Pradhanmantri Suryodaya Yojana

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced a scheme, Pradhan Mantri Suryodaya Yojana to electrify one crore households with solar electricity.

• Pradhanmantri Suryodaya Yojana is an initiative to generate electricity through solar power.
• It aims to reduce the electricity bill of the poor and middle class, along with making India self-reliant in the energy sector.
• It has a target of installing rooftop solar on 1 crore houses.
• People living in remote areas will be covered under this scheme.
• The people of those states where electricity is very expensive will benefit the most from this scheme.
• Rooftop Solar Programme – It was launched in 2014.
• It aims to expand India’s rooftop solar installed capacity in the residential sector by providing Central Financial Assistance.
• The programme’s goal is to increase rooftop solar installed capacity to 40 GM by March 2026 and it is currently in its second phase.

Batadrava Than

Recently Rahul Gandhi was prevented from visiting Batadrava Than, a temple complex that is significant to Assam.

• The Batadrava Than, or Bordowa Than, is a temple complex at the birthplace of revered Vaishnavite reformer-saint Srimanta Sankardeva.
• It is located in Nagaon district of Assam.
• It is one of the most sacred sites for Assamese Vaishnavites.
• It is the birthplace of Mahapurush Srimanta Sankardeva (1449-1568) the great Vaisnavite saint of Assam, founded by him in   1494 A.D.
• The rituals conducted at Bordowa Than follow the norms of Purush sanghati, emphasising the teachings of Ekasarana Dharma.
• The Kirtan Ghar, a spacious prayer house, was originally constructed by Sankardev with impermanent materials.
• A very big festival "Doul Mohotsava" (Holi) is a yearly attraction for the devotees in Bordowa.

Qanat System

Gaathier Mahed, an environmental scientist has studied the feasibility of using Qanat System to address serious water shortages due to minimal rainfall in some dry areas in Africa.

• The Persian Qanat or Qanat is an ancient irrigation system for transporting water from underground sources to the surface.
• The system originated in Iran around 3,000 years ago.
• It can be built in arid regions of Iran, agricultural and permanent settlements.
• It’s known by a variety of names such as “foggara” in North Africa, “falaj” in Oman and “qarez” in parts of Asia.
• Qanats can only be built where there’s a slope, like a mountain or a valley.
• A qanat is made up of an almost horizontal tunnel that collects water from an underground water source.
• The system consists of a network of underground canals that transport water from aquifers in highlands to the surface at lower levels by gravity.
• Well shafts are sunk at regular intervals along the route of the tunnel to enable removal of spoil and allow ventilation.
• Advantages – The qanat is sustainable as it works with gravity and no electricity is needed.
• It can even be used to create clean energy.
• The water lost to evaporation is minimal in comparison to surface water supplies.
• It can have a wide scale impact. Qanats are multiple kilometres long and once this water hits a floodplain, it can irrigate multiple hectares of land.
• It fosters social cohesion. Many people, with different skills, are involved in maintaining the system.
• The lifespan of the system extends beyond that of a deep water well, which is only about 20 years. Tunnels do not clog as easily as wells.

Global Tree Assessment (GTA)

The scientists recently quantified the rates of change over the past two decades based on 6 major threats categorised by the Global Tree Assessment.

• The Global Tree Assessment was launched in 2015 in recognition of the poor understanding of the conservation status of the world’s tree species, limiting the conservation action that can be taken towards saving threatened species.
• The Global Tree Assessment is an initiative coordinated by:
  • Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission Global Tree Specialist Group (IUCN-SSC GTSG).
• It is a comprehensive list of species and critical health indicator of global world bio-diversity.
• The 6 major threats categorised by the Global Tree Assessment are:
  1. Crop agriculture expansion
  2. Tree cover decline as a proxy for overexploitation in all vegetation types
  3. Urbanisation
  4. deforestation as a proxy for land-use change threats in forested areas, changes in burnt area descaled as fire and fire suppression
  5. Climate change measures in terms of changes in annual variation in figures of temperatures and precipitation
  6. Seasonality and vapour pressure deficit (VPD) and VPD seasonality
• Deforestation was the major reason for the largest changes in potential threats among species’ extent, the findings showed.
• The latest analysis shows that over 84% of all trees have a published conservation assessment.
• This includes all known published tree conservation assessments as listed on Threat-Search which includes all tree assessments found on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (41,444 assessments).

Fusarium Acuminatum

Recently scientist found that Fusarium Acuminatum can freeze water better than bacteria.

• Fusarium acuminatum (F. acuminatum) is a fungal plant pathogen that causes ripe rot in Actinidia deliciosa (fuzzy kiwifruit).
• Fungi produce highly efficient ice nucleators that can cause water to start crystallising at temperatures as warm as minus 2 degrees C.
• Recently scientists found that F. acuminatum possesses more than a hundred such ice-nucleation proteins that can form functional aggregates outside the fungus’s cells, triggering ice formation.
• It is a known ice-nucleator that can freeze water better than bacteria.
• Fungi are extremely stable because [the proteins are] basically released into the environment and not bound to any membrane.”