Jumbo kheti
Environment
- A cluster of villages in central Assam’s Nagaon district has found a way of keeping crop-raiding elephants off their crops — by setting aside land to create a meal zone for them.
- They donated community land to plant paddy exclusively for the elephants that often come down the hills.
- The “jumbo kheti” (cropland) has been envisaged as the last line of mealy defence against some 350-400 elephants that have often paid for venturing too close to human habitations.
- They have planted saplings of outenga (elephant apple), jackfruit and banana trees on barren land between the paddy field and the grass plantation.
Wild buffaloes
Environment
- Around the end of monsoon in October, five female wild buffaloes will travel more than 1,500 km crossing five States — the longest such translocation in the country ever — from Assam to the Udanti Wildlife Sanctuary in Raipur district, to help revive the waning population of Chhattisgarh’s State animal and expand its territory across States.
- The estimated population of the wild buffaloes (Bubalus arnee) in the Northeast is around 3,000-4,000, the largest in the country and accounting for 92% of the world population.
- It is listed under Schedule 1 of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, and classified as endangered in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Western Zonal Council
Polity
- 24th meeting of the Western Zonal Council is to be chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Panjim, Goa.
- The council, functioning under the aegis of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA)’s Inter-State Council Secretariat, comprises Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and the Union Territories of Daman and Diu, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
- The five zonal councils created under the States Re-Organisation Act, 1956 are advisory bodies that will discuss and make recommendations with regard to any matter of common interest in the field of economic and social planning between the Centre and States, border disputes, linguistic minorities, inter-State transport or matters connected with the reorganisation of States under this Act.
- The Act provides that there shall be a zonal council for each of the five zones: North, Central, Eastern, Southern and Western.
Bisphenol-A
Environment
- PET bottles are safe, a comprehensive evaluation by the CSIR has determined.
- For years there’s been a debate on whether PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) bottles, which are the mainstay of plastic bottles and disposable food containers, leach harmful chemicals when exposed to high temperatures.
- The CSIR analysis concluded that antimony, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, mercury, selenium and zinc “were below” their detection limits (BDL) of 0.001 mg/kg. Bisphenol-A was below its detection limit of 0.02 mg/kg.
- Bisphenol-A is a synthetic organic compound and used in the manufacture of PET bottles but is now phased out after research found a link between the presence of BPA and the disruption of hormone regulation, as well as breast cancer. They were also below the EU regulation norms of the “specific migration limit”.
Regulatory sandbox
Economy
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued the final framework for regulatory sandbox in order to enable innovations in the financial technology space.
- A regulatory sandbox usually refers to live testing of new products or services in a controlled/test regulatory environment for which regulators may permit certain regulatory relaxations for the limited purpose of the testing.
- RBI said the objective of the sandbox was to foster responsible innovation in financial services, promote efficiency and bring benefit to consumers. “
- RBI will launch the sandbox for entities that meet the criteria of minimum net worth of ₹25 lakh as per their latest audited balance sheet.
- The entity should either be a company incorporated and registered in the country or banks licensed to operate in India.
- While money transfer services, digital know-your customer, financial inclusion and cybersecurity products are included, crypto currency, credit registry and credit information have been left out.
