ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

1. STUDY: ANTARCTICA’S EMPEROR PENGUINS MAY GO EXTINCT BY 2100

GS-III-ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

THE CONTEXT: A new research has found that if necessary conservation efforts are not taken, the populations of up to 97 percent of land-based Antarctic species could decline by the end of this century.

THE EXPLANATION:

About Antarctica’s biodiversity

• Antarctica has a unique species of plants and animals that can survive the coldest, windiest, highest and driest continent on Earth. These species include 2 flowering plants, hardy moss and lichens, numerous microbes, invertebrates and breeding seabirds like emperor and Adélie penguins.
• These animals and plants are threatened because of global warming and climate crisis.

What are the key findings of the study?

• Greater conservation efforts are required for the protection of Antarctic ecosystems, which are threatened because of climate crisis.
• Climate change is the biggest threat to the plant and animal species living in Antarctica. Addressing global warming is an effective step to secure their future.
• With the worsening global warming, Antarctica’s ice-free areas are predicted to expand further, causing rapid changes in the natural habitat of animals and plants living there.
• Humanity’s presence in the region, besides causing environmental pollution, supports the thriving of invasive species.
• According to the study, under the worst-case scenario, if the current conservation efforts remain the same, the population of 97 percent of Antarctic terrestrial species and breeding seabirds could decline between now and 2100.
• At the best-case scenario, 37 percent of the species would decline.
• The most likely scenario would mean a 65 percent decline in the population of the terrestrial species by 2100.
• Emperor penguins are at the risk of going extinct by 2100 in the worst-case scenario. It is the only species in the study that is facing this fate.
• Climate change is also threatening the nematode worm Scottnemalindsayae, which lives in extremely dry soils. It is threatened as melting ice is increasing soil moisture.
• Not all species in Antarctica are facing population decline. Some are expected to benefit initially. These include 2 Antarctic plants, some mosses and the gentoo penguin. Their populations are expected to increase and become more widespread in the event of more liquid water, more ice-free and warmer temperatures.

How can these threats be addressed?

• An estimated 23 million USD per annum could be enough to implement 10 key strategies to minimise threats faced by Antarctica’s biodiversity. This is relatively small sum that can benefit 84 percent of the terrestrial bird, mammal and plant groups. It is lesser than the cost of reviving the threatened species, which is estimated to be more than 1.2 billion USD per annum.
• Reducing global warming to not more than 2°C could benefit up to 68 percent of terrestrial species and breeding seabirds. Managing non-native species and diseases and effectively managing and protecting native species can also benefit Antarctica’s biodiversity.
• They can be achieved by providing special protection for species, and increasing biosecurity to prevent the introduction of non-native species.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

2. ANIMATION, VISUAL EFFECTS, GAMING AND COMIC (AVGC) SECTOR

TAGS:GS-III-SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

THE CONTEXT: The Government has recently said that the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comic (AVGC) sector has the potential to provide employment to over 20 lakh people in the coming 10 years. It is expected that the sector will witness 16 to 17 percent growth rate in the next decade.

THE EXPLANATION:

About:

• The AVGC sector in the country has witnessed an unprecedented growth rate in recent times, with many global players entering the Indian talent pool to avail of offshore delivery of services.
• India today contributes about 2.5 to 3 billion dollars out of the estimated 260 to 275 billion dollars worldwide in the AVGC market.
• Task Force recently submitted report on ‘Realising AVGC-XR (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics – Extended Reality) Sector Potential in India’ on the 22nd of December, 2022 by the Chairman of the Task Force.

Recommendations:

• To make India a global content hub and create job opportunities in the AVGC sector, the Task Force has laid emphasis on establishing a National Centre of Excellence for the sector.
• The Regional Centre of Excellence will be instituted in collaboration with the State Governments to provide access to local industries and to promote local talent and content.
• It has been recommended by the Task Force to leverage National Education Policy to develop creative thinking with dedicated AVGC course content at school levels to build foundational skills and to create awareness about AVGC as a career choice.
• It has also been recommended to establish AVGC accelerators and innovation hubs in academic institutions, on the lines of Atal Tinkering Labs.
• The Task Force has recommended establishing a dedicated production fund for domestic content creation from the country to promote Indian culture and heritage globally.

GOVERNMENT SCHEMES AND INTERVENTIONS

3. PROJECT VAANI

TAGS: PRELIMS PERSPECTIVE

GS-III GOVERNMENT SCHEMES AND INTERVENTIONS

THE CONTEXT: Project Vaani will be implemented jointly by the Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), ARTPARK (AI and Robotics Technology Park), and Google to gather speech data from across India for the creation of an AI-based language model that can understand diverse Indian languages and dialects.

THE EXPLANATION:

What is Project Vaani?

• Under Project Vaani, diverse languages used across India will be mapped by collecting speech sets of around 1 million people from 773 districts over 3 years.
• The estimated cost of this project is around 30 to 40 million USD.
• It is part of the Bengaluru-based IISc and Artpark’s Bhasha AI project that includes RESPIN (Recognizing Speech in Indian languages) and SYSPIN (Synthesizing Speech in Indian languages).
• The project would involve IISc and Google recording around 1.5 lakh hours of speech, part of which will be transcribed in local scripts.
• This project uses a district-anchored approach, which involves recording local speeches by randomly selecting over 1,000 people from each district.

What are the objectives of the initiative?

• One of the main objectives of this project is the development of technologies like automatic speech recognition, speech-to-speech translation and natural language understanding.
• Its ultimate goal is to deliver a technological solution that can eliminate the linguistic barriers that are currently present in technology and increase accessibility of the technology for a wider range of people.
• Once this project is fully completed, efforts will be taken to create an artificial intelligence-based language model that can understand diverse languages and dialects used in India.
• The new model proposed under the Vaani project supports both speech and text translation. This would be a leap from the Multilingual Representations for Indian Languages (MuRIL), which only supports text-based translation. The new model would be trained on speech and text from over 100 Indian languages, which are spoken by over 1 lakh people across India.

What is the current status of the project?

• Over the past few months, linguistic data from nearly 69 districts have been collected from across India.
• So far, over 150 hours of data have been collected, covering more than 30 languages from 841 different pin codes in a gender and age-balanced manner.

4. THE NATIONAL MOBILE MONITORING SYSTEM (NMMS)

TAGS: PRELIMS PERSPECTIVE
GS-III GOVERNMENT SCHEMES AND INTERVENTIONS-MGNREGA

THE CONTEXT: Recently, the central government has ordered that digitally capturing attendance is now mandatory for all workers employed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGREGS) and will be applicable from January 1, 2023.

THE EXPLANATION:

About The National Mobile Monitoring System (NMMS):

• It was launched by the Ministry of Rural Development.
• The NMMS App permits taking real-time attendance of workers at Mahatma Gandhi NREGS worksites along with geo-tagged photographs.
• This will increase citizen oversight of the programme besides potentially enabling the processing of payments faster
• This facilitates them to record their findings online along with time-stamped and go-coordinate tagged photographs for all the schemes of the Department of Rural Development.
• This would also enable better record keeping of inspections by field and supervisory officials and also facilitate analysis of the findings for better programme implementation.

VALUE ADDITION:

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) 2005

• The MGNREGA is Indian labour law and social security programme that aims to guarantee the ‘right to work’.
• It provides a legal right for 100 days of employment in every financial year to at least one member of every rural household whose adult members agree to do unskilled manual work.
• The Ministry of Rural Development is monitoring the implementation of this scheme.
• Women were guaranteed one-third of the jobs made available under the MGNREGA.
• The MGNREGA programme also helps in creating durable assets (such as roads, canals, ponds and wells).
• Work to be provided within 5 km of workers’ residence and minimum wages are to be paid.
• Right to get unemployment allowance in case employment is not provided within 15 days of applying.
• MGNREGA is implemented mainly by gram panchayats. Adult members of rural households submit their details to the Gram Panchayat. The Gram Panchayat registers households after making an enquiry and issues a job card. The job card contains the details of the adult member enrolled and his /her photo
• The involvement of contractors is banned.
• The Social Audit of MGNREGA works is mandatory, which ensures accountability and transparency.

Significance of MGNREGA

• The programme is providing economic security and creates rural assets.
• It also helps in protecting the environment, reducing rural-urban migration and promoting social equity, etc.
• It focuses on the economic and social empowerment of women.
• It provides “Green” and “Decent” work.
• Works under MGNREGA help to address the climate change vulnerability and protect the farmers from such risks and conserve natural resources.

PRELIMS PERSPECTIVE

5.GEOGLYPHS

TAGS: PRELIMS PERSPECTIVE-

THE CONTEXT: Recently, experts and conservationists have raised concerns over the proposed location for a mega oil refinery in Barsu village of Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra.

About Geoglyphs:
Barsu sites in the Konkan region were added to a tentative list of UNESCO’s world heritage sites and protected by the state archaeology department and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

What are geoglyphs?

• Geoglyphs are a form of prehistoric rock art, created on the surface of laterite plateaus.
• They are made by removing a part of the rock surface through an incision, picking, carving or abrading.
• They can be in the form of rock paintings, etchings, cup marks and ring marks.

What is the significance of this prehistoric rock art?

• Clusters of geoglyphs are spread across the Konkan coastline in Maharashtra and Goa, spanning around 900 km. Porous laterite rock, which lends itself to such carving, is found on a large scale across the entire region.
• It has more than 1,500 pieces of such art, also called “Katal Shilpa,” spread across 70 sites.
• This is evidence of the continued existence of human settlements from the Mesolithic (middle Stone Age) to the early historic era.
• UNESCO’s tentative world heritage list mentions seven sites with petroglyphs in Ratnagiri district — Ukshi, Jambharun, Kasheli, RundeTali, Devihasol, Barsu and Devache Gothane, one in Sindhudurg district –Kudopi village, and nine sites at Phansamal in Goa.
• The figures depicted in the geoglyphs include humans and animals such as deer, elephant, tiger, monkey, wild boar, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, cattle, pig, rabbit, and monkey.
• They also include a high number of reptilian and amphibian creatures such as tortoises and alligators, aquatic animals such as sharks and sting rays, and birds like peacocks.