GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

A recent study indicates that the plant species considered as invasive in non-native regions, use characteristics to survive and flourish that are different from the ones in their native regions.

Key Findings of the study:

• A study of the Canadian horseweed species revealed the changing behaviour of plant species in non-native regions, helping them to become successful invaders.
• Conyza canadensis, commonly known as Canadian horseweed (Asteraceae) across four Mediterranean populations of California and Jordan, inter-mountain western United States and central China has been studied.
• Soil microbial activity plays an important role in making invasive species flourish in non-native regions.
• The microbial activity in the roots of the plant in native regions was less and the species showed more parasitic properties.
• In India, the EU and Asia, the micro-fungal benefits were mutual.
• The plants took carbon from the soil, but released nutrients such as phosphorous, nitrogen and others in return.
• The high amount of nutrients offered attracted microbes and fungi growth.
• The findings show that the benefits are mutual in such a case and the plant evolved towards enhanced mutualism as it interacted with the microbes.
• The study showed that such changing relations at a bio geographical scale between the plant and soil biota contributed towards the disproportionate abundance and success of the species as an invader in non-native regions.
  
  

About invasive species:

• An invasive species is an organism that is not indigenous, or native, to a particular area.
• Pathways: An invasive species can be introduced to a new area via the ballast water of oceangoing ships, intentional and accidental releases of aquaculture species, aquarium specimens or bait, and other means.
• Not all non-native species are invasive.
• For example, most of the food crops grown in the United States, including popular varieties of wheat, tomatoes, and rice, are not native to the region.
• Features: To be invasive, a species must 
• It must adapt to the new area easily.
• It must reproduce quickly.
• It must harm property, the economy, or the native plants and animals of the region.

• Threats
• Extinction of native ecosystem: Invasive species are capable of causing extinctions of native plants and animals, reducing biodiversity, competing with native organisms for limited resources, and altering habitats.
• This can result in huge economic impacts and fundamental disruptions of coastal and Great Lakes ecosystems.
• Threat to resources: Invasive species can harm both the natural resources in an ecosystem as well as threaten human use of these resources.
• Threat to native wildlife: Invasive species are among the leading threats to native wildlife.
• Approximately 42 percent of threatened or endangered species are at risk due to invasive species.

List of invasive flora and fauna in India

Every person on the planet has the right to live in a clean, healthy environment, declared United Nations (UN) in a historic resolution.

• The landmark development demonstrates that the member states can unite in the collective fight against the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
• The resolution will help to reduce environmental injustices and protection gaps.
• It can empower people, especially those in vulnerable situations, including environmental human rights defenders, children, youth, women and indigenous people.
• The right to a healthy environment is one of the essential requirements for leading a dignified life.
• People have to hold their governments accountable to get these rights delivered.
• The declaration adopted by over 160 UN member nations, including India, is not legally binding.
• States who abstained: China, Russian Federation, Belarus, Cambodia, Iran, Syria, Kyrgyzstan and Ethiopia.
• It will encourage countries to incorporate the right to a healthy environment in national constitutions and regional treaties.
  
  

India’s Stand:

• India has voted in favour of a UNGA resolution that recognises the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right.
• However, India dissociated itself from an operative paragraph of the text and voiced its concerns over the procedure and substance of the resolution.
• India asserted that the UNGA resolutions do not in themselves create binding obligations, and it is only through conventions and treaties that State parties commit to a new human right and undertake appropriate obligations for the realisation of such a right.
• India points that the resolution fails to have a clear reference to the foundational principle of equity in international environmental law.
• India had also expressed its concerns clearly and repeatedly, and made constructive proposals to achieve a common ground.

The combined Index of Eight Core Industries increased by 12.7 per cent (provisional) as compared to the Index of June 2021.

What are the ‘eight-core sectors’ of India?

• In India, there are eight sectors that are considered the core sectors.
• The eight-core sectors of the Indian economy are electricity, steel, refinery products, crude oil, coal, cement, natural gas and fertilizers.
• Office of the Economic Adviser, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade is responsible for the release of the Index of Eight Core Industries.
  • It maps the volume of production in the eight most fundamental industries of our economy.

Key-highlights of the Index of Eight Core Industries:

• Petroleum Refinery has the highest weightage in the index of eight core industries followed by Electricity generation, Steel, Coal, Crude Oil Production, Natural Gas, Cement Production and Fertilizers respectively.
• The Eight Core Industries comprise 27 percent of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).
• At present, the base year for the Index of Eight Core Industries (ICI) index is 2011-12.

Coastal monitoring and surveillance is being carried out on real time basis by Indian Coast Guard.

• Chain of Static Sensors (CSS) consisting of 46 radar stations which have been established under Coastal Surveillance Network (CSN).
• Coastal Surveillance System through Chain of Coastal High Definition Surface Warning Radars is one of the means through which Coastal Security is being implemented.
• The radars have been installed since 2011.

Steps taken by the Government

Steps taken by the Government to strengthen the coastal security and protect the vulnerable coastal ecosystem from further climatic degradation are as follows:

• Deployment of ships and aircrafts for surveillance on daily basis to ensure maritime law enforcement, coastal security, pollution response, search & rescue and other charted/mandated duties towards public function.
• Coordination with major and non-major ports by ships on patrol and surveillance through Coastal Security.
• Promulgation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for Coastal Security in all Coastal States/UTs by ICG for coordination between all stakeholders.
• Conduct of Coastal Security exercises and Coastal Security Operations.
• Integration with coastal community through Community Interaction Programmes (CIPs) to bring awareness amongst fisher folk for strengthening coastal security mechanism.
• Capacity building and training of Marine Police and Joint Coastal Patrol (JCP) by Indian Coast Guard.
• Launch of campaign on plastic free seas under the aegis of 'Puneet Sagar Abhiyan' and 'Swachh Sagar Abhiyan' in collaboration with NGOs and NCC to collect plastics running into oceans through land sources.
• Deployment of Pollution Response Vessels and teams for oil spill response to protect marine ecosystem. 

Researchers said the neutron star classified as a “black widow” has a mass about 2.35 times greater than that of our sun.

About “Black Widow”:

• The neutron star, wildly spinning at 707 times per second, has a mass about 2.35 times greater than that of our sun, putting it perhaps at the maximum possible for such objects before they would collapse to form a black hole.
• It has been observed the most massive known example of an object called a neutron star.
• This neutron star inhabits what is called a binary system, in an orbit with another star.
• The neutron star is a kind dubbed a "black widow," named in honor of female black widow spiders that eat their male partners after mating.
• It apparently was born with the usual mass of a neutron star, about 1.4 times that of our sun, but its gravitational pull poached material from its companion star, enabling it to grow to a mass seemingly at the uppermost limit before physics would dictate a collapse into a black hole, the densest of all known objects.
• It has swallowed nearly a full sun's worth of mass without yet becoming a black hole. So it should be just on the edge of black hole collapse.
  
  

Neutron Stars

• Neutron stars are formed when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses.
• The very central region of the star, the core, collapses, crushing together every proton and electron into a neutron.
• If the core of the collapsing star is between about 1 and 3 solar masses, these newly-created neutrons can stop the collapse, leaving behind a neutron star.
• Stars with higher masses will continue to collapse into stellar-mass black holes.
• Many neutron stars are likely undetectable because they simply do not emit enough radiation.

Black Hole

• A black hole is a region of space-time, where gravity is extremely strong that no object can escape from it.
• Types: There are two types of black holes which become three with the discovery:
• Stellar-mass black holes: These are the black holes witha mass of fewer than 100 times that of the Sun.
• Supermassive black holes (SMBH): These are the ones with a mass greater than 100,000 times that of the Sun.
• Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs): These are a class of black holes with a mass approximately 100 to 100,000 times that of the Sun.
• Both stellar black holes and SMBHs are commonly found.

A new damselfly species from the Western Ghats has been added to odonates’ checklist of Kerala.

About the new species:

• Name: Anamalai Reed-tail (scientific name: Protosticta anamalaica Sadasivan, Nair and Samuel, 2022).
• Anamalai Reed-tail first spotted at Peechi Wildlife Sanctuary.
• The tiny insect was first spotted at Ponmudi hills in the Peechi Wildlife Sanctuary that forms part of the Nelliampathies–Anamalais sub-unit of the Munnar landscape.
• The genus Protosticta Sels, 1885, consists of slender-built damselflies commonly known as Reed-tails or Shadow-damsels.
• They inhabit hill streams in tropical, subtropical and temperate jungles of the Indian subcontinent and south-eastern Asia.
• In India, they are distributed in the Western Ghats and north-eastern region towards Myanmar.
• The genus was described from Sulawesi in Indonesia.
• There are 15 species of Protosticta in India, among which 12 inhabit the Western Ghats.
• Kerala has 182 odonates’ species with 69 endemics.