• So far, the cultivation of saffron – the most expensive spice – in India has been limited to a few areas in Jammu and Kashmir such as Pampore, Budgam, Srinagar and Kishtwar districts.
• The Ministry of Science and Technology, through the Department of Science and Technology (DST), is now looking at extending its cultivation to some states in the Northeast.
• The North East Centre for Technology Application and Reach (NECTAR), an autonomous body under the Department of Science and Technology, supported a pilot project to explore the feasibility of growing saffron in the northeast region of the country with same quality and in higher quantity.
• The project has yielded successful results in Yangyang village of South Sikkim, which produced its first crop of saffron this September.
• The matching of climatic and geographical conditions between Pampore (Kashmir) and Yangyang (Sikkim) led to the successful sample farming of saffron in Yangyang.
• Kashmiri Saffron was given GI Tag recently in July 2020.
• The Kashmiri saffron crop sees both decline in its production as well as shrinking of the land under cultivation despite efforts taken through National Mission on Saffron.

Saffron Conditions

• Saffron needs to remain underground for about 45 days at sub-zero temperatures.
• It also requires adequate rain, especially once sown in August.
• The pH level of the soil was a particularly important factor.

• The Asteroid Apophis was discovered in 2004 and since then it was revealed that the probability of a collision are almost negligible.
• It was earlier predicted to pass really close to Earth in 2068.
• But, according to the new calculations, the asteroid is drifting away from its original orbit now.
• The change in orbit is about 557 feet (170 metres) per year.
• The details were revealed by the lead author David Tholen who has been monitoring the asteroid closely from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Yarkovsky Effect

• The asteroid’s orbit has been disturbed by the heat it is taking from the Sun.
• This phenomenon is called Yarkovsky effect as it celestial object’s path changes due to heat energy being radiated asymmetrically.
• Basically, the heat that an asteroid radiates gives it a very tiny push.
• The warmer hemisphere [of the asteroid] would be pushing slightly more than the cooler hemisphere, and that causes the asteroid to drift away from what a purely gravitational orbit would predict.

• The Uttarakhand government is considering denotifying the Shivalik Elephant Reserve.
• The matter, officials said, will be raised before the state Wildlife Advisory Board for discussion in its next meeting.
• If the board gives an in-principle approval, a detailed proposal will be taken up and the matter communicated to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF).
• The Shivalik Elephant Reserve which spreads over 5,000 sq km was notified in 2002.

• A recent study has found that nearly 28 per cent of particles collected from the air samples from a research station in the Himalaya-Tibetan Plateau were tarballs.
• The data revealed that a dense array of active fire spots — corresponding to large-scale wheat-residue burning on the Indo-Gangetic Plain — occurred along the pathways of air masses that reached the Himalayan research station during sampling.

Tarballs

• Tarballs are formed from brown carbon, emitted during the burning of biomass or fossil fuels.
• Black Carbon (BC) is emitted mainly by high-temperature combustion processes (diesel engines, etc.) whereas Brown Carbon (BrC), emitted mainly by biomass combustion.
• Tarballs are small light-absorbing, carbonaceous particles that deposit on snow and ice.
• The percentage of the tarballs increased on days of higher levels of pollution and could contribute to hastening of glacial melt and global warming, the study said.
• Until now, black carbon was found to be transported long distances by wind to the Himalayan atmosphere; there was not sufficient direct evidence for Primary brown carbon (BrC) in the Himalayan atmosphere.
• Primary BrC co-emitted with black carbon (BC) from biomass burning is an important light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosol.
• The black carbon from the Indo-Gangetic Plain can reach the Himalaya region and influence glacial melting and climatic change.
• They suggested future climate models to consider the long-range transport of tarballs to the Himalayas to arrest climate change developments.