5 June 2024

• Environment: World Environment Day 2024 (5 June), theme: "Land restoration, desertification and drought resilience." India hosts the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) COP16 in 2025.
• Polity: NDA coalition members met in Delhi to formalise alliance arrangements. PM-designate Modi meets President Droupadi Murmu.
• Agriculture: ICRIER brief on post-harvest losses highlights 74 million tonnes of food lost annually in India worth 18 billion US dollars.
• Technology: ISRO's PraVaHa CFD software developed for aerospace vehicle aerodynamic analysis.

GS area: Environment, International Organisations

5 June is World Environment Day, established by the UN General Assembly in 1972 to mark the start of the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment.

• 2024 theme: "Land restoration, desertification and drought resilience." This aligns with the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021 to 2030), led by UNEP and FAO.
• UNCCD: the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification is one of the Rio Conventions (1994), alongside the UNFCCC (climate) and CBD (biodiversity). It specifically addresses land degradation.
• Land degradation in India: India loses approximately 97.85 million hectares to land degradation. About 30 per cent of India's total geographic area is affected by some form of degradation.
• India's restoration pledge: India committed to restore 26 million hectares of degraded land by 2030 under the Bonn Challenge and the land degradation neutrality target under UNCCD.
• National Mission for a Green India: one of the eight missions under India's National Action Plan on Climate Change. Targets 10 million hectares of forest and non-forest land for afforestation and restoration.
• Desertification in India: Rajasthan, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Delhi and Maharashtra face the most severe desertification. The Thar Desert expands in a phenomenon called desertification creep.

Static linkage: environment and ecology, international institutions.

GS area: Economy, Agriculture

An ICRIER policy brief on post-harvest losses (PHL) confirmed India wastes approximately 74 million tonnes of food annually worth 18 billion US dollars.

• Agriculture's economic share: contributes 15 to 16 per cent of GDP but employs over 45 per cent of the labour force. GVA from agriculture rose to 18.8 per cent during COVID-19 in 2021-22.
• Post-harvest losses: occur between harvest and consumption. Causes include inadequate cold storage, poor transportation, and lack of processing capacity.
• Storage capacity growth: India's food grain storage capacity grew from 108 million metric tonnes in 2010 to 219 million metric tonnes in 2021. Yet the gap remains large.
• Global food waste benchmark: about 30 per cent of global food production never reaches consumers.
• World's Largest Grain Storage Plan: approved in 2023 under the Ministry of Cooperation. It aims to convert Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) into multi-service societies that include warehouses, processing units and fair-price shops.
• PACS: Primary Agricultural Credit Societies are cooperative bodies at the village level. They are the base tier of the short-term cooperative credit structure. The plan makes them hubs for grain management.
• FCI and CWC: the Food Corporation of India handles procurement, storage and distribution of food grains for the public distribution system. The Central Warehousing Corporation provides warehousing services for commercial goods.

Static linkage: economy, agriculture, food security.

GS area: Science and Technology, Space

ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre developed the PraVaHa software for use in its human spaceflight programme.

• PraVaHa full form: Parallel RANS Solver for Aerospace Vehicle Aero-thermo-dynamic Analysis.
• Type: Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software. CFD simulates fluid flow around objects using numerical methods and algorithms.
• Applications: external and internal flow simulation around launch vehicles; analysis of winged and non-winged re-entry vehicles; aerodynamic and aerothermal load calculations.
• Gaganyaan use: PraVaHa has been used extensively for the Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme to analyse heat loads on the crew module during re-entry.
• Architecture: designed to run on both CPUs and GPUs, enabling faster computation for complex aerospace simulations.
• VSSC: the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram is ISRO's lead centre for the development of launch vehicle technology.

Static linkage: science and technology, space.

GS area: International Relations, Health

The 77th World Health Assembly adopted amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005 in late May 2024. The revised rules became a post-election talking point.

• IHR 2005: the legal framework that governs how countries prepare for and respond to public health emergencies of international concern. It succeeded the International Sanitary Regulations of 1951.
• Membership: 194 WHO member states plus Liechtenstein and Holy See are bound by the IHR.
• Key amendments adopted (2024): a new definition of "Pandemic Emergency" (wide geographic spread, overwhelms national health systems); a coordinating financial mechanism for developing countries; establishment of a States Parties Committee; requirement for National IHR Authorities.
• Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC): the highest alert level under the IHR. The WHO Director-General declares a PHEIC. COVID-19 was declared a PHEIC in January 2020.

Static linkage: international organisations, health, international relations.

GS area: Economy, International Relations

The International Comparison Programme released Global Purchasing Power Parities 2021, placing India as the third-largest economy by PPP with a GDP of 11 trillion US dollars.

• PPP: Purchasing Power Parity is a measurement tool that converts different currencies into a common unit by equalising what each currency can buy domestically. It provides a more accurate comparison of living standards than market exchange rates.
• ICP: the International Comparison Programme was initiated in 1968. It has been a permanent element of the UN Statistical Commission since 2016, coordinated by the World Bank.
• China: the largest economy by PPP at 28.8 trillion US dollars.
• United States: the second largest.
• India: third largest at approximately 11 trillion US dollars, constituting 7.2 per cent of global GDP.
• India by nominal GDP: India ranks fifth globally by market exchange rate-based nominal GDP, behind the US, China, Japan and Germany.
• Why PPP matters for UPSC: standard of living comparisons, HDI calculations and international aid eligibility often use PPP-based incomes rather than nominal figures.

Static linkage: economy, international relations.

GS area: Polity (judiciary)

The Supreme Court reaffirmed that its power under Article 142 is an exception to the Doctrine of Merger and the Rule of Stare Decisis.

• Doctrine of Merger: once an appellate court decides a case, the lower court's order merges into the appellate order. The appellate order is the binding decision. A further appeal proceeds against the appellate order, not the original lower court order.
• Rule of Stare Decisis: courts must follow their own prior decisions and those of higher courts. This is the principle of binding precedent.
• Article 142: vests the Supreme Court with the power to make any order necessary to do complete justice in any cause before it. This is an extraordinary residuary power that can override ordinary legal limitations.
• Significance: Article 142 orders cannot be appealed because the Supreme Court is the apex court. The Court has used Article 142 to dissolve marriages, suspend laws, and direct payments in cases of justice.

Static linkage: polity (judiciary), fundamental rights.

• World's Largest Grain Storage Plan: 11 pilot states selected; convergence of schemes from Agriculture, Food Processing and Consumer Affairs ministries. PACS function as the last-mile nodes.
• Hydroxyurea for sickle cell: ICMR developing a paediatric oral formulation. Current availability only as 500 mg capsules for adults. The National Mission to eliminate sickle cell anaemia by 2047 drives this.