NEWS TODAY

VISIONIAS

21st MAY, 2021

China Encircling IndiaRecently, China has completed a key highway in Tibet, cutting through the Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon; touted as world’s deepest canyon on River BrahmaputraIt is close to Arunachal Pradesh Border and serves the strategic interests of China to encircle India from all parts through infrastructure along Line of Actual Control (LAC) and other initiatives like Indian Ocean Region through Sri Lanka, Western Border through China Pakistan Economic Corridor etc.

Over 70% of the transhipment business at the Sri Lanka’s East Container Terminal (ECT) is linked to India. The ECT is located some 3 km away from the Colombo port city.

With incorporation of amendments suggested by the Sri Lankan Supreme Court to make it consistent with the constitution, its Parliament has passed the bill on laws governing the China-backed Colombo Port city.Geo-political ramifications on the Indian Ocean region

Indian Ocean is the natural arena of India’s influence with overriding security consequences on India and neighbouring small Island Nations in the region.It is considered as part of Chinese Debt-trap Diplomacy to colonise the small nations. E.g. Earlier, Sri Lanka was forced to give its Hambantota port to China for a 99 years lease.

This can have serious ramifications towards India's efforts to build a safe, secure and stable Indian Ocean Region through efforts like SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region, launched in 2015).

SRI LANKA PARLIAMENT GIVES NOD TO CHINESE PORT CITY BILL

Note: To attain self-sufficiency in the production of pulses- Tur, Moong and Urad, the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has formulated a special Kharif strategy for implementation in the ensuing Kharif 2021 season.

It will put emphasis on availability of high yielding varieties of seeds (with special focus on soybean and groundnut) free of cost for the farmers.

Oilseeds:

Government initiatives for oilseeds:

India is one of the major oilseeds grower and importer of edible oils. India’s vegetable oil economy is world’s fourth largest after USA, China & Brazil. 

National Mission on Oilseeds and Oil Palm. Oil Palm Area Expansion under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana.Increasing the minimum support prices of oilseed cropsCreation of buffer stock for oilseeds.Yellow Revolution and Integrated Scheme on Oilseeds, Pulses, Oil Palm and Maize.

Top Oilseeds Producing States are Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.Main oil-seeds produced in India are soyabean, groundnut, rapeseed and mustard, castor seeds, sesamum (til), sunflower and linseed.Majority demand is met via import of palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia.

It will bring an additional 6.37 lakh hectare area under oilseeds which will help to increase the production of oilseeds and edible oil in the country.

AGRICULTURAL MINISTRY FOR-MULATES KHARIF STRATEGY 2021 FOR EDIBLE OILS SELF-SUFFICIENCY

The extraction of honey and beeswax is known as ‘Apiculture’.

Bees are known as "pollinators," helping plants live and reproduce by transferring pollen between various species of flowering plants.They live in hives (or colonies) and the members are divided into three types, based on function, as Queen, workers and drone.Apart from Pollination, they produce Honey and Beeswax, commonly used as food supplement, treatment of ailments or in cosmetics, soaps etc.

In recent times, due to changes in land use, pesticides, intensive agriculture and climate change, many bee species are under threat.

National Beekeeping and Honey Mission: Started in 2020 as a Central Sector Scheme, under National Bee Board, with aim towards overall promotion & development of scientific beekeeping.Madhu Kranti (Sweet Revolution) portal: For online registration and traceability system to track the source of honey and other bee products.

Making of FPOs of beekeepers with efforts from Khadi Village and Industry Committee (KVIC).

It sets up a Honey Testing Laboratory at the Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI), Pusa, New Delhi.

Government Steps

AGRICULTURE MINISTER LAUNCHES HONEY TESTING LABORATORY ON THE OCCASION OF WORLD BEE DAY

The move will make it mandatory for states to report both suspected and confirmed cases to the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP).

In a related development, doctors believe that white fungus (reported in Bihar) in COVID-19 patients is ‘more dangerous’ than black fungus.

Fungi (singular: fungus) are a kingdom of eukaryotic organisms that are heterotrophs (cannot make their own food). Fungi reproduce both sexually and asexually.

In Mucormycosis sinuses or lungs are affected after fungal spores in the air are inhaled. The incidence of this infection, traditionally, was reported in patients with uncontrolled diabetes.

This infection can be caused due to low immunity or if people come in contact with things that contain these moulds like water, etc. Apart from lungs it can also affect other parts of the body including “nails, skin, stomach, kidney, brain, private parts and mouth”.

Fungi can be single-celled (called yeast), multicellular while others alternate between both. Their cell wall is made up of Chitin (plant’s cell wall is of cellulose).

Lichens are symbiosis between a fungus and one or more species of unicellular algae and/or cyanobacteria. 

TO CHECK BLACK FUNGUS (MUCORMYCOSIS), CENTRE MAKES THE DISEASE ‘NOTIFIABLE’ UNDER EPIDEMIC DISEASES ACT, 1897

About Bees

An outbreak is a noticeable, oftensmall, increase over the expectednumber of cases. Firstly, outbreakof COVID-19 was at Wuhan China.

An epidemic is an outbreak over alarger geographic area. Widespreadcases of COVID-19 across chinameant that the Wuhan outbreak hadgrown to an epidemic.

Once an epidemic spread to variouscountries or regions of the world, itis considered a pandamic. Now incurrent situation 206 countries are affected by this pandemic disease.

Wuhan, China China World

VISIONIAS

VISIONIASALSO IN NEWS

National Commission for Protection of

Child Rights (NCPCR)

National Archives of India (NAI)

India-Oman Relations

‘Sick-building syndrome’ (SBS)

Gholvad Sapota (chikoo)

Oman is a strategic partner of India in the Gulf Region.

It is a key pillar of India’s West Asia Policy with the most robust defense and security cooperation mechanisms.

Regular institutional and cultural interactions with presence of vibrant Indian expatriate community in Oman.

Aerosols could be carried in the air for up to 10 metres and improving the ventilation of indoor spaces would reduce transmission, a government advisory on stopping the spread of COVID-19 said recently.

A geographical indication right enables those who have the right to use the indication to prevent its use by a third party whose product does not conform to the applicable standards.

It ensures that all Laws, Policies, Programmes, and Administrative Mechanisms are in consonance with the Child Rights perspective as enshrined in the Constitution of India and also the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

NCPCR said that the Centre and states should ramp up their preparations to protect children and neonatals.

Recently, the Centre has informed that no changes are proposed at National Archives building records during the revamp of the Central Vista Project. 

It functions under the Ministry of Culture and has one Regional Office at Bhopal and three Records Centres at Bhubaneswar, Jaipur and Puducherry.

NAI, established in 1891 at Calcutta as the Imperial Record Department, is the biggest archival repository in South Asia. It has a vast corpus of records viz., public records, private papers, oriental records, cartographic records and microfilms. 

NCPCR is a statutory body under Ministry of Women and Child Development set up in 2007 under the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights (CPCR) Act, 2005.

Recently, India and Oman renewed the MoUs on military cooperation and maritime issues.

About India-Oman Relations

SBS is a situation in which building occupants experience acute health and comfort effects that appear to be linked to time spent in a building, but no specific illness or cause can be identified. 

Gholvad Sapota from Palghar district of Maharashtra is a Geographical Indication (GI) certified product which begins its export to UK.GI is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin.

India’s new buildings don’t get adequate ventilation due to poor architecture planning.  

Oilseeds:

Government initiatives for oilseeds:

Plasma is the fourth state of matter, along with solid, liquid and gas. Heating a gas will form a plasma – a soup of positively charged particles (ions) and negatively charged particles (electrons). Because so much of the universe is made of plasma, its behavior and properties are of intense interest to scientists in many disciplines. Importantly, at the temperatures required for the goal of practical fusion energy, all matter is in the form of plasma.

BGK waves are nonlinear electrostatic waves in a collision less plasma.

E.g. It is the only nation with regular exercises by all three armed forces like ‘Naseem-Al-Bahr’ by Navies of both nations, ‘Al-Najah’ at Army level and ‘Eastern Bridge’ between air forces.

The theory solves the conflict between the observations from Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) Mission and theoretical predictions.MMS is NASA’s robotic space mission to investigate magnetic reconnection (how the Sun's and Earth's magnetic fields connect and disconnect, explosively transferring energy from one to the other).

The new theory sheds light on the generation of these structures leading to the unravelling of the mystery that causes plasma transport and heating of plasma.

Significance: Helps understand the complicated nature of Sun-Earth interactions happening in the magnetosphere and may unlock the mysteries of the ion-hole structures (a localized plasma region where the ion density is lower than the surrounding plasma). 

In 2017, MMS observed negative monopolar potential (electric field potentials which can be visualized in the form of single-humped pulse-type structures).  

They have completely ruled out the necessity of the upper limit in the temperature ratio between ions and electrons for the generation of a special kind of wave called Bernstein Green Kruskal (BGK).

However, none of the available theories could explain the characteristics of these structures.

INDIAN SCIENTISTS SHED LIGHT ON MYSTERY BEHIND “NEGATIVE MONOPOLAR POTENTIAL” A COMPLEX PHENOMENON IN PLASMA

It is an inter-governmental security forum held annually since the first summit in 2002 by an independent think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).It is attended by defense ministers, permanent heads of ministries and military chiefs of 28 Asia-Pacific states aimed at building confidence and fostering practical cooperation.

It cultivates a sense of community among the most important policymakers in the defence and security community in the region.

Shangri-La dialogue (SLD) Cancelled