DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS IAS | UPSC Prelims and Mains Exam – 16th October 2024

 Syllabus

• Prelims & Mains – GEOGRAPHY

Context: The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) has issued extensive advisories for swell waves for Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep as well as parts of coastal areas in Andhra, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Daman and Diu, and Puducherry.

Background: –

• Swell waves are also called Kallakkadal waves in India, which is a colloquial term used by Kerala fishermen to denote sudden waves that cause flash floods.
• INCOIS Hyderabad launched its swell surge forecast system in February 2020 to provide warnings for coastal populations in case of anticipated swell waves.

What are swell waves?

• Swell waves are long-wavelength ocean waves that travel away from their places of origin. They are usually created by windstorms or other weather systems. Sea waves otherwise are usually generated due to local winds.
• Windstorms and other powerful air current systems transfer energy from the air to water, making swell waves more powerful. Because of their high energy, swell waves are able to travel large distances and strike shores with considerably high power.
• According to INCOIS, swell waves organise themselves into groups of similar heights and periods, and then travel long distances without much change. Wave period is the time one wavelength takes to pass a specific point. Longer wavelengths, therefore, result in longer wave periods, and these characteristics are associated with faster and more powerful waves.
• A wave is essentially a transfer of energy from one point to another. Shorter waves dissipate more energy due to frequent movement, which is why they also lose energy quickly. Longer wavelengths are more powerful, and this is also why swells continue to persist days after they are formed.
• How are swell surges different from tsunami waves?
• Kallakkadal waves inundate large areas of land. These waves are also sometimes confused with tsunami waves given their stealthy nature, but both are different. Kallakkadal waves are caused due to weather phenomenon, while tsunamis are mostly caused due to earthquakes or tectonic activity.

Source: The Hindu

 Syllabus

• Mains – GS 3

Context: Every year, World Food Day is celebrated across the world on October 16. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) started this global event to start a fight against hunger, raise awareness about healthy diets, and promote action against malnutrition and food security.

Background: –

• India needs to transform its agri-food system to improve resilience and affordability of healthy diets.

Key takeaways

• Ending hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition is a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to be realized by 2030.
• Rising conflicts, climate change, and economic slowdowns in vulnerable regions hinder progress on this front.
• Food insecurity and malnutrition are a manifestation of a lack of access to and the unaffordability of healthy diets.
• For a nation to be food sufficient, it needs to have an ideal distributional mechanism that ensures universal access to food that is affordable.
• Adequate food does not necessarily imply balanced food intake with all required nutrients to address malnourishment. Hence, a transformation from a hunger-free environment to a nutritionally compliant one needs to take into account the unaffordability of healthy diets, unhealthy food intakes and their underlying inequalities across the population.

Global Hunger Overview :

• The global magnitude of the undernourished has risen to 9.4%, or 757 million people as of 2023.
• It is disproportionate in the African region. However, in real counts, Asia is home to the largest magnitude of those who are hungry — 384.5 million — as compared with 298.4 million in Africa.
• The distinct feature of undernourishment is its rural bias. The gender divide in this adversity disadvantages women over men although such a divide is narrowing.
• While food insecurity results in undernourishment or hunger, the intrinsic connect lies with the lack of a purchasing capacity for adequate food. In this perspective, the cost and affordability of a healthy diet (CoHD) assumes significance.

Cost of Healthy Diet (CoHD):

• Global average cost of a healthy diet in 2022 was $3.96 purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars per person per day; in Asia, it was $4.20.
• 83 billion people globally could not afford a healthy diet in 2022, down slightly from 2.88 billion in 2021.
• A practical solution lies in regulating food prices and a reduced share of food expenditure in the total expenditure that makes healthy diets universally affordable.
• Thalinomics shows affordability issues in rural India: 63.3% of the population could not afford a required diet in 2011.

Unhealthy Diets in India:

• Indian diets are imbalanced in relation to global and national dietary recommendations.
• A healthy reference diet in South Asia can cost 60% of daily household income, making it unaffordable for low-income groups.
• Even the richest 5% consume less protein-rich food, indicating issues of awareness, accessibility, and availability.

Steps to End Hunger:

• There are circumstances wherein individuals go hungry as they do not have the means to buy food. But mechanisms to provide free food by setting up food banks that evolve as a way to avoid food waste may be an ideal alternative
• Nations that are food sufficient should ensure humanitarian food redistribution to food-deficient regions.

Source: The Hindu

 Syllabus

• Prelims – POLITY

Context: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, is leading the Indian Parliamentary Delegation at the 149th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

Background: –

• The 149th IPU Assembly will take place from 13-17 October 2024 in Geneva under the overarching theme of “Harnessing science, technology and innovation for a more peaceful and sustainable future.”

About Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)

• The IPU is the global organisation of national parliaments.
• It was founded in 1889 as the first multilateral political organisation in the world, encouraging cooperation and dialogue between all nations.
• It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
• Currently, the IPU comprises of 180 national Parliaments and 15 regional parliamentary bodies carrying the objectives of promoting democracy and helping parliaments develop into stronger, younger, greener, more gender-balanced and more innovative institutions.
• Slogan: For democracy. For everyone.
• Vision : A world where every voice counts, where democracy and parliaments are at the service of the people for peace and development.
• Mission: IPU promote democratic governance, institutions and values, working with parliaments and parliamentarians to articulate and respond to the needs and aspirations of the people. IPU work for peace, democracy, human rights, gender equality, youth empowerment, climate action and sustainable development through political dialogue, cooperation and parliamentary action.
• The Cremer-Passy Prize, named after the IPU’s founders, William Randall Cremer and Frédéric Passy, is awarded every year to sitting parliamentarians who make an outstanding contribution to the defence and promotion of the IPU’s objectives, as well as those ”who contribute to a more united, peaceful, sustainable and equitable world.”

Source: New Indian Express

 Syllabus

• Prelims – SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Context: WHO team reaches Rajasthan’s Deeg district after 7 children die of diphtheria in a month.

Background:

• This disease has been prevalent for a long time in this area because of people’s unwillingness to get vaccinated.

About Diphtheria

• Diphtheria is a serious infection caused by bacteria called Corynebacterium diphtheriae which makes a toxin. The toxin attaches itself most commonly to tissues in the respiratory system and causes disease by killing healthy tissue.
• Typical symptoms of the infection include a sore throat, fever, swollen neck glands and weakness. Within 2–3 days from infection, the dead tissue forms a thick, grey coating that can cover tissues in the nose, tonsils and throat, making it hard to breathe and swallow.
• Diphtheria bacteria spread from person to person, usually through respiratory droplets, like from coughing or sneezing. People can also get sick from touching infected open sores or ulcers. Those at increased risk of getting sick include household contacts, those exposed to secretions from the patient and those with frequent and close contact with the infected person.

Prevention:

• Vaccination is the most effective preventive measure.
• Diphtheria vaccine is part of the DPT (Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus) vaccine administered to infants under the Universal Immunization Programme (UIP).
• Ensuring 100% vaccine coverage and booster doses is critical.

Source: Indian Express

 Syllabus

• Prelims & Mains – GEOGRAPHY

Context: Atmospheric rivers are shifting toward higher latitudes, and that’s changing weather patterns around the world.

Background: –

• The shift is worsening droughts in some regions, intensifying flooding in others, and putting water resources that many communities rely on at risk.

About Atmospheric Rivers

• Atmospheric Rivers (ARs) are long, narrow bands of concentrated water vapor that travel through the atmosphere, resembling rivers in the sky.
• These bands transport large amounts of moisture from tropical regions to higher latitudes, often resulting in heavy rainfall and sometimes causing extreme weather events.
• They are critical to the global water cycle and significantly influence precipitation patterns, particularly in coastal regions.

Characteristics:

• Typically 2,000-4,000 km long and 400-600 km wide.
• Strongest atmospheric rivers are referred to as “Pineapple Express” when they transport moisture from the tropical Pacific to the U.S. West Coast.
• While atmospheric rivers share a similar origin — moisture supply from the tropics — atmospheric instability of the jet stream allows them to curve poleward in different ways. No two atmospheric rivers are exactly alike.
• Atmospheric rivers are commonly seen in the extratropics, a region between the latitudes of 30 and 50 degrees in both hemispheres that includes most of the continental U.S., southern Australia and Chile.

• Atmospheric rivers typically occur in the extratropical North Pacific/Atlantic, southeastern Pacific, and South Atlantic oceans often making landfall on the west coasts of North and South America.

What the new study says?

• New study shows that atmospheric rivers have been shifting poleward over the past four decades. In both hemispheres, activity has increased along 50 degrees north and 50 degrees south, while it has decreased along 30 degrees north and 30 degrees south since 1979.

A global chain reaction

• One main reason for this shift is changes in sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific. Since 2000, waters in the eastern tropical Pacific have had a cooling tendency, which affects atmospheric circulation worldwide. This cooling, often associated with La Nina conditions, pushes atmospheric rivers toward the poles.
• The poleward movement of atmospheric rivers can be explained as a chain of interconnected processes.
• During La Nina conditions, when sea surface temperatures cool in the eastern tropical Pacific, the Walker circulation — giant loops of air that affect precipitation as they rise and fall over different parts of the tropics — strengthens over the western Pacific. This stronger circulation causes the tropical rainfall belt to expand. The expanded tropical rainfall, combined with changes in atmospheric eddy patterns, results in high-pressure anomalies and wind patterns that steer atmospheric rivers farther poleward.
• Conversely, during El Nino conditions, with warmer sea surface temperatures, the mechanism operates in the opposite direction, shifting atmospheric rivers so they don’t travel as far from the equator.

Why does this poleward shift matter?

• In the subtropics, where atmospheric rivers are becoming less common, the result could be longer droughts and less water. Many areas, such as California and southern Brazil, depend on atmospheric rivers for rainfall.
• In higher latitudes, atmospheric rivers moving poleward could lead to more extreme rainfall, flooding and landslides in places such as the US Pacific Northwest, Europe and even in polar regions.
• In the Arctic, more atmospheric rivers could speed up sea ice melting, adding to global warming and affecting animals that rely on the ice.

Source: Down To Earth

Q1.) Which of the following statements regarding Diphtheria is/are correct?

1. Diphtheria is a viral infection affecting the respiratory tract.
2. It is preventable by a vaccine that is part of India’s Universal Immunization Programme.
3. Diphtheria primarily spreads through direct contact with infected individuals or their belongings.

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

(a) 1 and 2 only

(b) 2 and 3 only

(c) 1 and 3 only

(d) 1, 2, and 3

Q2.) Which of the following statements regarding Atmospheric Rivers (ARs) is/are correct?

1. Atmospheric Rivers are narrow bands of concentrated water vapor.
2. Atmospheric Rivers are responsible for the Indian monsoon.
3. Atmospheric rivers typically occur in the extratropical North Pacific/Atlantic, southeastern Pacific, and South Atlantic oceans often making landfall on the west coasts of North and South America.

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

(a) 1 and 2 only

(b) 1 and 3 only

(c) 2 and 3 only

(d) 1, 2, and 3

Q3.) Which of the following statements about the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is/are correct?

1. The IPU is a global organization established to foster cooperation among national parliaments and promote democratic governance.
2. India is not a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
3. The IPU holds an annual assembly to discuss global issues affecting parliaments and international relations.

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

(a) 1 and 2 only

(b) 2 and 3 only

(c) 1 and 3 only

(d) 1, 2, and 3

Comment the answers to the above questions in the comment section below!!

ANSWERS FOR ’  16th October 2024 – Daily Practice MCQs’ will be updated along with tomorrow’s Daily Current Affairs

Q.1) –  b

Q.2) – b

Q.3) -c