Daily Quiz #49 UPSC Prelims Marathon – December 28, 2019

Explanation: Nagarahole is derived its name from Naga, means snake and Hole refers to as streams. The park is also known as Rajiv Gandhi National Park located in Kodagu and Mysore District of Karnataka. Kannada is the local language around the National park
Nagarahole Park is declared as thirty seventh Tiger Reserve in India. It is also considered as World Heritage site by UNESCO. Three of the park namely Bandipur, Mudumalai & Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary are adjacent to the Nagarahole. Bengal Tiger, Indian Leopard, Sloth Bear, Striped Hyena are the predators that can be spotted in the park. Herbivores like Elephants, Chital, Sambar Deer, and Barking Deer is also spotted around the national park.

Explanation: In a major boost to tiger conservation in northeast India, and Assam in particular, Orang National Park has been declared a tiger reserve, making it the fourth of its kind in the state and 49th in the country. Located on the north bank of the Brahmaputra, Orang is often called the ‘mini Kaziranga’, due to a similar landscape and rich population of the one-horned rhino.

Explanation: Bioremediation is the use of living micro organisms to degrade the environmental contaminants into less toxic forms. It uses naturally occurring bacteria and fungi or plants to degrade or detoxify substances hazardous to human health and/or the environment. The micro organisms may be indigenous to a contaminated area or they may be isolated from elsewhere and brought to the contaminated site. Contaminant compounds are transformed by living organisms through reactions that take place as a part of their metabolic processes. Biodegradation of a compound is often a result of the actions of multiple organisms. Bioremediation can be effective only where environmental conditions permit microbial growth and activity. The application often involves the manipulation of environmental parameters to allow microbial growth and degradation to proceed at a faster rate.
Salient features:
•It is cost effective. No construction or additional infrastructure is required.
•These microbes are effective in controlling odour, reducing TSS, BOD, oil/ grease accumulation in sewage/ polluted water and solids.
•These microbial consortia exhibit growth at wider temperature range
•These strains maintains a satisfactory level of DO and therefore aerators, which consume high power can be avoided or its use can be reduced.
•Control the nutrient level in water thus help in controlling “Eutrophication” process.

Explanation: The goal of the Kasane conference is to step up the collective effort against poaching and international trafficking at a time when emblematic species remained threatened with extinction. France is playing a major role in this effort, in line with the action plan approved at the December 2013 Elysée summit on peace and security in Africa.

Explanation: GRIHA is an acronym for Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment. GRIHA is a Sanskrit word meaning – ‘Abode’. Human Habitats (buildings) interact with the environment in various ways. Throughout their life cycles, from construction to operation and then demolition, they consume resources in the form of energy, water, materials, etc. and emit wastes either directly in the form of municipal wastes or indirectly as emissions from electricity generation. GRIHA attempts to minimize a building’s resource consumption, waste generation, and overall ecological impact to within certain nationally acceptable limits / benchmarks.
Going by the old adage ‘what gets measured, gets managed’, GRIHA attempts to quantify aspects such as energy consumption, waste generation, renewable energy adoption, etc. so as to manage, control and reduce the same to the best possible extent.
GRIHA is a rating tool that helps people assesses the performance of their building against certain nationally acceptable benchmarks. It evaluates the environmental performance of a building holistically over its entire life cycle, thereby providing a definitive standard for what constitutes a ‘green building’. The rating system, based on accepted energy and environmental principles, will seek to strike a balance between the established practices and emerging concepts, both national and international.
Internationally, GRIHA has been recognized as:
•An innovative tool for sustainable development by the United Nations.
•A tool for implementing renewable energy in the building sector by ‘The Climate Reality project’- an organisation founded by Mr. Al Gore; and
•UNEP-SBCI has developed the “Common Carbon Metric” (kWhr/sq m/annum), for international building energy data collection -based on inputs from GRIHA (among others)
In India:
•GRIHA pre certification accepted by MoEF for fast track environment clearance.
•Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), Maharashtra gives financial incentives to developers (upto 50% rebate in premium) and occupants of GRIHA compliant projects (property tax rebate).
•NOIDA Authority has notified FAR incentive for GRIHA 4 and 5 Star projects.
•Processing fee waiver from SBI for home loans.
•CPWD Plinth Area Rates have been revised as per GRIHA norms/benchmarks.
•CPWD Centre of Excellence on green buildings and GRIHA established at Ghaziabad.
•DDA, NBCC, BHEL have revised their tender documents to incorporate minimum 3 Star GRIHA compliance.
•PWD, Government of Assam and PWD Kerela have adopted GRIHA
•Cabinet of the Government of Delhi has adopted GRIHA
•Chandigarh Administration has adopted GRIHA