11 September 2024

DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS

11 SEPTEMBER 2024

1 – Railway link between Tripura and Bangladesh: GS II – International Issues

Important information:

• The journey duration between Agartala and Kolkata will be reduced from 31 hours to 10 hours by the Agartala-Akhaura project.
• It is anticipated that the project will increase trade, tourism, and people-to-people interactions between the two nations.
• Throughout the 12.24-kilometer Agartala-Akhaura railway track:
• In Tripura, there are 5.46 km on the Indian side, and
• 78 kilometres in Bangladesh’s Brahmanbaria district’s Akhaura upa-zilla.
• Gangasagar will be the first station on the Bangladeshi side.

Finance for the initiative:

• The project began with Rs 972.52 crore in 2016 after an agreement was reached in 2013. This included:
• Work on the Indian side has been approved for Rs 580 crore, and
• About Rs 392.52 crore on behalf of Bangladesh.
• Later, because of additional ancillary costs and cost inflation, the budget was altered again.
• An estimated Rs 1255.10 crore would be spent on the project in its whole, with Rs 862.58 crore allotted for development on the Indian side alone.
• India is covering the full project cost.
• The development on the Indian side was supported by the Ministry for Development of North East Region (DoNER), and
• Under the programme “Aid to Bangladesh,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) covered the costs for the Bangladeshi side.

Companies engaged:

• On the Indian side, the work was completed by the Indian Railway Construction International Limited (IRCON), a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under the Indian Railways.
• The work was carried out by Texmaco, a private Indian company, on the Bangladeshi end.

The project’s importance to Tripura:

• Any connectivity project is extremely important from a practical standpoint for landlocked Tripura.
• The proposed Agartala-Akhaura railway project will effectively cut the 1600 km gap between Agartala and Kolkata in half.
• Maintaining emotional ties to Bangladesh is also important.
• Bangladesh and Tripura have the second-longest international border at 856 kilometres, after West Bengal.
• With the exception of Assam on the fourth side, the nation encircles the northeastern state on all three sides.
• Only 14 lakh people were in Tripura at the time, but during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war and the formation of Bangladesh, the state took in over 15 lakh East Pakistani refugees.
• It oversaw at least eight significant training camps for muktijoddha, or liberation warriors.
• People on both sides may now look forward to easier and closer ties thanks to the new connectivity initiative.

Additional trains that travel from India to Bangladesh:

Between Bangladesh and West Bengal, three trains are operated:

Bandhan Express:

• An outdated train connection between Kolkata and Khulna, Bangladesh’s third-largest city, is reactivated by the Bandhan Express.
• The Barisal Express ran this route up to the India-Pakistan conflict of 1965.
• In 2017, the governments of Bangladesh and India brought the service back online.
• The Petrapole-Benapole border crossing is used by the Bandhan.

Maitree Express:

• In 2008, the Maitree Express began service between Kolkata and Dhaka Cantonment.

Mitali Express:

• India announced the Mitali Express in 2021, which links Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, with Siliguri, a city in North Bengal.

• Source àThe Hindu

2 –  Kozhikode is designated as a “city of literature” by UNESCO: GS I – Indian Culture

Important information:

• Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior was one of the 55 new cities to sign up for the network.

Seven creative professions are represented by these carefully chosen cities:

• folk arts & crafts,
• create,
• video,
• culinary arts,
• literature
• arts in media, and
• Gwalior was added to the music category and Kozhikode to the literary category.

Regarding the Creative Cities Network (UCCN) of UNESCO:

• In order to foster collaboration among cities that have recognised creativity as a critical component of sustainable urban development, the UCCN was established in 2004.
• There are already 350 cities in more than 100 nations included.

Goal:

• The network aims to maximise the cultural industries’ creative, social, and economic potential.
• It was started with the intention of advancing UNESCO’s objectives for cultural variety and bolstering resistance to dangers including rising inequality, climate change, and fast urbanisation.
• It promotes a creative culture in urban planning and problem-solving techniques.

Purpose of the UCCN:

• Through collaborations between the public and private sectors as well as civil society, the UNESCO Creative Cities Network enables its member cities to acknowledge creativity as a crucial aspect of urban development.
• Its goals include creating centres of innovation and creativity and expanding possibilities for professionals and artists working in the cultural field.
• These cities must implement the sustainable development agenda of the UN.

Action areas:

• Through the exchange of best practises, knowledge, and experiences, the network’s goals are carried out on a global scale as well as within its member cities.
• There are studies and assessments on the experiences of the creative cities, as well as professional and artistic exchange initiatives.

The Network Cities Annual Conference:

• The annual conference of mayors and other network city stakeholders is one of the network’s highlights and a special chance to forge stronger connections amongst innovative towns worldwide.
• The conference’s primary goal is to promote inter-city cooperation by exchanging useful information on the policies and initiatives that cities implement.
• The most recent meeting took place in Santos, Brazil.
• The conference was held in Istanbul this year.
• The following meeting is scheduled for July 2024 in Braga, Portugal.

Members are required to:

• In order to exhibit their unwavering dedication to carrying out the UCCN Mission Statement, member cities are obliged to submit a Membership Monitoring Report every four years.
• Together with an action plan spanning the next four years, they offer an analysis of their accomplishments, lessons learned, and the significance of the designation.

The network’s Indian cities:

• In addition to Kozhikode and Gwalior, the network includes Varanasi (music), Srinagar (crafts and folk arts), and Chennai (music).

Concerning the literary heritage of Kozhikode:

• Kozhikode, a city in North Kerala, is home to numerous well-known figures from the state’s literary and cultural scenes.
• Numerous prominent media companies have their headquarters in this city, which also boasts hundreds of publishing houses and libraries that contribute to the city’s rich literary heritage.
• In 1887, Kundalatha, the first Malayalam novel, was born in Kozhikode.
• The author of it is Appu Nedungadi.
• Kozhikode has been honoured by a number of notable writers, including S K Pottekkatt, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, Uroob, Thikkodiyan, NN Kakkad, P Valsala, Akbar Kakkattil, Punathil Kunjabdulla, and MT Vasudevan Nair.
• Throughout the past 50 years, the city has also produced a large number of specialists in theatre and film.

Source – The Hindu

3 – New type of Mushroom Coffee Brand: GS II – Biotechnology related issues

Important information:

• It is maybe Kerala’s first mushroom coffee brand, created with the Krishi Vigyan Kendra’s assistance.
• The Thalavoor panchayat came up with “Koon Gramam,” a scheme to expand mushroom growing in the area, as a result of the small business’s success.
• Approximately 100 farmers have been trained by the local organisation to cultivate the mushrooms that will be used to make La Bae.

In addition to organic arabica coffee beans from Wayanad, about five kinds are used to make mushroom coffee:

• a button
• oysters
• creamy
• Mane of a lion
• Turkey’s tail.
• What’s coffee with mushrooms?
• There are many other ways to make mushroom coffee, but the most popular version resembles ordinary coffee grinds.
• The beneficial chemicals are extracted from the mushrooms through a drying and extraction process, after which they are blended into normal coffee.

Usually, the most widely used mushrooms in these mixtures are:

• Mane of a lion.
• In cordyceps.

Advantages:

Enhanced immunity:

• Turkey’s tail and its fermented substrates have shown some immune-stimulating qualities in test tube experiments.

Possibility to avoid cancer:

• Research has suggested that chaga, cordyceps, reishi, turkey tail, and lion’s mane may have some utility as supportive therapy for cancer patients, maybe by reducing nausea and vomiting.

Antidiabetic:

• Rat studies suggested that chaga mushrooms could be useful in the fight against ulcers.

Food allergies that are anti-allergenic:

• The Chaga mushroom has demonstrated indications of decreasing immune cell activity that causes an allergic reaction to some meals in test-tube research.

Heart conditions:

• Extracts from reishi have the ability to lower blood cholesterol, which lowers the risk of heart disease.

Source – The Hindu

4 – Gentiana Kurroo: GS III – Environmental Conservation

Important information:

• The plant is native to the Western Himalayas and is well-known for its therapeutic qualities.
• The species is under danger because of overexploitation of its roots and rhizome, as well as road widening and quarrying.
• Himalayan Gentian, or Trayman, is another name for Gentiana Kurroo.
• It’s a rare and highly valued medicinal herb.

Therapeutic attributes:

• It has a history of aiding with
• liver conditions,
• gastrointestinal issues,
• diabetic,
• asthma in the bronchi, and
• bladder infection.

• The Himalayan gentian root is well-known for its medicinal qualities, especially in the treatment of liver conditions.
• It has always been overexploited as a result, pushing it dangerously close to extinction.
• This plant’s striking characteristic is its unusually vivid, trumpet-shaped blue blooms.
• It is an angiosperm, and blue-colored blossoms are not very frequent in angiosperms.
• These flowers have a distinctive white or yellow patch at the base and usually bloom from mid-September to October.

Status of conservation:

Current status of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN):

• seriously threatened.

List of the Uttarakhand Biodiversity Board:

• The Uttarakhand Biodiversity Board has identified 16 plant species as “threatened species” in the state, including the Himalayan Gentian.

How is it being kept safe?

• The projects centred on using a rhizome-based method to sustainably preserve and propagate this endangered species.
• Plants reproduce by the use of their leaves, roots, or stems.
• It may happen as a result of vegetative plant fragmentation or distinct plant regeneration.
• Approximately 600 specimens of Himalayan Gentian have been successfully conserved thus far.

Source – The Hindu