Daily Current Affairs : 24th June

Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE

1. Flood Hazard Atlas
2. Effects of urbanization on Temperature
3. Kartarpur Corridor
4. Inner line Permit
5. Chikungunya Virus
6. Curiosity Mission
7. Constructive Vote of No Confidence
8. Bangkok Declaration, Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)

1. Flood Hazard Atlas

Context : Odisha has come out with a unique flood hazard atlas on the basis of historic flood inundation captured through satellite imagery over the period from 2001 to 2018, which is expected to help the State manage floods more efficiently.

About the Atlas

• The National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Hyderabad had taken the study on flood hazard zonation for Odisha.
• A large number of satellite images acquired over 18 years (2001-2018) were used. All satellite data sets were analysed and flood layers were extracted. All the flood layers corresponding to a year are combined as one inundation layer, so that this layer represents the maximum flooded area in one year.”
• All such combined flood layers for 18 years were integrated into flood hazard layer representing the observed flood-inundated areas with different frequencies. This layer was integrated with the digital database layers of Odisha The atlas would serve as a useful resource of information for policy makers, planners and civil society groups
• Eight out of 30 districts such as Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghapur, Balasore, Puri, Jajpur, Khordha and Cuttack districts are more flood-affected districts. As high as 77% of Bhadrak and 70% of the Kendrapara district have been categorised as flood hazard.

Benefits

• It will help to systematically plan flood control measures
• It will help to control developmental activities on floodplains
• It will help to carry out relief and rescue operation
• It will also help to plan relief shelters and health centres

2 . Effects of urbanization on Temperature

Context : How urbanisation of cities in the last decade can sharply increase the local temperature has been well documented by a recent study undertaken by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhubaneswar.

Key Findings

• The team used 30 years of surface temperature measurements taken from over 22 sites over the state of Odisha coupled with Earth Observation data and model output to explore the effect of land use land cover and its changes.
• Local surface temperature in large cities in Odisha — Cuttack and Bhubaneswar — has increased by as much as 40-50% during the period 2001-2010.
• While temperature has increased by about 0.9 degree C due to regional warming, which is a global phenomenon, urbanisation or changes in land use and land cover alone has contributed 40-50% of that increase in these cities.
• In other words, there has been a 0.5 degree C increase in absolute local temperature in large cities in the State during the period 2001 to 2010 solely due to urbanisation.
• In the case of smaller cities and town in the State of Odisha, the change in local warming caused by urbanisation or changes in land use and land cover has been about 25%.
• The study shows that across the State of Odisha, changes in cropping pattern and urbanisation have together had a clear effect on long term temperature changes. For instance, the cropping pattern has seen a clear shift from Kharif crops (July-October) to Rabi crops (October-March). Compared with 2004, Kharif crop cultivation area in 2010 had reduced by 28,000 sq. km, whereas there has been an increase of 38,000 sq. km in Rabi crop cultivation area during the same period.

3 . Kartarpur Corridor

Context : Pakistan is reluctant to build a bridge on its side to connect with the one being built on the Indian side for seamless movement to the Kartarpur shrine, a senior government official said on Saturday. The official said the bridge on the Pakistani side would cut into their defence embankment, and the neighbouring country had refused the proposal after initially agreeing to it.

About Kartarpur Corridor

• Guru Nanak Dev ji had assembled the Sikh community at Kartarpur and lived there for 18 years till 1539. The Gurudwara Darbar Sahib is built where Guru Nanak Dev Ji took his last breath. 
• To mark Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s 550^th birth anniversary in 2019, the Government of India decided to build the Kartarpur road Corridor upto the international border between India and Pakistan as an integrated development project.
• The Corridor will let Sikh pilgrims visit the iconic Gurudwara Darbar Sahib at  Kartarpur  on the banks of river Ravi in Pakistan.

How the corridor will be built

• India and Pakistan had announced that they will build Corridors on their respective sides to let Sikh pilgrims visit the holy shrine without visa and to help them walk across and come back without having to secure a visa. 
• The Indian side of Corridor starts from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur district and extends upto International border between India and Pakistan.
• The project corridor is to be developed by National Highways Authority of India and will be  funded by Government of India.
• The project corridor is 4 lane with service road and all other appropriate amenities for pilgrims intending to visit Gurudwara Darbar Sahib, Kartarpur in Pakistan. 

Importance

• This corridor will be a historical landmark between India and Pakistan and will also boost tourism as more pilgrims would visit the holy shrine throughout the year between two countries

Issues to be addressed

• Among the issues that need to be finalised are the exact point of crossing over for the pilgrims, the identity cards required, as well as security procedures and guarantees needed by both sides.
• In a previous draft, Pakistan had proposed a 14-point agreement, which included visa free travel for the pilgrims who would be processed at checkpoints on both the Indian and Pakistani side. The agreement included setting up a database of all pilgrims visiting, with a suggested cap of 500 pilgrims per day.
• Earlier, the MEA had said there should be no restriction on the number of pilgrims or visiting hours. However, given security protocols, the Ministry of Home Affairs concluded that a cap would be necessary. The draft agreement from Pakistan also proposes to keep the corridor open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day

4 . Inner Line Permit

Context : A petition filed before the Supreme Court has sought a direction to the Centre and the Nagaland government to take appropriate steps for the protection of life and liberty, properties and other fundamental rights of non-Nagas living in the commercial hub of Dimapur following the imposition of the Inner Line Permit (ILP).

About Inner Line Permit

• The ILP is a special pass or permit that is required to enter the Northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.
• The system was introduced by the British to protect their commercial interests, particularly in oil and tea, and continues now essentially as a mechanism to firewall the tribal peoples and their cultures from onslaughts by outsiders.

About the Issue

• Nagaland is protected by the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation of 1873, whereby an Inner Line Permit is issued to outsiders for safeguarding the citizenship, rights and privileges of the Nagas but Dimapur district was not included under the provisions.
• State Cabinet had taken a decision to extend the operation of the 1873 Regulation in Dimapur, therefore, many non-Nagas who have landed properties with commercial shops, godowns, etc. and who are staying in as tenants, and many locals who earn their income by means of collecting house rent from tenants would be adversely affected

5 . Chikungunya

Context : The Institute of Life Sciences (ILS), which functions under the Department of Biotechnology, has entered into a non-exclusive license for product commercialisation after having successfully developed antibodies against the Chikungunya viral (CHIKV) infection.

About Chikungunya

• Chikungunya is a viral disease which is transmitted to humans by infected mosquitoes – including Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus.
• The name chikungunya originates from a verb in the Kimakonde language, meaning ‘to become contorted. This refers to the ‘stooped’ appearance of those suffering with joint pain.

About the antibodies against Chikungunya

• Antibodies, also referred to as immunoglobulins, are glycoproteins naturally produced in response to invading foreign particles (antigens) such as microorganisms and viruses. As such, they play a critical role in the immune system’s defense against infection and disease.
• ILS is the first to develop and characterize novel, highly sensitive and specific polyclonal antibodies against the non-structural proteins – nsP1, nsP3 and nsP4 of CHIKV. They have also developed and characterized a monoclonal antibody against nsP2 of CHIKV.
• Polyclonal antibodies are antibodies that are secreted by different B cell lineages within the body whereas monoclonal antibodies come from a single cell lineage. They are a collection of immunoglobulin molecules that react against a specific antigen, each identifying a different epitope.
• Generation of antibodies has had significant impact on the progress of CHIKV-based research. It will help researchers unravel myriad aspects of virus pathogenesis. Moreover, with greater light shed upon the CHIKV infection biology using these antibodies, research communities are now a step closer to developing efficacious antivirals and other control strategies against the Chikungunya virus

6 . Curiosity Mission

Context :  NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered startlingly high amounts of methane in the Martian air, a gas that on Earth is usually produced by living things.

About Curiosity Rover

• Curiosity is a car-sized rover designed to explore the crater Gale on Mars as part of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission (MSL).
• As established by the Mars Exploration Program, the main scientific goals of the MSL mission are to help determine whether Mars could ever have supported life, as well as determining the role of water, and to study the climate and geology of Mars.

7 . Constructive Vote of No Confidence

Context : BJD in Odisha has proposed a solution — a provision on the lines of what is followed in Germany. This is based on a concept called “constructive vote of no-confidence”, also recommended by the Law Commission of India in a 2018 draft report.

About the Provision

• Article 67 [Vote of no confidence] of Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany) sets conditions for moving a no-confidence motion against the Chancellor — the Bundestag (Parliament) may express its lack of confidence in the Federal Chancellor only by electing a successor by the vote of a majority of its members and requesting the Federal President to dismiss the Chancellor. The President must comply with the request and appoint the person elected.
• Article 68 [Vote of confidence] states that if a motion of the Chancellor for a vote of confidence is not supported by a majority of members, the President, upon the proposal of the Chancellor, may dissolve the Bundestag within 21 days. The right of dissolution shall lapse as soon as the Bundestag elects another Chancellor by a majority vote.

Objective

• Since the provision allows Parliament to withdraw confidence from a head of government only if there is a majority in favour for a prospective successor, it narrows the scope of the Opposition to overthrow the government at will and necessitate elections before the government ends its term.
• The underlying premise is that there is a fixed five-year-tenure (for the House) and that there will be a government no matter what. The government will be presumed to have a majority unless another grouping is in a position to demonstrate that they have greater numbers

8 . Facts for Prelims

Bangkok Declaration

• Under the declaration, ASEAN nations agreed to strengthen national laws and regulations on marine debris, promote innovative solutions to improve plastics value chains and resource efficiency, as well as change behaviours to prevent and reduce marine debris.
• The agreement omits penalties for the worst offending companies or countries, and fails to specify measures to tackle the problem.

Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)

• The NDVI is a simple indicator which tells how much of the ground is covered with vegetation. It is measured remotely from satellite data.
• It calculates the difference between the red and near infrared components of light reflected by objects, from, say, a satellite. Since healthy vegetation strongly absorbs red and reflects near infrared light, this difference can indicate the presence of healthy vegetation and map it into a colour code.
• It is used to estimate the amount of food abundance available to herbivorous animals, for example, elephants. The NDVI is used, for instance, in attempts to track the presence of elephants using the vegetation they consume.