Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 19 June 2017

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 19 June 2017

::National::

The norms for no-fly list to rein in unruly passengers to be ready soon

• The norms for no-fly list to rein in unruly passengers are expected to be ready early next month, the government said amid a parliamentarian being barred by domestic airlines for allegedly creating ruckus.
• A revised Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) is being finalised after receiving comments from the stakeholders. 
• The Civil Aviation Ministry has already come out with draft rules for a ‘national no-fly list’ of unruly passengers for all domestic carriers, under which the flying ban could extend from at least three months to an indefinite period.
• Lok Sabha member from TDP J.C. Diwakar Reddy was barred by major airlines after he allegedly created a ruckus at the Vizag airport when he was denied boarding by IndiGo.
• This is the second incident involving a Lok Sabha member after Shiv Sena’s Ravindra Gaikwad was banned by carriers for some time after he had assaulted an Air India staffer.

Central India to receive monsoon by 22nd June

• The monsoon system, forecast to establish itself over Central India by June 15, will be delayed by a week. This is unlikely to affect the overall rainfall in June and is seen as a part of the monsoon’s natural variability.
• There is moisture in the air and thunderstorm along with rain…but the monsoon has been delayed [over Central India] because of strong rain in the east.
• As of June 17, the country got 79.6 mm of rain, 9% more than the average 72.8 mm it receives in the first fortnight of June. Rain in Central India is 21% more than what is normal for this time.
• IMD said rainfall was likely to be 96% of the historical average in northwest India, 100% of the LPA (the 50-year average of the monsoon rains) over central India, 99% of the low pressure area (LPA) over the south peninsula, with a model error of plus or minus 8%.

National Mission for clean Ganga to decide about 400 tanneries from kanpur 

• Officials of the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) will meet Uttar Pradesh government officials to discuss the State’s decision to shift over 400 tanneries from Kanpur.
• The previous Samajwadi Party government had told the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in 2016 that the tanneries could not be shifted, for no land was available. The Yogi Adityanath government has reportedly identified fresh land.
• Were the tanneries to be shifted, it could affect nearly two million people dependent on them for their livelihood. It could also mean that alternative technologies — like the zero liquid discharge (ZLD) plant promoted by the CSIR-Central Leather Research Institute, Chennai — may not be implemented. 
• The tannery clusters at Jajmau employ over two million people; for long, tannery managers have argued that the new-technology effluent treatment plants are expensive. 
• Were the tanneries to shift, a new common effluent treatment plant would have to be developed.
• Central Pollution Control Board had informed the NGT that the Ganga, running 543 km between Haridwar and Kanpur, was affected by 1,072 seriously polluting industries that were releasing heavy metals and pesticides. 
• At present, 823.1 million litres per day (MLD) of untreated sewage and 212.42 MLD of industrial effluent flow into the river, while three of the four monitored sewage treatment plants do not comply with the set standards.
• The green panel has divided the cleaning work in segments — Gomukh-Haridwar (Phase-I); Haridwar-Unnao (segment B of Phase-I); Unnao-the border of Uttar Pradesh; the border of Uttar Pradesh-the border of Jharkhand; and the border of Jharkhand-the Bay of Bengal.

Bengal still tensed over Gorkhaland issue

• An eerie silence prevailed on Sunday in Singhamari, the stronghold of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM). Three people were killed allegedly in police firing during a violent agitation for a separate State of Gorkhaland.
• On the fourth day of the indefinite strike called by the GJM in Darjeeling hills, Singhamari, which has been the epicentre of the protests, wore a look of desolation and devastation. 
• Internet services were down and according to the protesters, this was a ploy of the administration and the police to counter the Gorkhaland movement.
• According to Col. Ramesh Allay (retd.), Deputy Chairman of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) and central committee member of the GJM, after “Saturday’s killings”, there is no going back in the agitation for Gorkhaland.

::International::

China included CPEC to scientific expedition of Tibet

• China has included the controversial $50 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor in its second scientific expedition to the 4,000-metre-high Qinghai-Tibet plateau to study changes in climate and environment over the past decades in the region.
• The expedition will also take scientists to the CPEC, which passes through the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) over which India has conveyed its protests to China. The area covers the Karakoram mountain ranges, including the Siachen glacier. 
• The last expedition of similar scale in Qinghai-Tibet plateau, regarded as roof of the world, was conducted in the 1970s.
• This time, the expedition will last five to 10 years and the first stop will be Serling Tso, a 2,391-square-km lake that was confirmed to have replaced the Buddhist holy lake Namtso as Tibet’s largest in 2014.
• In the coming months, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) will take over 100 scientists to the lake area and the origin of the Yangtze. 
• They will be divided into four groups and make a comprehensive survey of the plateau glaciers, climate change, biodiversity and ecological changes, Yao Tandong, an academician with the CAS, was quoted as saying.