Comprehensive Current affairs 31 July 2020

One of Earth's Largest 'Waterfalls' Is in the Ocean-study

Victoria Falls is said to be the largest waterfall on Earth, and Angel Falls the highest, but no matter how impressive they might look to us, both these natural wonders fall far short of the true victors.

The largest and most powerful waterfalls we know of are actually surrounded by water, deep beneath the lapping waves. Tucked between Iceland and Scotland, the Faroe Bank Channel Overflow is one the mightiest of its kind.

This narrow, super-deep passage connects the Norwegian Sea to the North Atlantic Ocean via a continuous flow of water so cold and dense, it sinks right to the bottom.

As this heavy river crosses one of the deepest parts of the Greenland-Scotland Ridge, it creates a massive undersea cascade, with water plummeting roughly 840 metres (2,756 feet), right into the Atlantic.

 

It's one of the most researched spots in our ocean, monitored closely since 1995, and yet we've only just discovered the most powerful current that feeds it.

Up until now, the Faroe Bank Channel overflow was thought to come mainly from a stream of cold water running along the western side of the channel. And for a while, at least, that may have been true.

Today, however, new research suggests most of the Faroe waterfall is actually driven by a silent, eastern stream, which shoots cold water into the channel via a deep, jet-like ocean current.

The neighbouring Denmark strait, tucked between Iceland and Greenland and parallel to the Faroe channel, is home to the world's largest known waterfall, three times the height of Angel Falls.

As its cold waters meet up with the Faroe overflow on the other side of Iceland, these fast-moving waters create a powerful flow that spills into the deep north Atlantic.

Together, these two key arteries play a crucial role in ocean circulation, specifically contributing to the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC).

The AMOC has two pathways, one that runs deep, carrying cold water from higher latitudes to the Atlantic, and the other that runs shallow, transporting warm and saline Atlantic waters to the north.

This circulation is a major regulator of the global climate system, and yet we still don't know enough about it.

Gathering new measurements from moorings and vessels, as well as data from current monitoring systems, researchers created a high-resolution ocean circulation model to figure out where most of the water at the Faroe overflow is actually coming from.

Instead of turning directly into the Faroe-Shetland Channel, which is the quickest way to the Faroe overflow, researchers found it appears to trace another more circuitous path.

GOI claims Successful implementation of Pradhan MantriGareebKalyan Ann Yojana.

About 81 crore beneficiaries covered under National Food Security Act (NFSA) and Antyodaya Ann Yojana (AAY) are being provided 5 Kgs of Rice or wheat free of cost under the PradhanMantri GareebKalyan Ann Yojana scheme.

The total allocation for the second phase of PMGKAY from July to November 2020 is over 200 Lakh Metric Tonnes of food grains. The scheme was rolled out on 8th of this month and till this Monday, over 33 Lakh Metric Tonnes of food grains have already been handed over to state governments across the country.

The current allocation in just around 20 days is about 83 per cent of the total allocation for the month of July.

After successful implementation of PMGKAY scheme from April to June 2020, the Government of India extended this scheme for another 5 months from July to November 2020.

Extensive and detailed logistical planning has already been done by Food Corporation of India (FCI) to ensure that food grain stocks reach every part of the country as per the allocation over these 5 months.

 

FDI in defence sector limit raised to 74%; FM announces major ‘Make in India’ push for defence.

GOI going to come out with a decision on 74% Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in defence and a notification is likely in the next few days, according to V.L. KanthaRao, Additional Secretary, Department of Defence Production.

Separately, the Defence Ministry said the second draft of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2020, now renamed as the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020, was put out in public domain on Tuesday for comments from stakeholders and public.

On the target to indigenise spares and sub-assemblies of imported military hardware, Mr.Rao said, “We will try and do at least 900 items this year and we have a target of 5,000 items in five years.” He was speaking at the Lockheed Martin - Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers suppliers conference.

In May, the government announced a series of measures to promote domestic defence manufacturing. These include a negative import list, separate budgetary allocation for domestic procurements, indigenisation of spares and components and raising the FDI cap through automatic route from 49% to 74%.

EU restricts exports to Hongkong post China’s passage of new security law.

The European Union will restrict exports to Hong Kong of equipment that could be used for surveillance and repression after Beijing imposed a controversial new security law, diplomatic sources said on Tuesday.

The bloc has expressed deep concerned over the new law, which critics say will severely curb Hong Kong’s longstanding autonomy and relative freedom.

But the EU has struggled to agree a united response to China, with member states deeply divided over whether to stand up to Beijing, a hugely important trading partner or to try to cooperate with it.

France and Germany proposed the restriction on so-called “dual use” technology at a meeting of Foreign Ministers earlier this month and it will be formally signed off on Tuesday.

Along with the export restriction, the EU will also bring in measures to support the population of the former British colony by making it easier for them to travel to Europe through the granting of visas, scholarships and academic exchanges, diplomats said.

 Iran launches military drill at Strait of Hormuz

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard fired a missile from a helicopter targeting a replica aircraft carrier in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, state television reported on Tuesday, an exercise aimed at “threatening” the U.S. amid tensions between Tehran and Washington.

The drill, in a waterway through which 20% of all traded oil passes, underlines the lingering threat of military conflict between Iran and the U.S. after last summer saw a series of incidents targeting oil tankers in the region. In January, a U.S. drone strike killed a top Iranian general in Baghdad and Tehran responded by firing ballistic missiles targeting American forces in Iraq.

Iranian commandos fast-roped down from a helicopter onto the replica in the footage aired on Tuesday from the exercise called “Great Prophet 14.”

Iranian troops also fired anti-aircraft batteries at a drone target in the exercise from a location that state television described as being near the port city of Bandar Abbas.Troops also fired missiles from trucks on land and fast boats at sea.

The Guard will use “long-range ballistic missiles with the ability to hit far-reaching aggressor floating targets” during the drill, said Abbas Nilforoushan, the Guard’s deputy commander for operations, according to Guard website sepahnews.com.

Asteroid 2020 ND.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has recently issued a warning  that a huge “Asteroid 2020 ND” will move past Earth on 24th July.

About Asteroid 2020 ND:

• It is about 170 metres-long, will be as close as 0.034 Astronomical Unit (AU- Astronomical  Unit is the distance between the Earth and the Sun and is roughly 150 million km) to the  Earth, and is travelling at a speed of 48,000 kilometres per hour.

• It is a Near-Earth Objects (NEO) and its distance from Earth has placed it in the  Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHA) category.

• Potentially Hazardous Asteroids means that an asteroid has the potential to make  threatening close approaches to the Earth.

• All asteroids with a Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance (MOID) of 0.05 AU (which is about 7,480,000 Km) or less and an Absolute Magnitude (H) of 22.0 (about 150 mt in  diameter) or less are considered PHAs.

• The MOID is a method for calculating the minimum distance between two almost overlapping elliptical orbits.

• The absolute magnitude is a measure of the star's luminosity i.e. the total amount of energy radiated by the star every second.

• The Blowing up the asteroid before it reaches Earth, or deflecting it off its Earth-bound course by hitting it with a spacecraft may ward off the threat.

• The measure undertaken so far is the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA), which includes NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission and the  European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera.

• In 2018, NASA announced that it had started the construction of DART, which is scheduled to launch in 2021 with an aim to slam into the smaller asteroid of the Didymos system at around 6 km per second in 2022. Didymos, is a binary near-Earth asteroid, that could pose the most likely significant threat to Earth.

• Hera is scheduled to launch in 2024, and will arrive at the Didymos system in 2027 to measure the impact crater produced by the DART collision and study the change in the asteroid’s orbital trajectory.

Monitoring of PHAs is not necessary that Asteroids classified as PHAs will impact the Earth. It only means there is a possibility of a threat.

• By monitoring these PHAs and updating their orbits as new observations, it is possible to  predict the close-approach statistics and thus their Earth-impact threat.

Significance:

• The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is largely due to their status as relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process over 4.6 billion years ago. Therefore, they offer clues about the chemical mixture from the planets formed.

• Significantly, among all the reasons that will eventually cause the extinction of life on Earth, an asteroid hit is widely acknowledged as one of the likeliest.

Asteroids:

• It orbits the Sun and are small bodies in the solar system. They are made up of metals and rocks.

• They tend to have shorter and elliptical orbits. They do not produce a coma or tail atmosphere.

• The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars.

Comet:

• It also orbits the Sun and are relatively small bodies of the solar system.

• They are made up of ice and hydrocarbons. It have an eccentric orbit.

• When comets approach the sun, some part of their ice melts and the other materials vapourise due to the heat of the sun. This results in a glowing halo that extends outwards through space.

• Therefore, a thin atmospheric tail is formed when close to the Sun.

Hurricane Hanna

• The Hurricane Hanna has made landfall the point at which a hurricane reaches land in Texas with life- threatening storm surge and strong winds. Tropical cyclones are  called hurricanes in the West Indian islands in the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean.

Highlights:

• It has reached wind speeds of up to 90 mph and is expected to produce heavy rains across portions of southern Texas and north-eastern Mexico, which will result in flash flooding and isolated minor to Moderate River flooding.

It has been categorized as a Category 1 storm on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale (SSHWS). This year, an “above-normal” hurricane season is expected in the USA.

• One reason for this is the warmer -than-average sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, along with weaker tropical Atlantic trade winds and  an enhanced west African monsoon.

Hurricane

• It is a tropical cyclone that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and the northeastern Pacific

Ocean.

• These are formed over the warm ocean waters near the equator. Hurricanes typically form between 5 to 15 degrees latitude north and south of the equator.

• Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale is a 1 to 5 rating based on a hurricane's sustained wind speed. This scale estimates potential property damage.

WWF claims 3 bn animals affected by Australian bushfires.

Nearly 3 billion koalas, kangaroos and other native Australian animals were killed or displaced by bushfires in 2019 and 2020, a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Tuesday, triple the group’s earlier estimates.

Some 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds and 51 million frogs were impacted by the country’s worst bushfires in decades, the WWF said.

➡When the fires were still blazing, the WWF estimated the number of affected animals at 1.25 billion. The fires destroyed more than 11 million hectares (37 million acres) across the Australian southeast, equal to about half the area of the United Kingdom.

“➡This ranks as one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history,” said WWF-Australia Chief Executive Officer Dermot O’Gorman in a statement.

➡The project leader Lily Van Eeden, from the University of Sydney, said the research was the first continent-wide analysis of animals impacted by the bushfires, and “other nations can build upon this research to improve understanding of bushfire impacts everywhere”.

➡The total number included animals which were displaced because of destroyed habitats and now faced lack of food and shelter.

US, UK accused Russia of testing Anti-Satellite Weapon.

The test consisted of Russia’s satellite called Cosmos 2543 injecting an object into orbit operated in abnormally close proximity to a USA government satellite in low-earth orbit (LEO) before it maneuvered away and over to another Russian satellite.

• The test is inconsistent with the intended purpose of the satellite as an inspector system. It is evidence of Russia’s continuing efforts to develop and test space-based systems to put

USA’s weapons and allied space assets at risk.

• The Russian defence ministry said that Cosmos-2543 is an inspector satellite, meant to monitor the condition of Russian satellites.

• The Cosmos-2543 was deployed by another satellite, Cosmos-2542, which was launched on 25th November 2019 by the Russian military.

• The Russia held that it is fully committed to obligations on the non- discriminatory use and study of space with peaceful aims.

• It has asked the USA and the UK to be professional and refrain from propagandistic information attacks.

• Anti-Satellite Capability is the only four countries which are Russia, the USA, China and India, have demonstrated an anti-satellite capability over the past decades.

• India under the Mission Shakti, successfully tested the Anti-Satellite System (A-SAT) System making it the fourth country to acquire the capability of space warfare.

• The A-SAT System is a missile-based system to attack moving satellites and successfully destroyed a live satellite in the LEO.

• The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has developed the system completely indigenously.

International Treaties Regarding Outer Space:

• UN Outer Space Treaty 1967 prohibits weapons of mass destruction in outer space and not the ordinary weapons. India ratified it in 1982.

• UN Transparency and Confidence Building Measures (TCBMs) includes registering space objects with the UN register, pre-launch notifications etc. India shares these details with the UN.

• Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) is an international governmental forum for the worldwide coordination of activities related to the issues of man-made and natural debris in space.

• India has supported the UN resolution on No First Placement of Weapons in Outer Space.

High level pollution in Maharashtra's Nag River.

• The Bombay High Court said that the Nag river has recently become extremely polluted due to industrialization and urbanization.

• The Nagpur city derives its name from the Nag river which passes through the city.

• The Nag river originates from the Ambazari Lake in west Nagpur.

• The major tributary is Pili river. The end point is confluence with Kanhan River.

Union govt.unable to pay State’s GST dues.

Finance Secretary told the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, at a meeting on Tuesday that the government is in no position to pay the GST share of States as per the current revenue sharing formula, sources said.

According to at least two members who attended the meeting, Finance secretary's comments were in response to a question on the revenue shortfall due to the pandemic.

The members then questioned him on how the government could renege on the commitment to the States. At this, “he pointed out that the GST Act has provisions to rework the formula for paying compensation to the State governments if the revenue collection drops below a certain threshold,” one of the members said on condition of anonymity.

According to Finance Ministry, the Centre had released the final instalment of ₹13,806 crore of GST compensation for the financial year 2019-20.

The GST Council was scheduled to meet in July to try and work out the formula to rework the compensation to the States. However, the meeting has not been convened so far.

The opposition members meanwhile were up in arms, as the committee which was meeting for the first time since the nationwide lockdown instead of discussing the State of Indian economy, took up the topic “Financing the innovation ecosystem and India’s growth companies”.

CII finds economic recovery amongst the rural sectors.

There are early signs of a V-shaped recovery in the economy in the immediate aftermath of the lockdown, driven mostly by agriculture and rural lending, as well as positive trends in FMCG, pharma and even construction, says the Confederation of Indian Industries.

However, the uncertainty of mini lockdowns and unnecessarily wide containment zones continue to affect business operations, the industry group said.

Its dashboard of positive indicators include GST collections, railway freight traffic, petrol consumption, peak power demand and electronic toll collections, as well as expectations of a bumper harvest in the wake of a normal monsoon.

Terming the agriculture sector a “beacon of hope”, CII noted that rural lending by non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) is at about 80% of the usual levels. Stressed sectors include aviation, hotels and commercial vehicles, which show no signs of recovery yet. However, the information technology and health sectors are likely to hold steady even if they do not show much growth.

Financial Management Index for Rural Development Programmes.

India's Minister of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj, Agriculture &

Farmers’ Welfare, inaugurated a video conference on “Strengthening of the Risk-Based Internal Audit of Rural Development Programmes.

➡ During the event, the Financial Management Index for Rural Development Programmes

was also launched.

➡ The Financial Management Index for Rural Development Programmes seeks to rank states on efficient management of financial resources allocated for implementing half a dozen Rural Development Schemes.

Parameters:

• Preparation of annual plan, projecting the requirement of funds for the financial year, the expeditious release of State’s share, timely utilization of the funds and submission of the  Utilization Certificates etc.

• Optimum implementation of Public Financial Management System (PFMS) & Direct Benefit Transfer.

• Internal Audit.

• Social Audit.