UPSC Current Affairs Pointers of the past week

Report

(FYI: The data provided in these reports can be used to substantiate your Mains answer and create a broad understanding of the topic.)

— The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a global group of scientific experts, has released an Assessment Report on the Interlinkages among Biodiversity, Water, Food and Health – known as the Nexus Report.

— This is a first-of-a-kind report looking at the interconnections between these multiple crises.

— The group examined five major challenges — climate change, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, water scarcity, and health risks — and found that they were strongly interconnected.

— IPBES was established in 2012 to examine all the existing scientific knowledge on biodiversity and nature to make an assessment of their current state.

— The Nexus report highlighted the strong interlinkages between the five identified global challenges. Its key takeaway is that responses to all these challenges need to be harmonised so that positive actions taken on any one of these do not result in negative impacts on others.

— The report pointed out that more than half of the global GDP — about 58 trillion dollars worth of annual economic activity — was moderately to highly dependent on nature. Deterioration of natural ecosystems, therefore, could directly hurt productivity and adversely impact economic output.

— The Nexus report finds that there has been a 2-6 percent biodiversity decline per decade across all assessed indicators for the last 30-50 years.

— The biennial India State of Forest Report (ISFR 2023) released by Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav reported a net gain of 156 sq km in India’s forest cover and 1,289 sq km in tree cover since 2021. It also recorded a complete loss of 3,656 sq km of dense forests at that time.

— There is an increase of 1,445 sq km in the total forest and tree cover of the country.

— At 1,12,014 sq km, India’s tree cover now extends over 3.41% of the land area and supplements India’s 21.76% forest cover.

— The top four states that recorded the maximum increase in forest and tree cover are Chhattisgarh (684 sq km) followed by Uttar Pradesh (559 sq km), Odisha (559 sq km) and Rajasthan (394 sq km).

— The four states that recorded the maximum loss in forest and tree cover between 2021 and 2023 are Madhya Pradesh (612.41 sq km), Karnataka (459.36 sq km), Ladakh (159.26 sq km) and Nagaland (125.22 sq km).

— When it comes to gain in forest cover alone, Mizoram (242 sq km), Gujarat (180 sq km) and Odisha (152 sq km) topped the chart.

— There is a loss of 3,656 sq km of dense forests in two years.

— Since 2021, the country’s mangrove cover shrunk by 7.43 sq km with Gujarat recording the biggest loss of 36.39 sq km.

— A seven-member panel headed by former ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan has made a set of 101 recommendations to the Ministry of Education for conducting national level entrance exams in a “transparent, smooth and fair” manner.

— The panel was formed in June 2024 after the NEET-UG paper leak.

 

International Cooperation

Prime Minister Narendra Modi being awarded ‘The Order of Mubarak Al-Kabeer’ by Kuwait’s Amir Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah on Sunday. (PTI)

— Prime Minister Narendra Modi was awarded the ‘Order of Mubarak Al Kabeer’, the highest honour in Kuwait, by Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al Sabah. This is the 20th international honour bestowed on Modi.

— The Order of Mubarak Al Kabeer is a Kuwaiti knighthood awarded to Heads of State, foreign sovereigns, and members of foreign royal families as a symbol of friendship.

— The ‘Order of Mubarak Al Kabeer’ has been previously awarded to foreign leaders like Bill Clinton, Prince Charles and George Bush.

— PM Modi went on a two days visit to Kuwait — the first by an Indian PM in 43 years. The last Indian PM to visit Kuwait was Indira Gandhi in 1981.

Economic Cooperation

— Kuwait ranks as one of India’s top trading partners, with bilateral trade valued at USD 10.47 billion in the financial year 2023-24.

— Indian exports to Kuwait have reached a record USD 2 billion, while investments by the Kuwait Investment Authority in India exceed USD 10 billion.

— The Indian community forms the largest expatriate group in Kuwait  — with over one million Indians making up 21 percent of Kuwait’s population and 30 percent of its workforce.

— India and France signed an agreement on the “adaptive reuse” of the North and South blocks for the ambitious new national museum project, dubbed the largest museum in the world on Thursday.

— It is a part of the Central Vista Redevelopment Project and is set to span approximately 1.55 lakh square metre, overtaking The Louvre in Paris, presently the world’s biggest.

— It will be implemented in two phases — the first comprising the retrofitting of North Block into a museum space, with an estimated deadline of June 2026.

— The government is considering discontinuing the sovereign gold bond (SGBs) scheme due to the high cost of financing the scheme.

— SGBs are debt securities issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on behalf of the government, with each unit denoting a gram of gold. These bonds offer the flexibility of trading in the secondary market, providing investors with the opportunity to accrue capital gains.

— The bonds are held in the books of the RBI or in demat form eliminating risk of loss. While the tenor of bonds is eight years, it can be redeemed after five years.

— These bonds offer the flexibility of trading in the secondary market and the interest in SGBs is fixed at 2.5 per cent per annum on the amount of initial investment.

 

Polity

— The Centre has re-imposed the Protected Area Regime or Protected Area Permit (PAP) in the states of Manipur, Mizoram, and Nagaland.

— According to the Union Home Ministry’s guidelines, a foreign national is not allowed to visit a ‘Protected Area’, as laid down in the Foreigners (Protected Areas) Order, 1958, “unless it is established to the satisfaction of the Government that there are extraordinary reasons to justify such a visit”.

— The guidelines also specify certain areas within the Protected Areas which tourists can visit with a permit.

— For grant of Protected Area Permits for reasons other than tourism, prior permission is needed from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

 

Environment

Northern giant hornets can sting through most beekeeper suits, delivering almost seven times the amount of venom as a honey bee. (Source: Elaine Thompson/AFP)

— The Northern giant hornet, nicknamed the “murder hornet”, has been eradicated in the United States. The insect was first spotted in Washington state near the Canadian border in 2019.

— The hornets can be 2 inches long and are an invasive species from Asia. They first came under the spotlight in 2013 when they killed at least 42 people in China.

— The species poses a significant threat to insects and native pollinators. ‘Murder hornets’ can kill an entire beehive of honeybees in just 90 minutes.

— Fire crews continue to battle a wildfire in the wealthy coastal town of Malibu, California, which began on December 9.

— Although the cause of the fire is yet to be determined, experts suggest that the Franklin Fire has been destructive because of two reasons, the “Santa Ana” winds and climate change.

— Santa Ana winds blow when high pressure builds over the Great Basin — the area between the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada (a mountain range in the Western United States) — and the pressure is low over California’s coast.

— The difference in pressure triggers the movement of powerful winds from the Basin’s inland deserts, east and north of Southern California, over the mountains toward the Pacific Ocean.

— As the wind comes down the mountains, it compresses and heats up. The wind’s humidity also drops, sometimes to less than 20% or even less than 10%. The extremely low moisture turns vegetation dry, making it ready to burn.

— The Supreme Court asked the Centre to create a comprehensive policy for the governance and management of sacred groves across the country while underlining their ecological importance.

— According to IUCN, Sacred groves are found all over India – especially in states like Maharastra, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. As a refuge for various plant and animal species, they are usually areas of natural vegetation resembling small forests and important sites for worship and community gatherings.

A bleached coral. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Wendy Cover/NOAA)

— A new study claims that a record-breaking marine heatwave nearly a decade ago caused the mass deaths of a species of Alaskan seabird known as the common murres.

— A marine heat wave is an extreme weather event. It occurs when the surface temperature of a particular region of the sea rises to 3 or 4 degree Celsius above the average temperature for at least five days.

— MHWs can last for weeks, months or even years, according to the US government’s agency National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

— Another example is when high ocean temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean in 2005 led to a massive coral bleaching event. A 2010 study showed that more than 80 per cent of surveyed corals had bleached and over 40 per cent of the total surveyed had died.

— Corals are very sensitive to the temperature of the water in which they live. When water gets too warm, they expel the algae known as zooxanthellae, living in their tissues, causing them to turn entirely white. This is called coral bleaching.

Wroughton’s free-tailed bat is ecologically important for regulating insect populations and is also known to assist in pollination. (Photo: Mohan Singh, officer at the DDA Yamuna Biodiversity Park)

— Wroughton’s free-tailed bat, a highly rare species of molossus bat, has been spotted at the Delhi Development Authority (DDA)’s Yamuna Biodiversity Park, marking a unique sighting.

— This bat species is primarily found in the Western Ghats, where there is only one known breeding colony. Small colonies have also been recorded in Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya, and a single individual was noted in Cambodia.

— Wroughton’s free-tailed bat is ecologically important for regulating insect populations and is also known to assist in pollination. Until 2000, the species was considered critically endangered because of a single known population in the Western Ghats.

— Later, with discoveries in three different localities, the bat species was placed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List as data deficient.

 

Science and Technology

— A novel hybrid aerogel capable of easily extracting gold from electronic waste was developed by a group of researchers from Pune.

— Sujit Ghosh and team at IISER, Pune, have designed and synthesised aerogel : the sponge-like absorbents, light in weight and porous synthetic materials for this purpose.

— Aerogels are most preferred in environment and oil spill clean up, for insulation purposes and more.

Handy data on e-waste

— Between 2020 and 2022, the e-waste generation grew by 131 per cent, according to UN Trade and Development report.

— The Global E-waste monitor 2020 report has projected an increase of e-waste from 9.2 million tons to 74.7 million tonnes by the end of this decade in India.

In a way, Nvidia’s latest tiny supercomputer is making AI accessible for businesses of all sizes. (Picture Credit: Nvidia)

— Nvidia unveiled the Jetson Orin Nano Super Generative AI supercomputer on December 17.

— It brings a lot more computing power in a tiny form factor. Owing to its enhanced performance, the supercomputer can help developers fuel innovation.

— Scientists at the World Health Organisation (WHO) have endorsed a new class of medicines known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, which mimic a hormone that regulates appetite and blood sugar levels, for managing obesity.

— The new class of GLP-1 receptor agonists included drugs such as semaglutide and tirzepatide.

Data on obesity

— Globally, one in eight people were living with obesity in 2022. There were 890 million adults and 160 million adolescents living with obesity in 2022.

— In India, there were 44 million women and 26 million men living with obesity in 2022.

— WHO scientists say that global costs associated with obesity are likely to reach $3 trillion by 2030. In countries with 30 per cent prevalence of obesity, it could absorb up to 18 per cent of the national health expenditure.

 

Persons in News

(Just FYI: Noting historical personalities’ anniversaries aids UPSC prep. UPSC often includes such personalities in questions, so revisiting their lives refreshes your static syllabus.)

On December 2, 1989, O P Chautala became the CM for the first time after Devi Lal vacated the chair and went to Parliament.

— Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) supremo and five-time Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala passed away Friday on 20th December.

— Chautala was born to former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal and Harki Devi.

— Chautala holds the distinction of being Haryana’s CM for the maximum times but his overall tenure was around six-and-a-half years. The only full term he could complete was from 2000 to 2005.

— Padma Shri awardee Tulsi Gowda, an environmentalist from Karnataka who is revered as the “tree goddess” by the Halakki tribal community at age 86.

— Known as the ‘encyclopedia of forest’, Gowda was born in Honnali village in Ankola taluk in Uttara Kannada district in 1944.

— Gowda has been credited with planting and nurturing over 1 lakh trees across Karnataka.

— In 2021, she was conferred the Padma Shri for her exceptional contributions to environmental conservation.

— Tabla virtuoso Ustad Zakir Hussain passed away at the age of 73 in the United States after complications from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

— The percussionist received the Padma Shri in 1988, Padma Bhushan in 2002, and the Padma Vibhushan in 2023. He was the recipient of four Grammy awards in his career.

— In 1999, he received the United States National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship, a testament to his global impact.

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF)

— The exact cause of the initial injury to lung tissue is unknown, which is why it is called “idiopathic” (meaning without a clear origin).

— It is believed that genetic factors, environmental exposures, and chronic inflammation all play a role in triggering this faulty repair process.

— Fibrosis causes the lungs to stiffen, making breathing harder.

 

Awards

The Sahitya Akademi is India’s premier institution of letters, with a stated commitment to “promoting Indian literature throughout the world”.

— The Sahitya Akademi was established by Jawaharlal Nehru, who was also its first chairperson, and inaugurated on March 12, 1954.

— Every year, the Akademi announces awards for authors of works of outstanding literary merit in Indian languages.

— Awards are currently given for 24 languages; the most recent additions being Bodo and Santhali in 2005. Awards in English began in 1960 — the first recipient was R K Narayan for his novel The Guide.

Category	Awardees
Poetry	Sameer Tanti (Assamese), Dileep Jhaveri (Gujarati), Gagan Gill (Hindi), K. Jayakumar (Malayalam), Haobam Satyabati Devi (Manipuri), Paul Kaur (Punjabi), Mukut Maniraj (Rajasthani), Dipak Kumar Sharma (Sanskrit)
Novel	Aron Raja (Bodo), Easterine Kire (English), Sohal Koul (Kashmiri)
Short Stories	Yuva Baral (Nepali), Hundraj Balwani (Sindhi)
Essays	Mukesh Thali (Konkani), Mahendra Malangia (Maithili), Baishnab Charan Samal (Odia)
Literary criticism	K.V. Narayana (Kannada), Sudhir Rasal (Marathi), Penugonda Lakshminarayana (Telugu)
Play	Maheswar Soren (Santali)
Research	A.R. Venkatachalapathy (Tamil)

Test Your Knowledge

(Note: The best way to remember facts for UPSC and other competitive exams is to recall them through MCQs. Try to solve the following questions on your own.)

A. Who won the Sahitya Academy Award for Poetry in Hindi?

(a) Easterine Kire

(b) Gagan Gill

(c) Sohal Koul

(d) Dipak Kumar Sharma

B. Consider the following statements about Wroughton’s free-tailed bat.

1. This bat species is primarily found in the Eastern Ghats, where there is only one known breeding colony.

2. The species is placed as critically endangered under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

Which of the following statements is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

C. Consider the following states:

1. Assam

2. Manipur

3. Meghalaya

4. Nagaland

5. Mizoram

The Protected Area Permit (PAP) is imposed in which of the following states?

(a) 1, 3 and 5

(b) 2, 4 and 5

(c) 1, 2 and 3

(d) 3, 4 and 5

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