GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

In a new report, UNEP highlighted that the world needs to rethink the extraction and use of sand, the second-most used resource globally, after water.

Key findings of the Report:

• Around 50 billion tonnes of sand and gravel is used every year, which is enough to build a wall 27 metres wide and 27 metres high around Earth.
• Extracting sand where it plays an active role, such as rivers and coastal or marine ecosystems, can cause a series of damages to the environment. The damages include:
  • Erosion
  • Salination of aquifers
  • Loss of protection against storm surges 
  • Impacts on biodiversity
• These challenges pose a threat to livelihoods through water supply, food production, fisheries, or to the tourism industry.

Why Sand is important?

• Sand plays a strategic role in delivering ecosystem services, maintaining biodiversity, supporting economic development, and providing livelihoods within communities.
• It is linked to all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) either directly or indirectly.
• Despite the strategic importance of sand, its extraction, sourcing, use, and management remain largely ungoverned in many regions of the world, leading to numerous environmental and social consequences that have been largely overlooked.
• Sand is being used faster than it can be naturally replenished, so its responsible management is crucial.
• Sand must be recognised as a strategic resource, not only as a material for construction, but also for its multiple roles in the environment.

10 Recommendations to Avert a Crisis:

UNEP’s report provides necessary guidance gathered from world experts to switch to improved practices for the extraction and management of soil. 

1. Recognise sand as a strategic resource that delivers critical ecosystem services and underpins the construction of vital infrastructure in expanding towns and cities globally.
2. Include place-based perspectives for just sand transitions, ensuring the voices of all impacted people are part of decision-making, agenda-setting and action.
3. Enable a paradigm shift to a regenerative and circular future.
4. Adopt strategic and integrated policy and legal frameworks horizontally, vertically and inter-sectionally, in tune with local, national, and regional realities.
5. Establish ownership and access to sand resources through mineral rights and consenting.
6. Map, monitor and report sand resources for transparent, science-based and data-driven decision-making.
7. Establish best practices and national standards, and a coherent international framework.
8. Promote resource efficiency & circularity by reducing the use of sand, substituting with viable alternatives and recycling products made of sand when possible.
9. Source responsibly by actively and consciously procuring sand in an ethical, sustainable, and socially conscious way.
10. Restore ecosystems and compensate for remaining losses by advancing knowledge, mainstreaming the mitigation hierarchy, and promoting nature-based solutions.

China has recorded the first human infection with the H3N8 strain of bird flu.

What's happening?

• A four-year-old boy from central Henan province was found to have been infected with the variant after developing a fever and other symptoms.
• The H3N8 variant has previously been detected elsewhere in the world in horses, dogs, birds and seals but no human cases of H3N8 have been reported.

Why it matters?

• It's the first time the virus has jumped from animals to humans but it looks like a one-off jump and further risk of spread is low.
• Many different strains of bird flu are present in China and some sporadically infect people, usually those working with poultry.
• Last year China reported the first human case of H10N3.

Bird Flu:

• Bird flu, or avian flu, is an infectious type of influenza that spreads among birds. In rare cases, it can affect humans.
• There are lots of different strains of bird flu virus. Most of them don't infect humans. But there are 4 strains that have caused concern in recent years:
  • H5N1 (since 1997)
  • H7N9 (since 2013)
  • H5N6 (since 2014)
  • H5N8 (since 2016)
    
    

How bird flu spreads to humans?

• Bird flu is spread by close contact with an infected bird (dead or alive).
• This includes:
  • touching infected birds
  • touching droppings or bedding
  • killing or preparing infected poultry for cooking
  • Markets where live birds are sold can also be a source of bird flu.
    

Different types of avian influenza:

• Avian Influenza (AI) type A viruses are divided into subtypes based on two proteins on the surface of the virus:
• Hemagglutinin (HA), of which there are 16 subtypes (H1-H16)
• Neuraminidase (NA), of which there are 9 subtypes (N1-N9)
• Many combinations of HA and NA proteins are possible (i.e., H5N1, H5N2, H7N2, H7N8, etc).
• AI viruses are also classified into two groups based on their ability to produce disease in chickens: highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) or low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI).
• HPAI viruses cause high mortality in poultry and occasionally high death rates in certain species of wild birds.
• LPAI viruses can cause a variety of outcomes in poultry ranging from no apparent clinical signs to moderate death rates. LPAI viruses usually cause little to no signs in wild birds.
• H5 and H7 LPAI viruses have the potential to mutate or evolve into HPAI viruses and are closely monitored by animal health officials.

During the last week of April 2022, a rare and unique planet alignment is going to occur, which is popularly known as 'planet parade'.

• Although there is no scientific definition for 'planet parade', it is being widely used in astronomy to denote an event that takes place when planets of the solar system line up in a row in the same area of the sky.

Planets that are lined up:

• Four planets–Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Saturn–will align in the same ecliptic plane of our solar system, making them seem as if they are in a straight line across the eastern horizon.
• These planets, though quite far away from each other, will be uniquely positioned to appear as if they’re in a straight line.
• Further, two more planets – Mercury and Uranus is expected to join the alignment later this year.
• The alignment will be one of the few rare phenomena that will actually be visible to watchers without the need for a telescope or other viewing instrument.
  

What is planet alignment?

• Planetary alignments occur when the planets' orbits bring them to the same region of the sky, when viewed from Earth.
• These planetary alignments are not rare, but they're not regularly occurring.
• The last time five planets aligned in the night sky was in 2020, preceded by alignments in 2016 and 2005. 

India has called for the historic status quo at the holy places of Jerusalem to be respected and upheld. 

Key highlights of India’s stand at UNSC’s open debate on the West Asia:

• India at UNSC raised deep concern over the brutal clashes that broke out in holy shrines in Jerusalem during the ongoing month of Ramadan.
• The historic status quo of the place must be upheld, stressed by India's representative at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meeting on the Middle East.
• At the open debate, India also went on to call for an unequivocal condemnation of the gruesome acts of "obstruction, vandalism, and desecration, that violate the sanctity of the holy places, are it in Jerusalem, Nablus, or elsewhere."
• India also appealed to all involved parties to "stop provocations and incitement" which could further worsen the situation.
• India reaffirmed its commitment to the establishment of "independent and viable state" of Palestine.
• India calls for the implementation of the "two-state" policy, which will enable Palestine to live within secure and recognised borders "side-by-side with Israel."

Tea mosquito bugs have attacked acres of cashew crops in Odisha.

Tea Mosquito Bug:

• Scientific Name: Helopeltis antonii
• Tea mosquito bug is a major pest of cashew causing severe damage in several parts of the world.
• Among the four species attacking cashew, H. antonii is the dominant species.
• The pest has got potential to cause as high as cent per cent loss in yield.
  
• Season of occurrence:
  • In general, TMB activity is very less during monsoon period (June- September) and the pest build up commences during October- November synchronizing with the emergence of new flushes after the cessation of monsoon rains.
  • The population reaches a peak during December-January, when the trees are in full bloom while, the pest activity is seen till May unitl harvest.
  • But, the pest incidence may be noticed throughout the year in young plantations.

Management

• Undertake pruning to regulate the shade to facilitate proper penetration of sunlight inside the canopy.
• Spray the following insecticides, thoroughly covering foliage and bark during early morning hours.
  • Monocrotophos at new flush formation.
  • Spray endosulfan or carbaryl in 1500-2000 L of water per ha and Urea 3% at flower initiation and again at fruiting time
• Do not interplant cashew with crops that are host for Helopeltis bugs, such as cotton, tea, sweet potato, guava and mango.

NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said that Natural farming is the need of the hour as the cost of production of food grain has increased due to the use of chemicals and fertilizers.

What is natural farming?

• Natural farming is a system where the laws of nature are applied to agricultural practices. 
• This method works along with the natural biodiversity of each farmed area, encouraging the complexity of living organisms, both plants, and animals that shape each particular ecosystem to thrive along with food plants.
• In India, Natural farming is promoted as Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Paddhati Programme (BPKP) under Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY).
• It was developed by Subhash Palekar from Maharashtra in the mid-1990s as an alternative to the Green Revolution’s methods, which led to indebtedness and suicide among farmers due to rising cost on external inputs in agriculture.

What is Zero budget natural farming (ZBNF)?

• It is a method of chemical-free agriculture drawing from traditional Indian practices.
• Using cow dung, urine based formulations and botanical extracts would help farmers in reducing the input cost.
• Intercropping with leguminous crops is one of the components of ZBNF and it improves the crop productivity and soil fertility by way of fixing the atmospheric nitrogen.
• It promotes soil aeration, minimal watering, intercropping, bunds and topsoil mulching and discourages intensive irrigation and deep ploughing.

Components of Natural Farming:

• Beejamrit: The process includes treatment of seed using cow dung, urine and lime based formulation.
• Jivamrit: The process enhances the fertility of soil using cow urine, dung, flour of pulses and jiggery concoction.
• Whapasa: The process involves activating earthworms in the soil in order to create water vapour condensation.
• Mulching: The process involves creating micro climate using different mulches with trees, crop biomass to conserve soil moisture.
• Plant Protection: The process involves spraying of biological concoctions which prevents pest, disease and weeds problems and protects the plant and improves their soil fertility.
  
  
  

The Border Haat at Indo-Bangladesh border in Meghalaya has been finally opened after a gap of two years.

Border Haats 

• The border haats are set up at the zero line of international border with one part on Indian side and the other in Bangladesh
• The Haats is focus on importance of restoration of economic and commercial ties between the people living on either side of our Borders.
• There are no border haats in operation along the Bhutan and Myanmar borders.
• At present, India and Bangladesh have seven established Border Haats and nine more new Border Haats are in the pipeline.
• Border Haats enable local residents on both sides of the border to trade the local produce.

Meghalaya-Bangladesh border:

• Kalaichar (India)-Baliamari (Bangladesh)
• Dalora (Bangladesh)-Balat (India)
• Ryngku (India)- Bagan Bari (Bangladesh)
• Nalikata (India)- Saydabad (Bangladesh)

Tripura-Bangladesh Border

• Srinagar-Ramgarh border in Tripura
• Sepahijala (India)-Brahmanbaria (Bangladesh)
  

Procedure of Haat

• Selected commodities from both countries would be traded during, the border hatt period.
• Business in haat would take place once in a week initially.
• It is anticipated that the haat would cater the livelihood option to more than thousands of marginal income families and small traders of both the countries.
• Business in the haat would take place once a week among people living within 5 km radius of the border who would sell and buy locally produced goods and crops.
• No local taxes would be imposed on the itemsto be sold in the haats and currencies of both the countries would prevail
• It would be beneficial for people of the region as no tax would be imposed on the items to be sold in the haat andcurrencies of both the countries will be allowed.