📰 Maldives’ new President promises to reset India ties
Ibrahim Solih, Narendra Modi hold talks, underline need for peace in Indian Ocean.
•Promising a host of people-focussed policies and a foreign policy formulated on the basis of human rights, democracy and climate diplomacy, the Maldives’s new President, Ibrahim Solih, sought to turn a new page in the country’s politics at a glittering inaugural ceremony. The event was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, Sri Lankan MP Namal Rajapaksa and other dignitaries from across the region.
•Striking a populist note, Mr. Solih said that by the end of the first 100 days of his administration, electricity prices would be reduced, tuition fees fully covered for undergraduate students, and school students provided free breakfast. He said that his government would allow pension funds to be used by Haj pilgrims.
•The new government assumes power on the back of a coalition of parties led by Mr. Solih’s Maldivian Democratic Party, and comes after five years of rule under Abdulla Yameen that saw Male moving strategically and economically closer to Beijing than to New Delhi.
•Ordinary Maldivians, who braved the total security lockdown across Male and the media blackout at the inaugural venue, appeared to take pride in the peaceful transition of power.
•Immediately after the swearing-in ceremony, which was held in a packed Rasmee Dhandu Stadium, Mr. Solih held a meeting with Mr. Modi, which sources said was a special gesture toward India, as indeed was the fact that India was the only country that the new President mentioned in his speech.
Peace in region
•At their meeting, the two leaders agreed on the importance of maintaining peace and security in the Indian Ocean and being “mindful of each other’s concerns and aspirations for the stability of the region”.
•The need to boost economic cooperation was writ large in their conversation. Their joint statement recognised that easing the visa regime mutually in both countries would be the quickest way to expand opportunities for Indian companies to invest in the Maldives, and for Maldivians to travel to India for a variety of purposes.
•India was also invited to step up again as an economic partner which could help the Maldives meet its most pressing economic needs, including for increased housing and infrastructure development and for water and sewerage systems on the outlying islands.
On climate change
•On the more troubling question of tackling climate change, President Solih corroborated his reference to “climate diplomacy” with details on his plan to introduce a green tax and halt fishing permits to foreigners.
•When Mr. Modi extended an invitation to Mr. Solih to make a state visit to India at his earliest convenience, the President accepted the invitation and Mr. Modi also agreed to President Solih’s invitation to him to make an official visit to the Maldives in the near future.
📰 Ganga waterway project cleared after overruling expert panel
Environment Ministry and inland waterways body differed on need for clearances
•India’s longest waterway project, one terminal of which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this week, was made possible only after a high-power Committee of Ministers and senior officials from multiple Ministries overruled the recommendations of experts appointed by the Environment Ministry. The latter had recommended public consultations and a full-fledged environment clearance, documents made available through the Right to Information (RTI) Act show.
•As part of the the Modi government’s ambitious plan to make stretches of the 2,500-km-long Ganga suitable for transporting containers, it decided to make navigable a 1,390-km stretch of the river between Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and Haldia in West Bengal. The project entails construction of 3 multimodal terminals (Varanasi, Sahibganj and Haldia); 2 intermodal terminals; 5 Roll On–Roll Off (Ro-Ro) terminal pairs; a new navigation lock at Farakka; assured depth dredging; an integrated vessel repair and maintenance facility; a Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS); a River Information System (RIS); and ‘river training’ and river conservancy works.
•The ₹5,369 crore project is partly funded by the World Bank. However, to enable container barges and ships to carry at least 2,000 tonnes, the project requires the river bed to be dredged to enable a minimum draft of three metres along the river, as well as to make the river channel at least 45 metres wide.
•Since early 2016, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI), which is attached to the Union Shipping Ministry, have been at odds over whether this dredging required environmental clearance (EC). This is a detailed process that involves a consultation with locals likely to be affected by the project and residing at locations along the river, where major constructions would be executed.
•The IWAI contended that clearance was not necessary, as the proposed terminal at Varanasi was not a “port” and that only “maintenance dredging” was required. This activity was required to make an existing channel suitable, and was not a greenfield, dredging effort. Therefore, as per the existing provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act, it was “exempt” from an environment clearance process.
•The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC), a committee of experts constituted by the Environment Ministry and tasked by law with recommending to the Ministry whether major infrastructure projects ought to be given the go-ahead, differed. Such exemptions were valid, it said, as per records of a meeting on May 18, 2017, only if the “project had applied for a prior environmental clearance.” The Union Environment Ministry supported the EAC’s recommendation, even arguing that “…a terminal was part of a Port.”
•However, a meeting on October 24 between Union Shipping and Roads Minister Nitin Gadkari, Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan, and senior Secretaries of the Environment, Water and Shipping Ministries, decided that an environment clearance was not required. This was because the EAC had not provided “cogent reasons in support of their observations and recommendation” and that existing laws exempted jetties and multi-modal terminals (like the one that came up in Varanasi) from an EC process. At this meeting, too, the Union Environment Secretary C.K. Mishra recommended that the project should apply for an EC “in view of the involvement of dredging component.” He even offered to process the clearance on a “fast track basis”, if applied for.
•On December 21, 2017, the Environment Ministry issued an office order agreeing that no environmental clearance was required and approved the project for further processing by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, with some “environmental safety measures.”
•Being a World Bank funded project, it was necessary for approvals to be in place before December 31.
•“There are several ecological threats from such dredging in the river bed and we have now a major project that was commissioned without an environment clearance,” said Shripad Dharmadhikary, Coordinator of Manthan Adhyayan Kendra (MAK), a group engaged in analysis and advocacy on water and energy issues. The MAK had sourced these proceedings via the RTI and shared them with The Hindu.
📰 Project maps butterfly migration in south India
First citizen science initiative in the country seeks volunteers
•The Ferns Naturalists’ Society (FNS), Wayanad, Travancore Natural History Society (TNHS), and the Malabar Natural History Society (MNHS) are joining hands to launch a citizen science project to map the migratory path of butterflies in South India in a first such initiative in the country.
•Usually migration starts during October-November with the onset of the northeast monsoon, from the plains to the ghats, and during April-May, just before the advent of the southwest monsoon, from the ghats to the plains.
•A recent study reveals that mainly four species of milkweed butterflies are involved in the migration, including Dakhan Dark Blue Tiger, Oriental Blue Tiger, Double-branded Black Crow and Indian Common Crow. The migration takes place across the plains of south India to the southern part of the Western Ghats.
•Migrant butterflies initially remain in reproductive diapause for a few weeks after reaching the Western Ghats. They breed in the mountain ranges and their progeny migrates to the eastern plains and Eastern Ghats area. The butterflies leave the Western Ghats just before the onset of the southwest monsoon and return after the monsoon. Thus, they avoid the cold weather and heavy rain in the southern Western Ghats.
•“Information on butterfly migration in India is still patchy,” says Jaffer Palot of the MNHS.
•“What is needed is a careful documentation of butterfly migration over a prolonged period from a given area. For this, a wide network and coordination among butterfly watchers from different localities are needed,” Dr. Palot says.
•Butterfly migration is one of the least studied natural phenomenon in the country. We constituted two butterfly migration monitoring groups on WhatsApp last year to study the phenomena, says Kalesh Sadasivan, research associate, TNHS.
•Dr. Sadasivan says the group, Butterflies of Kerala and Butterfly Migration, would be in a position to give exact information in this regard from next year.
•Those interested in joining the group may contact 94470 44498, says P.A. Vinayan of the Ferns.
📰 Jumbo care! India gets its first dedicated elephant hospital near Taj Mahal
•India’s elephants now have their first fully equipped dedicated hospital near the Taj Mahal, complete with wireless digital X-Ray, laser treatment and dental X-ray facilities. The ‘jumbo’ hospital is the result of a collaborative effort between the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department and conservation NGO Wildlife SOS.
•The veterinary hospital has modern medical facilities for the treatment of elephants in distress including thermal imaging, ultrasonography, hydrotherapy, tranquilization equipment and quarantine facilities. Located near Agra, the facility is in the Farah block of Mathura near the Elephant Conservation and Care Centre (ECCC) run by Wildlife SOS.
•“The Wildlife SOS Elephant Hospital is designed to treat injured, sick or geriatric elephants and is equipped with a medical hoist for lifting elephants requiring critical care, a pathology laboratory, digital weighing scale, Elephant Restraining Device (ERD) with a dedicated indoor treatment enclosure for longer medical procedures,” said Wildlife SOS founder Kartick Satyanarayan. “An observation deck will allow veterinary students and interns to observe and learn elephant treatment routines from a safe distance,’’ he added.
•India’s first elephant hospital is jumbo sized: with a built-up area of almost 12,000 square feet that includes an observation area for the overnight monitoring of elephants under treatment using Close Circuit Infra-Red CCTV cameras. Training courses would be organized by Wildlife SOS to spread knowledge on elephant medical care, humane elephant management and veterinary procedures to spread compassion.
•“This is a huge milestone for elephant protection in India,” said Geeta Seshamani, co-founder of Wildlife SOS.. “This hospital will help us take better care of injured elephants in distress. We hope this hospital will put India on the map as a scholarly destination for humane management of elephants which will go a long way to address the protection and conservation of elephants in India,’’ she added
•In 2010, Wildlife SOS established the ECCC, which is currently providing lifetime care and treatment for over 20 rehabilitated pachyderms, rescued from illegal captivity and circuses where they were ill-treated and subjected to cruelty. The Elephant Hospital was built entirely with private donations and CSR support.
📰 GROWTH-India telescope’s first science observation
The follow-up study of a recurrent nova found it fading at an expected rate
•The 0.7 m GROWTH-India telescope at the Indian Astronomical Observatory located in Hanle, Ladakh, has made its first science observation which is a follow-up study of a nova explosion. Novae are explosive events involving violent eruptions on the surface of white dwarf stars, leading to temporary increase in brightness of the star. Unlike a supernova, the star does not go on to die but returns to its earlier state after the explosion. A report on this published in The Astronomer’s Telegram notes the magnitude of the nova explosion first identified by Darnley et al as it varies, during November 8 to November 10.
First science observation
•The GROWTH-India telescope was commissioned six months ago soon after which it saw first light, on the night of June 12. “The telescope has been taking readings since then, and this is the first ‘follow-up’ work. We are happy to see this first science observation,” said G C Anupama, who Professor-in-Charge of the Indian Astronomical Observatory and is based at Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIAP), Bengaluru.
•The celestial object was first noticed by a different group which saw the nova explosion. “We then pointed our telescope in that direction and measured the brightness. We found that it was fading at the rate expected for such events. This is a small step in astronomy but a big leap for us, because it is the first scientific result obtained by this telescope,” said Varun Bhalerao a faculty member at IIT Bombay and a Principal Investigator of the project along with Professor Anupama.
•This recurrent nova, named M31N-2008, has been observed to erupt several times, the most recent eruption happening in November 2018. Recurrent nova systems are interesting because they are candidates for progenitors of Type Ia supernovae. “We took follow-up images with the GROWTH-India telescope. The observations were made in different optical bands. The nova was seen to decline rapidly in brightness, by 1 - 1.5 magnitudes in the span of 2 days,” says Shubham Srivastav, post-doctoral fellow at the physics department of IIT Bombay (IITB)
Robotic eye
•The telescope is potentially fully robotic and can operate on its own, but the way these readings were taken has only partly used its potential for automation. “The group sitting in IIT Bombay worked through Bengaluru’s IIAP to control the telescope. While the IITB-IIAP link was through regular internet connection, the one from IIAP to the telescope in Ladakh was through a satellite link,” said Professor Bhalerao. A typical professional telescope has a field of about 0.1 square degrees.
•This telescope has a field that is five to six times larger. It can ‘slew’ or move its focus from one part of the sky to another in just about 10-15 seconds and its camera can view stellar objects that are thousands to millions of light years away.
Threefold goals
•The GROWTH-India telescope is part of the Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen. Its goals are threefold: (1) Search for explosions in the optical regime whenever LIGO group detects a Binary Neutron Star merger (2) study nearby young supernova explosions. (3) Study nearby asteroids.
•Transient phenomena such as supernovae are important parts of time-domain astronomy which is a less-explored frontier in astronomy. “Such an explosion is when the inner material of the star is thrown out. There is no other way we can actually see what is inside a star,” explains Prof. Bhalerao.
