Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 08 May 2021

SSC CGL Current Affairs

Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 08 May 2021

::NATIONAL::

Area around Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary notified as ESZ

The Union environment ministry has notified a revised eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) of 48 square kilometres (sq km) around the Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary (TCFS), spread across Mumbai suburban and Thane districts. The draft proposal, which was sent to the ministry by the Maharashtra government in March, was gazetted on April 30. The ministry has given a 60-day window to receive public comments on the notification.
The move will increase the area earmarked for protection by the forest department, which had initially proposed to include just 34.06 sq km within ESZ. The state government had, in March, written to the Centre proposing to include an additional 14 sq km of land within ESZ.
An ESZ is a buffer area created around a wildlife sanctuary or national park to reduce developmental pressures.
The proposal has also increased the maximum width of the originally proposed buffer area to a maximum of 3.98km, as compared to 3.5km earlier. At its southern-most point near Vashi bridge, the width of ESZ is 0km, while at its northernmost point at Thane-Kalwabridge, the width is 2km.
“The solution here is to declare TCFS as a wildlife sanctuary under the Wildlife Act. An ESZ notification won’t offer much protection as seen in case of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, where developmental activities are undertaken inches away from the boundary of the protected area,” said D Stalin, director, non-governmental organization (NGO) Vanashakti.

::INTERNATIONAL::

Interpol launches 'ID-Art' app to help identify stolen cultural assets across the world

Interpol has launched a new, free-to-download app to help law enforcers identify stolen art. It has already scored successes during pilot tests by police in Spain and Italy.
The new app, called ID-Art, allows users to check art against 52,000 works registered as stolen on Interpol’s database. It is also envisaged as a tool for collectors and museums, allowing them to create inventories of their collections. These records can be submitted to Interpol in case of theft and will greatly increase their chances of recovering stolen works.
“It’s a concrete tool for police and customs—and for museums and private individuals,” says CorradoCatesi, the head of Interpol’s Works of Art Unit. “It is not the panacea, but it can really help.”
Spanish police said last month in a press statement that they used ID-Art to identify three Roman gold coins that had been stolen in Switzerland in 2012. Acting on a tip-off from a London numismatist, they caught and arrested two people in Barcelona as they were trying to sell one of the coins, which together are worth around €200,000.
ID-Art is available for free from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. Catesi says it has been downloaded thousands of times by users around the world since its launch on 6 May. Checking potential purchases against the app allows collectors to conduct “the minimum of due diligence”, Catesi says. Users can search for an item on the database either by uploading a photo or by entering search criteria.

::ECONOMY::

Government of India and European Investment Bank signed finance contract for the second tranche of Euro 150 million for the Pune Metro Rail Project

The Government of India (GoI) and European Investment Bank (EIB) here today signed the finance contract for second tranche of Euro 150 million for Pune Metro Rail project through a virtual signing ceremony. The signing ceremony was held in the presence of H.E. Mr. Francisco Andre, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Portugal and H.E. Mr. Werner Hoyer, President EIB. Shri K. Rajaraman, Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, signed the loan on behalf of Government of India and Mr. Christian Kettel Thomsen, Vice-President, signed the loan on behalf of EIB.
EIB had approved the total loan of Euro 600 million to fund the Pune Metro Rail project. The Finance Contract for first tranche of Euro 200 million was signed between GoI and EIB on 22.7.2019. The project aims to provide efficient, safe, economic and pollution-free Mass Rapid Transit System in densely populated area in the city of Pune served with heterogeneous traffic options.
The financing from EIB will help to fund construction and operation of Corridor 1 (North-South) - PimpriChinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) to Swargate and Corridor 2 (West-East) –Vanaz (Kothrud) to Ramvadi, totaling about 31.25 kilometers (km) and related purchase of a related fleet of metro cars. Further, the project will serve large population which consisting working class in providing urban mobility for their livelihood. The Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (MAHAMETRO) is the implementing agency for this project.

::SCIENCE AND TECH::

Scientists model Saturn's internal structure

The models, published this week in AGU Advances, also indicate that Saturn's interior may feature higher temperatures at the equatorial region, with lower temperatures at the high latitudes at the top of the helium rain layer.
It is notoriously difficult to study the interior structures of large gaseous planets, and the findings advance the effort to map Saturn's hidden regions.
"By studying how Saturn formed and how it evolved over time, we can learn a lot about the formation of other planets similar to Saturn within our own solar system, as well as beyond it," said co-author Sabine Stanley, a Johns Hopkins planetary physicist.
Saturn stands out among the planets in our solar system because its magnetic field appears to be almost perfectly symmetrical around the rotation axis. Detailed measurements of the magnetic field gleaned from the last orbits of NASA's Cassini mission provide an opportunity to better understand the planet's deep interior, where the magnetic field is generated, said lead author Chi Yan, a Johns Hopkins PhD candidate.
By feeding data gathered by the Cassini mission into powerful computer simulations similar to those used to study weather and climate, Yan and Stanley explored what ingredients are necessary to produce the dynamo -- the electromagnetic conversion mechanism -- that could account for Saturn's magnetic field.
"One thing we discovered was how sensitive the model was to very specific things like temperature," said Stanley, who is also a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences and the Space Exploration Sector of the Applied Physics Lab. "And that means we have a really interesting probe of Saturn's deep interior as far as 20,000 kilometers down. It's a kind of X-ray vision."