HABITAT

■ HABITAT

◇ Habitat is the physical environment in which an organism lives (address of an organism).

◇ Many habitats make up the environment.

◇ A single habitat may be common for more than one organism which have similar requirements.
• For example, a single aquatic habitat may support a fish, frog, crab, phytoplankton, and many others.

◇ The various species sharing a habitat thus have the same ‘address’. E.g., forest, river, lake, etc.

POSITRON EXCESS PHENOMENON

🔆POSITRON EXCESS PHENOMENON

 

✅ In the News: Researchers from the Raman Research 

Institute (RRI), Bengaluru, have resolved the mystery 

of the antimatter counterpart of the electrons called Positron and Positron Excess Phenomenon.

 

◾️About

 

✅Antimatter is the opposite of normal matter. More specifically,the

sub-atomic particles of antimatter have properties opposite those of normal matter.

 

✅For example, the electrical charge of antimatter particles is reversed.

 

✅Antimatter was created along with matter after 

the Big Bang. But in today’s universe, antimatter is 

rare. For example, Positron.

 

◾️Positron or anti-electron

 

✅A Positron is an

antimatter counterpart to an electron.

 

✅A positron has the equal or same mass as an electron.

 

✅But the electron has a Negative Electric Charge

whereas Positron has a

Positive electric Charge. 

Positron Excess

 

✅Over the years scientists observed an excess of positrons having the energy of more than 10 GeV.

India’s Position on the Way Forward on Siachen

📝India’s Position on the Way Forward on Siachen 

🔶India has stated that the present ground positions on the Saltoro ridge should be demarcated and authenticated on a map before any demilitarisation could be conducted, fearing that once India withdraws from the region, the Pakistan Army could occupy the high ground, something the latter was weeks close to doing when the Indian occupation took place in 1984 after operation Meghdoot. 

🔶 India has therefore insisted that joint demarcation of the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) on the ground as well as the map should be the first step to be followed by a joint verification agreement and redeployment of forces to mutually agreed positions.

Lake Tanganyika

🔆Lake Tanganyika

✅Why in News: Most internal displacement in East Africa’s Burundi due to rise of Lake Tanganyika.   

✅It is the second largest lake in eastern Africa. 

✅It is the longest freshwater lake in the world and the second deepest after Lake Baikal in Russia. 

✅The lake is shared among four countries namely Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Tanzania and Zambia. 

✅It is situated on the line dividing the floral regions of eastern and western Africa, and oil palms, which are characteristic of the flora of western Africa, grow along the lake’s shores. 

✅The largest rivers discharging into the lake are the Malagarasi, the Ruzizi, and the Kalambo. Its outlet is the Lukuga River, which flows into the Lualaba River. 

✅Rice and subsistence crops are grown along the shores, and fishing is of some significance. Hippopotamuses and crocodiles abound, and the bird life is varied

Rengali Dam

🖌️Rengali Dam

 

🛡️Rengali dam is located in Odisha. It is constructed across Brahmani River in Rengali Dam located 70 km from Angul & 65 km from Deogarh, Odisha in India.

 

🛡️Apart from the Rengali dam , there also exists a barrage shortly before Talcher called Samal Barrage. 

 

🛡️The Jokadia and the Jenapur anicuts are the other irrigation projects on the river.

National Rail Plan

#National Rail Plan

🔆 What is the National Rail Plan?

✅ The National Rail Plan aims to offer a long-term perspective plan for boosting the railway network in India.

✅ The vision of the National Rail Plan (NRP) is to develop capacity, infrastructure and enhance rail freight share ahead of the demand.

✅ It also aims to develop capacity by 2030 that will cater to the expanding demand up to 2050.

✅ One of the key tasks of the NRP was to map the entire Indian Railway Network at GIS (Geographical Information System) Platform along with their respective attributes and line features. This gigantic exercise was carried out as part of the study and the entire network was mapped on the GIS platform.

♻️ National Rail Plan Objectives:

✅ To generate capacity ahead of demand by 2030, which in turn would cater to growth in demand up to 2050.

✅ To raise the modal share of Railways from the current 27% to 45% in freight by the year 2030 as part of a national commitment to decrease carbon emission and to continue to sustain it.

✅ To forecast traffic growth in both passenger and freight year on year up to 2030 and on a decadal basis up to 2050.

✅ To frame strategies based on both operational capacities and commercial policy programmes to heighten the modal share of the Railways in freight to 45% by 2030.

✅ To bring down the transit time of freight significantly by enhancing the average speed of freight trains from the current 22 kmph to 50 kmph.

✅ To diminish the overall cost of rail transportation by almost 30% and pass on the benefits to the customers.

✅ To map the growth in demand on the Indian Railway route map and simulate the capacity behaviour of the network in future.

✅ To identify the bottlenecks that would arise in the future based on the above simulation.

✅ To select projects along with appropriate technology in both track work, signalling and rolling stock to reduce these bottlenecks well in advance.

♻️ National Rail Plan Vision 2024

✅ Vision 2024 has been launched to hasten the implementation of some major projects by 2024. The following are some of the key projects under this:

🔸 100% electrification (by December 2030)

🔸 Multi-tracking congested routes

🔸 Upgrade of speed in the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes to 160 km/h

🔸 Upgrade of speed on all other Golden Quadrilateral-Golden Diagonal (GQ/GD) routes to 130 km/h

🔸 Elimination of all Level Crossings on all Golden Quadrilateral-Golden Diagonal routes

♻️ Other Features of the NRP

✅ Three Dedicated Freight Corridors, namely East Coast, East-West & North-South have been identified along with timelines. 

✅ Future projects (beyond 2024) have been identified in track and signalling with timelines.

✅ New high speed rail corridors have been identified.

✅ The plan also assesses the total capital requirement for all the projects.

✅ It identifies new financing models and streams including those based on public-private partnerships.

♻️ National Rail Plan Significance

✅ The Indian Railways is the fourth-largest rail network in the world. In FY 2017-18, the railways carried 8.26 billion passengers and transported 1.16 billion tonnes of freight. To cater to the aspirations of economic growth and development, it is imperative that the railways are modernised and optimised. 

✅ According to some experts, importance was accorded to the passenger services of the railways and not enough to the freight services. Therefore, even towards the end of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th, railways didn’t contribute as much to growth as it did in other countries. (Bibek Debroy, Financial Times, Feb 11, 2021).

✅ The NRP seeks to rectify this bias against freight by aiming to increase the share of railways in freight. Another significant aspect of the NRP is that it maps the railway network on a GIS platform and identifies gaps. In the GIS map, besides digitization of railway lines, digitization of railway stations has also been undertaken on the basis of type of railway station.

49 Wetlands of India

49 wetlands in India

Two more Ramsar Sites have been added to the list on World Wetlands Day

Bar-headed Geese, which migrate from Tibet and Central Asia during winter, fly against a backdrop of the Dhauladhar Range over the Pong Dam wetlands at Nagrota Suriyan, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of Dharmsala. The Pong Wetlands host and support hundreds of migratory bird species in the winter months. 

Khijadia Wildlife Sanctuary in Gujarat and Bakhira Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh are the latest Ramsar sites to join the list of 49 protected wetlands in the country on the World Wetlands Day celebrated on February 2 every year. The announcement was made by the Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal while launching the 'National Wetland Decadal Change Atlas' at Sultanpur National Park in Haryana. Sultanpur National Park is also a Ramsar site, which is located on the outskirts of Gurugram. 

In 1971, a Convention on Wetlands was adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar which is how it got its name Ramsar Convention. The convention laid down a framework for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. Wetlands are an important part of ecological system, they support biodiversity and also mitigate the effects of climate change. 

World Wetlands Day has a different theme every year and this year it is 'Wetlands Action for People and Nature,' which highlights the importance of actions to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands for humans and planetary health.

All 49 Ramsar Sites together now cover 10,93,636 Ha, making it the highest in South Asia. Bakhira Wildlife Sanctuary offers a safe wintering and staging ground for a large number of special Central Asian Flyway while Khijadia Wildlife Sanctuary is a coastal wetland with rich avifaunal diversity. It provides a safe habitat to endangered and vulnerable species.

Great Green Wal

🔆Great Green Wall (GGW) Initiative

✅Why in News : According to a study by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) , Africa’s Great Green Wall (GGW) Initiative is an important contribution towards combating climate change. 

 

✅Launched in 2007 by the African Union. 

✅Aim : To restore 100 million hectares of degraded land, sequester 250 million tonnes of carbon and create 10 million jobs for the people in the Sahel region of Africa by 2030. 

✅11 Countries : The 11 countries selected as intervention zones for the Great Green Wall are Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan. 

▪️Current status : 

✅ Only four million hectares of degraded land had been restored between 2007 and 2019. This is because of the lack of financial resources. 

✅According to a UN Report, GGW countries need to speed up the current pace of land restoration to an average of 8.2 million hectares every year

BARBADOS

🔆Barbados:

✅Why in News: Nearly 400 years after the country became a British colony, Barbados has become the world‘s newest republic. 

✅ The Caribbean island nation removed Queen Elizabeth II as  

the head of the state in a ceremony attended by Prince Charles. Barbados, however, will continue to be one of the 54 Commonwealth nations. 

✅ Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands.  

✅It is in the western part of the North Atlantic, 100 km east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea. 

✅Barbados is located roughly 13°N of the equator.  

✅Barbados is outside the principal Atlantic hurricane belt.  

✅ Barbados, which is said to have been made a slave society‘ by the British, first became an English colony when a ship arrived at the Caribbean in 1625. 

✅ In 1966, Barbados gained its independence.