19 January 2023

DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS

1 – TRAI: GS II – Statutory and Non-Statutory Bodies

Context:

• The industry was criticised by P.D. Vaghela, head of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), for being reticent to divulge data on media ownership and consolidation. Dr. Vaghela said last week at a TRAI open house meeting on media ownership, “When we seek for data, people go to court.”

What is the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)?

• Support from the law: On February 20, 1997, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997, established the TRA (TRAI).
• The mission of TRAI is to create the conditions essential for the growth of the nation’s telecommunications sector.
• Previously, the Central Government was in charge of regulating telecom services, including the setting/revising of prices.
• It also aims to foster an atmosphere with open and fair policies that promotes equality of opportunity and fosters healthy competition.
• New Delhi serves as the main office for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

What Constitutes TRAI as a Whole?

• Members: The Chairperson, two full-time members, and two part-time members that make up the TRAI are chosen by the Government of India.
• Terms for Members: The Chairperson and the other members shall each hold office for a term of three years, or until they reach the age of 65, whichever occurs first.
• The power to exercise ultimate control belongs to the chairperson.
• The TRAI meetings are under their control.
• One of the Authority members may be chosen by the Central Government to serve as TRAI’s vice-chairperson.
• The vice-chairperson performs and exercises the chairman’s functions when the chairman is absent.
• Removal of Members: Any TRAI member found to be insolvent, guilty of a crime involving moral turpitude, rendered physically or mentally incapable of performing the duties of a member, or abused their position to the point where their continued employment would be detrimental to the public interest, may be removed by the Central Government.
• TRAI Meetings: The agenda may occasionally be decided by the chairperson. When the chairman is not present, the vice-chairperson takes over and is in command of the gatherings.
• If there is no vice-chairperson, any member of the authority may be appointed to preside over the meeting.
• During meetings, the majority of the participants voted on issues.
• The Chairperson (or the participant presiding the meeting) casts a tie-breaking, deciding vote in the event of a tied vote.

What are the goals of the TRAI?

• The TRAI’s responsibility is to make recommendations about the following topics:
• It is important to introduce a new service provider.
• License revocation for breaking the terms and conditions of the licence.
• measures to facilitate the spread of telecommunications services by promoting efficiency and competition in their operation.
• technological developments that have an impact on the services that service providers supply.
• Performing Duties: Ensuring compliance with licence terms and conditions is one of the TRAI’s responsibilities.
• ensuring effective technology compatibility and integration across diverse service providers.
• defining the standards for the quality of service that service providers must give.
• ensuring service excellence and regularly reviewing such services.
• timely and formal notification of the rates at which required telecommunication services under the TRAI Act, 1997 must be provided both inside and outside of India.
• Unbinding recommendations The recommendations of the TRAI are not mandated on the Central Government.
• Any recommendation from the TRAI that the Central Government disapproves of or believes requires modification is forwarded back to the Authority for additional consideration.
• The TRAI delivers its proposal to the Central Government within 15 days of taking the Central Government’s referral into consideration.

What authority does TRAI have?

• Information-Furnishing Purchase Order: Any service provider may be ordered to give any information or reason regarding its operations that the Authority may request in writing.
• Availability for inquiries: Any service provider’s operations may be the subject of an examination by a person or people designated by the Authority.
• It has the power to demand that any of its representatives or workers look into any service provider’s financial records or other paperwork.
• Give Service Providers Instructions: The Authority has the authority to give instructions to service providers that it deems necessary for their proper performance.

Source The Hindu

2 – Alzheimer’s Disease: GS II – Health-relate issues

Context:

• The daughter of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara and human rights activist Aleida Guevara asserted on Wednesday that Cuba has created alternative healthcare systems as a result of the “criminal” U.S. blockade.
• She revealed that Cuba has developed five COVID-19 vaccines to the students at the Asian College of Journalism. It was creating vaccines against lung, prostate, and breast cancer as well as therapeutic medications for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. In addition to developing such drugs, she asserted, the country was searching for alternatives in homoeopathy, acupuncture, and traditional Indian medicine.

About:

• It is a neurological disorder that causes brain cells to degenerate and die. Memory loss, difficulties speaking or writing, poor judgement, changes in mood and personality, confusion about the present and past, and other problems are brought on by this.
• These symptoms initially appear to be modest, but they worsen over time.
• Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia among older people.
• Current hypotheses suggest that the accumulation of abnormal proteins inside and around brain cells is what causes Alzheimer’s disease. One of the proteins in concern is the amyloid protein, which accumulates in plaques around brain cells. Tau is the additional protein.
• When the protein tau accumulates in tangled formations in the brains of Alzheimer patients, it disrupts the capacity of neurons to interact with one another in the brain.
• Since brain cell loss cannot be halted, Alzheimer’s is a condition that cannot be cured.
• Women are more prone than men to develop Alzheimer’s disease.
• There is currently no known cure for Alzheimer’s disease. Treatment addresses a variety of difficulties, including helping people maintain brain health.

Source The Hindu

3 – Hydropower Generation in India: GS III – Infrastructure-related issues

Context:

• Concerns regarding China’s proposed 60,000 MW hydropower in Medog, Tibet are having an impact on the design of a proposed hydropower project in the Upper Siang region of Arunachal Pradesh. The 11,000 MW project, which is more than five times larger than the largest comparable projects in India, was presented to the Central Electricity Authority for evaluation in December by the National Hydropower Corporation (NHPC), which is still only in the planning stages of the project.

About:

• Hydraulic power can be generated when water flows downward from a higher level to a lower one. The turbine is turned by this power, which converts the water’s kinetic energy into mechanical energy that powers the generator.
• The produced energy is delivered to a substation, where it is “stepped up” in voltage using transformers before being transmitted to the electrical grid.
• Hydropower is the most affordable and environmentally friendly kind of electricity, however huge hydropower projects, like the Tehri and Narmada dams, have a number of environmental and social issues that smaller hydropower projects do not.
• In India, there are 197 hydroelectric facilities. Around the turn of the 20th century, India began its ascent to global hegemony. A hydroelectric power plant was operational at Sivasamudram, Karnataka, in 1902, while electricity was installed in Darjeeling in 1897.

Several kinds of hydroelectric power plants are there:

• The three types of hydropower facilities are impoundments, diversion, and pumped storage. Different hydropower plants use different types of dams.
• Impoundment: The most common kind of hydroelectric power plant is one that makes use of impoundments. To contain river water in a reservoir, a dam is utilised in an impoundment facility, which is often a large hydroelectric system. When water is released from the reservoir, it travels through a turbine, spinning it up to start a generator that produces electricity.
• Diversion: A diversion, often referred to as a run-of-river facility, uses a canal or penstock to direct the flow of a river into a turbine, which then spins to activate a generator that produces electricity. Using a dam might not be essential.
• Pumped storage: Using this strategy, which works like a battery, electricity generated by renewable energy sources including solar, wind, and nuclear power is stored for later use. During periods of low electricity demand, a pumped storage plant stores energy by pumping water from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir. The water is released back into the lower reservoir, where it functions as a turbine and generates electricity, when there is a high demand for energy.

Advantages of hydropower:

• Hydropower is a renewable energy source that frees up this valuable resource for other applications because it produces electricity rather than using water.
• There aren’t many recurring costs to be concerned about because there are no consumables needed and it is a sustainable source of energy.
• It is less expensive than electricity generated by coal- and gas-fired power plants. It is also more dependable and doesn’t result in financial losses from frequency variations because it doesn’t use fossil fuels.
• The preferred method for reducing peak loads in grids is to use hydropower plants because of their unique capacity for quick starting and shutting down.
• The operating needs of thermal and hydroelectric power plants are complementary, and a well-balanced mix encourages the optimum use of the resources available.
• The seasonal load curves of regional grids and the pattern of hydropower generating are identical. During the summer and monsoon seasons, when hydroelectric power plants produce more electricity because of a heavy agricultural workload, the system has a high load factor. Thermal stations operating at base load and hydro stations operating at peak load during the winter will handle weather-beating loads.

Negative effects of hydropower:

• Hydropower is a form of energy that requires a substantial capital expenditure to produce.
• Since hydropower projects are frequently situated in hilly regions, where the amount of forest cover is considerably better than in plain regions, diversion of forest land is occasionally necessary.
• Hydroelectric projects that cause land to submerge, eradicating wildlife and flora and causing massive relocation.
• Dams can only be built in specific locations.
• The agricultural land is submerged in large parts.

Hydropower Generation in India:

• India ranks fifth globally in terms of installed hydroelectric power capacity.
• Utility-scale hydroelectric capacity was 46,000 MW, or 12.3% of India’s total utility power generating capacity.
• Additional smaller hydroelectric generating units totaling 4,683 MW, or 1.3% of the nation’s total utility power producing capacity, have been put in place.
• India’s hydroelectric power potential is predicted to be 148,700 MW at a 60% load factor. Smaller hydroelectric plants (those with capacities under 25 MW) are thought to have an additional 6,780 MW of useable energy.
• With an average capacity factor of 38.71%, India produced 156 TWh of hydroelectric energy overall in the fiscal year 2019–20 (small hydro not included).
• The northern and northeastern regions have the majority of the world’s hydroelectric potential.
• With 47 GW, Arunachal Pradesh has the most untapped hydropower potential, followed by Uttarakhand with 12 GW.
• The river basins of the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra have the largest unrealized potential.
• India has a potential of about 90 GW of pumped storage, with 63 locations identified and acknowledged for their vital grid functions in national energy plans.
• India’s hydropower potential is estimated to be 1,45,320 MW without taking into account small hydro plants (SHPs), which have a 20 GW potential.
• In its Small Hydro Database from July 2016, the Alternate Hydro Energy Centre (AHEC) of IIT Roorkee projected that there is a potential for small hydropower of 21135.37 MW from 7135 locations for the generation of electricity in the country from small/mini hydro projects.
• The hilly states of India, particularly Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Uttarakhand, hold around half of this potential. Other potential States include Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Chhattisgarh.
• Bhutan additionally sends excess hydroelectricity to India.
• In the public sector, India generates 92.5% of its hydroelectric power. The private sector is also predicted to grow along with the increase of hydroelectric electricity in the Himalayan mountain ranges and in the northeast of India.

Source The Hindu

4 – Sheshachalam Forest: GS II – Environmental Conservation

Context:

• A wildlife team recently found a “Spot Bellied Eagle Owl” (Bubo Nipalensis) for the first time in Seshachalam forest and for the third time in Andhra Pradesh.
• The habitat of the bird, which consists of tall trees in deep forests, is found on the Indian subcontinent. But only twice have individuals in the State before seen it, and both sightings occurred at the Nagarjunasagar Srisailam Tiger Reserve (NSTR).

About:

• A mountainous area in Andhra Pradesh known as the Seshachalam Hills is a part of the Eastern Ghats. In 2010, it was designated as a Biosphere Reserve. The districts of Chittoor and Kadapa are included in the Seshachalam biosphere.
• The Sri Venkateshwara National Park and Tirupati, an important Hindu pilgrimage destination, are located within these ranges.
• There are several native species there, including the well-known Red Sanders and Slender Loris.
• Among the native people who live in the reserve are the Yanadis tribes.

Source The Hindu