Monsoon to set in over Kerala on June 4

The monsoon is likely to set in over Kerala with a “slight delay” on June 4, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

The IMD in April forecast a “normal” monsoon during the June-September season, though at 96% of the Long Period Average (LPA), it is at the lowest end of what the agency categorises as “normal rainfall.”

The major factor expected to cause diminished rains this year is the development of an El Nino, a cyclical phenomenon of warming in the Central Pacific.

Cyclone Mocha, that formed in the Bay of Bengal and landed in Myanmar, affected the progress of the monsoon system in the A&N Islands and is partly responsible for the expected delayed arrival over Kerala.

• El Nino and La Nina are complex weather patterns resulting from variations in ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific Region. They are opposite phases of what is known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle.
  • The ENSO cycle describes the fluctuations in temperature between the ocean and atmosphere in the east-central Equatorial Pacific.
  • El Nino and La Nina episodes typically last nine to 12 months, but some prolonged events may last for years.
• El Nino is a climate pattern that describes the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
  • It is the “warm phase” of a larger phenomenon called the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
  • It occurs more frequently than La Nina.
• La Nina, the “cool phase” of ENSO, is a pattern that describes the unusual cooling of the tropical eastern Pacific.
  • La Nina events may last between one and three years, unlike El Nino, which usually lasts no more than a year.
  • Both phenomena tend to peak during the Northern Hemisphere winter.

El Nino

• El Nino was first recognized by Peruvian fishermen off the coast of Peru as the appearance of unusually warm water.
  • The Spanish immigrants called it El Nino, meaning “the little boy” in Spanish.
• El Nino soon came to describe irregular and intense climate changes rather than just the warming of coastal surface waters.
• The El Nino event is not a regular cycle, they are not predictable and occur irregularly at two- to seven-year intervals.
  • The climatologists determined that El Nino occurs simultaneously with the Southern Oscillation.
    • The Southern Oscillation is a change in air pressure over the tropical Pacific Ocean.
• When coastal waters become warmer in the eastern tropical Pacific (El Nino), the atmospheric pressure above the ocean decreases.
  • Climatologists define these linked phenomena as El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

Monitoring El Nino and La Nina

• Scientists, governments, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) collect data about El Nino using a number of technologies such as scientific buoys.
  • A buoy is a type of an object that floats in water and is used in the middle of the seas as locators or as warning points for the ships. They are generally bright (fluorescent) in colour.
  • These buoys measure ocean and air temperatures, currents, winds, and humidity.
  • The buoys transmit data daily to researchers and forecasters around the world enabling the scientists to more accurately predict El Nino and visualize its development and impact around the globe.
• The Oceanic Nino Index (ONI) is used to measure deviations from normal sea surface temperatures.
  • The intensity of El Nino events varies from weak temperature increases (about 4-5° F) with only moderate local effects on weather and climate to very strong increases (14-18° F) associated with worldwide climatic changes.

Oceanic Nino Index (ONI)

• The Oceanic Niño Index (ONI), is a measure of the departure from normal sea surface temperature in the east-central Pacific Ocean, is the standard means by which each El Nino episode is determined, gauged, and forecast.

Impact of El Nino

• In order to understand the concept of El Nino, it’s important to be familiar with non-El Nino conditions in the Pacific Ocean.
  • Normally, strong trade winds blow westward across the tropical Pacific, the region of the Pacific Ocean located between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.
• Impact on Ocean: El Nino also impacts ocean temperatures, the speed and strength of ocean currents, the health of coastal fisheries, and local weather from Australia to South America and beyond.
• Increased Rainfall: Convection above warmer surface waters brings increased precipitation.
  • Rainfall increases drastically in South America, contributing to coastal flooding and erosion.
• Diseases caused by Floods and Droughts: Diseases thrive in communities devastated by natural hazards such as flood or drought.
  • El Nino-related flooding is associated with increases in cholera, dengue, and malaria in some parts of the world, while drought can lead to wildfires that create respiratory problems.
• Positive impact: It can sometimes have a positive impact too, for example, El Nino reduces the instances of hurricanes in the Atlantic.
• In South America: As El Nino brings rain to South America, it brings droughts to Indonesia and Australia.
  • These droughts threaten the region’s water supplies, as reservoirs dry and rivers carry less water. Agriculture, which depends on water for irrigation, is also threatened.
• In Western Pacific: These winds push warm surface water towards the western Pacific, where it borders Asia and Australia.
  • Due to the warm trade winds, the sea surface is normally about 0.5 meter higher and 4-5° F warmer in Indonesia than Ecuador.
  • The westward movement of warmer waters causes cooler waters to rise up towards the surface on the coasts of Ecuador, Peru, and Chile. This process is known as upwelling.
    • Upwelling elevates cold, nutrient-rich water to the euphotic zone, the upper layer of the ocean.

Previous El Nino Events:

• El Nino events of 1982-83 and 1997-98 were the most intense of the 20 century.
• During the 1982-83 event, sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific were 9-18° F above normal.
• The El Nino event of 1997-98 was the first El Nino event to be scientifically monitored from beginning to end.
• The 1997-98 event produced drought conditions in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Peru and California experienced very heavy rains and severe flooding.
• The Midwest experienced record-breaking warm temperatures during a period known as “the year without a winter.”

La Nina

• La Nina means The Little Girl in Spanish. It is also sometimes called El Viejo, anti-El Nino, or simply "a cold event."
• La Nina events represent periods of below-average sea surface temperatures across the east-central Equatorial Pacific.
  • It is indicated by sea-surface temperature decreased by more than 0.9℉ for at least five successive three-month seasons.
• La Nina event is observed when the water temperature in the Eastern Pacific gets comparatively colder than normal, as a consequence of which, there is a strong high pressure over the eastern equatorial Pacific.

The Conditions of La Nina.

• La Nina is caused by a build-up of cooler-than-normal waters in the tropical Pacific, the area of the Pacific Ocean between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.
• La Nina is characterized by lower-than-normal air pressure over the western Pacific. These low-pressure zones contribute to increased rainfall.
• La Nina events are also associated with rainier-than-normal conditions over southeastern Africa and northern Brazil.
  • However, strong La Nina events are associated with catastrophic floods in northern Australia.
• La Nina is also characterized by higher-than-normal pressure over the central and eastern Pacific.
  • This results in decreased cloud production and rainfall in that region.
• Drier-than-normal conditions are observed along the west coast of tropical South America, the Gulf Coast of the United States, and the pampas region of southern South America.

Impact of La Nina

• Europe: In Europe, El Nino reduces the number of autumnal hurricanes.
  • La Nina tends to lead to milder winters in Northern Europe (especially UK) and colder winters in southern/western Europe leading to snow in the Mediterranean region.
• North America: It is continental North America where most of these conditions are felt. The wider effects include:
  • Stronger winds along the equatorial region, especially in the Pacific.
  • Favourable conditions for hurricanes in the Caribbean and central Atlantic area.
  • Greater instances of tornados in various states of the US.
  • South America: La Nina causes drought in the South American countries of Peru and Ecuador.
    • It usually has a positive impact on the fishing industry of western South America.
• Western Pacific: In the western Pacific, La Nina increases the potential for landfall in those areas most vulnerable to their effects, and especially into continental Asia and China.
  • It also leads to heavy floods in Australia.
  • There are increased temperatures in Western Pacific, Indian Ocean and off the Somalian coast.

ENSO and India

• El Nino: Strong El Nino events contribute to weaker monsoons and even droughts in India Southeast Asia.
• La Nina: The cold air occupies a larger part of India than the El Nino cold air.
• In the ‘La Nina year’, rainfall associated with the summer monsoon in Southeast Asia tends to be greater than normal, especially in northwest India and Bangladesh.
  • This generally benefits the Indian economy, which depends on the monsoon for agriculture and industry.
• It usually brings in colder than normal winters in India.
• La Nina influences the Indian subcontinent by piping in cold air from Siberia and South China, which interacts with the tropical heating to produce a north-south low-pressure system.
• The cold air of La Nina associated with this north-south trough tends to extend much further south into India.
  • This is remarkably different from the more northwest-southeast blast of cold air associated with El Nino.
  • The pressure pattern going north-south means lesser impact of western disturbances.
  • The cold temperature can go down as far as Tamil Nadu, but may not affect the North East that much.

Telecom Bill should be finalised by July

• The Indian Telecommunication Bill, a draft version of which was released late last year for public comment, should ideally take its final form by July
• The primary focus [for the Bill] is that the telecom sector in India should be globally benchmarked, should be a sunrise sector, should have lot of scope for innovation, a simple regulatory framework, and user protection has to be the prime focus

Fraudulent connections

• Minister of Railways, Communications, Electronics and Information Technology was announcing the release of the Sanchar Saathi portal, a website that brings together initiatives the government has already released, such as TAFCOP, a system for users to find out how many SIM cards are registered in their name, and the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR), a system that lets people who lose their phone or have it stolen remotely block the handset for use on Indian telecom networks.
• Using ASTR, a facial recognition system rolled out by the Department of Telecommunications for detecting individuals who register more than 9 mobile connections (the maximum allowed), the government was able to detect many fraudulent SIM registrations.
• Over 40,000 points of sale offering such registrations were blacklisted, the government indicated in a background note, with West Bengal accounting for over a quarter of the banned vendors.

India moves closer to getting its first indigenous vaccine against dengue

Moving a step closer to developing India’s first vaccine against dengue, drug-makers Serum Institute of India and Panacea Biotec have submitted their responses to the call by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for an Expression of Interest for collaborative Phase 3 clinical trials for indigenous manufacturers.

The Phase 3 trial is being done for evaluation of efficacy, along with safety and immunogenicity of tetravalent dengue vaccine candidate developed by Indian manufacturers.

Dengue

• Dengue is a mosquito-borne tropical disease caused by the dengue virus (Genus Flavivirus), transmitted by several species of female mosquito within the genus Aedes, principally Aedes aegypti.
  • This mosquito also transmits chikungunya, yellow fever and Zika infection.
• There are 4 distinct, but closely related, serotypes (separate groups within a species of microorganisms that all share a similar characteristic) of the virus that cause dengue (DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3 and DEN-4).
• Symptoms:
  • Sudden high fever, severe headaches, pain behind the eyes, severe bone, joint, and muscle pain, etc.
• Diagnosis and Treatment:
  • Diagnosis of dengue infection is done with a blood test.
  • There is no specific medicine to treat dengue infection.
• Status of Dengue:
  • Incidence of dengue has grown dramatically around the world in recent decades, with a vast majority of cases under-reported, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
  • WHO estimates 39 crore dengue virus infections per year, of which 9.6 crore show symptoms.
  • According to data shared by the National Center for Vector Borne Diseases Control, India recorded 63,280 dengue cases as of September, 2022
• Controlling Dengue Using Bacteria:
  • Recently researchers from the World Mosquito Program have used mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria to successfully control dengue in Indonesia.
  • Method:
    • The scientists infected some mosquitoes with Wolbachia and then released them in the city where they bred with local mosquitoes, until nearly all mosquitoes in the area were carrying Wolbachia bacteria. This is called the Population Replacement Strategy.
    • At the end of 27 months, the researchers found that the incidence of dengue was 77% lower in areas where Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes had been released, as compared to areas without such deployments.
• Dengue Vaccine:
  • The dengue vaccine CYD-TDV or Dengvaxia was approved by the US Food & Drug Administration in 2019, the first dengue vaccine to get the regulatory nod in the US.
    • Dengvaxia is basically a live, attenuated dengue virus which has to be administered in people of ages 9 to 16 who have laboratory-confirmed previous dengue infection and who live in endemic areas.
  • Vaccine manufacturer Indian Immunologicals Limited (IIL) is developing India''s first Dengue vaccine and has received permission for a Phase-1 trial.
    • The vaccine is being produced in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health in the US.

NHRC notice to States on increase in Child Sexual Abuse Material on social media

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has taken suo motu cognisance of a media report that cited a 250-300% increase in the circulation of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) on social media in India.

It maintained that it had been concerned with the ill-effects of online CSAM on human rights as it may cause irreparable psychological damage to children, impacting their growth and development.

Legislations against Online child sexual abuse in India:

• The IT Act 2000:
  • Section 67B of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 provides stringent punishment for publishing, transmitting, or viewing child sexual abuse material online.
  • The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 empower the users of Intermediaries and make the social media platforms accountable for their safety.
  • The Rules require the intermediaries to adopt a robust grievance redressal mechanism including time-bound disposal of grievances.
  • The government periodically blocks the websites containing outer child sexual abuse material (CSAM) based on INTERPOL’s “worst of the list” received through the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the national nodal agency for Interpol in India.
  • The Information Technology Act, of 2000 provides a legal framework for addressing all types of prevailing cybercrimes reported in the country.
• POCSO Act:
  • Further, Section 14 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offence (POCSO) Act provides Punishment for using children for pornographic purposes. As per section 14:
  • Whoever uses a child or children for pornographic purposes shall be punished with imprisonment for a term that shall not be less than five years.

India’s efforts

• ‘Aarambh India’, a Mumbai-based non-governmental organization, partnered with the IWF and launched India’s first online reporting portal in September 2016 to report images and videos of child abuse.
• The Supreme Court of India, **in Shreya Singhal (2015),**said that Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act means that the ISP, only upon receiving actual knowledge of the court order or on being notified by the appropriate government, shall remove or disable access to illegal contents.
  • Thus, ISPs are exempted from the liability of any third-party information.
• In the Kamlesh Vaswani (WP(C) 177/2013) case, the petitioner sought a complete ban on pornography.
• As per Section 88 of the IT Act, the orders were issued in March 2015 to Internet Service Providers to disable nine (domain) URLs that hosted contents in violation of the morality and decency clause of Article 19(2) of the Constitution.

SC transfers endosulfan case to Kerala HC for monitoring government’s medical and palliative measures for victims

The Supreme Court transferred to Kerala High Court the responsibility of monitoring the measures taken by the State to provide medical and palliative care for victims of endosulfan contamination.

EndoSulfan

• Endosulfan is an organochlorine insecticide which was first introduced in the 1950s and is commonly known by its trade name Thiodan.

Use of Endosulfan

• Sprayed on crops like cotton, cashew, fruits, tea, paddy, tobacco etc. for control of pests such as whiteflies, aphids, beetles, worms etc.

Impact of Endosulfan

• Environment
  • Endosulfan in the environment gets accumulated in food chains leading to higher doses causing problems.
  • If Endosulfan is released to water, it is expected to absorb to the sediment and may bioconcentrate in aquatic organisms.
• Humans And Animals
  • The endosulfan ingestion results in diseases ranging from physical deformities, cancer, birth disorders and damage to the brain and nervous system.

Ban on Endosulfan

• The Supreme Court in India has banned the manufacture, sale, use, and export of endosulfan throughout the country, citing its harmful health effects in 2015.
• Endosulfan is listed under both Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

Rotterdam convention 1998

• The convention aims to promote cooperation and responsibility sharing measures amongst different countries dealing with trade in hazardous chemicals and pesticides.
• PIC, Prior Informed Consent is the main feature of the convention and is legally binding on the party members.
• PIC facilitates information exchange about nature and trade-related information amongst the party members.
• The Convention creates obligations for the implementation of the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure.

Stockholm convention 2001

• The convention aims to reduce the concentration of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) which are chemical substances that not only remain in the atmosphere for longer periods but also possess the ability to bio-accumulate.
• The convention listed 12 POPs as ‘dirty dozen’.

Row over adopting father’s surname in matrilineal Meghalaya

A tribal council’s order not to issue a Scheduled Tribe (ST) certificate to any Khasi person who adopts the surname of her or his father has triggered a war of words in matrilineal Meghalaya.

The Khasis, numbering about 1.39 lakh, are one of the three indigenous matrilineal communities in the northeastern State. The other two are Garos and Jaintias.

In that order, the KHADC directed the headmen of all villages and urban localities across the Khasi domain not to issue ST certificates to those who adopt their father’s surname instead of sticking to tradition by taking their mother’s clan name.

“I will fight for my children if there is an attempt to take away their right of being called Khasis,” VPP president and MLA, Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit said at a public meeting in the State’s Nongpoh recently.

• Matrilineal System of Inheritance:
  • The three tribes of Meghalaya — Khasis, Jaintias, and Garos — practise a matrilineal system of inheritance.
    • In this system, lineage and descent are traced through the mother’s clan.
  • In other words, children take the mother’s surname, the husband moves into his wife’s house, and the youngest daughter (khatduh) of the family is entrusted the full share of the ancestral - or the clan’s - property.
    • The khatduh becomes the “custodian” of the land, and assumes all responsibility associated with the land, including taking care of aged parents, unmarried or destitute siblings.
  • This inheritance tradition applies only to ancestral or clan/community property, which has been with the family for years. The self-acquired property can be distributed equally among siblings.
  • In this traditional set-up, if a couple does not have any daughters, then the property goes to the wife’s elder sister, and her daughters.
  • If the wife does not have sisters, then the clan usually takes over the property.
• Effect of this System on Women Empowerment: Women activists have often pointed out that the matrilineal system in Meghalaya rarely empowers women.
  • Issue in Custodianship: Custodianship is often misconstrued as ownership vested in just one person, that is the youngest daughter.
    • This custodianship comes with the responsibility to care for aged parents, unmarried or destitute siblings and other clan members.
    • Moreover, the custodian cannot buy or sell the land, without taking permission from her maternal uncle.
  • Matrilineal is Not Matriarchal: People often confuse matrilineal with matriarchal, where women function as heads.
    • While women may have freedom of mobility and easier access to education, they are not decision makers in Meghalaya.
    • There are barely any women in positions of power, in politics, or heading institutions.

Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council

• KHADC is a body under the Sixth Schedule %20of%20the%20Constitution.)of the Constitution.
• It does not have the power to legislate.
• Paragraph 12 A of the Sixth Schedule gives the final right of passing a law to the state legislature.
• The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution provides for the administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram to safeguard the rights of the tribal population in these states.
  • This special provision is provided under Article 244 (2) and Article 275 (1) of the Constitution.
  • It provides for autonomy in the administration of these areas through Autonomous District Councils (ADCs), which are empowered to make laws in respect of areas under their jurisdiction.