60 Days Plan: UPSC IAS Prelims 2019- Geography and Current Affairs (Day 40)

Kurukh is a Dravidian language spoken by nearly two million Oraon and Kisan tribespeople of Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal, as well as by 65,000 in northern Bangladesh, 28,600 a dialect called Dhangar in Nepal, and about 5,000 in Bhutan. Some Kurukh speakers are in South India. It is most closely related to Brahui and Malto (Paharia). The language is marked as being in a “vulnerable” state in UNESCO’s list of endangered languages. The Kisan dialect has 206,100 speakers as of 2011.

Kurukh belongs to the Northern Dravidian group of the Dravidian family of languages, and is closely related to Sauria Paharia and Kumarbhag Paharia, which are often together referred to as Malto.

Kurukh is written in Devanagari, a script also used to write Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and other Indo-Aryan languages. Narayan Oraon, a doctor, invented the Tolong Siki script specifically for Kurukh. Many books and magazines have been published in Tolong Siki script. The Kurukh Literary Society of India has been instrumental in spreading the Tolong Siki script for Kurukh literature.

In News:

The West Bengal Official Language (Amendment) Bill has been passed in the West Bengal Assembly, to declare Kurukh language to be used for official purposes in the state.

http://www.millenniumpost.in/kolkata/bill-passed-to-declare-kurukh-as-language-for-official-use-284059

Mankidia, one of the 13 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG) in Odisha, were denied habitat rights inside the Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR) under the historic Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, as the State Forest Department has objected on grounds that tribals could be attacked by wild animals, especially tigers.

‘Habitat’ as defined under Section 2(h) of the FRA (Forest Rights Act) includes the area comprising the customary habitat and such other habitats in reserved forests and protected forests of primitive tribal groups and pre-agricultural communities and other forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes.

Mankidia, a marginalised group that critically depends on making rope with siali fibre that’s richly available in Similipal, would now be deprived of the non-timber forest produce.

There are 75 primitive tribal groups across the country but  habitat rights haven’t been recognised for any.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/mankidias-kutia-kondhs-still-wait-for-their-habitat-rights-to-be-recognised/articleshow/62544988.cms

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/mankidia-denied-habitat-in-simlipal/article22392195.ece

Koraga – Karnataka

Asurs, Mal Phadia – Bihar/Jharkhand

For details read the following Link:

http://vikaspedia.in/social-welfare/scheduled-tribes-welfare/primitive-vulnerable-tribal-groups

Tiwa is an Assamese tribe that practices Jhum or shifting cultivation for their livelihoods in Karbi Anglong district. They wear special attire to observe many rituals with different deities. One such traditional cloth is known as Resangar Tawa, which is weaved every hundred years, and used at Sagaramisawa festival.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8kkQ8xz4L0

Nearly 200 km from Leh, on either side of the Indus River, are the villages of Dha, Hanu, Garkon and Darchik.Put together; they comprise what is popularly known across tourism circles as the “Aryan Valley”—homes to the unique Buddhist Dard tribes, whose members are known across the region as Brokpas.

With just under 4000 of them left in the world, the Brokpas have long been exoticised as the “last pure specimens” of the Aryan race, thanks to their height and sharp physical features (blue eyes).

Some believe they are direct descendants of soldiers of Alexander the Great’s army which stayed back in the region nearly 2,000 years ago, while local folklore suggests that they migrated from Gilgit in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.

Many anthropologists dispute the Aryan claim, suggesting that this description is a legacy of British Orientalist scholars who were deeply invested in the practice of racial categorisation.

A Brokpa tribal is identified by a colorful headgear called ‘Tepi’ that has various colorful props attached, embellished with colorful berry flowers. The Tepi, they believe, wards off the evil eye. The women wear heavy metal, gold and silver jewellery along with full length sheep skin capes and sheep wool “pherans”.

Explanation:

In all the above statements the word worker/workforce has been replaced by labour/labourforce.

Labour Force or Labour supply refers to the number of people able to work and willing to work. Since entire population cannot be engaged in economically productive activities, the dependents such as children and older people are not considered to be labour. The labour force also excludes the people who are unwilling to work despite of their being able to.

Workforce refers to those actually engaged in commercially productive activity. The difference between workforce and labour force is unemployment.

Unemployment = Labour Force – Work Force

Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR) is defined as the number of persons in the labour force per 1000 persons.

Worker Population Ratio (WPR) is defined as the number of persons employed per 1000 persons.

The Cultural Zones of India are seven overlapping zones defined by the Ministry of Culture of the Government of India to promote and preserve the cultural heritage of various regions of India.

In addition to the above mentioned 5 zones, we also have a North Central as well as a South Central zone.

The city of Kolkata, formerly the capital of British India and West Bengal, is also known as the “Cultural Capital of India.”

Asia’s largest slum, Dharavi, lies on prime property right in the middle of India’s financial capital, Mumbai (Bombay).

It is home to more than a million people. Many are second-generation residents, whose parents moved in years ago.

Today’s Dharavi bears no resemblance to the fishing village it once was. A city within a city, it is one unending stretch of narrow dirty lanes, open sewers and cramped huts.

In a city where house rents are among the highest in the world, Dharavi provides a cheap and affordable option to those who move to Mumbai to earn their living. Rents here can be as low as 185 rupees per month. As Dharavi is located between Mumbai’s two main suburban rail lines, most people find it convenient for work.

Even in the smallest of rooms, there is usually a cooking gas stove and continuous electricity.

Many residents have a small colour television with a cable connection that ensures they can catch up with their favourite soaps. Some of them even have a video player.

Dharavi also has a large number of thriving small-scale industries that produce embroidered garments, export quality leather goods, pottery and plastic.

Most of these products are made in tiny manufacturing units spread across the slum and are sold in domestic as well as international markets.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/mumbai/2019/feb/19/dealing-with-socio-economic-fallout-key-to-successful-implementation-1940549.html

The density of population in India was 77 persons/sq km in 1901, 82 persons/sq km in 1911 and 81 persons/sq km in 1921. Hence in 1921 it experienced a decrease. After 1921, it has been on a steady rise but the rate of increase has slowed down in past two decades.

Note: Census of 1921 is a watershed event in the demography of India.

Kindly see the table given in the following PDF:

http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/data_files/india/Final_PPT_2011chapter7.pdf

Andaman and Nicobar islands have the lowest population density in case of UT’s at 46 perons/sq km.

Bihar at 1102 persons/sq km is higher than West Bengal at 1029 persons/sq km. Similarly Arunachal Pradesh at 17 persons/sq km is lower than Mizoram at 52 persons/sq km.

Overall both in case of states and UT’s Delhi has the highest density of Population at 11,297 persons/sq km.

Urban sprawl is basically another word for urbanization.  It refers to the migration of a population from populated towns and cities to low density residential development over more and more rural land.  The end result is the spreading of a city and its suburbs over more and more rural land. In other words, urban sprawl is defined as low density residential and commercial development on undeveloped land.

Urban sprawl can be caused by a variety of different things.  These causes will mainly include:

• Lower Land Rates: Lower cost land and houses in the outer suburbs of the cities, because the centers of urban development have really made people want to stop settling in these areas and want to venture further out.
• Improved Infrastructure: There is increased spending on certain types of infrastructures, including roads and electricity.  This is something that hasn’t always been available, and there are still some areas that don’t have these luxuries.  That doesn’t mean that they aren’t working on it.
• Rise in Standard of Living: There are also increases in standards of living and average family incomes, which means that people have the ability to pay more to travel and commute longer distances to work and back home.
• Lack of Urban Planning: People love to find areas that are less trafficked and more calm, which leads them to sprawl out to other sections of the town. Unprecedented development, cutting of trees, loss of green cover, long traffic jams, poor infrastructure force people to move out to new areas.
• Lower House Tax Rates: Cities will usually have high property taxes, and you can usually avoid these taxes by living in the outer suburbs because the taxes are usually lower than they would be in other situations.
• Rise in Population Growth: Another factor that contributes towards urban sprawl is rise in population growth. As number of people in a city grows beyond capacity, the local communities continues to spread farther and farther from city centers.
• Consumer Preferences: People in high income groups have stronger preferences towards larger homes, more bedrooms, bigger balconies and bigger lawns. This also causes urban sprawl as this option is not available in crowded cities. People generally look out for low-density residential areas where they can get home according to their preference.

The National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) is a premier institute and an autonomous body under the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, Government of India (GoI) for research and capacity building in the urban sector. The primary goal of NIUA is to promote integrated solutions for rapidly growing urban centres in the country, and address various challenges they face to provide improved services to citizens. Over the years, NIUA has also been supporting a number of urban local bodies through its capacity building programmes, conducting research for specific urban issues, and creating knowledge platforms like Smartnet.

NIUA conceived the IHUWASH project, which primarily focuses on scaling and replicating localised solutions and work as an ecosystem. NIUA with the support of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) endeavoured to create an Innovation Hub for Urban Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (IHUWASH) solution in India. During its inception stage, the hub focused on understanding the local WASH needs of the cities and identify innovative solutions—new and existing—that are relevant to the local context. The idea was to adopt business models and best practices, and replicate them in the local context. The solution may not be the same for each city, as it would differ depending on their needs. Hence, it was essential to create an ecosystem to support that replication and scaling of solutions.

IHUWASH in its focus cities of Mysuru, Udaipur, and Faridabad has created City Innovation Hubs within the municipal corporations under the guidance of the city commissioners. The municipal corporations with IHUWASH facilitation have collaborated with local technical institutions to create WASH labs that support the municipal corporations in implementing the innovative WASH solutions.

The National Institute of Engineering at Mysuru, Geetanjali Institute of Technical Studies at Udaipur, and Manav Rachna International Institute of Research Studies at Faridabad house the WASH Labs in the respective cities.

Population Policy Measures in India:

• In 1940, the Indian National Congress had appointed a committee on population under the leadership of renowned social scientist Radha Kamal Mukherjee to come up with suggestions to arrest increasing population of the country.
• Government of India in 1943 appointed a Health Survey and Development committee under the chairmanship of Sir Joseph Bhore. This committee had suggested ‘deliberate limitation of family’ approach as a way for controlling population, which cannot be achieved through self control ‘to any material extent’.
• In 1951, India became the first among the developing countries to come up with a state sponsored family planning programme. The Planning Commission which was set up in 1950 was given the task to decide upon the contours of the family planning programme.
• In 1976, the government of India came up with its first National Population policy. It talked of a “direct assault” to tackle this problem.
• In February 2000, the government of India came up with the second National Policy on Population which comprehensively addressed the problem of population growth in integration with issues such as child survival, maternal health, women empowerment and contraception.

Prerna Strategy:- JSK has launched this strategy for helping to push up the age of marriage of girls and delay in first child and spacing in second child the birth of children in the interest of health of young mothers and infants. The couple who adopt this strategy awarded suitably. This helps to change the mindsets of the community.

Santushti Strategy:- Under this strategy, Jansankhya Sthirata Kosh, invites private sector gynaecologists and vasectomy surgeons to conduct sterilization operations in Public Private Partnership mode. The private hospitals/nursing home who achieved target to 10 or more are suitably awarded as per strategy.

According to Census 2011, Kerala has the highest total literacy rate and female literacy rate whereas Lakshadweep had the highest male literacy rate. Bihar has the lowest total literacy rate and male literacy rates while Rajasthan has the lowest female literacy rate.

All the statements given above are correct.

Sex ratio is used to describe the number of females per 1000 of males. In India it is especially significant because the ratio is heavily skewed towards men. In the Population Census of 2011 it was revealed that the population ratio of India 2011 is 943 females per 1000 of males. The Sex Ratio 2011 shows an upward trend from the census 2001 data. Census 2001 revealed that there were 933 females to that of 1000 males.

The Indian census 2011 state wise shows that Kerala represents the highest sex ratio with 1084 females per 1000 males while Haryana features the lowest sex ratio in India with just 877 women per 1000 males.

The Terms Urban Agglomeration and Conurbation has been interchanged in the above statements.

An urban agglomeration essentially consists of one mother city or major city and its outgrowths (located adjoining to the city or within one or 2 km distance and that are in process of getting urbanised and subsequently getting subsumed by the mother city ,also called ‘urban spread’ – examples are the classic definition of our Census: and in this I may give the example of Hyderabad which had originally 12 outgrowths (essentially rural areas) in 1971 and today are part and parcel of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).

Conurbation on the other hand, essentially means two or more urban areas (in their own right) having daily functional linkages with each other, separated by vast rural tracts of more than 10 km, etc. : one example that comes to mind is the Vijayawada-Guntur-Tenali-Mangalagiri Conurbation. Another example is Delhi-Ghaziabad-NOIDA-Faridabad-Meerut conurbation.

Population at a place is dependent on three important factors –

Crude Birth rate – The Crude Birth Rate (CBR) is defined as the number of live births per thousand population. It is usually the dominant factor in determining the rate of population growth. Primary source of data for births and deaths is the registration of births and deaths under Civil Registration System (CRS) of the Office of Registrar General, India (ORGI).

Crude Death Rate – The Crude Death Rate (CDR) indicates the number of deaths occurring during the year, per 1, 000 population estimated at midyear. Subtracting the Crude Death Rate from the Crude Birth Rate provides the rate of natural increase, which is equal to the rate of population change in the absence of migration.

Migration – Migration is temporary or permanent change of residence of people from one place to another.

Based on the population size, the census of India classifies urban centers into six classes (see the table given below).

S.No. Classes & Population

1 Class I – 100,000 and above

2 Class II – 50,000 to 99,999

3 Class III – 20,000 to 49,999

4 Class IV – 10,000 to 19,999

5 Class V – 5,000 to 9,999

6 Class VI – less than 5000

• The cities with population beyond five million are known as mega cities.
• Urban agglomeration forms in a situation when a town and its adjoining urban areas outgrowth, or two or more contiguous towns with or without their outgrowth, or a city and one or more adjoining towns with their outgrowth together forming a contiguous spread.
• More than 60 per cent of urban population in India lives in Class I towns.
• Out of total 423 cities, 35 cities/urban agglomerations are metropolitan cities and six of them are mega cities.

On the basis of forms or shapes of the settlements, rural settlements are classified as −

• Linear,
• Rectangular,
• Circular,
• Star like,
• T-shaped village,
• Y-shaped village,
• Compact,
• Disperse,
• Planned, etc.

The settlement in which houses are constructed along a road, railway line, river, canal edge of a valley, or along a levee is known as Linear Pattern.

The settlements in which houses are constructed in a rectangular shape is known as Rectangular Pattern. Such kind of settlements is found in plain areas or/and in wide inter-montane valley.

The settlements in which houses are constructed in a circular shape is known as Circular Pattern. Such kind of settlements is found around lakes, tanks, or a planned village.

The settlements in which houses are constructed in a star shape is known as Star like Pattern. Such kind of settlements is found around the points where several roads cross each other (making star shape).

The settlements in which houses are constructed at the tri-junctions of the roads is known as T-shaped Pattern. Such kind of settlements is found along the road, which meets with another road at the dead end (the straight going road ends) and bifurcates left and right (T-Shape).

The settlement in which houses are constructed along the straight going road, which further bifurcates into two roads (similar to Y shape) is known as Y-Shape pattern.

Nelapattu Bird Sanctuary is a bird sanctuary in Nellore district, Andhra Pradesh. It is an important breeding site for spot-billed pelicans.

Seno Ballena Fjord is in Punta Arenas, at the southernmost part of the Patagonia region of Chile.

In News: Researchers from Austral University of Chile are conducting a study at the Seno Ballena fjord, dubbed as an open-air lab to study effects of climate change.

Global Tiger Recovery Programme was endorsed by the Tiger Range Countries (TRCs) in the first “Tiger Summit” in St Petersburg, Russia in November 2010. It aimed at reversing the rapid decline of tigers, and doubling their numbers by 2022. It is a first of its kind where the countries will define priority actions to be taken to deal with the crisis of extinction facing the big cat.

The Rio or simply Río Bravo is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwest United States and northern Mexico. The Rio Grande begins in south-central Colorado in the United States and flows to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way, it forms part of the Mexico–United States border.

In News: US-Mexico Border Crisis

Lampedusa is the largest island of the Italian Pelagie Islands in the Mediterranean Sea.

In News: The island has become a primary European entry point for migrants

All the cities asked in the question are often in news in relation to international affairs.  

Tripoli, Alexandria and Algiers are located along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the northern Africa.

Nairobi, capital of Kenya is located far from Sea Coast.

BURs are reports to be submitted by non-Annex I Parties, containing updates of national Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventories, including a national inventory report and information on mitigation actions, needs and support received.

Such reports provide updates on actions undertaken by a Party to implement the Convention, including the status of its GHG emissions and removals by sinks, as well as on the actions to reduce emissions or enhance sinks.

Recently India submitted its second BUR to UNFCCC

In 2012, COP 17 (held in Durban) decided that the first BURs from non-Annex I Parties, consistent with their capabilities and the level of support provided for reporting, are to be submitted by December 2014. The subsequent BURs should be submitted every two years, either as a summary of parts of the national communication in the year when the national communication is submitted or as a stand-alone update report. However, flexibility is given to Least developed country Parties (LDCs) and Small island developing States (SIDS), which may submit such reports at their discretion.

In news: The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) has virtually cleared the way for at least two proposed mega hydel power projects in Arunachal Pradesh’s Dibang Valley and Lohit districts, one of India’s most bio-diverse landscapes despite strong protest by various sectors.

A three-year survey conducted by the WII’s own researchers reported sightings of tigers in the high-altitude forests of the Dibang Valley.

Kigali is the capital city of Rwanda, roughly in the center of the country.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has published the 14th edition of its annual report ranking global risks, both in terms of impact and likelihood, with environmental threats topping both lists for the third year in a row.

‘The Global Risks Report 2019,’ assesses the current global risk landscape, and identifies priority areas for action in 2019.

The report presents the results of the WEF’s latest Global Risks Perception Survey, which surveyed nearly 1,000 decision makers from the public sector, private sector, academia and civil society who identified extreme weather and climate change policy failures as the gravest threats over the next decade. The report urges governments and organizations to address the impact of specific threats and make preparations to contain potential fallout should they occur.