- The Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change had constituted a Committee in June 2014 under the Chairmanship of Dr. Shailesh Nayak (Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences) to examine the various issues and concerns of Coastal States/UTs and other stakeholders for recommending appropriate changes in the CRZ Notification, 2011.
- Committees on defence reforms – The Naresh Chandra Task Force and the Chiefs of Staff Committee, both had suggested the formation of three separate joint commands to deal with new challenges to India’s national security in the cyber, space and special operations domains.
- GSAT-31 is a new communication satellite by the Indian Space Research Organisation. GSAT-31, weighing roughly 2,500 kg, will replace the INSAT-4CR.
- Navy’s Project-75I – is a project for the procurement of six advanced submarines worth Rs. 40,000 crore through the Strategic Partnership (SP) model of the Defence Procurement Procedure. Under the SP route, an Indian private strategic partner will tie up with a foreign manufacturer to manufacture submarines domestically through technology transfer.
- NASA’s Operation IceBridge – is an airborne campaign beginning in 2010 that studies connections between the polar regions and the global climate.
- The Punjab government has declared Indus River Dolphin — found only in the Beas — as the State aquatic animal.
- 26 September as the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
- Hong-20 is China’s new-generation stealth bomber.
- INS Arihant is India’s first nuclear ballistic missile submarine.
- Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed train corridor (bullet train) encroaches upon a flamingo sanctuary and the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the home to leopards, in Mumbai. The proposal involves diversion of 3.2756 ha of forestland from the Thane Creek Flamingo Wildlife Sanctuary and 97.5189 ha of land close to the boundary of the forest’s protected area. The project for one of India’s first ‘bullet trains’ was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in Ahmedabad in September, 2017. It is expected to be ready by 2022. The TCF in Thane, Mumbai, came into being August 2015 and the 1,690-hectare bird haven — 896 hectares of mangrove forests and 794 hectares of a water-body — is on the western bank of the creek. Apart from the creek, the proposal also involves diverting 32.75 ha of forestland and 77.30 ha of non-forestland from Sanjay Gandhi National Park and from 0.6902 ha of forestland and 4.7567 ha of non-forest land from Tungareshwar Wildlife Sanctuary. The National Board of Wildlife– the apex body tasked with according permissions to allow forest land to be diverted for industrial development– has laid pre-conditions for the bullet train project. Largely funded by a soft loan by Japan, the Rs 1 trillion Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project has a track-length of 508 km, and will originate at the Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai and terminate at the Sabarmati, in Gujarat. The length across the State of Maharashtra will be 155.64 km 4.3 km across Dadra & Nagar Haveli. The total length across the state of Gujarat would 348.2.
Categories: POINT IAS
POINT IAS 