DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

Tamil Nadu has allotted Rs 25 crores to Project Nilgiri Tahr which was launched in 2022 to protect and conserve the animal.

• Scientific name - Nilgiritragus hylocrius
• It is the only mountain ungulate (large mammals with hooves) in southern India amongst the 12 species present in India.
• Population estimates - 3,122 individuals in the wild (as per a report released by WWF India in 2015)
• Habitat – It is a sure-footed (not likely to slip) ungulate that inhabits the open montane grassland habitats at elevations from 1200 to 2600 m of the South Western Ghats.
• Distribution – It is endemic to Western Ghats but currently large populations are found only in Nilgiris and Anamalais.
• Palani hills, Srivilliputtur, and the Meghamalai and Agasthiyar ranges holds smaller population.

The Eravikulam National Park in Kerala is home to the largest population of the Nilgiri tahr, with more than 700 individuals.

• Threat – Habitat loss and occasional hunting for its meat and skin.
• Conservation status
  • IUCN status – Endangered
  • Wildlife (Protection) Act of India, 1972 - Schedule I

Nilgiri Tahr is Tamil Nadu’s State Animal and the State celebrates October 7 as Nilgiri Tahr Day to honour hunter-turned-conservationist ERC Davidar.

Nilgiri Tahr finds mention in one of earliest Tamil epic Silapathikaram as ‘varai aadu’.

The 2^nd edition of the World Food India 2023 held at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi.

• The 1^st edition of the event was held in 2017.
• Objective – To showcase India as ‘food basket of the world’ and to celebrate 2023 as the International Year of Millets.
• To provide a platform for different stakeholders to promote investments, partnerships and establishments.
• Participants - Over 80 countries, including CEOs of prominent food processing companies.
• Food Street - It will feature regional cuisines and royal culinary heritage of traditional Indian cuisine.
• Pavilions for food processing industries – It will showcase the innovations and focus on financial empowerment, quality assurance and innovations in machinery and technology.
• Ayush Aahar– Ayush products developed by Ayush Startups will also be showcased.
• Reverse Buyer Seller Meet – Over 1200 overseas buyers from more than 80 countries with Netherlands as the partner country and Japan will be the event's focus country.

Reverse Buyer Seller Meet provides an opportunity to prospective importers to interact with their Indian counterparts about the requirements and to increase the potential of India’s exports.

• Strengthen SHGs - Seed capital assistance for over 1 lakh self-help groups will be given for better price realisation in the market.

Food processing industry has emerged as the sunrise sector in India and the country stands at 7^th position with an overall export value of more than 50,000 million USD.

What is air quality index?

The Air Quality Index is acquired by measuring emissions of eight major pollutants present in the air: Particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), Ozone (O3), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), Lead (Pb) and Ammonia (NH3) emissions. Readings are noted every hour. Each country has their air quality indexes based on its air quality standards.

Air Quality Index India

The government agencies are responsible for communicating to the public about the health hazards and how to keep a check on them. Under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the National Air Quality Index was launched in September 2014 in New Delhi to measure India’s air quality index.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has formed an expert group of medical professionals, air quality experts, academia, advocacy groups, and SPCBs. Also, a technical study was awarded to IIT Kanpur. In 2014, the IIT Kanpur and the expert group recommended an AQI scheme for India.

Six cities of India- New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, and Ahmedabad have a continuous monitoring system that records data in real-time.

Instrument to Measure Air Quality

Few instruments that are used for measuring air quality are:

1. PCE-RCM 05
2. PCE-RCM 8
3. PCE-HFX 100

Calculation of AQI

The computation of the AQI is based on the average air pollutant concentration over a specified period, which is obtained from an air monitor or model.

The AQI increases because of an increase in the emission of air pollutants; for example, during heavy traffic or forest fire, a high value of AQI is observed. In addition, due to anticyclone or temperature inversion, Stagnant air leads to high concentrations of pollutants in the air. This results in chemical reactions between air pollutants and hazy conditions, thus increasing the AQI.

Particulate Matter or PM: A substantial pollutant

PM 2.5 and PM 10 is the most common method of measuring air quality. It measures the particles in micrograms per cubic metre. As a UPSC 2023 aspirant, you must know about Particulate Matter or PM. It is a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets present in the air. While some particles such as dust, smoke and soot are visible through naked eyes, numerous others are visible only through an electron microscope. Pollutants emitted by power plants, industries, automobiles, etc., form complex chemical reactions in the air, thus producing particulate matter.

Categories of Air Quality Index

The National Air Quality Index has set up six AQI categories: Good, Satisfactory, Moderately polluted, Poor, Very Poor, and Severe. Each category specifies health impacts associated with it as mentioned below given table:

Under the current affairs quiz, you will come across questions related to the air quality index of India and measures taken to manage the value to a safer level or how to protect our health from the adverse effects of air pollution.

Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP)is a set of emergency anti-air pollution measures that kick in when air quality deteriorates to certain threshold in the Delhi-NCR region which was notified in 2017.

Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP)

With the National Capital Region’s (NCR) Air Quality Index (AQI) deteriorating to the ‘severe’ category, the Commission for Air Quality Management invoked measures under Stage 4 of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) with immediate effect.

Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) is a statutory body responsible for formulating strategies to combat pollution in the region.

• GRAP is a set of emergency measures to be taken to reduce air pollution.
• Formation - The Supreme Court mandated Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) formulated and notified the plan in 2017 after SC approval in 2016.
• Activation of GRAP – GRAP does not include yearlong measures and only incremental actions which gets activated on the basis of values of AQI.

• Imposition of measures – Before imposing measures, EPCA holds a meeting with representatives from all NCR states.

The BS-VI fuel was estimated to bring around an 80% reduction of sulphur, from 50 parts per million to 10 ppm.

• Coordination - GRAP creates a step-by-step plan for the entire Delhi-NCR region and getting on board 13 different agencies of NCR regions (Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan).

3 major policy decisions of EPCA and GRAP are the closure of the thermal power plant at Badarpur, bringing BS-VI fuel to Delhi before the deadline set initially, and the ban on Pet coke as a fuel in Delhi NCR.

Recently, scientist estimated that the total taxonomic diversity of Chilika lagoon in Odisha is about 1,071 families across the tree of life using environmental DNA (eDNA) method.

Chilika lagoon in Odisha is the country’s largest brackish water lagoon.

• eDNA – It is the nuclear or mitochondrial DNA that is released from an organism into the environment through natural processes during their lifetime or after death.
• Sources of eDNA- Secreted feces, mucous, and gametes; shed skin and hair; and carcasses.
• eDNA method - A non-invasive method to assess the total biodiversity of any ecosystem by sequencing the DNA found in the environments.
• Developed by – Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES), a CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) laboratory headquartered in Hyderabad.
• Sample size – Just a few litres of water, soil, or even air.
• Working mechanism – A molecular approach is applied to filter out eDNA from environmental samples, read their sequences, and thus, identify the source of the eDNA.
• Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is used to amplify DNA for sequencing while quantitative PCR (qPCR) is typically used to detect and quantify DNA.

Significance – It is cheaper, faster, and highly scalable to large freshwater and marine ecosystems which can help in monitoring and conserving the rich biodiversity of our country.

• It can detect all kinds of organisms, including viruses, bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes as well.
• eDNA can also reveal the presence of human remains.

Scientists have collected samples of seawater from the vicinity of a plane wreck of the 2^nd World War to look for floating eDNA.

According to a study, Birds living within vicinity of gold mining were found to have over 4 times higher mercury concentrations than those living at other sites across the tropics of Central and South America.

Mercury contamination – It is global as mercury emissions disperse widely in the atmosphere. They are

• • Highly toxic to the nervous system.
  • Persistent in the environment.
  • Bioaccumulates (higher concentrations in tissues of aquatic plants and animals than in water).
  • Biomagnifies (higher concentrations at increasingly higher levels in the food chain).

According to World Health Organization (WHO), mercury is one of the top 10 chemicals or groups of chemicals of major public health concern.

• Mercury pollution – It is emitted by natural sources like volcanoes, geothermal springs, geologic deposits, and the ocean.
• Human-related sources primarily include coal combustion, waste incineration, industrial uses, and mining.

During the last 150 years, human activities have more than doubled natural amounts of mercury in the atmosphere.

• Complications – It cause neurological illness, immune diseases and reproductive failure in humans and some birds.
• Mercury poisoning leads to Minamata disease.
• Measures – Minamata Convention is a global treaty to protect from the adverse effects of mercury and its compounds.
• Phytoremediation, allows plants to absorb and accumulate mercury from soil, water, or sediments.
• The planet GOLD program, led by UNEP seeks to eliminate mercury from artisanal gold mining.

Mercury (Hg) is also known as ‘quicksilver’, is the only elemental metal that is liquid at room temperature which is used by gold miners to separate the precious metal from sediment.

In 2023, for the 1^st time, scientists observed that mammals were showing signs of mercury contamination near a Peruvian gold mining hotspot.

• India-born author Nandini Das won the 2023 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, a leading international non-fiction prize.
• The prize was awarded her book ‘Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire’.
• The prize was established in 2013, formerly known as the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize.

The prize is open to authors of any nationality based anywhere in the world and working in any language provided the nominated work is available in English and published in the UK.

• More than 97% of the Rs. 2,000 bank notes have returned on the deadline (October 31, 2023) of circulation withdrawn of Rs. 2,000 bank notes by RBI.
• However, the window for deposit and/or exchange the Rs. 2,000 banknotes continues to be available at the 19 Issue Offices of RBI.

The RBI reiterated that Rs. 2000 bank notes continue to be legal tender.

• Hurun India and EdelGive released the EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List 2023.
• Shiv Nadar, founder of HCL Technologies, has retained the top spot as the leading Indian philanthropist.

The list includes philanthropists who donated more than Rs 5 crore in the financial year 2023.

• Operation Cactus was a military operation led by the Indian Armed Forces in the Maldives in 1988.

The operation thwarted a coup attempt against the Maldivian Government headed by President Abdul Gayoom.

• Diagnostic Services in Healthcare - Availability and Geo-mapping of Laboratory services in India (DISHA) is a portal that helps the public access nearby diagnostic healthcare facilities.
• It was launched by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) - National Institute of Pathology (NIP).

The portal provides information on the type of facility, distance, test availability, test cost, and turn-around time.