[Mission 2022] Insta– QUED ( Questions from Editorials. ) 25 August 2021

Solution: b)

Bottom trawling is an industrial fishing method where a large net with heavy weights is dragged across the seafloor.

When the weighted nets and trawl doors are dragged along the seafloor, everything in their path is disturbed or destroyed, including seagrasses, coral reefs or rock gardens where fish hide from predators.

Bottom trawls are used in catching marine life that live on the seafloor, such as shrimp, cod, sole and flounder.

The damage from bottom trawling is not limited to habitat destruction. As the net drags along the seafloor, all creatures in its path—fish, animals, marine mammals, plants, and turtles—are scooped up along the way.

India has taken measures to stop bottom trawling by its fishermen in the waters near the Sri Lankan coastline.

Recent initiatives taken by the Government of India to end bottom trawling in the Palk Bay area include the launch of a programme on diversification of bottom trawlers into deep-sea fishing vessels for tuna long lining under the Blue Revolution Scheme, construction of Mookaiyur and Poompuhar fishing harbours, and capacity-building programmes for fishermen of the Palk Bay area in deep sea tuna long lining.

Solution: c)

In agriculture Census, the operational holdings are categorised in five size classes as follows:

Marginal: Below 1.00 hectare.

Small: 1.00-2.00 hectare.

Semi- Medium: 2.00-4.00 hectare.

Medium: 4.00-10.00 hectare.

Large: 10.00 hectare and above.

Solution: d)

Flash droughts are those that occur very quickly, with soil moisture depleting rapidly.

Normally, developing drought conditions take months, but these happen within a week or in two weeks’ time.

Several factors including atmospheric anomalies, anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions play an important role.

It is widely believed that flash droughts will occur during the summer months as was reported in the Western countries, mostly driven by heat waves and very high temperature. But in India, 82 per cent of such extreme weather events happen during the monsoon period.

Solution: c)

Katchatheevu is a 285-acre uninhabited island administered by Sri Lanka and was a disputed territory claimed by India until 1976.

In 1974, then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi ceded Katchatheevu to Sri Lanka under the “Indo-Sri Lankan Maritime agreement” aimed at resolving the maritime boundaries in the Palk Strait. Another agreement signed in 1976 restricted both the countries’ fishermen from fishing in the other’s exclusive economic zones.

Source

Solution: a)

According to Census 2011, out of the total workers of 481.7 million, there are 118.7 million cultivators and 144.3 million agricultural labourers, which means approximately 55 per cent of the total workers were employed in agriculture and allied sector. However, the percentage share of workers engaged in agriculture sector has been declining. As per Labour Bureau Report 2015-16, 46.1 per cent of the working population was employed in agriculture and allied sector. Further, as per an ILO estimate employment in agriculture sector as percentage of the total employment was approximately 44 per cent in the year 2018.

The contribution of agriculture to GDP has fallen to 16.14% at current prices in 2018-19 from 52% in 1950s and 30% in 1990s.

Crop loan accounts for more than 90 per cent of the total agricultural credit though its contribution to total output is approx. 60 per cent which means that the allied sector gets only 10 per cent of total credit while contributing the remaining 40 per cent of the total output.