DNA JULY 18

Eco-bridges for the movement of tigers

• In a first of its kind, Telangana will have ecofriendly bridges over a canal cutting across the tiger corridor linking the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra with the forests in Telangana's Kumram Bheem Asifabad district. 
• Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve was established as second Tiger Reserve in the Maharashtra State, in 1994-95.
• Andhari, a minor river in waiganga basin flows through the tiger reserve.
•  The intervention requires the laying of fertile soil to grow grass and plants over the structure so that fragmentation of the reserve forest is camouflaged
• The ‘eco-bridges’ will be constructed at key spots along the 72-km-long, and at some places over a kilometre wide, right flank canal of the Pranahita barrage in the Bejjur and Dahegaon mandals

• The concept emerged after visits by experts from the Wildlife Board of India and the Wildlife Institute of India. They were concerned about the large-scale destruction of pristine forest along the corridor, which would result in cutting off tiger movement between the TATR and Bejjur

Storage in Cauvery basin less than half of last year

The Article has got the relevance as it mentioned of the Cloud Seeding technique .

What is cloud seeding ?

Cloud seeding is a form of weather modification, a way of changing the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds, by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which alter the microphysical processes within the cloud.

In this method,the chemicals are dispersed into the atmosphere using an aircraft or dispersion device located on the Ground (generators,firing canisters from anti-arcraft guns or even rockets). 

When release by aircraft, silver iodide flares are ignited and dispersed as an aircraft flies through the inflow of a cloud. When released by devices on the ground, the fine particles are carried downwind and upward by air currents after release. 

The most common chemicals used for cloud seeding include silver iodide, potassium iodide and dry ice (solid carbon dioxide),liquid propane .The use of table salt is also popular.

Centre wants debate on J&K’s special status

• The Centre asked the Supreme Court for a detailed hearing on the special status granted to the State of Jammu and Kashmir, saying it is both a sensitive and a constitutional matter
• “It is a very sensitive matter. It is a constitutional issue. A debate is required,” Attorney General K.K. Venugopal submitted before a bench led by Chief Justice .
• The top law officer was responding to a PIL filed by a Delhi-based NGO, We the Citizens, contending that the J&K government, given the State’s special autonomous status under Articles 35A and 370, was discriminatory against non-residents as far as government jobs and real estate purchases are concerned
• Responding to this, the State government argued that its special status was sourced from the 1954 presidential order, which gave special rights to the State’s permanent residents
• The hearing comes in the backdrop of an earlier order of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, which has already ruled that Article 370 assumes a place of permanence in the Constitution and the feature is beyond amendment, repeal or abrogation
• The Court also said that Article 35A gives “protection” to existing laws in force in the State. 

‘Temporary Provision’

•  “Article 370 though titled as ‘Temporary Provision’ and included in Para XXI titled ‘Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions’ has assumed place of permanence in the Constitution,” the High Court had observed
• “It is beyond amendment, repeal or abrogation, in as much as Constituent Assembly of the State before its dissolution did not recommend its Amendment or repeal,” the High Court had added.
• The court also observed that the President under Article 370 (1) is conferred with power to extend any provision of the Constitution to the State with such “exceptions and modifications” as may be deemed fit subject to consultation or concurrence with the State government

South Korea offers talks with North 

• South Korea offered talks with the North to ease animosities along their tense border and resume reunions of families separated by their war in the 1950s
• It was unclear how North Korea will react since it remains suspicious of new South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s outreach to it. 
• But Mr. Moon’s overture, the first formal offer of talks since his inauguration in May, indicates he wants to use dialogue to defuse the international stand-off over North Korea’s weapons programmes, despite having condemned the North’s first intercontinental ballistic missile test on July 4. 
• If realised, the talks would be the first inter-Korean dialogue since December 2015. Ties between the Koreas have plunged over the North’s expanding weapons programmes and the hardline policies of Mr. Moon’s conservative predecessors. 

 The Boundary between South korea and North Korea  

Indonesia renames part of South China Sea 

• Indonesia will now refer to the northern areas of its exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea as the "North Natuna Sea" in an act of defiance against Beijing's territorial ambitions in the region, the media reported.
• It unveiled a new map with the renamed territory.
• "We need to continue updating the naming of the sea and report to the UN about the borders," Oegroseno told Indonesia's state-run news agency Antara. 
• Part of the renamed area falls in China's "nine-dash line" -- waters extending hundreds of miles to the south and east of China's island province Hainan.
• China claims the entirety of the sea, but Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia all have competing territorial claimsto parts that are near their respective shores, reports CNN.
• Indonesia is not the first country to rename part of the South China Sea.
• In 2011, the Philippines renamed the waters as the "West Philippine Sea" and two years later took the territorial dispute before an international tribunal at The Hague.
• In July 2016, the tribunal ruled in favour of the Philippines, concluding that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea.