Current Affair 1:

How composting can reduce our impact on the planet?

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Every year, across the world, 1.3 billion tonnes of food is either lost or wasted, says the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) Food Waste Index. With world hunger on this rise due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to reduce food waste is becoming increasingly urgent.

Practice of composting is one of the best options for managing organic waste while also reducing environmental impacts.

We will see Composting in detail:

The role of compost, organic fertiliser derived from waste, has been overshadowed by the excessive use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers in agricultural practices. The lack of compost used in farm fields and the dependence on chemical fertilisers have had a number of negative impacts, such as deteriorating soil conditions, deficient or excess nutrients, insect outbreaks, and solidified soil, to name a few. However, organic waste generated in daily life can help recover soil fertility if it is used to produce compost.

Composting, a biodegradation process that transforms organic matter into water, carbon dioxide, energy, and composted matter has been adopted throughout the world over the years as a technology that can stabilise organic residues.

Composting aims to:

1. treat organic waste such as food waste, garden waste, livestock excreta, and other types of waste in aerobic or anaerobic states and deactivate causative bacteria, viruses, and weed seeds through the heat of microbial fermentation, and
2. produce organic fertilisers that physically improve soil conditions and act as a partial substitute for nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium contained in chemical fertilisers, upon which modern agriculture fully depends

Current Affair 2:

Rajya Sabha Elections

 

Each state has a fixed number of RS seats and 1/3rd of them come up for election every 2 years.

Article 80 of the constitution stipulates the maximum size of the house. The number of elected RS members from the States & UTs cannot be more than 238. Apart from the elected members, 12 members can be nominated by the President of India. Currently there are 233 elected members and 12 nominated members.

The system of election of members to the Rajya Sabha is by proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote (STV). The STV system is similar to the one followed in the election to the President of India and members of the legislative council in states. The vote is transferred from one candidate to another in any of the two situations mentioned below.

• When a candidate obtains more than what is required for his success and therefore has an unnecessary surplus
• When a candidate polls so few votes that he has absolutely no chance and therefore the votes nominating him are liable to be wasted

The Quota

The minimum number of valid votes required for a candidate to be declared elected is called the quota. The quota calculation depends on the number of seats to be filled.

Scenario 1:

At an election where only one seat is to be filled, every ballot paper is deemed to be of the value of one and the quota is calculated by adding the values credited to all the candidates and dividing the total by two and adding one to the quotient, ignoring the remainder, if any, and the resulting number is the quota. It has to be:

Scenario 2:

At an election where more than one seat is to be filled, every ballot paper is deemed to be of the value of 100 and the quota is determined by adding the values credited to all the candidates and dividing the total by a number which exceeds by one the number of vacancies to be filled and adding one to the quotient ignoring the remainder, if any, and the resulting number is the quota.

For instance, if 3 candidates are to be elected and the total number of voters who participated in the poll is 176, the quota is

If none of the candidates get the required quota of first preference votes, then a process of vote transfer takes place, successively eliminating those who get the least number of first preferential votes.

 

Current Affair 3:

Longest Lightning Bolt Across 3 US States

 

A lightning bolt extending across three states in the United States has set a world record for the longest flash. The April 29, 2020, lightning reached 768 km across the southern US states of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

A previous record set in Brazil in 2018 clocked a lightning bolt at 709 km long.

Current Affair 4:

Circular Economy Benefits

 

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