BURKHA BAN
Sri Lanka will soon ban the burkha or face veil, a Cabinet Minister said, as he announced the Rajapaksa administration’s latest policy decision impacting the minority Muslim community.
About:
- The authorities would henceforth use the Prevention of Terrorism (PTA) law — that human rights defenders have termed “draconian” — to deal with religious extremism, with wide-ranging powers to detain suspects for up to two years, to “deradicalize” them.
- According to the minister, the burkha affects their national security as it is a symbol of their religious extremism. This dress came into Sri Lanka only recently.
- While the Minister had signed documents outlawing the burkha, the move awaits Cabinet approval. Over 1,000 madrasas would be shut.
- Following the Islamic State-inspired Easter terror bombings in Sri Lanka in April 2019, attributed to a local Islamist radical network, the government temporarily banned the face veil using emergency laws.
BAMBOOSA BAMBOS
The “gregarious flowering of bamboo” inside the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (WWS) may pose a threat to wildlife in the Nilgiri biosphere, a major tiger and elephant habitat.
About:
- Bamboosa bambos is a monocarpic (flowering only once) plant belonging to the Poaceae family (grass family), and its flowering cycle varies from 40 to 60 years.
- Bamboosa bambos is also known as the giant thorny bamboo, Indian thorny bamboo, spiny bamboo, or thorny bamboo.
- It is a species of clumping bamboo native to southern Asia.
- It is a tall, bright-green coloured spiny bamboo species, which grows in thickets consisting of a large number of heavily branched, closely growing culms.
Recent development
- The bamboo groves in the Wayanad forest are the mainstay of herbivores in the Nilgiri biosphere during summer.
- With the advent of the season, migration of wild animals starts from the adjacent sanctuaries in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to Wayanad due to shortage of fodder and water.
- The gregarious flowering may adversely affect migration, especially by elephants, wild gaur, and other lower herbivores owing to the mass destruction of bamboo groves after the flowering.
BAMBOOSA BAMBOS
The “gregarious flowering of bamboo” inside the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary (WWS) may pose a threat to wildlife in the Nilgiri biosphere, a major tiger and elephant habitat.
About:
- Bamboosa bambos is a monocarpic (flowering only once) plant belonging to the Poaceae family (grass family), and its flowering cycle varies from 40 to 60 years.
- Bamboosa bambos is also known as the giant thorny bamboo, Indian thorny bamboo, spiny bamboo, or thorny bamboo.
- It is a species of clumping bamboo native to southern Asia.
- It is a tall, bright-green coloured spiny bamboo species, which grows in thickets consisting of a large number of heavily branched, closely growing culms.
Recent development
- The bamboo groves in the Wayanad forest are the mainstay of herbivores in the Nilgiri biosphere during summer.
- With the advent of the season, migration of wild animals starts from the adjacent sanctuaries in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to Wayanad due to shortage of fodder and water.
- The gregarious flowering may adversely affect migration, especially by elephants, wild gaur, and other lower herbivores owing to the mass destruction of bamboo groves after the flowering.
HONG KONG
The National People’s Congress (NPC) of China, the ceremonial legislature in Beijing, on March 11 approved what it called “a decision on improving Hong Kong’s electoral system”.
How does the new NPC amendment change Hong Kong’s political system?
- This paves the way for sweeping changes in how Hong Kong, the Special Administrative Region (SAR) that has been ruled under the “one country, two systems” model since its return to China in 1997, chooses its leaders.
- The NPC amendment essentially gives Beijing-appointed politicians greater power in running the HKSAR’s politics.
- Now, the size of the Legislative Council will be expanded to 90, with the additional 20 members joining the 35 others who are nominated, thus reducing the share of directly elected representatives.
- The amendment also bestows greater power on a newly expanded Election Committee of 1,500 nominated members, up from 1,200 previously.
- The most controversial change is the setting up of a new “candidate qualification review committee”, which “shall be responsible for reviewing and confirming” the qualifications of candidates for Election Committee members, the Chief Executive, and Legislative Council members.
MARTIAN BLUEBERRIES
According to a recent research paper, Martian ‘blueberries’ find a parallel on Earth.
About:
- In 2004, NASA’s Mars exploration rover ‘Opportunity’ found several small spheres on the planet, informally named Martian blueberries.
- Opportunity’s spectrometers studied the mineralogy and noted they were made of iron oxide compounds called haematites.
- This caused excitement, as the presence of haematites suggests that there was water present on Mars. Haematite is known to form in oxidising environments.
WATER QUALITY TESTING FRAMEWORK
Citizens can now get the water quality in their taps tested at reasonable rates, as part of a monitoring framework rolled out by the Centre’s flagship Jal Jeevan Mission.
About:
- The “drinking water quality testing, monitoring and surveillance framework and guidelines” released mandate a network of National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accredited labs to be set up in every State, district and block over the next year.
- At the panchayat level, teams of women in the village water and sanitation committees will be given field testing kits.
- State governments can include private players as part of the network, but the Centre has capped tariffs to ensure that they remain within the reach of the common man.
- A package for all the 16 water quality parameters would cost ₹600. Turnaround time for chemical tests should not be more than 24 hours, while testing for the biological contaminants will produce results within 48 hours.
- All results of testing will be fed into the Water Quality Information Management System (WQMIS), a portal developed with the support of the Indian Council of Medical Research.
ZO PEOPLE
A Mizoram-based group representing the Zo indigenous people of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar has petitioned President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to impose sanctions on military-ruled Myanmar.
About:
- The Zo Reunification Organisation (ZORO) comprising the Chin-Kuki-Mizo-Zomi group of people has also asked the Centre not to turn away the Myanmar nationals who crossed over to escape the military regime and provide them shelter on humanitarian grounds.
- These four States – Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram – share a 1,643 km border with Myanmar and people on either side are ethnically related.
- The Mizo people of Mizoram and the Kuki-Zomi communities in Manipur have a strong kinship with the Chins across the border.
AT1 BONDS
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has slapped restrictions on mutual fund (MF) investments in additional tier-1 (AT1) bonds.
What are AT1 bonds?
- AT1 Bonds stand for additional tier-1 bonds.
- These are unsecured bonds which have perpetual tenure. In other words, the bonds have no maturity date.
- They have call option, which can be used by the banks to buy these bonds back from investors.
- These bonds are typically used by banks to bolster their core or tier-1 capital.
- AT1 bonds are subordinate to all other debt and only senior to common equity.
- Mutual funds (MFs) are among the largest investors in perpetual debt instruments, and hold over Rs 35,000 crore of the outstanding additional tier-I bond issuances of Rs 90,000 crore.
What action has been taken by the Sebi recently?
- In a recent circular, the Sebi told mutual funds to value these perpetual bonds as a 100-year instrument. This essentially means MFs have to make the assumption that these bonds would be redeemed in 100 years.
- The regulator also asked MFs to limit the ownership of the bonds at 10 per cent of the assets of a scheme.
SEABUCKTHORN
The Himachal Pradesh government has decided to start planting seabuckthorn in the cold desert areas of the state this year.
About:
- Seabuckthorn is a shrub which produces an orange-yellow coloured edible berry.
- In India, it is found above the tree line in the Himalayan region, generally in dry areas such as the cold deserts of Ladakh and Spiti.
- In Himachal Pradesh, it is locally called chharma and grows in the wild in Lahaul and Spiti and parts of Kinnaur. Around 15,000 hectares in Himachal, Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh are covered by this plant.
GLOBAL CENTRE FOR TRADITIONAL MEDICINE
The World Health Organisation announced that it will set up a Global Centre for Traditional Medicine in India.
About:
- This new centre will support WHO's efforts to implement the WHO traditional medicine strategy 2014-2023 which aims to support countries in developing policies and action plans to strengthen the role of traditional medicine as part of their journey to universal health coverage.
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