Daily News Analysis – April 22, 2019

Source: The Hindu, Live Mint and Indian Express


EARTH DAY

Context: April 22, 2019 marks the 49th annual Earth Day – a global event to celebrate Mother Nature and put environmental issues in the spotlight.

 Essentials

Earth Day

  • Earth Day is an initiative of the Earth Day Network.
  • Every year it is celebrated on April 22.
  • The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement.
  • It the largest civic observance in the world.
  • It has nothing to do with switching off the lights.
  • The theme for 2018 Earth Day was to ‘End Plastic Pollution’.
  • The theme for Earth Day 2019 is ‘Protect Our Species’.

What is Earth Hour?

  • Earth Hour is a global grassroots movement uniting people to take action on climate change and protect the planet.
  • Earth Hour was famously started as a ‘lights out event’ in Sydney, Australia in 2007.
  • Earth Hour is an initiative of World Wildlife Fund.
  • WWF-Uganda created the world’s first Earth Hour Forest.
  • Earth Hour only asks people to turn off the non-essential lights for one hour – not lights that affect public safety.
  • Earth Hour is not a black out.
  • Earth hour does not claim that the event is an energy or carbon reduction exercise – it is a symbolic action.

 Why is Earth Hour held in late March?

  • The second-to-last and last weekend of March is around the time of the Spring and Autumn equinoxes in the northern and southern hemispheres respectively, which allows for near coincidental sunset times in both hemispheres, thereby ensuring the greatest visual impact for a global ‘lights out’ event.

 World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)

  • It is an international organization committed to conservation of the environment.
  • Mission:
  • to conserve the world’s biological diversity,
  • to ensure that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and
  • to promote the reduction of pollution and of wasteful consumption.
  • The WWF provides money for conservation initiatives around the world.
  • These include programs focused on individual species, forests, and freshwater and marine issues as well as climate change and responsible international trade.
  • The group has also been involved in efforts to provide a safe and sustainable habitat for the world’s peoples, both urban and rural, including clean water, clean air, healthful food, and rewarding recreation areas.
  • Among the WWF’s notable achievements is its use of debt-for-nature swaps, in which an organization buys some of a country’s foreign debt at a discount, converts the money to local currency, and then uses it to finance conservation efforts.
  • The WWF’s first successful debt-for-nature swap took place in 1987 in Ecuador.
  • The organization’s logo is a distinctive panda.


ELECTION COMMISSION AND ALLOCATION OF BROADCAST TIME

  • Context: The Election Commission (EC) allots telecast and broadcast time to political parties for carrying out their election campaign on Doordarshan and All India Radio during elections.

 Essentials:

  • According to the order passed by the EC while allotting broadcast time to political parties on Doordarshan, the following should be avoided in speeches:
  • criticism of other countries;
  • attack on religions/communities;
  • anything obscene or defamatory;
  • incitement of violence;
  • aspersions against the President or the judiciary;
  • anything amounting to contempt of court; anything affecting the sovereignty, unity and integrity of the country; and
  • criticism by names of persons.
  • Solar Photovoltaic(PV) Vs Solar thermal systems
  • ‘Solar PV’ works by photons in sun’s rays knocking off electrons in the semi-conducting material in the panels and channels them through a wire—the stream of electrons is electricity.
  • Solar PV, therefore, works best where there is lot of sunlight.
  • Solar thermal systems, in contrast, suck up sun’s heat and conduct it to where it is needed – such as for drying of spices or fish or wet paint.
  • Production of same quantity of electricity is much cheaper by Solar thermal systems than by Solar PV
  • One big reason for this is, in solar PV, there is some loss in conversion of light energy into electric energy, whereas in solar thermal, there is no conversion—it is just heat all through.

CRISPR/Cas9

Context: A Chinese scientist attracted condemnation from the global scientific community when he said he had used a technology known as CRISPR-Cas9 to alter the embryonic genes of twin girls born in November.

 Essentials:

CRISPR/Cas9

  • CRISPR/Cas9 is a simple but powerful gene-editing technology that can be harnessed to precisely modify, delete or correct disease-causing abnormalities at their genetic sources.
  • CRISPR refers to Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats of genetic information, which some bacterial species use as an antiviral mechanism in combination with the Cas9 enzyme.
  • Cas9 – a CRISPR-Associated endonuclease – acts as “molecular scissors” to cut DNA at a specific location.

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