UPSC Daily Current Affairs | Prelim Bits 12-08-2020
iasparliament
August 12, 2020
AR2770 Sunspots
A Sunspot is an area on the Sun that appears dark on the surface and is relatively cooler than surrounding parts.
The sun spots are as large as 50,000 km in diameter, are the visible markers of the Sun’s magnetic field.
It forms a blanket that protects the solar system from harmful cosmic radiation.
Sunspots are the areas where the star’s magnetic field is the strongest, around 2,500 times more than the Earth’s magnetic field.
Most Sunspots appear in groups that have their own magnetic field, whose polarity reverses during every solar cycle, which takes around 11 years.
In every such cycle, the number of Sunspots increases and decreases.
A massive Sunspot group, AR2770, was observed using images of the Sun’s surface from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).
This massive sunspot on the Sun will be turning towards earth which could result in major strong flares.
Sunspots may release a huge amount of energy which in turn will lead to solar flares.
Solar flare
Solar flares are the result of changes in magnetic fields on the sunspots that cause a huge explosion.
These eruptions may lead to solar flares and storms.
This phenomenon is called Coronal Mass Ejections (CME).
These solar flares are often released into space and its radiation can disrupt with earth’s radio communication, GPS, Power grids and satellite.
Solar flares caused by these CMEs can also trigger intense light in the sky, called auroras.
Recently, scientists developed a new model that can successfully predict seven of the Sun’s biggest flares from the last solar cycle, out of a set of nine with the help of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Milne ice shelf
Ice shelfs are large floating pieces of ice that form when a glacier or ice sheet flows into the sea surface.
Milne ice shelf is in Ellesmere Island, Canada and recently it was broken.
The Milne ice shelf lost more than 40 % of its ice over 2 days end of July 2020.
This has increased concerns over the rapid melting of ice and the breaking of old ice shelfs due to global warming.
This also meant the last known Epishelf Lake, a water body dammed by the ice shelf and floating on the ocean surface on the Milne ice shelf, no longer exists.
Dwarf Planet Ceres
Ceres is a dwarf planet and it is the largest celestial object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
It has a diameter of about 950 km, which is more than one-fourth of Earth’s moon.
It has 92 km wide crater named Occator located in Ceres’ northern hemisphere.
Scientist have recently found that it is said to have salty water underground, by observing the cracks created to form a crater.
This crater is said to have formed by an impact approximately 22 million years ago.
The scientists have given Ceres the status of an “ocean world” as it has a big reservoir of salty water underneath its frigid surface.
This has led to an increased interest of scientists that the dwarf planet maybe habitable or has the potential to be.
Mount Sinabung
Indonesia’s active volcano Mount Sinabung erupted recently.
A volcano can erupt when magma (a thick flowing substance), formed when the earth’s mantle melts, rises to the surface.
Because magma is lighter than solid rock, it is able to rise through vents and fissures on the surface of the earth.
After it has erupted, it is called lava.
Not all volcanic eruptions are explosive, since exclusivity depends on the composition of the magma.
Indonesia is home to many active volcanoes, due to its position on the “Ring of Fire”, or the Circum-Pacific Belt, which is an area along the Pacific Ocean characterized by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes.
Krishi Megh
Union Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare has launched the Krishi Megh.
It is a step forward towards digital agriculture of New India.
It aims to meet the services and infrastructure needs of Digital Agriculture of National Agricultural Research and Education System (NARES).
The existing Data Centre (ICAR-DC) built during 2012 shall be strengthened with cloud computing infrastructure.
It would deploy mission critical applications such as e-Office, ICAR-ERP, Education Portal, KVK Portal and mobile apps, etc.
National Agricultural Research & Education System
NARES is a Government of India-World Bank funded project, designed for strengthening the national agricultural education system in the country.
The overall objective of the project is to provide more relevant and high-quality education to the agricultural university students that is in tune with the New Education Policy - 2020.
Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana
RKVY scheme was initiated in 2007 as an umbrella scheme for ensuring holistic development of agriculture and allied sectors.
The scheme incentivizes States to increase public investment in Agriculture & allied sectors.
In 2017, the component of Remunerative Approaches for Agriculture and Allied Sector Rejuvenation (RKVY-RAFTAAR) was added.
It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme in the ratio of 60: 40 except in the case of northeastern and hilly states where the sharing pattern is 90:10.
For UTs the grant is 100% as Central share.
The main objective is to develop farming as a main source of economic activity.
It provide all the states with autonomy and flexibility in making plans as per their local needs.
It aims to reduce the risk of farmers by focusing on increasing the income generation through mushroom cultivation, integrated farming, floriculture, etc.
Union Ministry of Agriculture is funding start-ups under the innovation and agripreneurship component of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana in 2020-21.
These start-ups are in various categories such as agro-processing, artificial intelligence, digital agriculture, farm mechanization, waste to wealth, dairy, fisheries etc.
