PART 6 - NEWSPAPER TERMS SIMPLIFIED FOR IAS PRELIMS
Description
Newspaper Terms Simplified for IAS Prelims
Part 6
1. Avalanche
Recently Seven tourists dead, several feared trapped as avalanche hits Nathu La
What is Avalanche?
An avalanche is a large amount of snow moving quickly down a mountain, typically on slopes of 30 to 45 degrees. When an avalanche stops, the snow becomes solid like concrete and people are unable to dig out. People caught in avalanches can die from suffocation, trauma or hypothermia.
Types
There are three main types of avalanche: Powder, Slab and Wet.
• Loose Snow avalanche
They are common on steep slopes and are seen after a fresh snowfall. Since the snow does not have time to settle down fully or has been made loose by sunlight, the snow-pack is not very solid. Such avalanches have a single point of origin, from where they widen as they travel down the slope.
• Slab avalanche
Most common type of winter avalanche due to the build up fresh snow. A slab is a compact snow surface layer that can detach from a weaker snow layer underneath. The slab slips forward as a whole block or breaks into pieces.
• Wet avalanche
Often occurs after a warm spell or during the spring thaw. Snow becomes heavier as it begins to turn into water. Occurs frequently and are generally small and generally easier to predict than the other types.
Causes
Avalanches occur due to any of the following triggers: overloading, temperature, slope angle, snow pack conditions, and vibration.
Overloading is an important trigger, the weight of the snow increases until it overcomes cohesion to the snow pack underneath.
Temperature has an effect on the cohesion of snow; a rise in temperature weakens the bonds creating weakness, whilst a fall in temperature increases the brittleness and tension of a slab.
Snow pack conditions is a significant factor as the layers below the upper snow cannot be seen and it is difficult to assess whether the slope is likely to fail.
Vibration is a physical trigger cause by thunder, a gun shot, by explosions or other loud noises such as shouting. Earthquakes can start avalanches, as well as noise from heavy machinery.
Avalanches occur as layers in a snowpack slide off. A snowpack is simply layers of snow that build up in an area, such as the side of a mountain. In winter, repeated snowfalls build a snowpack dozens of meters thick. The layers vary in thickness and texture.
Impact
A fractured mass of snow may flow down a slope or become airborne. As a large avalanche speeds down a mountainside, it may compress the air below it, producing a powerful wind that can blow a house apart, breaking windows, splintering doors, and tearing off the roof.
Avalanche control
Currently, scientists are not able to predict with certainty when and where avalanches will happen. However, they can estimate hazard levels by checking on the snowpack, temperature, and wind conditions.
2. India State of Forest Report, 2021
The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has released the India State of Forest Report (ISFR) 2021.
What is the India State of Forest Report?
It is an evaluation of India’s forest and tree cover, printed each two years by the Forest Survey of India underneath the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. The first survey was printed in 1987, and ISFR 2021 is the seventeenth.
India is among the few international locations on this planet that brings out such an each two years. With knowledge computed by means of wall-to-wall mapping of India’s forest cover by means of distant sensing strategies, the ISFR is utilized in planning and formulation of insurance policies in forest administration in addition to forestry and agroforestry sectors.
What are the important findings?
ISFR 2021 has discovered that the forest and tree cover within the nation continues to extend with a further cover of 1,540 sq. kilometres over the previous two years.
• India’s forest cover is now 7,13,789 sq. kilometres, 21.71% of the nation’s geographical space, a rise from 21.67% in 2019. Tree cover has elevated by 721 sq km.
• The states which have proven the best improve in forest cover are Telangana (3.07%), Andhra Pradesh (2.22%) and Odisha (1.04%).
• Five states within the Northeast – Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland have all proven loss in forest cover.
• Mangroves have proven a rise of 17 sq km. India’s whole mangrove cover is now 4,992 sq km.
• The survey has discovered that 35.46 % of the forest cover is liable to forest fires. Out of this, 2.81 % is extraordinarily susceptible, 7.85% could be very extremely susceptible and 11.51 % is very susceptible
• The whole carbon inventory in nation’s forests is estimated at 7,204 million tonnes, a rise of 79.4 million tonnes since 2019.
• Bamboo forests have grown from 13,882 million culms (stems) in 2019 to 53,336 million culms in 2021.
3. ISRO’s Reusable Launch Vehicle Mission RLV LEX
• RLV TD project is the series of experiments with the winged RLV-TD are part of efforts at “developing essential technologies for a fully reusable launch vehicle to enable low-cost access to space”.
• The RLV-TD will be used to develop technologies like hypersonic flight (HEX), autonomous landing (LEX), return flight experiment (REX), powered cruise flight, and Scramjet Propulsion Experiment (SPEX).
• ISRO’s RLV-TD looks like an aircraft. It consists of a fuselage, a nose cap, double delta wings, and twin vertical tails.
• The 2016 experiment involved sending a winged spacecraft on a rocket powered by a conventional solid booster (HS9) engine used by ISRO into space. The spacecraft traveled at a speed of Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) when re-entering the earth’s orbit and traveled a distance of 450 km before splashdown in the Bay of Bengal.
How old is the RLV project?
• One of the first trials of an RLV was announced by ISRO as far back as 2010, but was put off due to technical reasons. Another was hinted at in 2015 but was again grounded over technical issues.
• ISRO’s RLV development program took a backseat at the agency as much of the attention in recent years was focussed on the development of the heavy lift Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) and its high-end version, the GSLV-Mk III, to enable ISRO to break into the lucrative market for launching large communication satellites weighing over 2,000 kg.
• Finally, the first trial of the RLV-TD was conducted on May 23, 2016.
What are its advantages?
• With the costs acting as a major deterrent to space exploration, a reusable launch vehicle is considered a low-cost, reliable, and on-demand mode of accessing space.
• Nearly 80 to 87 percent of the cost in a space launch vehicle goes into the structure of the vehicle. The costs of propellants are minimal in comparison. By using RLVs the cost of a launch can be reduced by nearly 80 percent of the present cost.
4. E-Commerce Sector in India
What is Ecommerce?
• E-commerce is the activity of buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet.
• Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing etc.
Models of E-Commerce
a) Market Place Model Inventory Model
• Marketplace model is based on zero inventory model.
• The e-commerce marketplace becomes a digital platform for consumers and merchants without warehousing the products.
• Marketplaces offer shipment, delivery and payment help to merchants by tying up with some selected logistics companies and financial institutions.
• For example, when an individual is purchasing a product from flipkart, he/she will be actually buying it from a registered seller in flipkart and not directly from flipkart.
b) Inventory Model
• Inventory led models are those shopping websites where online buyers choose from among products owned by the online shopping company or shopping website take care of the whole process end-to-end, starting with product purchase, warehousing and ending with product dispatch.
Growth Drivers for E-Commerce Industry
• Increase in Internet and smart phone penetration
• Rapid Urbanisation
• Young Demographic Profile
• Government’s favourable policies such as FDI Policies, Digital India, Start-up India etc
• Rise in Digital Literacy
• Discounts offered by E-commerce Companies.
• Higher Convenience of the consumers
• Cashless Transactions
