Annual core sector growth at decade low
According to latest government statistics, India’s annual core sector growth has slowed to a decade low of 2.7% in 2015-16, slower than the 4.5% pace in the previous financial year.The previous lowest growth rate registered by core sectors (under the present data series that uses 2004-05 as a base year) was in 2008-09 when output rose 2.8% amidst the global financial crisis.However, the eight core industries account for 38% of India’s industrial output.The eight core sector industries are— coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilizer, steel, cement and electricity.
Factors behind the slowdown:
- The growth was pulled down mainly by steel and crude oil, both of which saw output contracting by 1.4% and natural gas that dropped 4.2%.
- While oil and gas output has been shrinking for about four years now, it is the decline in steel output in the backdrop of plunging global prices that has hurt the most as it had been growing at an average of 7% in the past four years.
Way Forward:
Steel is a mother industry and could be in a comatose position despite import price and anti-dumping curbs to restrict the influx of cheaper Chinese steel. Several plants can go under sooner rather than later so they need a lifeline.Steel has been hit by the low global prices and competition from China. The steel industry employs six million people directly and generates associated employment for more than 2.5 million.This should serve as a wake-up call for the government to move away from incremental reforms to relieve the distress in the steel sector and push construction and real estate sectors.
Next-generation DNA sequencing
Next-generation sequencing (NGS), also known as high-throughput sequencing, is the catch-all term used to describe a number of different modern sequencing technologies including:
- Illumina (Solexa) sequencing
- Roche 454 sequencing
- Ion torrent: Proton / PGM sequencing
- SOLiD sequencing
These recent technologies allow us to sequence DNA and RNA much more quickly and cheaply than the previously used Sanger sequencing, and as such have revolutionised the study of genomics and molecular biology.
Next-generation sequencing also refers to non-Sanger-based high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies. Millions or billions of DNA strands can be sequenced in parallel, yielding substantially more throughput and minimizing the need for the fragment-cloning methods that are often used in Sanger sequencing of genomes.
Since first introduced to the market in 2005, next-generation sequencing technologies have had a tremendous impact on genomic research. The next-generation technologies have been used for standard sequencing applications, such as genome sequencing and resequencing, and for novel applications previously unexplored by Sanger sequencing.
DNA sequencing refers to techniques of determining nucleotide order in DNA Until the last decade, DNA sequencing was primarily done with implementations of Sanger‘s method. It has remained the gold standard for DNA sequencing for almost three decades. Human genome project has also employed the same technique for human genome sequencing.
The UK’s first baby resulting from an embryo that was screened using next-generation DNA sequencing has been born in Oxford. This method uses a revolutionary IVF technique.
Details:The parents of the child were enrolled in an ongoing clinical study to evaluate next-generation sequencing as a tool to help specialists better select which embryos to transfer during IVF treatment. The technique was first used successfully in the USA in 2013.
- Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is widely expected to replace other techniques used in preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) of embryos, with the goal being to select more reliably which embryos are most likely to implant and produce healthy babies.
- To screen an embryo, doctors remove a few cells at the five-day-old stage. The cells are taken from the tissue around the embryo that will turn into the placenta that attaches it to the mother’s womb. Unlike traditional screening methods, NGS can spot embryos that have more subtle DNA faults, and embryos that have only some cells with chromosomal defects.
- More than half of embryos created through IVF do not have the right number of chromosomes, and the faults underlie nearly three-quarters of miscarriages. The NGS procedure should reduce the chances of couples having faulty embryos transferred and give them more confidence in the health of embryos they have frozen after screening.
- Next-generation sequencing is touted as being more reliable and sensitive than current PGS techniques at detecting aneuploidy. It should also be able to help spot embryos that have other DNA faults and identify mosaic aneuploid embryos.
Pelican Signaling System
The Government has introduced Pelican Signaling System in the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Delhi Police has installed Pelican Signals at 39 locations in the NCT of Delhi to facilitate the pedestrians to cross the road safely. In this Signaling System, the pedestrian green light is activated once a request is registered by pedestrians to cross the road by pressing Push button in the Pedestrian Control Panel.
Receive Daily Updates
Recent Posts
- Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund.
- LEAF is supported by transnational corporations (TNCs) like Unilever plc, Amazon.com, Inc, Nestle, Airbnb, Inc as well as Emergent, a US-based non-profit.
- The world lost more than 10 million hectares of primary tropical forest cover last year, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.
- Ending tropical and subtropical forest loss by 2030 is a crucial part of meeting global climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Protecting tropical forests offers one of the biggest opportunities for climate action in the coming decade.
- Tropical forests are massive carbon sinks and by investing in their protection, public and private players are likely to stock up on their carbon credits.
- The LEAF coalition initiative is a step towards concretising the aims and objectives of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism.
- REDD+ was created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It monetised the value of carbon locked up in the tropical forests of most developing countries, thereby propelling these countries to help mitigate climate change.
- It is a unique initiative as it seeks to help developing countries in battling the double-edged sword of development versus ecological commitment.
- The initiative comes at a crucial time. The tropics have lost close to 12.2 million hectares (mha) of tree cover last year according to global estimates released by Global Forest Watch.
- Of this, a loss of 4.2 mha occurred within humid tropical primary forests alone. It should come as no surprise that most of these lost forests were located in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
- Brazil has fared dismally on the parameter of ‘annual primary forest loss’ among all countries. It has lost 1.7 mha of primary forests that are rich storehouse of carbon. India’s estimated loss in 2020 stands at 20.8 kilo hectares.
- Between 2002-2020, Brazil’s total area of humid primary forest reduced by 7.7 per cent while India’s reduced by 3.4 per cent.
- Although the loss in India is not as drastic as in Brazil, its position is nevertheless precarious. For India, this loss is equivalent to 951 metric tonnes worth carbon dioxide emissions released in the atmosphere.
- It is important to draw comparisons between Brazil and India as both countries have adopted a rather lackadaisical attitude towards deforestation-induced climate change. The Brazilian government hardly did anything to control the massive fires that gutted the Amazon rainforest in 2019.
- It is mostly around May that forest fires peak in India. However, this year India, witnessed massive forest fires in early March in states like Odisha, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram among others.
- The European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service claimed that 0.2 metric tonnes of carbon was emitted in the Uttarakhand forest fires.
- Implementation of the LEAF Coalition plan will help pump in fresh rigour among developing countries like India, that are reluctant to recognise the contributions of their forest dwelling populations in mitigating climate change.
- With the deadline for proposal submission fast approaching, India needs to act swiftly on a revised strategy.
- Although India has pledged to carry out its REDD+ commitments, it is impossible to do so without seeking knowledge from its forest dwelling population.
Context:-
At the recently concluded Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021, Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund plan that shall be offered to countries committed to arrest the decline of their tropical forests by 2030.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]What is LEAF Coalition?
Why LEAF Coalition?
Brazil & India
According to the UN-REDD programme, after the energy sector, deforestation accounts for massive carbon emissions — close to 11 per cent — in the atmosphere. Rapid urbanisation and commercialisation of forest produce are the main causes behind rampant deforestation across tropical forests.
Tribes, Forests and Government
Disregarding climate change as a valid excuse for the fires, Indian government officials were quick to lay the blame for deforestation on activities of forest dwellers and even labelled them “mischievous elements” and “unwanted elements”.
Policy makers around the world have emphasised the role of indigenous tribes and local communities in checking deforestation. These communities depend on forests for their survival as well as livelihood. Hence, they understand the need to protect forests. However, by posing legitimate environmental concerns as obstacles to real development, governments of developing countries swiftly avoid protection of forests and rights of forest dwellers.
For instance, the Government of India has not been forthcoming in recognising the socio-economic, civil, political or even cultural rights of forest dwellers. According to data from the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs in December, 2020 over 55 per cent of this population has still not been granted either individual or community ownership of their lands.
To make matters worse, the government has undertaken systematic and sustained measures to render the landmark Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 ineffective in its implementation. The Act had sought to legitimise claims of forest dwellers on occupied forest land.
Various government decisions have seriously undermined the position of indigenous people within India. These include proposing amendments to the obsolete Indian Forest Act, 1927 that give forest officials the power to take away forest dwellers’ rights and to even use firearms with impunity.
There is also the Supreme Court’s order of February, 2019 directing state governments to evict illegal encroachers of forest land or millions of forest dwellers inhabiting forests since generations as a measure to conserve wildlife. Finally, there is the lack of data on novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) deaths among the forest dwelling population;
Tardy administration, insufficient supervision, apathetic attitude and a lack of political intent defeat the cause of forest dwelling populations in India, thereby directly affecting efforts at arresting deforestation.
Way Forward
Tuntiak Katan, a global indigenous leader from Ecuador and general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, aptly indicated the next steps at the Climate Summit:
“The first step is recognition of land rights. The second step is the recognition of the contributions of local communities and indigenous communities, meaning the contributions of indigenous peoples.We also need recognition of traditional knowledge practices in order to fight climate change”
Perhaps India can begin by taking the first step.