Daily Current Affairs 31 December 2019

Current Affairs Of Today Are

1) NITI Aayog’s SDG Index

• Kerala tops the States in progress towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while Bihar is at the bottom of the NITI Aayog’s SDG Index
• Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim have joined the four southern States among the front ­runners, which scored over 65 points out of a possible 100.
• Ending hunger and achieving gender equality are the areas where most States fall far short, with the all-­India scores at a dismal 35 and 42 points respectively. On the other hand, the NITI Aayog has
• given India an overall score of 60 points, driven mostly by progress in clean energy and sanitation (88); peace, justice and strong institutions (72); and affordable and clean energy (70).
• The SDGs are a set of 17 broad­based global goals adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 and intended to be achieved by 2030. With one­-sixth of the world’s population, India is key to the achievement of the goals.
• The UN has developed 232 indicators to measure compliance by member nations. The NITI Aayog has adapted the monitoring approach to the Indian context, with 100 indicators of its own for the Index.
• Only 40% of these indicators were used for last year’s baseline index and hence, the two indices are not directly comparable. However, it is still interesting to note that Kerala has retained its top slot, while Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, and Sikkim have shown the most improvement

Zero Hunger

• The second SDG zero hunger shows a sharp divergence in the performance of States, with little middle ground. Kerala, Goa, and parts of the north­east, including Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, and Sikkim, have scored above 65, with Goa at 75 points
• However, 22 of the States and Union Territories have scored below 50, with the central Indian States of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh scoring below 30, showing high levels of hunger and malnutrition. 

Gender Equality

• On the fifth SDG gender equality, almost all States fare poorly. Only Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala have managed to cross 50 points. The indicators considered include crimes against women, eradicating sex selection and discrimination against daughters, and access to reproductive health schemes, as well as indicators showing women’s economic and political empowerment and leadership. 
• A sex ratio of 896 females per 1000 males, a 17.5% female labor participation rate, and the fact that one in three women experience spousal violence all contribute to a low score countrywide

Clean Water and Sanitation

• The Swachh Bharat Mission has contributed largely to the high scores on the sixth SDG — clean water and sanitation — although that was helped by the fact that four out of seven indicators dealt with toilets and sanitation, while only one indicator was related to safe and affordable drinking water. 
• All States and Union Territories except for Delhi have scored above 65, with the national capital scoring poorly on the percentage of urban households with individual household toilets (less than 1%) and, oddly, providing no data on districts verified to be open defecation free.

2) 2019 edition of the India State of Forest Report (ISFR)

• The forest cover in the country increased by 3,976 square kilometers (sq km) but with the sharpest declines in the northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Mizoram, according to the 2019 edition of the India State of Forest Report (ISFR)
• At 7,12,249 sqkm, the forest cover constituted 21.67% of the nation’s geographical area or 0.12% more than last year
• The ISFR, a biennial exercise of Forest Survey of India (FSI) an organization under the Ministry of Environment Forest & Climate Change Government of India, assesses the forest and tree cover, bamboo resources, carbon stock, and forest fires. 
• The top three states showing an increase in forest cover are Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala.

Tree Cover

Tree cover, defined as patches of trees less than 1 hectare and occurring outside the recorded forest area, grew by 1,212 sqkm. Tree and forest cover together made up 25.56% of India’s area. In the last assessment, it was 24.39%.

Northeast decline of the forest isn't concerned now

• The declines in the Northeast weren’t “yet a matter of concern.” The States had a much higher proportion of forest than most States Mizoram (85.4%), Arunachal Pradesh (79.63%) and Nagaland (75%) and the declines in the forest were still small. The Centre had policies in place to address this over the long term. 
• The decline in tree cover inside forests as due to tribal populations getting “land titles” (patta) and the rise in trees outside the forest area due to an increase in tree plantation and afforestation activities.

 Canopy density of the trees

• The report, however, shows that the quality of this forest — in terms of the canopy density of the trees comprising forest patches — is wavering. While 1,755 sqkm of ‘moderately dense forest’ (MDF) became ‘Very dense forest (VDF), 2,782 sqkm of MDF regressed into lower quality ‘open forest (OF),’ Scrub forest’ or ‘Non-forest.’
• The forest cover within the Recorded Forest Area, or that which has been officially classified by States or the Centre as ‘forest,’ showed a 330 sqkm decrease, but ‘forest’ outside such recorded area increased by 4,306 sqkm. The tree outside the forest was found to comprise nearly 29.38 million hectares, which was 36.4% of the total tree and forest cover in the country. Maharashtra had the largest extent of such tree outside the forest
• The nation’s tree and forest cover has largely hovered from 21­25% and is short of the National Forest Policy, 1988, which envisages 33% to be under such cover.

Ujjwala scheme

• The India State of Forest Report, 2019, that biannually also assesses the tree cover also surveyed 1,110 villages, which are on the fringes of forests, to assess how much fuelwood, fodder, small timber, and bamboo villagers use.  
• The use of these products according to the Forest Survey of India was a major source of “impairment to forest productivity” but wasn’t adequately assessed
• The Union Environment Ministry Prakash Javadekar has credited the Ujjwala scheme, which provides free cooking gas to extremely poor families, with ‘possibly’ reducing the demand for fuelwood.
• In their assessment of villages in 28 States and Union Territories, nearly 8,52,90,000 tonnes of fuelwood, 105,30,39,000 tonnes off fodder, 584,8204 cubic meters of small timber and 18,34,000 tonnes of bamboo were collected annually by those living in the forest fringes. 
• The maximum fuelwood was removed in Maharashtra — 95,39000 tonnes — followed by Odisha and Rajasthan.  The highest removal, per person, was in Nagaland followed by Himachal Pradesh and Tripura.

3) Tap energy from water

A team of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology­Guwahati (IIT­G) has developed materials that can produce energy from flowing or stagnant water in households. The decentralized energy model involving a large number of small generation devices can generate energy in every household and the excess energy thus produced can be evacuated to energy­deficient areas nearby

About Project 

• The team employed “electro-­kinetic streaming potential” to harvest energy from flowing tap water and “contrasting inter­facial activities” entailing different types of semiconducting materials to generate power from stagnant water.
• The electro-kinetic materials have not been harnessed until now.
• When fluids stream through tiny channels that are charged, they can generate an electrical voltage, which may be harnessed through miniaturized generators
• The team also fabricated devices with doped graphene flakes for generating power by dipping in a bucket of water or any stagnant water source to “complementary charge transfer activities”. Graphene is the sheet produced by oxidation followed by reduction of natural graphite flakes modified graphene in such a way that its electron density is manipulated; even stagnant water in contact with this form of graphene can produce energy

4) Gen. Rawat is first Chief of Defence Staff

• Outgoing Army chief Gen. Bipin Rawat was appointed as the country’s first Chief of Defence Staff, a day before he is to retire. 
• The government has decided to appoint Gen. Bipin Rawat as the Chief of Defence Staff with effect from December 31, 2019, and until further orders and extension of Gen. Bipin Rawat with effect from December 31, 2019, and till such period he holds the office of Chief of Defence Staff

5) Railways look to AI for security solutions

• To make rail travel safer, the Indian Railways is banking on artificial intelligence­based technology solutions. The national transporter plans to install CCTV across thousands of its stations and trains and use a facial recognition system to identify people with criminal records and miscreants
• The Railways also intend to use artificial intelligence (AI) and face recognition software to stop criminals.
• The Railways have over 6,100 stations; the CCTV surveillance system was installed this year at over 500 stations
• There are about 58,600 coaches run in the mail express trains in the country and Indian Railways intend to put CCTV in the corridors and above the door. 
• By March 2022, all stations will be covered. And among the coaches planned... in the first phase, tenders have been invited for 7,020 coaches and also for 6,100 stations. This should be done by next year the remaining coaches will be done by March 2022

CORAS

This year, the first railway commando battalion ‘CORAS’ to tackle the menace of terrorism and Naxalism in railways has been formed.

6) Divyang Friendly Features in Buses

• Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has notified GSR 959 (E) dated 27th December 2019 for amendments to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules for providing divyang friendly features in buses. The amendment provides for priority seats, signs, securing of crutches/canes/walkers, handrail/stanchions, controls at priority seats and wheelchair entry/housing/locking arrangement for a wheelchair for the divyang-Jan. Such facilities for differently-abled passengers or passengers with reduced mobility will be checked and ensured at the time of Fitness Inspection for Buses.
• The amendment shall come into force on 1st March 2020.
• The draft rules to amend the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 were published vide notification number G.S.R 523(E), dated the 24th day of July 2019, inviting objections and suggestions from all persons likely to be affected thereby. The notification has been issued after duly considering the objections and suggestions received from the public in respect of the said draft rules.

7) Telcos get the nod for 5G trials

• In a relief for Chinese telecom equipment firm Huawei, the government has decided to allow all telecom operators and vendors to participate in the upcoming 5G trials
• However, the approval for conducting trials does not automatically translate into a nod for participating in the commercial roll­out of 5G networks
• The spectrum would be given to telecom service providers who can then choose to partner with any vendor such as Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson, and Samsung, for the trials.

The US-China Trade War

The long­pending decision comes amid ongoing trade tensions between the U.S. and China.  The U.S., which has banned Huawei citing ‘considerable’ security risk, has been urging allies to not allow the use of Huawei’s network equipment.

8) Year-End Review: Department of Space

• ISRO has successfully accomplished 13missionsincluding06 launch vehicle missions and07 satellite missions during the year 2019.
• 50 foreign satellites from 07countries were launched on a commercial basis during this period.
• PSLV-C44 successfully launched Microsat-R and Kalamsat-V2 on January 24, 2019, from Sriharikota.
• On February 06, 2019GSAT 31 communication satellite was successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana on board Arianespace rocket.
• EMISAT was successfully launched onboard PSLV-C45 on April 01, 2019, from Sriharikota. The launch viewing gallery was inaugurated and opened to the public for viewing launches live from Sriharikota.
• On May 22, 2019, the RISAT-2B radar imaging earth observation satellite was successfully launched onboard PSLV-C46 from Sriharikota.
• The successful launch of GSLV-MK III M1, India's most powerful launch vehicle, was accomplished in July 22,2019. This launch vehicle is capable of launching 04 tons of satellites into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit(GTO). The mission carried Chandrayaan-2 Orbiterspacecraft to its intended orbit. The instruments are continuously providing very useful science data.
• On November 27,2019 Cartosat-3, a third-generation agile advanced satellite having high-resolution imaging capability was successfully launched by PSLV-C47 from Sriharikota.
• On December 11,2019, PSLV-C48 successfully launched the RISAT-2BR1radar imaging earth observation satellite from Sriharikota.
• India’s first inter-planetary mission “Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)” completed five years in Martian orbit in September 2019.
• Astrosat, the first Indian multi-wavelength space observatory, completed four years in orbit in Sept 2019. The data has been made open to the public. Astrosat has more than 900 registered users from 24 countries.
• Global Standards body 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), which develops protocols for mobile telephony, has approved India’s regional navigation system NAVIC.
• Qualcomm Technologies Inc. in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), has developed & tested chipset platforms across their portfolio which can support the Indian Regional Navigation satellite system, NavIC.
• The first-ever NavIC demonstration using the Snapdragon Mobile Platforms was showcased by Qualcomm during the India Mobile Congress at New Delhi on October 14-16, 2019
• A new center namely Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) is created within ISRO/DOS with the responsibility to act as the lead center for Human Space Flight Program, Gaganyaan. The Gaganyaan project has the objective of demonstrating human space flight capability to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with 3 crew members for 5-7 days in orbit and to safely recover them after the mission.
• The overall configuration of GSLV-MK III, crew escape system, crew module and service module for Gaganyaan have been finalized. An MoU is executed with the Indian Air force for crew selection and training. Institute of Aerospace Medicine is identified for crew selection and screening criteria. This process is in progress.
• NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), Bengaluru, a wholly-owned Government of India Company under the Department of Space, was incorporated on 6th March 2019. The business activities of NSIL are mainly driven towards enabling Indian industries to productions space systems and to exploit the commercial opportunities emanating from the Indian space program.
• Commissioning of the Second Vehicle Assembly Building at Sriharikota to improve the frequency of launch.
• The notable development of the year was technology transfer of Li-ion to Indian industries.10 industries were selected for the transfer of the Li-ion cell technology from ISRO.