Prelim Bits 03-03-2018

Energy Efficient Services Ltd

EESL is to provide 10,000 electric vehicles and 4,000 chargers would be supplied to various Government departments in the state of Andhra Pradesh as part of its green initiative.
Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) is a joint venture of four National Public Sector Undertakings,

EESL is a Super Energy Service Company (ESCO) set up under the Ministry of Power.
As South Asia's first and foremost energy efficiency leader, EESL leads the market-related activities of the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE).

River Citarum

The river Citarum runs over 186 miles from the Wayang Mountain to the Java Sea in the Western Java.
The island’s largest river supports more than 30 million residents who rely on the water source for agricultural, domestic and personal use.
Unregulated factory growth since the area’s rapid industrialization in the 1980s has choked the Citarum with both human and industrial waste.

Factory pipes dump waste directly into waters bubbling with chemical dyes used in textiles, creating an overwhelming stench.
The river is now one of the most polluted rivers in the world.
Many locals suffer from skin diseases like scabies and dermatitis, as well as respiratory infections from inhaling factory pollution.
Recently, Jakarta vowed to get tough on business owners who ignore waste-disposal rules.

Rise in short spells of heavy rainfall

A paper published by researchers from IIT-Gandhinagar, observes that the frequency of sub-daily (less than 24-hours) rainfall extreme has witnessed a two-fold increase between 1979 and 2015.
At present rainfall data is reported on 24-hour basis and long-term sub-daily observations are limited.
In cities, heavy downpour for less than an hour can create urban flooding due to large impervious area.
The paper states that changes in sub-daily precipitation extremes are more strongly related to variations in the atmospheric motion and increase in vertical velocity than the increase in atmospheric moisture content and climate warming.

Super Colony of Penguin

A thriving super colony of some 1.5 million Adelie penguins has been discovered on the remote Danger Islands in the east Antarctic.

However in the west Antarctic, the same species is in decline due to sea ice melt blamed on global warming.
The first complete census revealed that the Danger Islands host more than 750,000 breeding pairs of Adelie penguins, more than the rest of the Antarctic Peninsula region combined.
Adelie penguins, one of the five species in the continent, are carnivores, and they feed over krill and silverfish in the region.

Invasive Alien Species (IAS)

National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) has urged the government to come up with quarantine facilities at major seaports and airports to check the invasive alien species (ornamental species), which is posing a threat to India’s native fish populations.
The huge market for Invasive Alien Species (IAS) is turning out to be major threat to India’s aquatic biodiversity.
Most of the fish are imported from Southeast Asian countries.
An alien species become invasive whenever it has a competitive advantage over the native ones.

For example sucker mouth catfish, an ornamental species known as a ‘tank cleaner’ of aquariums has spread to almost all freshwater ecosystems and outnumbers other native fish by feeding on their larvae and competing with them for food resources.

Konark Dance and Music Festival

At the 32^nd Konark dance and music festival, various dance forms were performed that celebrated the heritage, history and arts.
Some of the performances are as discussed below,

Mahari is a dance form that is performed as a special service to Lord Jagannath, Odisha by the devdasis (temple dancers)called mahari for centuries. It spurred the development of Odissi and Gotipua dance forms of Odisha.

Gotipua (Goti – Single; Pua – Boy) dance has been performed in Orissa by young boys who dress up as female to praise Lord Jagannath and Lord Krishna.
Kathak is one of the classical dance forms and only one belonging to northern part of the country. It is about story telling from episodes in myths and puranas.
Odissi is a highly stylized dance and to some extent is based on the classical Natya Shastra and the Abhinaya Darpana.Odisha is the home of Odissi.
Mangaiyar is a Muslim community who perform folk music with their traditional instrument is kamaicha. They are found in the Sindh, Pakistan and Rajasthan, India regions.

Map of the Day

North America – Water Bodies

Huron Ontario Michigan Erie Superior –HOMES.
Lake Superior is the largest fresh water lake in the world in terms of surface area and the deepest among the 5.

(Note that Lake Baikal in Russia is largest fresh water lake by volume)

Lake Erie is the shallowest with the most fish species.
Water from Lake Superior, Erie, Michigan and Huron flows into Ontario via Niagara Falls.
Except Lake Michigan, which is completely inside USA, other lakes form the USA –Canada border.

Source: PIB, The Hindu, BusinessLine