10th March 2023

1. Delhi HC stays NGT order on tree pruning

Context: The Delhi High Court stayed the pruning of over 800 trees in the city and set aside an order passed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), observing that a more detailed assessment needs to be carried out before trees are trimmed.

Key details:

• General guidelines for the pruning and felling of trees were prescribed under the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act, 1994.
• The 2019 guidelines:
  • The 2019 Guidelines for pruning of trees state were prescribed so that trees are grown with great care and precision over several years and not pruned recklessly, as this could lead to a reduction of the city’s green cover which is an offence under Section 8 of the DPTA, 1994.
  • The Guidelines define “pruning” as a horticultural and silvicultural practice that entails cutting off or removing dead or living parts of the branches, buds, or roots of the plant to improve its shape or growth.
  • The reasons for carrying it out can range from reducing the risk of falling branches to removing deadwood or maintaining the plant’s health and growth.
  • It is also specified that the pruning should not be so large as to damage the tree,.
• Aim:
  • The 2019 guidelines are aimed at providing protection and care to trees grown in the national capital so that they are not pruned recklessly.
• The Delhi Preservation of Trees Act, of 1994
  • The Act provides statutory protection to trees to prevent them from damage in any manner that impedes their growth or ability to regenerate.
  • A tree is any woody plant whose branches spring from and are supported upon a trunk or body not less than 5cm in diameter, at a height of 30cms from the ground level, and is not less than one meter high from the ground level.

Procedure for carrying out pruning:

• The Act allows any person desiring to fell or remove or otherwise dispose of a tree to make an application to the tree officer for permission.
• Such permission may not be refused if the tree:
  • is dead, diseased, or wind fallen; or
  • is mature for silviculture and not on a steep slope; or
  • is a danger to life or property, or
  • an obstruction to traffic; or
  • is substantially damaged or destroyed by fire, lightning, rain or natural causes; or
  • its cutting is required in rural areas for wood or leave or any part for use for fuel, fodder, or other domestic use.
• Every permission granted under this Act include taking of security for ensuring the regeneration of thearea and replanting of trees.
  • This security could be in the form of a refundable deposit that accompanies the fees paid for pruning each tree.

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2. Kodaikanal Solar Observatory

Context: For well over a century, the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory (KoSO) has been observing the Sun, capturing images of sunspots, and recording changes in its behaviour.

About the observatory:

• KoSO is owned and operated by Indian Institute of Astrophysics.
• It is one of the world’s oldest observatories studying the Sun.
• History:
  • The idea was first proposed by the astronomer Norman Pogson, who was appointed Government Astronomer of the Madras Observatory in 1861.
  • The Madras Observatory was set up as the private effort of an official of the British East India Company in 1786, and came to be managed subsequently by the company.
  • The decision to establish a solar observatory was finally taken in 1893, and Kodaikanal in present-day Tamil Nadu was chosen for its high altitude and dust-free environment.
  • The Solar Physics Observatory opened on April 1, 1899, and was later named KoSO.
  • This 16-inch Newtonian (later Cassegrain) mobile telescope remained India’s largest from 1888 to 1968.
  • Imported from Dublin, Ireland, it was first established at the Maharaja Takhtasinghji Observatory in Poona (now Pune) around 1888.
  • But after the observatory in Pune was shut, it was sent to KoSO in 1912.
  • It is no longer in use today.

• Recent changes:
  • Between 1904 and 2017, all solar observations were traced on to photographic films and plates.
  • A new telescope mounted with charged-coupled device (CCD) camera has taken over and, since 2017, continued to observe the Sun.
• Digitization of data:
  • The task of digitisation of the records was initiated in 1984.
  • In 2018, digitised solar observations for the period 1921-2011 were made available to the scientific community.
  • With the addition of raw and calibrated data for the period of 1904 to 2017, the digitisation process is nearly complete.
• Significance of studying sun:
  • The Sun is the primary source of energy and the reason for the existence of most life on Earth.
  • Even minor changes on the solar surface or its periphery can significantly affect the Earth’s atmosphere and influence the space weather.
    • For instance, powerful solar storms, solar flares, are potentially harmful for satellite-based operations, power grids, and navigational networks.
• Historical data on the Sun help solar physicists understand and predict its future. 

The SunOur Sun is a 4.5 billion-year-old star.It is a hot glowing ball of hydrogen and helium at the center of our solar system.The Sun is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from Earth.The Sun is the largest object in our solar system.It is 1.3 million times larger than the earth.The hottest part of the Sun is its core, where temperatures top 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius).

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3. Australia-India Education Qualification recognition mechanism

Context: Australian Prime Minister announced an ‘Australia-India education qualification recognition mechanism’.

Key details:

• The new mechanism:
  • Degrees obtained in Australia will now be recognised in India, and, vice-versa, degrees obtained in India will be recognised in Australia.
• The Deakin University:
  • Geelong’s Deakin University will be the first overseas university to open its branch campus in India.
  • Geelong’s Deakin University will be the first ever foreign university to have an offshore campus in India, to be set up in Gandhinagar’s GIFT City.
• Maitri scholarship:
  • A new ‘Maitri’ scholarship will be started for Indian students to study in Australia for up to four years.
  • The scholarships are part of the wider Maitri (friendship) programme that seeks to boost cultural, educational and community ties between Australia and India.
  • It will be a $ 11.2 million Maitri Scholarships Program.
• How is it different from the agreement with USA?
  • But the agreement with Australia is broader than the agreement with the US as it includes online courses also.
• Exceptions:
  • This will not apply to professional qualifications.
  • Professional registrations of engineering, medicine and law graduates will remain outside the ambit of this agreement.

About GIFT cityFirst conceptualised in 2007, the GIFT City is spread over 887 acres in Gandhinagar.It comprises a multi-service Special Economic Zone (SEZ), which houses India’s first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) and an exclusive Domestic Tariff Area (DTA).GIFT City is a planned business district and is the new business destination offering competitive edge to financial services and technology-related activities.

India Australia ties:

• Economic cooperation:
  • The Economic Cooperation Trade Agreement (ECTA), the first free trade agreement signed by India with a developed country in a decade entered into force in December 2022.
    • It has resulted in an immediate reduction of duty to zero on 96% of Indian exports to Australia in value (that is 98% of the tariff lines) and zero duty on 85% of Australia’s exports (in value) to India.
• Bilateral trade was US$ 27.5 billion in 2021 and there is potential for it to reach around US$ 50 billion in five years.

• People-to-people ties:
  • India is one of the top sources of skilled immigrants to Australia.
  • As per the 2021 Census, around 9.76 lakh people in Australia reported their ancestry as Indian origin, making them the second largest group of overseas-born residents in Australia.
• Education:
  • The Mechanism for Mutual Recognition of Educational Qualifications (MREQ) was signed recently.
  • This will facilitate mobility of students between India and Australia.

• Defence cooperation:
  • The 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue is held between the two countries.
  • The Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA) was concluded during the Virtual Summit in 2020.
  • Military exercises:
    • Austra-Hind
    • Malabar exercise which include – Australia, India, Japan, and the US.
• Clean energy:
  • The countries signed a Letter of Intent on New and Renewable Energy which provides for cooperation towards bringing down the cost of renewable energy technologies, especially ultra low-cost solar and clean hydrogen.
  • India announced matching funds of AUD 10 million for Pacific Island Countries under Infrastructure for Resilient Island States (IRIS) and of AUD 10 million for Pacific Island Countries under International Solar Alliance (ISA).

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4. Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols

Context: NASA announced that it is partnering with the Italian Space Agency ASI (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana) to build and launch MAIA, or the Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols missions.

Key details about the mission:

• What is it?
  • The joint mission will investigate the health impacts of air pollution in the world’s most populated cities.
  • MAIA will make radiometric and polarimetric measurements needed to characterize the sizes, compositions and quantities of particulate matter in air pollution.
  • Researchers will combine MAIA measurements with population health records to better understand the connections between aerosol pollutants and health problems such as:
    • adverse birth outcomes,
    • cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, and
    • premature deaths.
• Working of MAIA:
  • The MAIA instrument measures the radiance and polarization of sunlight scattered by atmospheric aerosols, from which the abundance and characteristics of ground-level particulate matter (PM) are derived.
• What is it made up of?
  • The instrument contains a pushbroom spectropolarimetric camera on a two-axis gimbal for multiangle viewing, frequent target revisits, and inflight calibration.

What are aerosols?

• An aerosol is a tiny particle (solid or liquid) in the atmosphere.
• Larger particles settle to the ground due to gravity after a few hours, whereas the smallest particles can stay in the atmosphere for long.
• Sources of aerosols:
  • Natural process:
    • Salt from the sea,
    • dust from dry regions, or
    • particles released by wildfires,
  • Man made sources:
    • fossil fuel burning in factories
    • air pollution from cars etc.
  • Some aerosols are released into the atmosphere, while others are made in the atmosphere itself, for example sulfate aerosols are made in the atmosphere from sulfur dioxide released from power plants.
• Aerosols and health

• Aerosols are one of the main air pollutants, leading to the premature deaths of millions of people every year as they damage lungs and can even enter the bloodstream.
• Microplastics can accumulate toxic chemicals such as mercury or persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including brominated flame retardants and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
• Aerosols and climate
  • Aerosols affect the climate as strongly as greenhouse gases, but in a completely different way.
  • They are able to scatter sunlight, meaning they actually cool the planet by reflecting about 1/4 of the sun’s rays back to space.
  • The IPCC concluded that industrial aerosols have acted to significantly slow the increase in global temperature over the last thirty years.
  • However other types of aerosol, particularly black carbon or brown carbon/organic matter, will absorb light radiation, adding to warming the atmosphere.
  • Aerosols, especially black carbon, can deposit a layer of dark residue on ice, which both speeds up melting and reduces the amount of radiation being reflected.

Aerosol vs Particulate matter

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5. Indonesia moving its capital from Jakarta to Borneo

Context: The Indonesian government is in the process of leaving, moving Indonesia’s capital to the island of Borneo

Why is Indonesia moving its capital?

• Overcrowding:
  • Jakarta is home to about 10 million people and three times that number in the greater metropolitan area.
• Sinking city:
  • It has been described as the world’s most rapidly sinking city, and at the current rate, it is estimated that one-third of the city could be submerged by 2050.
  • The main cause is uncontrolled ground water extraction, but it has been exacerbated by the rising Java Sea due to climate change.
• Pollution:
  • Its air and groundwater are heavily polluted.
  • It floods regularly and its streets are so clogged that it’s estimated congestion costs the economy $4.5 billion a year.

The new capital:

• Indonesia plans to establish the city of Nusantara — an old Javanese term meaning “archipelago”.
• The new metropolis will be a “sustainable forest city” that puts the environment at the heart of the development and aims to be carbon-neutral by 2045.
• It will entail constructing government buildings and housing from scratch.

Issues and concerns:

• It may cause:
  • massive deforestation,
  • threaten the habitat of endangered species such as orangutans and
  • imperil the homes of Indigenous communities
    • The Indigenous Balik people are being relocated
• Forest Watch Indonesia has warned that most of the forested areas in the new capital are “production forests” meaning permits could be granted for forestry and extractive activities that would lead to further deforestation.
• There has been no certainty regarding the protection status of the remaining natural forests in the new capital city area.
• The region can expect more days of extreme heat in years to come.

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6. Golden City Gate Tourism Awards 2023

Context: India Bags Golden & Silver Star at The International ‘Golden City Gate Tourism Awards 2023 at ITB, Berlin 2023.

About the award:

• The Golden City Gate Tourism Multi-media Awards are given annually in various categories related to the Tourism and Hospitality sectors.
• The ‘Golden City Gate’ is a creative multi-media international competition for countries, cities, regions and hotels.
• The Golden City Gate is the creative and innovative expression of the tourism industry.
  • Since 2001 it takes place in Berlin as an international tourism film and multimedia competition.