Environment/GSIII
South Asian Consultation on Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework

What's the NEWS

• A two-day meeting of the South Asian Consultation Meeting on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework was held in New Delhi
• The meeting was attended by the representatives from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan in addition to representatives from the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal; the Global Environmental Facility, Washington; French Embassy in New Delhi; UNDP-India; IUCN Offices in Canada and Singapore; National Geographic, USA and Campaign for Nature; Montreal in this virtual cum real meeting.
• The two-day regional consultation will help in developing strategies that would feed into the global meetings of CBD planned in March, 2022 in Geneva and for the 15th Conference of Parties of the CBD in China in April-May, 2022.

• This Convention is a milestone towards developing South Asia perspective and calls for innovative financing methods from GEF.
• India has joined over 75 countries that are part of the 30 by 30 High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People. In South Asia, already Pakistan and Maldives have joined.
• India urged other countries to join HAC and also requested GEF, Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) and Campaign for Nature and others to ensure that timely and adequate resources for developing countries.

• The framework must aim to halt biodiversity loss by 2030 and achieve recovery by 2050, which requires additional investment in nature equivalent to between 0.7 and 1% of annual global GDP.
• Targets in the framework should be measurable, underpinned by science, and have explicit outcomes.
• The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is a United Nations-led initiative to tackle its root causes and could have a similar impact as the Paris Agreement.
• Set to be finalized in early 2022, the GBF's draft sets out targets for protecting marine and land habitats, reducing pesticides and plastic waste, and increasing investments.
• The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) will set 21 targets and 10 milestones for governments to meet by the end of the decade.
• These include protecting a minimum of 30% of the world's oceans and land, reducing pesticide use by at least two-thirds, eliminating plastic waste, and increasing financial resources dedicated to biodiversity to at least US$ 200 billion annually.

• Union Minister of Science & Technology inaugurated India's first unique "Rock" Museum

• The Open Rock Museum, set up with the aim to educate and enlighten the masses about several lesser known facts, displays around 35 different types of rocks from different parts of India with ages ranging from 3.3 Billion years to around 55 Million years of the Earth's history.
• These rocks also represent the deepest part of the earth up to 175 kms of distance from the surface of the earth.
• Big Earth data occupies the strategic high ground in the era of knowledge economies and India is fully exploiting this new frontier contributing to the advancement of Earth science.
• Geosciences is contributing significantly towards the self-reliance and national priorities in New India.

Other highlights

• Last year the Union Minister of Science & Technology launched state-of-the-art Heli-borne survey technology for groundwater management, developed by CSIR-NGRI Hyderabad with Union Minister for Jal Shakti from Jodhpur
• To start with, the States of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana are being taken up for this latest heli-borne survey
• The water technologies of CSIR from source finding to water treatment will benefit millions of people across the country
• The latest state-of-the-art technology is being employed by Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) for mapping groundwater sources in arid regions and thus help utilise groundwater for drinking purposes.

• Union Minister also released Earthquake Risk Maps of Lucknow and Dehradun Cities and handed over the maps to the Chairpersons or nominees of UPSDMA and UKSDMA on the occasion.
• CSIR-NGRI has made earthquake risk maps for Lucknow and Dehradun cities which are vulnerable for future earthquakes in the Indo-Gangetic plains area.
• The risk maps were prepared by characterising the hazard and its uncertainty, to serve as input for risk assessment and earthquake resistant design for different applications

• The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister has approved the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between India and Nepal for construction of bridge over Mahakali River at Dharchula (India)- Dharchula (Nepal).

• The Sharda River, also called Kali River and Mahakali River, originates at Kalapani in the Himalayas at an elevation of 3,600 m (11,800 ft) in the Pithoragarh district in Uttarakhand, India.
• It flows along Nepal's western border with India and has a basin area of 14,871 km2 (5,742 sq mi).
• It joins Ghaghra River, a tributary of the Ganges. It takes the name Kali River from the union of the two streams at Gunji as it flows through the hills.
• After Brahmadev Mandi near Tanakpur, it enters the Terai plains, where it is called Sharda River
• It offers potential for hydroelectric power generation. The river is also proposed as source for one of the many projects in the Himalayan component of the Indian Rivers Inter-link project.

• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister approved the scheme on Green Energy Corridor (GEC) Phase-II for Intra-State Transmission System (InSTS) for addition of approximately 10,750 circuit kilometres (ckm) of transmission lines and approx. 27,500 Mega Volt-Amperes (MVA) transformation capacity of substations.

• The scheme will facilitate grid integration and power evacuation of approximately 20 GW of Renewable Energy (RE) power projects in seven States namely, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
• The scheme is targeted to be set up with total estimated cost of Rs. 12,031.33 crore and Central Financial Assistance (CFA) @ 33 percent of the project cost i.e. Rs. 3970.34 crore.
• The transmission systems will be created over a period of five year from Financial Year 2021-22 to 2025-26.
• The Central Financial Assistance (CFA) will help in offsetting the Intra-State transmission charges and thus keep the power costs down. Thus, the Government support will ultimately benefit the end users - the citizens of India.
• The scheme will help in achieving the target of 450 GW installed RE capacity by 2030.
• The scheme will also contribute to long term energy security of the country and promote ecologically sustainable growth by reducing carbon footprint.
• It will generate large direct & indirect employment opportunities for both skilled and unskilled personnel in power and other related sectors.
• This scheme is in addition to GEC-Phase-I which is already under implementation in the States of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu for grid integration and power evacuation of approx. 24 GW of RE power and is expected to be completed by 2022.
• The scheme is for addition of 9700 ckm of transmission lines and 22600 MVA capacity of substations having estimated cost of transmission projects of Rs. 10,141.68 crore with Central Financial Assistance (CFA) of Rs. 4056.67 crore.

• Railway Protection Force (RPF) tasked with the responsibility of security of railway property, passenger area and passengers, has been working round the clock for providing safe, secure and comfortable travel experience to the passengers.

• RPF has been saving lives in mission mode under "Mission Jeewan Raksha". RPF personnel have saved 1650 lives from the wheels of the running trains at railway stations in last four years under this mission.
• An initiative "Meri Saheli" was launched to provide security to lady passengers in long distance trains particularly travelling alone or those who are vulnerable to crime.
• RPF has deployed 244 "Meri Saheli" teams at major railway stations across India for this purpose.
• During the year 2021, RPF retrieved left behind luggage having value to the tune of more than 23 Crores belonging to 12377 passengers and returned to them after due verification. RPF has been doing this service to passengers under "Operation Amanat".

• ICAR - Sugarcane Breeding Institute (ICAR-SBI), Coimbatore in collaboration with Anamalai Tiger Reserve, conducted a campaign on "Knowledge empowerment of tribals' and launched its STC (Scheduled Tribe Component) project at Attagatti in Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR), on 5
• Unlike other tiger reserves, the Anamalai Tiger Reserve has diverse groups of indigenous people
• Referring to the ‘Malasar' tribes who are of great help to the Forest Department in training the elephants with their profound knowledge and skill on handling Asian elephants
• The interventions by the Institute for implementing STC, was finalized based on a systematic need assessment by conduct of Focus groups among two tribes viz., ‘Malasar' and ‘Malai malasar' tribes

• In a successful attempt to cut down delays in genome sequencing to detect the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV2 (Covid-19), the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has approved a made in India ‘Omisure' test kit.
• The kit is manufactured by Tata Medical and Diagnostics and is named OmiSure.
• The kit will be used to confirm Omicron in patients with its S-Gene Target Failure (SGTF) strategy.
• The kit currently in use to detect Omicron in India has been developed by the U.S.-based scientific instrumentation company Thermo Fisher. It, too, uses the SGTF strategy to detect the variant.
• The Omisure test kit helps to detect the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV2 in the nasopharyngeal/oropharyngeal specimens during the RT-PCR tests.

• Addressing the Silver Jubilee Celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University, Wardha, the Vice President of India, Venkaiah Naidu recalled that the "Nai Talim" proposed by Mahatma Gandhi in Wardha in 1937 laid emphasis on making mother tongue as the medium of instruction in addition to free compulsory education and skill training to the students.

• It is a concept of basic education system by Mahatma Gandhi.
• Basic Education is a principle which states that knowledge and work are not separate. Mahatma Gandhi promoted an educational curriculum with the same name based on this pedagogical principle.
• The three pillars of Gandhi's pedagogy were its focus on the lifelong character of education, its social character and its form as a holistic process.
• For Gandhi, education is 'the moral development of the person', a process that is by definition 'lifelong'.

• It is teaching foreign languages like French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese etc. in Hindi medium.
• During the World Hindi Conference held in Nagpur in 1975, a proposal was made to establish an International Hindi University. Subsequently, Mahatma Gandhi International University, Wardha was established by a bill passed by the Parliament in 1997 and Silver Jubilee Celebrations of this University are being organized in 2022.

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