The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 8 April 2023

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis for UPSC

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 7 April 2023

• The eastern Bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on April 3 ordered a stay on the ₹72,000-crore Great Nicobar Island (GNI) project and set up a committee to revisit the environmental clearance granted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).
• A high-power committee headed by the Secretary, MoEF&CC has been asked to submit the report within two months.
• The Great Nicobar Island is a mega project to be implemented at the southern end of the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
• The main contentions in the appeals were that the project will have adverse impact on the rich biodiversity of the area and damage the habitats of endangered species.
• The Galathea bay in the island is a nesting ground for birds and the project area is part of Coastal Regulation Zones-IA and IB.

 The Hindu Editorial Today

The development project consists of:

• A “greenfield city” has been proposed
• An International Container Transhipment Terminal (ICTT),
• A greenfield international airport,
• A power plant, and
• A township for the personnel who will implement the project.

Infrastructure management:

• The port will be controlled by the Indian Navy.
• The airport will have dual military-civilian functions and will cater to tourism as well.
• Roads, public transport, water supply and waste management facilities, and several hotels have been planned to cater to tourists.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands:

• The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a cluster of about 836 islands in the eastern Bay of Bengal, the two groups of which are separated by the 150-km wide Ten Degree Channel.
• The Andaman Islands lie to the north of the channel, and the Nicobar Islands to the south.
• Great Nicobar, the southernmost of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, has an area of 910 sq km.

Great Nicobar island:

• India’s southernmost point:
• Indira Point on the southern tip of Great Nicobar Island is India’s southernmost point, less than 150 km from the northernmost island of the Indonesian archipelago.

Protected area:

• Great Nicobar is home to two national parks and a biosphere reserve.
• Inhabitants:
• The island is inhabited by the Shompen and Nicobarese tribal peoples, along with ex-servicemen from Punjab, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh who were settled on the island in the 1970s.

About National Green Tribunal:

• The National Green Tribunal has been established under the National Green Tribunal Act 2010.
• New Delhi is the Principal Place of Sitting of the Tribunal and Bhopal, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai shall be the other four places of sitting of the Tribunal.
• NGT is mandated to make disposal of applications or appeals finally within 6 months of the filing of the same.

What is the composition of NGT?

• The Tribunal comprises the Chairperson, the Judicial Members, and Expert Members.
• They shall hold office for a term of 5 years and are not eligible for reappointment.
• The Chairperson is appointed by the Central Government in consultation with the Chief Justice of India (CJI).
• A Selection Committee shall be formed by the central government to appoint the Judicial Members and Expert Members.
• There are to be at least 10 and a maximum of 20 full-time Judicial members and Expert Members in the tribunal.

• The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has unanimously and wisely decided to apply a temporary pause to its inflation-battling monetary tightening by keeping the repo rate unchanged.
• RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das was emphatic in stressing that the decision to pause was “for this meeting only”, underlining the commitment to ensuring that retail inflation is progressively aligned to the mandated target of 4%.
• Policymakers must remember, as the RBI chief so pithily said, price stability still remains “the best guarantee for sustainable growth”.

• The Union Cabinet’s approval to set up a gravitational-wave detection facility in Maharashtra, a ₹2,600 crore project, is one that will consist of a detector called the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), to be built in the image of the twin LIGO instruments already operational in the U.S. Their detection of gravitational waves, in 2016, launched a new era of astronomy.
• India could become a global site of gravitational physics research.

What is LIGO?

• It is a massive observatory for detecting cosmic gravitational waves and for carrying out experiments.
• The objective is to use gravitational-wave observations in astronomical studies.
• The project operates three gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. Two are at Hanford, Washington, north-western US, and one is at Livingston in Louisiana, south-eastern US.
• The proposed LIGO India project aims to move one advanced LIGO detector from Hanford to India.

About LIGO- India project:

• It is piloted by Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Department of Science and Technology (DST).
• The LIGO-India project will be jointly coordinated and executed by three Indian research institutions: the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune and Department of Atomic Energy organisations: Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), Gandhinagar and the Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT), Indore.

• The Indian Navy currently has a strength of around 130 ships and submarines and while the target is to have a 200-ship Navy, given the current trajectory, it is likely to have 155-160 ships, Chief of Defence Staff and Secretary, Department of Military Affairs, General Anil Chauhan has said in a submission to the Parliamentary standing committee on defence.
• The Chinese Navy, with around 355 ships, has grown to be the world’s largest Navy in terms of numbers. The committee was apprised of the possible collusive threat from both China and Pakistan and the former’s role in expansion of the Pakistan’s Navy.

• Common medical devices such as oximeters, hearing aids, glucometers, and pacemakers can be turned into spyware and malware, say experts, warning that such devices can even leak your medical data if not layered with adequate cyber protection. Industry experts are now seeking urgent Central government intervention to recognise this threat and immediately put in place measures to plug any possible drain.
• Their warning comes close on the heels of the ransomware attacks suffered by India’s top tertiary care hospitals, leading to the siege of millions of medical records and vast amounts of health data at Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Safdarjung Hospital and Lady Hardinge Medical College and Hospitals. A ransomware attack is a computer virus that encrypts one’s essential files and renders them inaccessible unless the hacker is paid for the key to open them.

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