21-22-05-23 Daily-Gujarat-GPSC Current Affairs

In the wake of clean energy and electric mobility sectors fuelling the demand for soda ash in India and the world, the domestic soda ash production needs to grow at 2.5 lakh to 3 lakh tonne a year, according toGujarat-based soda ash maker,GHCL.

Soda ash is a key raw material for manufacturing solar glass widely used in solar panels and is also a key component for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries and used in treatment of flue gases.

The Soda ash demand increases by 5% per annum, which is stipulated to increase to 6.5% to 7% per annum, driven by growing clean energy applications such as Solar, Flue gas treatment andLithium Ion batteries. However, if the soda ash must fuel the countrys RENEWABLE ENERGY targets, the production needs to be ramped up at the rate of 2.5 – 3 lakh MT every year, to meet the rising demand.

Industry players suggest that demand-supply gap underlines the need for more Greenfield investments in soda ash manufacturing.

Groundwater should not be used for farming purposes to prevent arsenic (As)exposure for farm products, especially in the case of rice, a team of researchers has said citing the case of West Bengal where arsenic has been found in high content in groundwater. Large-scale arsenic (As) poisoning, mainly through food chain contamination, is deemed to be a lethal problem in the rice-growing areas of the Bengal Delta Plain (BDP) and other parts of the world.

The study paper by scholars and researchers from the School of Environmental Studies, the National Institute of Biological Genomics and Australias University Of Newcastle pointed out that since groundwater is more prone to arsenic exposure, farm products produced by using that water also become prone to the same exposure.

To prevent this, the report has suggested stressing on rainy season farming so that rainwater can be used. This remedy is extremely important considering that West Bengal is among those states which have extremely high arsenic concentration in groundwater. Historically as many as 83 blocks scattered over seven districts in West Bengal have arsenic levels in groundwater higher than the permissible limits.

The report, published in science magazine Environmental Science & Pollution Research, suggests if rice is cooked using arsenic-free water equivalent to three times of the quantity of rice being cooked, the level of arsenic exposure in that cooked rice comes down substantially.

For this, the Railways will need to create a installed capacity of 30,000 MW as solar and Wind Energy is not available round the clock and the generation varies region to region. Till August 2022, the installed renewable energy capacity of the Indian Railways was only 245 MW.

Myanmars military has imported at least USD 1 billion worth of weapons and related material from Russia, China and other countries since its February 2021 coup, some of which it has used to carry out atrocities against civilians, according to a UN report released on Wednesday. The weapons continue to flow to the military despite overwhelming evidence of its responsibility for the atrocities, including some that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, said Tom Andrews, the UN independent investigator on Human Rights in Myanmar.

Myanmar is mired in strife because of a political crisis unleashed when the military took power. Its takeover prompted widespread peaceful protests that security forces suppressed with deadly force, triggering armed resistance throughout the country that the army has been unable to quell. Andrews said at least 22,000 political prisoners have been detained since the coup, at least 3.500 civilians have been killed and 1.5 million people have been forcibly displaced.