GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

According to data released by the Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, just 7.22 million hectares (mha) have been sown with paddy this year.

Key Observations:

• Area under paddy has remained between 8.9 mha and 12.57 mha since 2012.
• The Centre’s data says that paddy has been sown on 43.45 lakh hectares till July 1, which is 27.05% less than last year’s sowing of 59.56 lakh hectares during the same period of 2021.
• All major paddy growing states such as Punjab, Haryana, Bihar, Odisha and Chhattisgarh have recorded less sowing compared to last year.
• Kharif crops (including paddy, pulses, oilseeds, coarse grains, sugarcane, cotton and jute) have been sown on an area that is 6.29 mha (16 per cent) less than last year. 
• The area under coarse grains like jowar, bajra, ragi, maize has been hit the highest — 76.43 per cent less than 2021. 
  

Primary reason:

• The primary reason being attributed to the reduced sown area is the failure of the monsoon in the month of June in most parts of the country.

Impact:

• India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) could be in for trouble if sowing doesn’t pick up in the month of July, as rice is its main food item.
• India has already witnessed low wheat crop due to a scorching heat wave in March, which resulted in a record drop (56.6 per cent) in the government’s wheat procurement for the Rabi Marketing season 2022-23. 

Sowing of Kharif crops:

• The sowing of Kharif crops begins with the onset of the southwest monsoon in June.
• Paddy is a major Kharif crop.
• However, the rainfall was deficient by 10 per cent in central India and 2 per cent in the northwest region of the country between June 1 and July 6.
• The rainfall deficiency was as high as 36 per cent in the major rice-growing region of east and north-east India.
• The area covered under pulses rose marginally by 1 per cent to 46.55 lakh hectares of the ongoing Kharif season.
• However, the area under arhar was down by 28.58 per cent at 16.58 lakh hectares, while that of urad by 10.34 per cent to 7.47 lakh hectares in the comparable period.
• Among oilseeds, area coverage under soybean was down by 21.74 per cent at 54.43 lakh hectares.
• Area sown to groundnut slipped 19 per cent to 20.51 lakh hectares
• Area sown to maize was lower by 24 per cent at 31.84 lakh hectares.
• Area sown to cotton was down marginally by 0.18 per cent at 84.60 lakh hectares.
• The area sown to bajra has risen by 79 per cent to 26.77 lakh hectares.

The government recently directed the edible oil manufacturers to further cut the maximum retail price (MRP) of imported cooking oils by up to Rs 10 per litre within a week, and maintain a uniform MRP of the same brand of oil across the country.

India’s Consumption:

• India annually consumes around 23 million tonnes (mt) of edible oils, out of which
• 5-14.5 mt is imported and
• 5-9.5 mt domestically produced
• India meets 56% of its annual edible oil consumption via imports.
• The imported oils mainly comprise
• palm (8-9 mt),
• soyabean (3-3.5 mt) and
• sunflower (2-2.5 mt),
• Indigenously sourced include
• mustard (2.5-2.8 mt),
• soyabean and cottonseed (1.2-1.3 mt each),
• rice bran (1-1.1 mt) and
• groundnut (0.5-0.8 mt)
• The effective import duty is currently 5.5% on crude palm, soyabean and sunflower oil, while it is 13.75% for RBD palmolein. 
• Around 8 MT of palm oil is imported from Indonesia and Malaysia, while other oils such as soya and sunflower come from Argentina, Brazil, Ukraine and Russia.
  

Palm Oil:

• Being a ‘hard’ oil that is semi-solid (as opposed to liquid) at room temperature, palm oil isn’t used much in home kitchens for direct cooking or frying.
• Most of it goes to make hydrogenated fats (vanaspati, margarine and bakery shortening) or as key ingredient in bread, biscuits, cookies, cakes, noodles, mithai, namkeen, frozen dessert, soap, and cosmetics.
• The benefits of the slide mainly in palm oil prices will thus accrue more to the food, restaurant, or skincare industries than to households.
• They would want prices of ‘soft’ (soyabean and sunflower) and indigenous (mustard and groundnut) oils to fall more.

A new study argues that the growing demand for renewable energy technology, such as lithium batteries for electric cars, also poses a potential threat to marine ecology.

• A technique called ‘horizon scanning’ was used to arrive at the conclusions.

Green technology impact:

• There is an attempt to replace fossil fuel-based plastic with biodegradable polymers, such the ‘biodegradable plastic bags’ made of plant starches.
• However, these materials also do not biodegrade under natural conditions in the ocean and their widespread adoption can cause marine litter as well.
• The growing demand for renewable energy technology, such as lithium batteries for electric cars, also poses a potential threat to marine ecology.
• Deep sea ‘brine pools’ of more saline water, contain higher concentrations of lithium and could become future sites for extraction. 
• A rising demand for lithium-powered electric vehicles could put these environments at risk.

Horizon scanning:

• Horizon scanning, also known as environmental scanning, is a foresight method used for discovering early signs of potential change.
• It is a systematic process that enables organisations to spot trends before they emerge into the mainstream and identify key action points to proactively shape desirable futures.
• It is a technique which seeks to identify novel but poorly known issues that are likely to become important consequences over the next decade.
• The researchers of the study argue that this methodology is meant to “primarily act as signposts, putting focus on particular issues and providing support for researchers and practitioners to seek investment in these areas” before they have a major impact.
• It is also an effective way of assembling experts from diverse subject areas to examine common issues and formulate more comprehensive solutions.
• The horizon scan method has been previously used to identify issues that are now known to have universal environmental impact.
• A scan from 2009 gave an early warning about the danger that microplastics (tiny plastic debris smaller than 5 mm) pose to marine environments.
• Since then, countries such as the US and UK have banned cosmetics from containing microbeads.
  
  

Two Tamil residents of the town of Moreh in Manipur on the India-Myanmar border were found dead in Myanmar’s Tamu.

Tamils of Moreh:

• The Tamils of Moreh are primarily traders, their establishments in the vicinity of the Indo-Myanmar Friendship Gate through which people living along the border travel 16 km across either side of the border without visa restrictions.
• The Tamil community became one of the most influential communities in this border town, 110 km from the capital city of Imphal.
• The community is represented by a body called the Tamil Sangam, and it dominates a grid of lanes and timber, cement houses in the heart of Moreh.
• Sri Angalaparameshwari temple in Moreh is the second largest temple complex in the North East after Guahati’s Balaji temple.
• There is a Tamil Youth Club which organises cultural events every month and girls are trained in Bharatnatyam.
• Timithi, or the fire walking festival, is held every year between March-April.
  
  

How Tamils got settled in Manipur?

• As the 19th century saw British colonialism spread like wild fire across the world, South Asian countries became sort of inter-linked colonies.
• In the wake of the growing Raj, thousands of Indians from Tamil Nadu began to leave in search of greener pastures, and migrated to Burma (now Myanmar) attracted by the country’s growing labour prospects.
• Contrary to most military or administrative migrations from India during this time, such as to Sri Lanka or China, the Tamils in Burma were predominantly involved in rice cultivation and trade.
• They came to be known as ‘Kala Lumyo’ in Burmese land.
• As the British Empire declined in 1948, this Tamil community’s fortunes began to decline too.
• Change in power in Myanmar in 1960s:
• The Burmese Military Junta took over in the 1960s.
• Subsequently, two decisions by the then Burmese government, drastically changed things for the Indian diaspora in the country.
• The Enterprise Nationalization Law, passed by the Revolutionary Council in 1963, nationalized all major industries, including import-export trade, rice, banking, mining, teak and rubber and the Indian government was asked to withdraw its diaspora from their lands.
• In 1965, the then Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri sent the first batch of ships to Rangoon – from Kolkata, Chennai, Vishakapatnam and Kochi.
• A reluctant Indian diaspora, with a considerable Tamilian population, headed to a land they no longer considered home.
• The Tamilians were taken to Chennai and housed in refugee camps there and few others across the state.
• But this new life remained unpalatable to many who then decided to head back to Myanmar.
• Those who travelled by land, walked through Moreh – a route made familiar by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s INA. 
• The Indian diaspora became the first settlers of Moreh, along with a handful of Kuki and Meitei families that had lived there since the 1940s.

The Reserve Bank of India recently announced a host of measures to boost forex inflows and push the value of rupee.

• The steps include doubling the borrowing limits for companies from overseas to $1.5 billion, temporarily removing interest-rate cap for banks to attract deposits from NRIs and relaxing rules for foreigners to invest in local-currency bonds.

Forex reserves:

• Forex reserves are regarded as the health meter of a country.
• These reserves are assets like foreign currencies, gold reserves, and treasury bills, among other things, maintained by a country’s central bank or other monetary authority, which checks the balance of payments, deals with the foreign exchange rate of currency and maintains financial market stability.
• RBI Act and the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 govern the foreign exchange reserves.
• It can be broken into four categories.
  • The first and largest component is foreign currency assets — it constitutes about 80% of the total portfolio.
  • India invests heavily in US treasury bills and about 75% of the country’s foreign currency assets are invested in dollar denominated securities.
  • Then comes the investment in gold, and special drawing rights from the IMF.
  • And the last is the Reserve Tranche Position.

The purpose of the foreign exchange reserves:

• To ensure that the RBI has backup funds, if the rupee rapidly devalues or becomes altogether insolvent.
• If the value of the rupee decreases due to an increase in demand for foreign currency, then the RBI can and does sell the dollar in the Indian money market so that rupee depreciation can be checked.
• A good stock of forex establishes a good image for the country at the international level as trading countries can be sure about their payments, thus helping in attracting foreign trade.

Exchange Rate:

• The price of one currency in terms of the other is known as the exchange rate.
• A currency’s exchange rate vis-a-vis another currency reflects the relative demand among the holders of the two currencies.
• The exchange rate tells us how much of a currency (e.g. Rupee) is required to purchase one unit of another currency (e.g. Dollar).
  • For example, if the rupee’s exchange rate “falls”, it implies that buying American goods would become costlier.

How an exchange rate is determined?

• In a free market, the exchange rate is determined by the supply and demand for currencies, i.e. rupees and dollars.
  • For example, in case Indians demand more dollars in comparison to the demand of rupees in America, the value of rupees will depreciate.
• Other than the market forces, central banks (RBI, in the case of India) also play a role in determining the exchange rate.

Sudden, “highly-localised rains” in Amarnath, Jammu and Kashmir, recently caused flooding.

What is a cloudburst?

• A cloudburst refers to an extreme amount of rain that happens in a short period, sometimes accompanied by hail and thunder.
• The India Meteorological Department (IMD) defines it as unexpected precipitation exceeding 100mm (or 10 cm) per hour over a geographical region of approximately 20 to 30 square km.
• Significant amounts of rainfall such as this can result in floods.
  

Conditions favorable for Cloud Burst:

• Hilly areas are more prone to cloud burst. The topographical conditions like steep hills favour the formation of these clouds.
• And also the devastations, as water flowing down the steep slopes bring debris, boulders and uprooted trees with great velocity damaging any structure that comes in their way.

Why do cloudbursts occur in hilly areas like Amarnath?

• Experts have said it is difficult to predict when exactly a cloudburst will occur, and there is little definitive data on the exact number of cloudbursts that occur in India.
• In hilly areas, sometimes saturated clouds ready to condense into rain cannot produce rain, due to the upward movement of the very warm current of air.
• Instead of falling downwards, raindrops are carried upwards by the air current.
• New drops are formed and existing raindrops increase in size.
• After a point, the raindrops become too heavy for the cloud to hold on to, and they drop down together in a quick flash.

Effect of Cloudbursts:

Accompanying effect of Cloudbursts on terrain

• Landslides
• Mudflows
• Land caving
• Flash floods – houses and establishments getting swept away and cave-ins lead to the deaths.
• Blocking path of rivers that may lead to temporary damming and creation of a reservoir and its consequent collapse
• The rainfall itself does not result in the death of people, though sometimes, the raindrops are big enough to hurt people in a sustained downpour. It is the consequences of such heavy rain, especially in the hilly terrain, that causes death and destruction.

How cloudburst is different from rainfall?

• A cloudburst is different from rain only in the amount of water that pours down on the earth.
• The India Meteorological Department (IMD) labels rainfall over 100 mm per hour as cloudburst.
• In simpler terms, if 10 centimetres rainfall is received at a station in one hour, the rain event is termed as cloudburst.
• Usually small areas – anywhere between 20-80 square kilometres are affected.

PM addressed the birth centenary celebration of Swami Atmasthananda.

Swami Atmasthananda:

• Swami Atmasthananda was the 15th President of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission.
• Swami Atmasthananda was born on the holy Buddha Purnima—the thrice-blessed day on which Buddha was born, attained enlightenment, and entered nirvana.
• He hailed from Kshetripara of Dinajpur, now in Bangladesh. He was born in 1919.
• His pre-monastic name was Satyakrishna.
• At the age of 22 years, Satyakrishna joined the Ramakrishna Order at Belur Math.
• He was elected a trustee of the Ramakrishna Math and a member of the Governing Body of the Ramakrishna Mission in 1973.
• In 1975, he was appointed as an Assistant Secretary of the twin organisations. He also became the Secretary of relief operations of the Math and Mission.
  • Under the stewardship of Swami Atmasthananda, the Math and Mission conducted massive relief and rehabilitation services in various parts of India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
• He became the General Secretary of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission in 1992 and continued to be in that post for five years till 1997 when he became a Vice-President of the Order.
• In 2007, Swami Atmasthananda was elected the President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission.
  • He was the 15th President of the Order.