Political parties are demanding Caste census

GS Paper - 2 (Polity)

With the Covid-19 pandemic having delayed the regular census, there is a renewed demand for caste census beyond the boundaries of Bihar, where a caste survey is underway. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has demanded caste census for the second time in two days at his Karnataka rallies.

What is caste census?

1. Caste census means inclusion of caste-wise tabulation of India's population in the Census exercise.
2. India has counted and published caste data — from 1951 to 2011 — of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes only.
3. It also publishes data related to religions, languages and socio-economic status.

Was it done earlier?

1. The last caste census was conducted in 1931. All caste data are projected on its basis. It became the basis for quota caps under the Mandal formula.
2. Caste data were collected for the 2011 census but the data were never made public.

Why this clamour now?

1. It's actually an old demand, arising from the fact that the available data-set is 90 years old while castes are often taken as bases for several welfare programmes.
2. Caste-based parties have been strong advocates of caste census.

Study about Great Pacific Garbage Patch

GS Paper -3 (Environment)

The creation of plastic trash, abundant in our urban refuse, rivers, and forests, from the slopes of the highest peaks to the depths of abyssal trenches. Ocean life has washed ashore at beaches with stomachs of plastic debris.

More about the news:

• Plastic has provided ample evidence of its persistence in the natural universe, but of late, scientists have also been uncovering evidence that it’s becoming one with nature in troubling new ways.
• In a study, researchers from Canada, the Netherlands, and the U.S. have reported that coastal life forms have colonised plastic items in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, throwing up many dubious firsts.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch:

• There are some water currents in the oceans that, driven by winds and the Coriolis force, form loops. These are called gyres.
• The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) is one such, located just north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean. It consists of the Kuroshio, North Pacific, California, and North Equatorial currents and moves in a clockwise direction. These currents flow adjacent to 51 Pacific Rim countries. Any trash that enters one of these currents, from any of these countries, could become part of the gyre.
• Inside this gyre, just north of Hawai’i, lies a long east-west strip where some of the debris in these currents has collected over the years. The eastern part of this is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is around 1.6 million sq. km big and more than 50 years old. The patch contains an estimated 45,000-1, 29,000 metric tonnes of plastic, predominantly in the form of micro plastics.

Findings of the study:

• The tsunami off the Japanese coast in 2011 contributed to the debris in this garbage patch. Until at least 2017, researchers had found debris washing ashore on the West coast of North America containing live life-forms originally found in Japan.
• From November 2018 to January 2019, researchers collected 105 pieces of plastic debris from the eastern part of the NPSG, “the most heavily plastic-polluted ocean gyre on the globe.
• It was reported that 98% of the debris items had invertebrate organisms. They also found that pelagic species (i.e. of the open ocean) were present on 94.3% of them and coastal species, on 70.5%.
• The number of coastal species such as arthropods and molluscs identified rafting on plastic was over three-times greater than that of pelagic species that normally live in the open ocean.

Meaning of the findings:

• The introduction of a vast sea of relatively permanent anthropogenic rafts since the 1950s” has given rise toa new kind of “standing coastal community in the open ocean, named as neopelagic community.
• While coastal species have been found on human-made objects in the open ocean before, they were always considered to have been “misplaced” from their intended habitats.
• The neopelagic community, on the other hand, is not misplaced but lives on plastic items in the garbage patch, including reproducing there.
• The finding recalls a study, in which researchers reported that polyethylene films had chemically bonded with rocks in China – which is reminiscent, in turn, of the “anthropoquinas” of Brazil (sedimentary rocks embedded with plastic earrings) and the “plastiglomerates” of Hawai’i (beach sediment + organic debris + basaltic lava + melted plastic).

Pittas Find New Haven in Odisha Districts

GS Paper - 3 (Environment and Ecology)

In a first-ever census of mangrove pitta birds carried out in two coastal districts of Odisha, 179 such birds were sighted. Mangrove pitta birds are a nearly threatened species found in a few pockets of eastern India, including Odisha’s Bhitarkanika and West Bengal’s Sundarbans. Pitta species have fragmented distribution and are considered 'Near Threatened' by IUCN.

Features

• A colourful bird, it has a black head with brown crown, white throat, greenish upper parts, buff underparts and reddish vent area.

Census

• The first census of mangrove pitta (Pitta megharencha) birds was mainly focused on the mangrove patches all along the coasts of Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur districts.
• “The mangrove pitta is found in coastal mangrove forests of India, foraging on the ground and resting on the trees”.
• The census was carried out by point count method, either by walking in the forest or using country boats in the creeks.
• In this census, a total of 179 individual mangrove pitta birds were counted.
• The highest concentration of the birds has been found in the mangroves near the Mahipura river mouth inside the Bhitarkanika National Park”.
• The Bhitarkanika National Park witnessed the arrival of 1,39,959 birds of 140 species in January this year.

Bhitarkanika National Park

• It is a suitable congenial breeding place for this bird species.
• Bhitarkanika National Park is located in Kendrapara district in Odisha.
• The national park is mostly a wetland and a mangrove forest. It was declared as a Ramsar Site in August 2002.