📰 ‘China, India can partner in rebuilding Afghanistan’
Chinese scholar says U.S. shows no interest in reconstruction of war-hit nation
•China could be tapping India as its leading partner for the reconstruction of Afghanistan as no other country is showing intent to rebuild the strife-torn nation, says influential Chinese scholar Hu Shisheng.
•“Afghanistan is our problem. Although the problem was created by the U.S., we are finally facing the consequences. China and India, as major powers especially in the region, have to show the international community that we can shoulder responsibility (of reconstruction),” said Mr. Hu, a senior researcher at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR).
•In an interview with The Hindu following the Wuhan summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, the scholar pointed out that Beijing and New Delhi had to “fill the vacuum” as the Trump administration was not showing any intention to rebuild Afghanistan. “The Trump administration would not be focusing on reconstruction. It is intent on fighting terrorists and also focusing on the (Afghan) peace process. So who will then fill this vacuum.”
•Mr. Hu stressed that growing pressure from the Trump administration was spurring Eurasia-centred “regional cooperation”. “(Donald) Trump’s pressure on Pakistan, China and India is visible. That could be one of the driving forces that could be pushing these countries to move in a coordinated way to counter this pressure.”
•He pointed out that in tune with the growing geopolitical shifts, China and India could be undertaking a joint “pilot project”, when asked to comment on the announcement at Wuhan that New Delhi and Beijing would launch their first joint economic initiative in Afghanistan.
Joint proposal
•The scholar said “he was not aware” of the specific details of the project announced in Wuhan, but pointed to an earlier joint think-tank study which had recommended a major project by China and India in Afghanistan.
•“When India was bidding for the Hajigak iron project in Afghanistan, three think tanks — CICIR from China, the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) from India and Britain’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) — came up with a proposal. “Because China’s Aynak copper project was quite near to Hajigak, we discussed how China and India could work together for the safe transportation of the ores from their mining sites to Chabahar in Iran, via a road link that had already been established by India to the Indian ocean port,” Mr. Hu observed.
•“We also discussed setting up a refining facility for these raw materials because of the proximity of the mines to each other.” Mr. Hu asserted that “it does not matter” if India conceived the proposed Afghanistan project outside the framework of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). “Ever since your former President Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to China in 2016, there was no other occasion when Chinese leaders personally mentioned BRI before an Indian leader.”
•India has opposed BRI on the grounds that one of its projects infringed on India’s sovereignty as it passed through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). According to the Chinese scholar, Pakistan was unlikely to oppose a joint China-India joint project in Afghanistan.
•“This kind of social and economic development, I don’t think Pakistan will view it with visible suspicion, because developing Afghanistan will also finally benefit Pakistan.” But he acknowledged that China may have decided to work with India to assuage Pakistan’s sensitivity to “Indian presence (in Afghanistan), whether it is diplomatic, economic or security”.
•While China was looking at India’s partnership in Afghanistan’s reconstruction, it was also engaged with Kabul and Islamabad on the security track to help stabilise Afghanistan. “We are encouraging Afghanistan and Pakistan to deal with each other bilaterally through information sharing and coordinated anti-terror cooperation. After all, security in Afghanistan is a precondition for anything else.”
Connectivity projects
•Mr. Hu said a merger of Indian and Chinese connectivity projects could establish a giant area of “sub-regional cooperation,” which would also benefit Afghanistan. “India is pushing forward the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal project, The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, and also connectivity between India, Bangladesh and Myanmar, while China is pushing the idea of China Myanmar corridor construction, and also building the railway between China and Nepal.
•“Finally the connectivity programmes of the two countries can merge with each other into one sub-region integral,” he said.
📰 Many important cases wait for orders in SC
Among the cases pending are power tussle in Delhi, Aadhaar, and use of parliamentary committee reports as evidence
•It is exactly six months since a Constitution Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, has reserved for judgment the critical power spat between the Centre and the democratically elected Arvind Kejriwal government on who wields the power of administration and governance of the national capital.
•The five-judge Bench had reserved orders after extensive hearing for over a month on December 6, 2017. There is a week more left before the court closes for summer vacation. The same Constitution Bench is hearing a batch of petitions challenging the Aadhaar scheme.
•Another critical issue on which judgment is pending is whether parliamentary committee reports can be used as evidence in courts. This has been reserved for over six months.
•Though there is no deadline for pronouncing judgments after they are reserved, convention shows important judgments, especially those on constitutional questions of privacy and instant triple talaq, are delivered within six months.
•Recently, Justice Jasti Chelameswar said in a public forum that delay in pronouncement of judgment defeated the very purpose of administration of justice.
•The Supreme Court has been in the eye of a controversy shortly after the Delhi power tussle verdict was reserved. On January 12, four of its senior-most judges held an unprecedented joint press conference, in which they complained about the allocation of cases of “national importance” to preferred Benches. The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government had challenged the Delhi High Court’s judgment declaring the Lieutenant-Governor the sole administrator of Delhi. The Delhi government mounted the challenge shortly after the judgment was pronounced in August 2016.
•The focus of the Constitution Bench was on a proviso to Article 239AA (4), which mandates that in case of a “difference of opinion” between the LG and the Council of Ministers, the former has to refer the issue to the President. While that decision is pending with the President, the LG, if the matter is urgent, can use his discretion to take immediate action.
•The judgment was reserved with the Chief Justice Misra, at one point, making an oral observation that the Constitution had meant that the “difference of opinion” between the LG and the Delhi government should be “authentic” and not meant to stultify governance.
📰 ISRO’s clock to prop up India’s own GPS
Repeated failures of foreign-made atomic clocks have dogged NavIC project
•Time is running out for the seven-satellite Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), also known as NavIC (Navigation in Indian Constellation). NavIC, whose seventh satellite was launched in April 2016, was expected to provide India a satellite-based navigation system independent of the U.S.-controlled GPS (Global Positioning System). But India’s own ‘regional GPS’ is yet to become officially operational owing to repeated failures of the atomic clocks on the satellites.
•In view of the cascade of failing imported atomic clocks — nine out of the 21 clocks in the fleet have failed — ISRO has decided to add buffers to the NavIC by adding four more satellites. It hopes to have an indigenous atomic clock in each of them. “We are in the process of getting approval [from the government] for at least another four IRNSS satellites,” ISRO Chairman K.Sivan told The Hindu , confirming the failure of clocks. “However, they will have some advanced technology, apart from the atomic clocks developed by ISRO.” NavIC is meant to give Indian civil and military users reliable location and time information, for which the performance of the atomic clocks is critical.
•The indigenous atomic clock is being developed by the Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad, Mr. Sivan said, adding that once it passes qualification tests, “We will first demonstrate the indigenous clock in an upcoming navigation satellite, along with the imported ones. Work on them is going on in full steam.”
•The cost and timing of the new satellites are not finalised, Mr. Sivan said. The development and eventual use of an indigenous atomic clock, at a cost of a few hundred crore rupees, was part of the NavIC concept, he added.
First failures in 2016
•The rubidium atomic clocks from Europe started failing on the first navigation satellite, IRNSS-1A, around 2016, soon after ISRO put the last and seventh satellite in orbit. Until a few months ago, three more satellites were said to have suffered “one or two dysfunctional clocks” each, while two satellites did not have any problematic clocks. Each satellite carries three atomic clocks, including a standby.
•ISRO is concerned that if more clocks fail, it may render the Rs. 1,400-crore fleet a dud. NavIC, which will be controlled by India, unlike the U.S. GPS or Russian Glonass systems, will be serve the armed forces.
📰 A RAT that spies on computers
Malware allegedly designed by Pakistani hackers has become stronger: experts
•GravityRAT, a malware allegedly designed by Pakistani hackers, has recently been updated further and equipped with anti-malware evasion capabilites, Maharashtra cybercrime officials said.
•The RAT was first detected by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, CERT-In, on various computers in 2017.
•It is designed to infliltrate computers, steal the data of users, and relay it to command and control centres in other countries. The ‘RAT’ in its name stands for Remote Access Trojan, which is a program capable of being controlled remotely and thus difficult to trace.
Mask presence
•Maharashtra cybercrime department officials said that the latest update to the program by its developers is part of GravityRAT’s function as an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT). Once it infiltrates a system, silently evolves and does long-term damage.
•“GravityRAT is unlike most malware, which are designed to inflict short-term damage. It lies hidden in the system that it takes over and keeps penetrating deeper. According to latest inputs, GravityRAT has now become self aware and is capable of evading several commonly used malware detection techniques,” an officer of the cybercrime unit said.
•One such technique is ‘sandboxing’, to isolate malware from critical programs on infected devices and provide an extra layer of security.
•“The problem, however, is that malware needs to be detected before it can be sandboxed, and GravityRAT now has the ability to mask its presence. Typically, malware activity is detected by the ‘noise’ it causes inside the Central Processing Unit, but GravityRAT is able to work silently. It can also gauge the temperature of the CPU and ascertain if the device is carrying out high intensity activity, like a malware search, and act to evade detection,” another officer said.
email attachment
•Officials said that GravityRAT infiltrates a system in the form of an innocuous looking email attachment, which can be in any format, including MS Word, MS Excel, MS Powerpoint, Adobe Acrobat or even audio and video files.
•“The hackers first identify the interests of their targets and then send emails with suitable attachments. Thus a document with ‘share prices’ in the file is sent to those interested in the stock market. Once it is downloaded, it prompts the user to enter a message in a dialogue box, purportedly to prove that the user is not a bot. While the users take this to be a sign of extra security, the action actually initiates the process for the malware to infiltrate the system, triggering several steps that end with GravityRAT sending data to the command and control server regularly,” an officer said.
•The other concern is that the command and control servers are based in several countries. The data is sent in an encrypted format, making it difficult to detect exactly what is leaked.
•Special Inspector General of Police (Cyber) Brijesh Singh of Maharashtra police said, “We urge people to follow basic cyberhygiene like watching what they download, updating their anti-virus software and conducting cyber security reviews regularly.”
•CERT-In had issued an alert for it last year, with an advisory asking users to review cybersecurity measures and update anti-malware tools.
📰 Limit trans fats to 1% of calorie intake to keep diseases at bay
WHO releases draft guidelines on daily food consumption by adults and kids
•The World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended that adults and children should consume a maximum of 10% of their daily calorie intake in the form of saturated fat (found in meat and butter) and 1% in trans fats. These draft recommendations, the first since 2002, are aimed at controlling non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which are responsible for an estimated 39.5 million deaths (72%) of the 54.7 million deaths worldwide in 2016.
•Of the major NCDs, cardiovascular diseases (CVD) were the leading cause of NCD mortality in 2016, and were responsible for nearly half of all NCD deaths. Dietary saturated fatty acids and trans-fatty acids are of particular concern as high levels of intake are correlated with increased risk of CVDs, noted the WHO.
Open for comments
•Dr. Francesco Branca, director of WHO’s Department of Nutrition for Health and Development said: “Dietary saturated fatty acids and trans-fatty acids are of particular concern because high levels of intake are correlated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases.”
•Meanwhile, the WHO has also called for public comments on the draft guidelines, open till June 1.
•“The recommendations in these guidelines can be used by policymakers and programme managers to assess current intake levels of these fatty acids in their populations relative to a benchmark, with a view to develop measures to decrease the intake of saturated fatty acids and trans-fatty acids, where necessary, through a range of policy actions and public health interventions,” noted the WHO.
•It added that the draft guidelines were developed in accordance with the WHO’s procedures for evidence-informed guideline development. “As part of this process, WHO member states and all relevant stakeholders are invited to comment on the draft guidelines. The public consultation will be open from 4 May to 1 June, 2018. During this time, the draft guidelines will also undergo peer-review by an external expert group,”’ it explained.
•Saturated fatty acids are found in foods from animal sources such as butter, milk, meat, salmon, and egg yolks, and some plant-derived products such as chocolate and cocoa butter, coconut, palm and palm kernel oils. Trans-fatty acids can be industrially produced by the partial hydrogenation of vegetable and fish oils, but they also occur naturally in meat and dairy products from ruminant animals (for example, cattle, sheep, goats and camels).
•Industrially-produced trans-fatty acids can be found in baked and fried foods (doughnuts, cookies, crackers, pies, etc.), pre-packaged snacks and food, and in partially hydrogenated cooking oils and fats that are often used at home, in restaurants, or by the informal sector, such as street vendors of food. The WHO had earlier released updated guidance on the intake of sodium, potassium and sugars, and is now looking at finalising a similar scale for the intake of saturated fatty acids and trans-fatty acids.
📰 A struggle with thalassaemia
•Thalassaemia is the most common genetic blood disorder that is prevalent in India. We must not forget that while there is a high incidence of inherited diseases in South Asia, India has the highest number of thalassaemia majors and carriers (or those who are asymptomatic). It is estimated that there are more than 100,000 thalassaemia majors in the country or an average prevalence rate of 3-4% carriers in the general population. Each year, there are 10,000 children born with thalassaemia major.
•As the disorder ‘reduces the production of functional haemoglobin, causing a shortage of red blood cells and low levels of oxygen in the bloodstream’, patients require lifelong blood transfusion, iron chelation therapies and other treatment. There is still no cure other than a bone marrow transplant. As this has to be done in early childhood, it is not a workable cure as yet for adults. Thalassaemia causes a significant economic burden on the country due to rising health care and drug expenses. Given the genetic nature of the disease, it is in India’s best interests to focus on prevention and a cure. We must keep in mind the demographic status of thalassaemia which reflects a rising percentage of adults. Their only curative option is gene therapy.
•Gene therapy research and clinical trials have been going on for the past 25 years or so in an effort to correct the mutated ‘globin’ gene that is responsible for normal haemoglobin production. A biotechnology company in the U.S., Bluebird Bio, has been conducting clinical studies to investigate the potential for LentiGlobin gene therapy as a final cure for transfusion-dependent ß-thalassaemia (TDT). In April 2018, the company announced positive results in clinical studies that used this gene therapy. Here, the 22 study patients did not need blood transfusions. What is even more encouraging is the company’s move to file for technology approval in the European Union in order to complete the trials and bring the treatment to patients as soon as possible.
Cost is a barrier
•While the development has raised the hopes of patients and families, the biggest obstacle is its cost. Therapies such as Luxturna from Spark Therapeutics, to cure hereditary blindness, cost a whopping $850,000 (approximately Rs. 5 crore) for one-time treatment. The prohibitive cost of such therapies has led to companies withdrawing from them. Most patients in India cannot pay for such expensive treatments in the absence of any government support and the complete lack of medical insurance for genetic disorders.
•India has no dearth of talented and ethical medical researchers and doctors who can engage in gene therapy research. Sadly, other than what is done by one or two doctors (one of them is at the Christian Medical College, Vellore), there are no clinical studies in this direction. Many a patient who asks about gene therapy with his or her haematologist has often come away depressed and sorely disappointed. Clearly, this needs to change. The government, medical research institutes and hospitals need to start developing low-cost gene therapies for thalassaemia. The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has constituted a task force (“Stem Cell Research and Regenerative Medicine”) to encourage translational research. On the regulatory front, there are clear guidelines for “Stem Cell Research and Therapy” that have been formulated jointly by the DBT and the Indian Council of Medical Research. The new Drugs and Clinical trials Rules, 2018 encourage and motivate clinical research for orphan diseases. Some of the benefits here include no charges for clinical research/trials of orphan drugs; defining orphan drugs for diseases affecting less than 2 lakh people in India; and provision to expedite the trial process for rare diseases.
•The time is ripe for medical researchers to work on a feasible gene therapy solution for thalassaemia. If successful, it can pave the way for therapeutics for other rare, genetic disorders.
📰 Bacteria isolated from domestic sewage remove organophosphorous pesticide
Chlorpyrifos poisoning may affect the central nervous system, the cardiovascular system and the respiratory system
•Using three bacterial species isolated from domestic sewage, researchers from India have successfully removed chloropyrifos pesticide from both water and soil. Chloropyrifos is an organophosphorous pesticide and is moderately toxic to humans. Poisoning from chlorpyrifos may affect the central nervous system, the cardiovascular system and the respiratory system.
•The highlight of the work is the wholesome removal of the pesticide by the three species of bacteria, without leaving behind any toxic metabolites that persist in the soil for a long time. This was because, unlike other studies, none of the three bacteria used by the team led by Prof. Mukesh Singh from Haldia Institute of Technology, Haldia, degraded the pesticide. The results were published in the journal Bioresource Technology.
•“Bacteria found in domestic sewage are quite regularly exposed to low levels of this pesticide. So the bacteria adapt themselves to pesticide exposure for survival. This is the reason why we turned to domestic sewage to isolate the bacteria,” says Prof. Singh.
•To isolate the bacteria that can absorb the pesticide, the researchers exposed the bacteria found in sewage to different concentrations of pesticide along with nutrient media. The next day, seven bacteria that showed tolerance to 50 mg/ml of pesticide were isolated.
•The next step was to check whether the isolated bacteria species could coexist with each other or displayed antagonism. Only three bacteria species were found to coexist without any antagonism.
Water and soil tests
•The ability of the bacteria to remove the pesticide was then tested by using very high concentration of 500 mg/l of the pesticide. In the case of pesticide added to water, all the three bacteria both individually as well in a mixed culture were able to remove over 90% of the pesticide in three days.
•In the case of soil containing 300 mg/kg of pesticide, the mixed culture of bacteria could remove up to 50% in 30 days. “The mixed culture comprising all three bacteria showed better uptake of pesticide compared with individual species,” says Prof. Singh.
•Studies were carried out to confirm the accumulation of the pesticide inside the bacteria and to know the location where it was found. “The pesticide bioaccumulates in the cell as well as being bound on the cell surface without any degradation,” says Md. Shabbier from Haldia Institute of Technology and first author of the paper. The greater ability of the bacteria to absorb the pesticide arises from their ability to reduce the hydrophobic nature of the pesticide through the production of biosurfactants.
•“Since the bacteria multiply in the soil or water, the pesticide released from the dead microbes will be absorbed by the newly formed ones. So it is quite possible that the soil or water will be free of the pesticide,” says Shabbier.
•The three bacteria and the mixed culture in soil containing did not inhibit the germination and growth of mung bean seedlings. While sample containing the pesticide destroyed red blood cells of goat blood, the samples treated with the bacteria did not cause any damage to red blood cells.
•“This once again confirmed that the bacteria had completely removed the pesticide from the sample,” Prof. Singh says.
📰 Gandhinagar team takes initial steps to develop a vaccine for leptospirosis
Currently there is no preventive vaccine for humans that is available in the market
•A key peptide that can be used to develop a new preventive vaccine against leptospirosis has been successfully identified by researchers from the Gujarat Biotechnology Research Centre, Gandhinagar. Leptospirosis is an emerging tropical infectious disease, and currently there is no preventive vaccine for humans that is available in the market. The researchers used computer-based analysis to study the whole protein set of the bacteria Leptospira interrogans and narrowed the search down to one effective immunogenic protein. This protein was found to be present in almost all the serovars (different types within a species) of the bacteria and can be an effective vaccine candidate against most serovars.
Major killer
•According to a paper published in 2015, leptospirosis causes almost 60,000 deaths every year, globally. The bacteria can be transmitted via exposure to contaminated water or soil or direct contact with reservoirs hosts like wild or domestic animals.
•The proteome (entire protein set) of a serovar Copenhageni strain was studied using bioinformatics (computational biology analysis) approach. “We looked at all the 3,654 proteins in the bacteria with the help of several advanced computational methods and predicted the antigenicity — ability to bind to the antibody present on B cells for inducing immune response,” explains Swapnil Kumar, a Junior Research Fellow at the centre and an author of the paper published recently in Scientific Reports. “Extensive analysis helped us narrow down to 21 proteins which had high antigenicity score.”
Membrane proteins
•Among these proteins, the researchers further searched to identify the outer membrane proteins as these are known to play important roles in the interaction between the bacteria and their host. Further computational modelling and simulation helped the researchers narrow it to one specific protein. The protein was chosen as the candidate immunogen once the physicochemical and structural studies were carried out.
•The researchers then looked for sites on human T cells and B cells where the antigen could bind. Identification of target sites is a key step in vaccine design. “We looked at the surface of the cells, their flexibility, affinity to water and identified regions or peptide sequences that could bind to our peptide vaccine and give a long lasting immune response,” explains Dr. Jayashankar Das, the corresponding author of the paper.
•“We have to carry out proteomic and genomic study for different strains of the bacteria followed by in vitro validation of the identified key proteins,” he adds. The group is also working on high throughput genomic analysis for the development of an on-site diagnostic kit.
📰 NASA launches spacecraft to explore depths of Mars
•NASA on Saturday launched its latest Mars lander, InSight, designed to perch on the surface of the red planet and listen for ‘Marsquakes’.
•The $993 million project aims to expand human knowledge of conditions on Mars, inform efforts to send human explorers there, and reveal how rocky planets like the earth formed billions of years ago. The lander should settle on Mars on November 26.
•Its name, InSight, is short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. “How quake-prone is Mars? That is fundamental information that we need to know as humans that explore Mars,” Jim Green, NASA chief scientist, said.
•The key instrument on board is a seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure. After the lander settles on the Martian surface, a robotic arm is supposed to emerge and place the seismometer directly on the ground.
•The second main instrument is a self-hammering probe that will monitor the flow of heat in the planet’s subsurface.
•Called the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, it was made by the German Space Agency with the participation of the Polish Space Agency.
•The probe will bore down 10 to 16 feet below the surface, NASA said, 15 times deeper than any previous Mars mission.
Future plans
•Understanding the temperature on Mars is crucial to NASA’s efforts to send people there by the 2030s, and how much a human habitat might need to be heated under frigid conditions, said Mr. Green.
•Daytime summer temperatures near the Martian equator may reach 20 degrees Celsius, but then plunge by night to -73 degrees Celsius.
•“It is an important part of knowledge of how this planet is evolving,” Mr. Green said.
•The solar and battery-powered lander is designed to operate for 26 Earth months, or one year on Mars, a period in which it is expected to pick up as many as 100 quakes.
•The spacecraft was initially supposed to launch in 2016 but had to be delayed after temperature tests showed a problem with part of the seismometer, which engineers have since fixed.
📰 Western Ghats’ forests vital for Tamil Nadu’s monsoon rainfall
Western Ghats’ forests yield as much as 3 mm per day of rainfall in August-September
•Researchers have found one more reason why urgent steps have to be taken to stop deforestation in the Western Ghats. The dense vegetation in the Western Ghats determines the amount of rainfall that Tamil Nadu gets during the summer monsoon.
•A team led by Prof. Subimal Ghosh from the Department of Civil Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay has found that dense forests of the Western Ghats contribute as much as 40% of moisture to the southwest monsoon rainfall over Tamil Nadu during normal monsoon years. The average contribution is 25-30%. But during monsoon deficit years, the contribution increases to as high as 50%.
•The study found the forests of Western Ghats contribute as much as 3 mm per day of rainfall during August and September over a “majority of locations” in Tamil Nadu and 1 mm per day during June and July.
•The study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters also found that deforestation of the Ghats led to 0.25 degree C increase in surface temperature across the State. The work was done in collaboration with Prof. Raghu Murtugudde of University of Maryland and Dr K. Rajendran from CSIR-Fourth Paradigm Institute (CSIR-4PI), Bengaluru.
•To study the role of vegetation cover in the Western Ghats in supplying moisture to the southwest monsoon rainfall, the researchers used models to compare the contribution of Western Ghats with and without the forest cover.
Effect of forest cover
•The researchers found a significant drop in rainfall in the range of 1-2.5 mm per day when the vegetation cover was removed from the Western Ghats. This translates to an average of 25% of the total monsoon rainfall over Tamil Nadu. But only small parts of Kerala get affected by deforestation in Western Ghats.
•The team selected three years (1993, 1999 and 2002) when Tamil Nadu experienced extreme deficit in summer monsoon rainfall. They found that deforestation over Western Ghats reduced rainfall over the State by 40-50% during all the three years. “The effect of deforestation is more during the deficit years than monsoon surplus years,” says Supantha Paul from IIT Bombay and first author of the paper. “During the three extremely monsoon deficit years studied, we found Tamil Nadu gained the most from vegetation in Western Ghats. If there is no vegetation in the Ghats then Tamil Nadu will be severely impacted especially during the monsoon-deficit years.”
•While the decline in rainfall during the break period is widespread across the State, during the wet spells the contribution of vegetation in the Ghats to rainfall is mostly over the southern part of the State and is 25-30%. “The Western Ghats acts as a capacitor. The forest land and vegetation gets recharged with water during the wet spell and during the break periods moisture is released and which contributes to rainfall to the State,” says Prof. Ghosh.
•The researchers also cross-checked the role of vegetation in supplying moisture to the southwest monsoon rainfall by tracking the source of the moisture. “The results of this were consistent with the model with and without vegetation. So the results were not coincidental,” says Prof. Ghosh.
