Species Extinction
Category: Environment
- Up to one million species face extinction due to human influence, according to a draft UN report.
- The accelerating loss of clean air, drinkable water, forests, pollinating insects, protein-rich fish and storm-blocking mangroves — to name but a few of the dwindling services rendered by Nature — poses no less of a threat than climate change.
- Half-a-million to a million species are projected to be threatened with extinction, many within decades.
- The direct causes of species loss, in order of importance, are shrinking habitat and land-use change, hunting for food or illicit trade in wildlife body parts, climate change and pollution, the report finds.
Chicory
Category:Agriculture
- Coffee planters in southern India expect higher sales of their produce once the draft notification of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) recommending a cut in chicory content comes into effect.
- Currently, coffee powders sold in the country have 49% chicory.
- The FSSAI’s proposal to bring down chicory content in coffee to 30% is pending clearance.
- A reduction in chicory content will positively impact volume demand for coffee, in addition to helping consumers get pure coffee with natural aroma and flavour.
- Coffee sector had been going through tough times in the last several years due to falling prices, labour shortage, soaring labour costs, rise in fertilizer prices and vagaries of nature. All these have pushed up the cost of coffee production by 50%.
- Also, white stem borer (pest) attack has brought down arabica production by almost half.
- India produced 3.16 lakh tonnes of coffee during 2017-18 and exported 3.92 lakh tonnes. This included carry-forward stock from the previous years.
- The country imported 80,000 tonnes of coffee, the whole of which was meant for exports as soluble or instant coffees to Russia and other markets, while the country’s domestic consumption for the year was 60,000 tonnes.
Emperor Penguin
Category: Environment
- The Antarctic’s second-largest colony of emperor penguins collapsed in 2016, with more than 10,000 chicks lost, and the population has not recovered
- The colony at Halley Bay has all but disappeared.
- Emperor penguins — the world’s largest — breed and molt on sea ice, chunks of frozen seawater.
- Awkward on land, they cannot climb icy cliffs and so are vulnerable to warming weather and high winds whipping across the ice.
- Still, the population in Halley Bay represents only about 8% of the world’s population of emperor penguins, so the loss does not pose a threat to the future of the species.
NBFC Ombudsman
Category: Economy
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has extended the coverage of Ombudsman Scheme for non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) to eligible non deposit taking non-banking financial companies (NBFC-NDs) having asset size of Rs 100 crore or above with customer interface.
- However, non banking financial company-infrastructure finance company (NBFC-IFC), core investment company (CIC), infrastructure debt fund-non-banking financial company (IDF-NBFC) and an NBFC under liquidation, are excluded from the ambit of the scheme.
- The scheme was launched in 2018 for redressal of complaints against NBFCs registered with the RBI under Section 45-IA of the RBI Act.
- The offices of the NBFC Ombudsmen are functioning in four metro centres — Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi — and handle complaints of customers in the respective zones.
- The scheme also provides for an appellate mechanism under which the complainant/ NBFC has the option to appeal against the decision of the Ombudsman before the Appellate Authority.
Hungry Blackhole
Category: Sc & tech
- Astronomers may have just identified a black hole devouring a nearby neutron star.
- The blackhole has been found out by the LIGO-VIRGO collaboration.
- The event, labelled for now as #s190426c, occurred 1.2 billion light years away.
