Understanding bird strikes and aviation safety

• An analysis of 62,416 verified records by the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Bird Strike Information System showed that most bird hits were in or near airports during the take-off and approach phases of flight.
• About 60% occurred at or below 30 metres or around 100 feet.
• A report says that in India in 2021, DGCA data has recorded over 1,400 suspected and confirmed wildlife incidents (for 20.5 lakh aircraft movements), up from nearly 840 cases in 2016 (for 22.9 lakh aircraft movements). Most of the incidents were reported from Delhi and Mumbai airports.
• In India’s National Aviation Safety Plan (2018-2022), one of the key safety priorities is looking at “wildlife and bird strikes”.
• Under Safety Performance Indicators of “Number of reported bird strikes at all Indian airports per 10,000 movements”, it lists a Safety Performance Target of 4.26 for the year 2022.

MeitY declares HDFC, ICICI, NPCI’s IT resources as critical information

• The Information Technology Act of 2000 defines “Critical Information Infrastructure” as a “computer resource, the incapacitation or destruction of which shall have debilitating impact on national security, economy, public health or safety”.
• The government, under the Act, has the power to declare any data, database, IT network or communications infrastructure as CII to protect that digital asset.
• Any person who secures access or attempts to secure access to a protected system in violation of the law can be punished with a jail term of up to 10 years.
• Created in January 2014, the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) is the nodal agency for taking all measures to protect the nation’s critical information infrastructure.

Rare dragonfly spotted in Kerala for the first time

• They spotted the Spiny Horntail, Burmagomphus chaukulensis Joshi, Ogale & Sawant, 2022 (or B. chaukulensis), during a recent expedition to the Kottiyoor forests of Kannur.
• The species that is known to be endemic to the Western Ghats was discovered in Maharashtra earlier this year.
• Prior to their finding, the dragonfly genus Burmagomphus was represented by three species – B. cauvericus, B. pyramidalis and B. laidlawi.
• While B. laidlawi is found throughout the Western Ghats, B. cauvericus is more restricted in its distribution. B. pyramidalis is found in the Western Ghats as well as in Peninsular India.
• All other species of the genus are found in the Western and Eastern Himalayas.
• The new species can be separated from its congeners by the markings on the lateral thorax and peculiar shape of anal appendages, said Mr. Nair.

The judicial validity of the Talaq-e-Hasan mode of divorce

• In instant triple talaq a man pronounces multiple divorce in one go. It has no scope for reconciliation and often ends a marriage instantly. Unlike instant triple talaq, Talaq-e-Hasan is pronounced with a gap of at least one month or one menstrual cycle.
• Talaq-e-Hasan enjoys legal validity in almost all Muslim countries while instant triple talaq has been banned in many Muslim countries, including Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, Malaysia etc.
• A petition filed by Benazir Hina, a Ghaziabad-based woman, seeks to make the prescribed Islamic way of divorce Talaq-e-Hasan unconstitutional as it is violative of Articles 14, 15 21 and 25 of the Constitution.

India reports FY22 CAD of 1.2% as trade deficit widens

• Net Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows at $38.6 billion in 2021-22 were lower than $44 billion in 2020-21. Net Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) recorded an outflow of $16.8 billion in 2021-22 as against an inflow of $36.1 billion a year earlier.
• For the January-March 2022 quarter, the CAD narrowed on a sequential basis to $13.4 billion, or 1.5% of GDP, against $22.2 billion, or 2.6% of GDP, in the December 2021 quarter.
• On a year-on-year basis, although gold imports halved, and the services trade surplus rose, this improvement was dwarfed by the widening of the merchandise trade deficit led by imports of commodity inputs such as crude oil, coal and fertilisers, as well as electronic goods.

Four new corals recorded from Indian waters

• All the four groups of corals are from the same family, Flabellidae.
• Truncatoflabellum crassum (Milne Edwards and Haime, 1848), T. incrustatum (Cairns, 1989), T. aculeatum (Milne Edwards and Haime, 1848), and T. irregulare (Semper, 1872) under the family Flabellidae were previously found in Japan, the Philippines and Australian waters, while only T. crassum was reported with the range of Indo-West Pacific distribution.

Azooxanthellate Corals

• The azooxanthellate corals are a group of corals that do not contain zooxanthellae and derive nourishment not from the sun but from capturing different forms of planktons.
• They are deep-sea representatives with the majority of species being reported from depths between 200 metres and 1,000 metres. They are also reported from shallow waters unlike zooxanthellate corals that are restricted to shallow waters.
• Azooxanthellate corals are a group of hard corals. Hard corals are the prime and intrinsic part of the coral reef ecosystem.

Major economies forum on energy and climate

• The Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) was launched on March 28, 2009.
• The MEF meeting was aimed at galvanising actions that are to strengthen energy security and tackle the climate crisis thereby building momentum for COP27.
• The meeting was attended by twenty three major economies across the world and the Secretary General of United Nations.

Initiatives by India on climate change

• Shri Bhupender Yadav emphasised that India’s initiatives go beyond its borders, including the International Solar Alliance, and the Coalition for Disaster Resilience Infrastructure.
• He mentioned that India has already installed 159 GW of non-fossil fuel based electricity generation capacity. And during the last 7.5 years, India’s installed solar energy capacity has increased over 18 times.
• Shri Yadav highlighted that India’s annual per capita emissions are only a third of the global average and its cumulative GHG emissions are less than 4 percent.
• He called upon the members of MEF to launch a global movement on LIFE i.e. Lifestyle for Environment as espoused by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi at the COP26 in Glasgow.