rank in international ranking.
• This has created a habit of organizing the data by the institutions and most of all these institutions attempt themselves to become more competitive.

RESERVATION ISN’T A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT: SUPREME COURT

ABOUT

The Supreme Court held that reservation of seats to certain communities was not a Fundamental Right and refused to act on a petition filed by all political parties from Tamil Nadu who sought 50% OBC reservation in the all-India NEET seats surrendered by states.

The SC bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao said nobody can claim right to reservation as a fundamental right and ruled that refusing to provide reservation benefits cannot be treated as a violation of any constitutional right.

The Supreme Court has refused to entertain a bunch of pleas filed by various political parties against the Centre's decision not to grant 50% reservation to OBCs as per Tamil Nadu law in medical seats surrendered by the state in the All India Quota for under graduate, post graduate and dental courses in 2020-21.

BACKGROUND

• William Hunter and Jyotirao Phule originally conceived the concept of caste-based reservation system in 1882.
• The reservation system that exists presently, in real sense, was introduced by British Prime-Minister Ramsay Macdonald when he presented the ‘Communal Award’ in 1933.
• After long negotiations, Gandhi and Ambedkar signed the ‘Poona Pact’, where it was concluded that there would be a single Hindu electorate with certain reservations in it.
• Post-independence, initially reservations was provided to SCs and STs only.
• OBCs were included in the ambit of reservation in year 1991 on the recommendations of the Mandal Commission Report.
• In 1992 -Indra Sawhney Case, the Supreme Court while upholding the 27 percent quota for backward classes struck down the government notification reserving 10% government jobs for economically backward classes among the higher castes and total reserved quota should not exceed 50%.
• Part XVI deals with reservation of SC and ST in Central and State legislatures.
• Article 15(4) and 16(4) of the Constitution enabled the State and Central Governments to reserve seats in government services for the members of the SC and ST.

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