Current Affairs 10th November 2017

Current Affairs 10th November 2017 - Important Points

• Disaster response tools in India to be introduced by - Facebook
• Heat source under Antarctica melting its ice sheet, revealed by - NASA
• Skywalk, FOB among 5 projects approved for funding through Urban Development Fund on - 9th November 2017
• India re-elected as member of UNESCO's executive board on - 9th November 2017
• UNHCR to receive Mother Teresa Award 2017 for social justice on - 9th November 2017

Current Affairs 10th November 2017 - Details

Disaster response tools in India to be introduced by - Facebook

Facebook has tied-up with the National Disaster Management Authority and an Indian non-profit body – SEEDS- to provide tools to these agencies in an order to help them replying more effectively to natural calamities.
Facebook would be bringing in disaster maps that would explain aspects such as movement of people and number of Facebook users in a particular place before and after a disaster.
As per Ritesh Mehta, Facebook Head of Programs India, South and Central Asia, the motive behind introducing the initiatives is to help improve response efforts to natural disasters in India. He added that before and after any problem, the response organizations require correct information to help the communities to respond, recover and rebuild.
He continued that the present communication channels are often offline and due to that it can signifies time and resources to understand where help is more needed.
However, via Facebook, in case there is an area that has a more concentration of Facebook users that suddenly goes offline; even that data can be used to direct services to that area.
The Disaster Maps tool was introduced across the globe in June 2017. It is based on aggregated location information that users have decided to share with Facebook. These tools have already been installed in Peru and the US.
Facebook’s Disaster Management Initiatives

• The social media platform has been used increasingly in the past by customers to connect and release support to their loved ones in the affected areas.
• The platform has preinstalled safety check feature that allows users to inform their friends and families about their safety.
• Apart from this, Facebook is also embraced its first annual Disaster Response Summit in India with NDMA that will bring together many humanitarian organizations to help train and inform how technology can be used to devise better replies to natural disasters and subsequent recovery.
• The Aapda Samachar Karyakarta-Disaster Information Volunteers scheme is also helped by it, in which a network of trained volunteers would provide additional information to inform government relief works through the Facebook Workplace stage.
• The program, which is being executed by SEEDS, will initiate a network of volunteers to provide real-time, first-hand information on disasters in their nearby communities.
• The program will be handled 1st in two disaster prone states - Assam and Uttarakhand.

Heat source under Antarctica melting its ice sheet, revealed by - NASA

A new study by NASA reveals that a geothermal heat source known as ‘mantle plume’ situated deep below West Antarctica, which explains few of the melting that creates lakes and rivers under the ice bed.
As per study, the heat source may inform why the West Antarctic ice sheet settled rapidly in an earlier era of fast climate change and why it is so unstable these days. The study was issued in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.

Importance of this Discovery

• The strength of an ice sheet is closely related to how much water lubricates it below side, allowing glaciers to move more easily.
• Understanding the origin and future of the melted water below the West Antarctic ice sheet is notable to create an estimate of the pace at which ice may be lost in future to the ocean.
  More about the heat source
• The mantle crest lies deep below Antarctica's Marie Byrd Land.
• As per the researchers, it was formed about 50 to 110 million years earlier, long before the West Antarctic ice sheet came into reality.
• At the end of the last ice age approximately 11,000 years ago, the ice sheet passed through a period of rapid, sustained ice loss when changes in global weather designs and increasing sea levels pushed warm water near to the ice sheet.
• The researchers found that the same is happening these days and they attribute the rapid ice loss to mantle plume.

Skywalk, FOB among 5 projects approved for funding through Urban Development Fund on - 9th November 2017

State Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri on 9th November 2017 asserted that the Skywalk and Foot Over Bridge at ITO are among the 5 projects passed for funding of Rs 643.58 Crore through the Urban Development Fund from the Union Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs.  The other projects in it are lifting flyovers, construct underpasses etc at Narela, Mahipalpur, ISBT Kashmiri Gate and Rani Jhansi Road.
Key Highlights

• The Skywalk and Foot Over Bridge project will be constructed at an intersection point with a metro station, the Tilak Bridge railway station and seven important arterial roads.
• This will make it easier for inter-crossing of pedestrian as the vehicular traffic exhibits a potentially
• dangerous situation to the pedestrians.
  This project will be an advantage for the public at large who visit these offices along with the workers working in more than 25 major offices located in the ITO area such as Police HQ, PWD HQ, GST office, Income Tax office, Institute of Engineers, ICAI, DDA, School of Planning and Architecture, Central Excise etc.
• Currently, traffic peak hour vehicle volume is approximate 16000 to 20000 Passenger Car Units on ITO roundabout and 12000 PCU on ‘W’ Point. Aprox 29000 pedestrians cross these two points.
• The complete cost of Rs 54.34 crore of the projects is being dispensed through Urban Development Fund Rs 43.47 crore and by DDA Rs 10.87 crore.
• The project is believed to be completed by March 2018.

India re-elected as member of UNESCO's executive board on - 9th November 2017

India was again elected as the member of UNESCO’s executive board on 9th November 2017.
The election was organized at the 39 General Conferences of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization held in Paris. The executive board is the major decision- making body of the international organization.
More about General Conference

• The General Conference consists of the representatives of the state member of the organization.
• It is planned every 2 years and is undertaken by member states and associate members along with observers for non-member States, intergovernmental organizations and NGOs.
  Duties of General Conference
• It explains the policies and the main lines of work of the organization.
• The organization is also responsible for setting up the programmers and the budget of UNESCO.
• It also selects the members of the Executive Board and nominates the Director- General every 4 years.
• Each Nation gets one vote in the meeting regardless of its extent of its contribution to the budget.

More about UNESCO

• The organization is the apparent of the League of Nations' International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation.
• Its main objective is to contribute to building peace and security, eliminating poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue by promoting international collaboration through scientific, educational, and cultural reforms.
• Its other aims are attaining quality education for all, addressing emerging social and ethical upcomings, fostering cultural diversity, a culture of peace and building all-in knowledge societies through information and communication.
• It contains 195 member states and ten associate members.

UNHCR to receive Mother Teresa Award 2017 for social justice on - 9th November 2017

The UN High Commission for Refugees was on 9th November 2017 named as the recipient of Harmony Foundation's Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice 2017 for its unusual work worldwide.
Harmony Foundation's 2017 theme is 'Compassion Beyond Borders' and UNHCR efforts aptly sets into this theme.
UNHCR easily epitomizes the theme with heroism of its workers and members who tirelessly work in calamities areas globally. The UNHCR ensures humanitarian aid to innumerable people internally displaced by conflicts and supports stateless people all over the world.
The award will be given to the UNHCR at a function on 10th December 2017 on the occasion of the celebrations of the only legacy of Mother Teresa, popularly known as the 'Saint of The Gutters'.

The Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice was started by Harmony Foundation in 2005 in memory of Mother Teresa, who attained sainthood in September 2016.
Some of the previous awardees include The Malala Yousefzai, Dalai Lama, Colin Gonsalves, Anna Hazare, Medicine Sans Frontiers, among many other individuals and organizations working in various fields in India and globally, detailed Mathai.