News Crux Miscellaneous
New MIS Portal on Land Acquisition
On 16th December, 2021, the Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj launched MIS (Management Information System) portal for rankings of States/UTs in Land Acquisition Projects under RFCTLARR Act, 2013. (Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013).
- As per the ranking and performance, the top 3 States and top 3 districts will be awarded.
- This MIS portal will not show only data and figures but it will show the speed of the development in the country.
Current News International United Nations
India Votes against UN Resolution on Climate Change
Recently, India voted against a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) linking climate to security. The resolution was sponsored by Ireland and Nigeria.
Key Highlights
- Niger (the UNSC presidency for December) organised a debate on 9th December, 2021, titled ‘Maintenance of international peace and security: security in the context of terrorism and climate change.’
- One of the aims of the debate was to examine how terrorism and security risks could be linked to climate change.
- The draft resolution sought to enable the United Nations Security Council to take up routine discussions on climate change from the perspective of its impact on peace and conflicts worldwide.
- While China abstained, India and Russia were the only countries that opposed the draft resolution.
- Currently, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) discusses all matters on climate change.
- India opined that it was an attempt to shift climate talks from the UNFCCC to the Security Council and a step backward for collective action on the issue. This will give a few states the free hand to decide an all climate related issues.
- It was emphasised that the draft resolution would undermine progress made at Glasgow, where the latest round of talks under the UNFCCC, the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26), concluded in November.
Current News Science & Technology New Technology
Mars Orbiter Spots Water in Mars’ Canyon System
The Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter - a Mars orbiter launched in 2016 - has spotted water in Mars’ canyon system called the Valles Marineris.
- Mission: It is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
- Valles Marineris: It is the largest canyon system in the Solar System. It is about ten times longer and five times deeper than Earth’s Grand Canyon. A canyon refers to a deep valley with very steep sides.
- FREND Instrument: The water was spotted using the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO)’s Fine Resolution Epithermal Neutron Detector (FREND) instrument, which helps map hydrogen on the surface of Mars.
Perspective view of Candor Chasma (Image Source: ESA)
Key Highlights
- It showed that there was an unusual amount of hydrogen in the Candor Chaos, situated in the central region of the Valles Marineris.
- A little over 40 per cent of the near-surface material region appears to be water. The water-rich area is about the size of the Netherlands.
- It is similar to Earth’s permafrost regions, where water ice permanently persists under dry soil because of the constant low temperatures.
Significance
- Knowing more about how and where water exists on present-day Mars is essential to understand what happened to Mars’ once-abundant water, and helps our search for habitable environments, possible signs of past life, and organic materials from Mars’ earliest days.