Insights Daily Current Affairs + PIB: 20 August 2019

insightsonindia.com/2019/08/20/insights-daily-current-affairs-pib-20-august-2019

August 20,
2019

Insights Daily Current Affairs + PIB: 20 August 2019

Relevant articles from PIB:

GS Paper 2:

Topics Covered:

1. Important International institutions, agencies and fora, their structure, mandate.

UN Security Council

What to study?

For Prelims: About UNSC- composition, objectives and functions.

For Mains: Role and significance of UNSC, need for UNSC reforms, why India should be given
permanent membership?

Context: Vice President calls for renewed efforts for India to gain permanent
membership of the UN Security Council.

About UNSC:

What is it?

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the organs of the United Nations
and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security.

Its powers include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of

international sanctions, and the authorization of military action through Security Council
resolutions; it is the only UN body with the authority to issue binding resolutions to
member states.

Members: The Security Council consists of fifteen members. Russia, the United Kingdom,
France, China, and the United States—serve as the body’s five permanent members.
These permanent members can veto any substantive Security Council resolution,
including those on the admission of new member states or candidates for Secretary-
General.

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The Security Council also has 10 non-permanent members, elected on a regional basis to
serve two-year terms. The body’s presidency rotates monthly among its members.

Role and Significance of UNSC:

1. The Security Council is the United Nations’ most powerful body, with “primary
responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.
2. Its powers include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the
establishment of international sanctions, and the authorization of military action
through Security Council resolutions.
3. It is the only UN body with the authority to issue binding resolutions to member
states.
4. Under the UN Charter, all Member States are obligated to comply with Council s
decisions.

Proposed reforms:

Reform of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) encompasses five key issues:
categories of membership, the question of the veto held by the five permanent
members, regional representation, the size of an enlarged Council and its working
methods, and the Security Council-General Assembly relationship. There is also a
proposal to admit more permanent members.

India’s demands:

India has been calling for the reform of the UN Security Council along with Brazil,
Germany and Japan for long, emphasising that it rightly deserves a place at the UN high
table as a permanent member.

Why India should be given a permanent seat in the council?

1. India was among the founding members of United Nations.

2. It is the second largest and a one of the largest constant contributor of troops to
United Nations Peacekeeping missions.
3. Today, India has over 8,500 peacekeepers in the field, more than twice as many as
the UN’s five big powers combined.
4. India, since long time, has been demanding expansion of UNSC and its inclusion as
permanent member in it. It has been a member of UNSC for 7 terms and a
member of G-77 and G-4, so permanent membership is a logical extension.

GS Paper 3:

Topics covered:

1. Conservation related issues.

DRAFT NATIONAL RESOURCE EFFICIENCY POLICY

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What to study?

For Prelims: Key features of the policy.

For Mains: Resource efficiency- need, significance, challenges and means to achieve it,
NITI Aayog’s strategy on resource efficiency.

Context: Driven by serious sustainability concern, the Ministry of Environment, Forests

and Climate Change had proposed a draft National Resource Efficiency Policy 2019.

It aims to streamline the efficient use of these resources with minimum negative impact
on environment.

Key features of the policy:

1. It seeks to set up a National Resource Efficiency Authority (NREA) with a core

working group housed in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
and a members group with representations from different ministries, state/union
territory, and other stakeholders.
2. The authority would be supported by an Inter-Ministerial National Resource
Efficiency Board to guide on the aspects critical to its implementation.
3. It also plans to offer tax benefits on recycled materials, green loans to small and
medium Enterprises (SMEs) and soft loans to construct waste disposal facilities,
apart from setting up Material Recovery Facilities (MRF).
4. Manufacturers and service providers would also be required to use more recycled
or renewable materials and awareness would be created among consumers to
indicate the shift.
5. Idea of the national policy is to drive the country towards circular economy
through efficient use of available material resources, based on principle of 6R and
‘green public procurement’.
6. The 6R stands for reduce, reuse, recycle, redesign, re-manufacture and refurbish
while the very premise of ‘green public procurement’ is to procure products with
lower environmental footprints such as secondary raw materials and locally
sourced materials.
7. It also pitches for moving towards ‘zero landfill’ approach in the country, hinting at
possibility of imposing ‘landfill taxes’ and ‘high tipping fees’ for bulk generators of
waste so that they can move towards optimal use of materials and better waste
management.

Functions of NERA:

1. Develop and implement resource efficient strategies for material recycling, reuse
and land-filling targets for various sectors.
2. Set standards for reuse of secondary raw materials to ensure quality.
3. Maintain a database of material use and waste generated, recycled and land filled,
across various sectors and different regions and monitor the implementation.

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What is Resource Efficiency?

Resource efficiency very simply put is making more with fewer materials. In practice,
through a life-cycle approach, it leads to minimizing impact on environment & the
associated societal burdens, transforming ‘waste’ into ‘resources’ fostering circular
economy, and strengthening resource security.

Resource Efficiency and Circular Economy are important goals and central principles for
achieving sustainable development. Sustainability is a global priority and SDGs
commitment and 11th Five year plan also clearly enunciate importance of Resource
efficiency (RE).

Why ensure resource efficiency?

India’s large population, rapid urbanization and expanding industrial production have led
to exploitation of available limited natural resources with concerns regarding resource
depletion and future availability becoming more pronounced.

Therefore, Enhancing resource efficiency (RE) and promoting the use of secondary raw
materials (SRM) is a pertinent strategy to address these challenges and reduce
dependence on primary resource.

Challenges before India:

1. According to data available, India’s resource extraction of 1580 tonnes/acre is

much higher than the world average of 450 tonnes/acre, while material
productivity remains low.
2. Water is fast becoming scarce while deteriorating air quality has emerged as a
major threat to human life.
3. There has been massive soil degradation, with 147 million hectares (Mha) of a total
of 329 Mha land area hit.
4. Import dependency is nearly 100% for the majority of the ‘most critical’ materials
-cobalt, copper and lithium that find extensive application in high-end technology
industry.
5. Over 80% of crude oil that is processed in the economy is imported , alongwith 85%
of its coking coal demand. Extraction of non-metallic minerals is crippled with
challenges.
6. To add to the problems, the country’s recycling rate is just about 20-25%
compared with 70% in developing countries in Europe. The situation will only
aggravate as India is likely to double its material consumption by 2030.

Strategy on Resource Efficiency:

1. NITI Aayog in collaboration with the European Union delegation to India have
released the Strategy on Resource Efficiency. The strategy aims to promote
resource efficiency in India.
2. This strategy is the first policy document to emphasize resource productivity in
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 the country. The Strategy emphasizes on Sustainable Public Procurement (SSP) as
an action agenda which will be the market transformation tool to transform to a
resource efficient economy.
3. It is developed with the recommendations from the Indian Resource Efficiency
Programme (IREP), launched by the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forests and
Climate Change (MoEFCC) and Indian Resource Panel (InRP) in April 2017.

GS Paper 2 and 3:

Topics Covered:

1. Important International institutions, agencies and fora, their structure, mandate.

2. Security challenges and their management in border areas; linkages of organized
crime with terrorism.

Information Fusion Centre (IFC) for the Indian Ocean Region (IOR)

What to study?

For Prelims: Key facts on IOR.

For Mains: IOR- significance, potential, challenges to its security and the need for international
collaboration.

Context: The capabilities of Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR)
are being enhanced under the National Maritime Domain Awareness (NMDA) Project.

The NMDA project was launched in accordance with the vision of PM on SAGAR (Security
and Growth for All in the Region).

About IFC- IOR:

The IFC-IOR was established with the vision of strengthening maritime security in the
region and beyond, by building a common coherent maritime situation picture and
acting as a maritime information hub for the region.

The IFC has been established at the Navy’s Information Management and Analysis
Centre (IMAC) in Gurugram, which is the single point centre linking all the coastal radar
chains to generate a seamless real-time picture of the nearly 7,500-km coastline.

Through this Centre, information on “white shipping”, or commercial shipping, will be

exchanged with countries in the region to improve maritime domain awareness in the
Indian Ocean.

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Significance and the need:

1. The IOR has a diverse set of littorals and island nations, each with their unique
needs, aspirations, interest and values.
2. It is necessary to counter the Rise in maritime piracy in the region.
3. IFR-IRO would also ensure that the entire region is benefited by mutual
collaboration and exchange of information and understanding the concerns and
threats which are prevalent in the region.

Why is the Indian Ocean is important?

1. It enjoys a privileged location at the crossroads of global trade, connecting the

major engines of the international economy in the Northern Atlantic and Asia-
Pacific. This is particularly important in an era in which global shipping has
burgeoned.
2. Indian Ocean is also rich in natural resources. 40% of the world’s offshore oil
production takes place in the Indian Ocean basin.
3. Fishing in the Indian Ocean now accounts for almost 15% of the world’s total.
4. Mineral resources are equally important, with nodules containing nickel, cobalt,
and iron, and massive sulphide deposits of manganese, copper, iron, zinc, silver,
and gold present in sizeable quantities on the sea bed.
5. Indian Ocean coastal sediments are also important sources of titanium, zirconium,
tin, zinc, and copper. Additionally, various rare earth elements are present, even if
their extraction is not always commercially feasible.

Relevant articles from various news sources:

GS Paper 3:

Topics covered:

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 1. Awareness in space.

Interplanetary pollution

What to study?

For prelims: Beresheet mission- objectives and key features.

For mains: Interplanetary pollution- concerns, effects and solutions.

Context: On April 11, the Israeli spacecraft Beresheet attempted to land on the Moon,
but crashed on the surface. It was carrying a number of items — including thousands of
specimens of a living organism called tardigrade.

The question is: did the thousands of dehydrated tardigrades on Beresheet survive the
crash? And if they did, are they now living on the Moon?

First of all, what are Tardigrades?

1. The tardigrade, also known as water bear, is among the toughest and most
resilient creatures on Earth.
2. The tardigrade can only be seen under a microscope.
3. Half a millimetre long, it is essentially a water-dweller but also inhabits land and, a
2008 study found, can survive in the cold vacuum of outer space .
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 4. The tardigrade can endure extreme hot and cold temperature levels.
5. They themselves expel water from their bodies and set off a mechanism to protect
their cells, and can still revive if placed in water later. The organism is known to
“come back to life” on rehydration.
6. The tardigrade derives its name from the fact that it looks like an eight-legged
bear, with a mouth that can project out like a tongue.
7. A tardigrade typically eats fluids, using its claws and mouth to tear open plant and
animal cells, so that it can suck nutrients out of them.
8. It is also known to feast on bacteria and, in some cases, to kill and eat other
tardigrades.

Did any of them survive the impact? If they did, what happens to them now?

1. When the tardigrades were placed on the Israeli moon mission Beresheet, they
were in a tun state — dehydrated, with their chubby limbs and heads retracted
and all metabolic activity temporarily suspended.
2. Their arrival on the moon was unexpectedly explosive; Beresheet’s crash landing
on April 11 may have scattered the microorganisms onto the lunar surface.
3. But as long as the tardigrades remain on the moon, their chances of spontaneously
awakening are low. Without liquid water, the tiny creatures will remain in a tun
state, and while there’s evidence of ice on the moon, liquid water is nowhere to be
found.
4. Even if the lunar tardigrades did somehow encounter liquid water while still on the
moon, without food, air and a moderate ambient temperature, they wouldn’t last
very long once they revived.

What’s the concern now? Are we polluting the moon’s atmosphere?

Scientists have yet to find any evidence that the moon ever hosted living organisms(other
than visiting astronauts and microbial hitchhikers from Earth) that could be threatened
by microscopic invaders. However, contamination could carry serious consequences for
missions to planets where life might yet be found.

There is already a fairly sizeable amount of debris from redundant spacecraft and litter
left behind by astronauts. As more missions are planned to the moon, eventually with
human passengers and perhaps even settlements, we must learn to clean up as we go
along. Otherwise, we are going to have the sort of crisis that we are seeing on Earth with
the outcry about environmental damage from plastics.

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Beresheet:

Israel’s First Lunar Lander- Beresheet– was launched on board Falcon 9.

Beresheet attempted to become the first Israeli spacecraft, and the first
privately-operated mission, to land on the Moon.
So far, only three other nations have carried out controlled “soft” landings on the
moon – the United States, the former Soviet Union and China.

Sources: the Hindu.

GS Paper 3:

Topics covered:

1. Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact

assessment.

India largest emitter of SO2 in world

Context: India is the largest emitter of anthropogenic sulphur dioxide in the world , as
per the data released by environmental NGO Greenpeace on August 19, 2019.

Anthropogenic sulphur dioxide is produced from burning of coal and it is known to

largely contribute to air pollution.

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Key findings:

1. SO2 hotspots across the world have been mapped.

2. The SO2 hotspots were detected by the OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument)
satellite.
3. India has over 15 percent of all anthropogenic sulphur dioxide (SO2) hotspots in
the world.
4. The main SO2 hotspots in India include Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh, Korba in
Chhattisgarh, Talcher and Jharsuguda in Odisha, Neyveli and Chennai in Tamil
Nadu, Kutch in Gujarat, Ramagundam in Telangana and Chandrapur and Koradi in
Maharashtra.
5. Norilsk smelter complex in Russia is the largest SO2 emission hotspot in the
world, followed by Kriel in Mpumalanga province in South Africa and Zagroz in
Iran.

How to control the SO2 emission?

1. SO2 emission is a significant

contributor to air pollution and the
largest source of SO2 in the
atmosphere is burning of fossil fuels
in power plants and other industrial
facilities.
2. The primary reason for India’s high
emission output is the expansion of
coal-based electricity generation
over the past decade.
3. India should take stricter action
against coal power plants and
should not give them a free to hand
to continue polluting the
atmosphere and cause a public
health emergency.

Efforts in this regard:

The Environment Ministry had introduced SO2 emission limits for coal power
plants in December 2015 and set the initial deadline to control SO2 emissions from
power generation by December 2017.
The deadline was later extended till December 2019 after a request from the
Ministry of Power and power plant operators in Delhi-NCR and till 2022 for some
other power plants across the country through a Supreme Court order.

Sources: Indian Express.

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GS Paper 2:

Topics Covered:

Schemes for the vulnerable sections of the society.

PMUY

What to study?

For Prelims: PMU- key features.

For Mains: PMUY- objectives, features, significance and measures needed to sustain the
momentum.

Context: The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana is hailed as a timely intervention to rectify
the harm caused by Household Air Pollution (HAP).

Challenges that India is currently facing:

1. The single greatest contributor to air pollution in India is the burning of solid fuels
in households.
2. Burning of such solid fuels, like firewood, impacts the health of household
members and accounts for somewhere between 22% to 52% of all ambient air
pollution in India.
3. One of the many pollutants produced on the burning of such solid fuels is fine
particulate matter. Such particles can travel deep into the respiratory system, and
exposure to them can cause several adverse health effects, both short-term and
long-term, including respiratory problems and heart disease.

About Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana:

It aims to provide LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) connections to poor households.

Who is eligible? Under the scheme, an adult woman member of a below poverty line
family identified through the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) is given a deposit-free
LPG connection with financial assistance of Rs 1,600 per connection by the Centre.

Identification of households: Eligible households will be identified in consultation with

state governments and Union territories. The scheme is being implemented by the
Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

Key objectives of the scheme are:

1. Empowering women and protecting their health.

2. Reducing the serious health hazards associated with cooking based on fossil fuel.
3. Reducing the number of deaths in India due to unclean cooking fuel.
4. Preventing young children from significant number of acute respiratory illnesses

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 caused due to indoor air pollution by burning the fossil fuel.

What makes LPG adoption necessary?

1. A large section of Indians, especially women and girls, are exposed to severe
household air pollution (HAP) from the use of solid fuels such as biomass, dung
cakes and coal for cooking.
2. A report from the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare places HAP as the second
leading risk factor contributing to India’s disease burden.
3. According to the World Health Organization, solid fuel use is responsible for about
13% of all mortality and morbidity in India (measured as Disability-Adjusted Life
Years), and causes about 40% of all pulmonary disorders, nearly 30% of cataract
incidences, and over 20% each of ischemic heart disease, lung cancer and lower
respiratory infection.

Way ahead:

The PMUY is a bold and much-needed initiative, but it should be recognised that this is
just a first step. The real test of the PMUY and its successor programmes will be in how
they translate the provision of connections to sustained use of LPG or other clean fuels
such as electricity or biogas.

Truly smokeless kitchens can be realized only if the government follows up with
measures that go beyond connections to actual usage of LPG. This may require
concerted efforts cutting across Ministries beyond petroleum and natural gas and
including those of health, rural development and women and child welfare.

Sources: Indian Express.

Facts for Prelims:

What is Debenture Redemption Reserve (DRR)?

It is a provision stating that any Indian corporation that issues debentures must create
a debenture redemption service in an effort to protect investors from the possibility of
a company defaulting.

This provision was tacked onto the Indian Companies Act of 1956, in an
amendment introduced in the year 2000.
Why in News? Government removes Debenture Redemption Reserve requirement
for Listed Companies, NBFCs and HFCs by amending the Companies (Share Capital
& Debentures) Rules.
Significance: The measure has been taken by the Government with a view to
reducing the cost of the capital raised by companies through issue of debentures
and is expected to significantly deepen the Bond Market.

Okjokull glacier:

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Context: Iceland’s Okjokull glacier commemorated with plaque.

The glacier was officially declared dead in 2014 when it was no longer thick enough to
move.

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