13 MAY 2016

Ø  The World Health Organisation’s latest report on air quality has Delhiites breathing easy but for the rest of the country, there are reasons to worry. The national Capital is no longer the world’s most polluted city, says the WHO report -- ‘Global Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database (update 2016)’ – released. The city ranks 11th among 3,000 cities in 103 countries in terms of PM2.5 levels. In the previous air quality report, Delhi was ranked as the most polluted city in the world when WHO had monitored 1,600 cities. While Zabol in Iran has been ranked as the most polluted city in the world, four Indian cities are in the top 10 -- Gwalior (2), Allahabad(3), Patna (6) and Raipur (7). Another six, including Delhi, figure in the top 20. The data is from 2013, but the Delhi government issued a statement calling it a “definitive positive trend” for the city. PM2.5 refers to atmospheric particulate matter that has a diameter less than 2.5 micro meters, which is about 3 per cent the diameter of a human hair. Studies have found a close link between exposure to fine particles and premature death from heart and lung diseases. Fine particles are also known to trigger or worsen chronic disease such as asthma, heart attack, bronchitis and other respiratory problems. WHO used data from various government and research organisations for the database; it's based on ground measurements of annual mean concentrations of particulate matter and "aims at representing an average for the city or town as a whole, rather than for individual stations. Years of measurements range from 2010 to 2015, unless the latest available data was older," the report said.

Ø  The Border Security Force (BSF) has detained 18 fishermen and two boats from Pakistan for allegedly entering Indian territorial waters off the Gujarat coast. The fishermen were caught fishing in Indian waters near the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL). On 11th May 2016 at about 1330 hours, a special BSF patrol party apprehended 18 Pakistani fishermen along with two fishing boats who were illegally fishing approximately four kilometres inside Indian waters in Nar Creek Area.

Ø  Power generation in the second reactor of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project is likely to commence before the first week of June as loading of enriched uranium fuel in the reactor began on Wednesday night. Sources in the KKNPP told The Hindu that robotic loading of 163 enriched uranium fuel assemblies, each measuring about 4.57 meters and weighing about 705 Kg, began on Wednesday and the exercise was likely to be completed in 10 days. If it is completed as planned, the reactor will be ready for criticality, which will be taken up after getting mandatory nod from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board. After preparing the second 1,000-MWE VVER reactor, being built with Russian assistance, for the ‘hot run’, the KKNPP started the exercise last year. During this test, the second reactor, its associated closed primary coolant pipelines, secondary coolant circuits, and the concrete reactor containment building demonstrated the strength and integrity prior to reactor start-up. Officials added that this was the first nuclear power plant in the world where the post-Fukushima safety enhancement requirements had been implemented and were being operated successfully. Russia is building the KKNPP under a 1988 intergovernmental agreement. Unit 1 of KKNPP, India’s most powerful nuclear reactor till date, was commissioned in autumn 2013 and was restarted after a scheduled preventive maintenance on June 23, 2015. India and Russia had agreed to set up six VVER-1000 type reactors of 1000MW each at Kudunkulam to be supplied by Rosatom State Corporation of Russia. Russians have emphasised that theirs is the only active civil nuclear cooperation as nuclear cooperation with the U.S. and France has been repeatedly delayed.

Ø  Days after the Union Home Ministry publicised a draft geospatial Bill warning of fines of up to Rs. 100 crore and seven years of imprisonment, other sections of the government are looking to tone down its stringency. The Bill in its current form is likely to be scrapped. The fine will likely be capped at a “crore or two” and specific to companies that “wrongly depict borders,” a senior official in the Department of Science and Technology told The Hindu. The DST was among several government agencies that were involved with the Bill. The existing version of the draft Geospatial Information Regulation (GI) Bill will be “significantly changed” as it “goes against the spirit” of the National Geospatial Policy (NGP), 2016, spearheaded by the DST. It will be at least two years before it could become law, the official added. The NGP, which was uploaded on the website of the Science Ministry on Tuesday and is open for comments, in tone and tenor, is tamer than the GI Bill. It notes that “…Access to GDPSS (should) be easy, timely, user-friendly and web/mobile platforms-based without any process of registration/authorization.”

Ø  The demand for gold in India fell by 39 per cent in the first quarter of 2016 due to increase in duties and stricter disclosure norms, according to the World Gold Council (WGC). According to the latest report by WGC titled ‘Gold Demand Trends,’ the demand for gold in India in the first quarter was 116.5 tonnes, 39 per cent lower than in the corresponding quarter of 2015 when it was 191.7 tonnes.