Black holes continue to elude scientists, with a lot about the celestial objects still shrouded in mystery. Now, a cosmic event has shaken astronomers!

A supermassive black hole earlier believed to be situated in the centre of a far off galaxy has suddenly vanished.

The galaxy officially called “A2261-BCG” seems to have lost its black hole. Scientists now believe that the black hole might be floating through space, marking the first such instance ever recorded.

The first ever “recoiling” black hole may now be floating through the universe.

Scientists posit that this implies that a powerful force emanating from somewhere in the galaxy may be behind the ejection of this supermassive black hole. The power of the force would have been strong enough to push the black hole far away!

According to scientists, every galaxy in the universe has at least one giant black hole at the centre. This includes our very own Milky Way.

Recently, a team from the University of Michigan published a study about recoding black holes in the American Astronomical Society Journal.

Lead by Dr Kayhan Gultekin, the team found that a black hole had suddenly went missing. He had had been studying A2261-BCG for quite some time when the unexpected event occurred.

In conversation with Motherboard, the doctor claimed that he was sceptical about seeing anything at the centre of the far-off galaxy, but found nothing.

The team of scientists observing it also believe that the black could be hiding somewhere in the galaxy where it cannot be detected.

A massive force is required to push a black hole from its position, and scientists claim that it could be owing to the collision of two supermassive black holes.

Even then, proving this remains difficult, as we have never been able to observe the collision of two supermassive blackholes

After US President-elect Joe Biden takes office on Wednesday, one of the first actions the Democrat might take is cancelling the permit for the $9 billion Keystone XL pipeline project, a Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) report said.

The controversial XL pipeline, if built, will become part of a larger pipeline network that is already in existence. This functioning network, which is also called Keystone, connects oil sands in Canada’s Alberta province to refineries in the US states of Illinois and Texas

What is the Keystone XL proposal?

Keystone XL is the proposed fourth phase of the Keystone Pipeline network between Canada and the US, which aims to cut short the distance between Alberta’s oil sands and the Texas Gulf Coast, where most of North America’s refineries are situated.

The first three phases of Keystone are complete, and are currently carrying 5.5 lakh barrels of oil every day to the US from Canada via a longer route.

The planned 1,897 km XL pipeline’s more direct route, as well as larger diameter, would boost the oil supply from Canada, potentially carrying 8.3 lakh barrels of oil per day. It would be privately financed, with costs of building shared by Canada-based TC Energy and other oil companies. The XL pipeline would carry both Canadian and American oil to refineries in Texas, from where it can be exported.

So, why build a shorter route?

A key reason is that the oil sands in Canada are landlocked, and a direct connection to international markets through the Texas refineries and ports would mean that they can be further developed. This would benefit the energy industry in both Canada and the US.

Another important reason stated is that if North America increases its own supply of oil, it can further reduce its reliance on imports from the Middle East, thus providing fuel at lower prices for domestic consumers. President Donald Trump has claimed that 28,000 jobs would be created for the pipeline’s construction.

Then, why is there opposition to the project?

There are a number of groups that have a problem with the XL proposal.

Environmentalists claim that building the pipeline would signify a commitment to developing the Alberta oil sands, where oil production is set to double by 2030. They argue that if the pipeline is built, it would increase North America’s reliance on fossil fuel. This would not only take away the focus from developing renewable sources, but also end up exacerbating climate change.

There are complaints about the carbon footprint of extracting Canadian oil, too. The fuel extracted from Alberta’s oil sands is bitumen, an inferior quality of petroleum. Its extraction process is more akin to mining than conventional oil drilling, and generates 15 per cent more greenhouse emissions compared to the production of one average barrel of oil used in the US, as per The Washington Post.

There is also opposition in the US state of Nebraska, where leaks from the pipeline could threaten the Ogallala Aquifer, among the world’s largest fresh water reserves which provides drinking water to 20 lakh people in eight US states. Experts say the Canadian bitumen could be especially harmful to the waterway, because unlike conventional crude, which floats on top of water in case of a spill, some of bitumen’s heavy elements settle to the ground, rendering conventional cleanup technologies redundant.

Native American groups have also opposed the project, saying the pipeline construction would affect water supplies upstream of many of their reservations.

And, how did this issue play out politically?

Because the proposed pipeline crosses the international border, it requires the approval of both national governments. Although Canada approved the XL project in 2010, former US President Barack Obama, a Democrat, axed it in 2015, saying it would increase greenhouse emissions, and that Canada would reap most of the project’s benefits.

Then in 2017, Republican President Trump, who openly questions the veracity of climate change, reversed Obama’s decision soon after taking office, allowing the pipeline to move forward.

According to a Reuters report, the XL pipeline’s construction is currently underway in Canada, and the border crossing with the US is complete. In all of the US states that the pipeline passes through, construction is taking place on pump stations, the report said.

Now, as the White House again returns to Democratic hands, the project could again get in jeopardy. In the past, Biden has already declared that he would cancel the XL pipeline’s permit if elected.

Despite reductions in global carbon emissions due to the COVID-19 lockdown, the world’s oceans in 2020 were the warmest in recorded history, according to a new research.

Published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences earlier this week, the study was conducted by 20 scientists from 13 institutes in China, the United States and Italy.

Compared with 2019, the upper 2,000 meters of the Earth’s oceans have absorbed a greater amount of heat, enough to boil 1.3 billion kettles, each containing 1.5 liters of water. The increase in heat within the oceans is responsible for the increasing trend of record-breaking global ocean temperatures, said the research.

Cheng Lijing, lead author of the study and researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said ocean heating is a key indicator for quantifying climate change, since more than 90 percent of global heat ends up in the oceans.

“However, due to the ocean’s delayed response to global warming, the trend of ocean warming will persist for decades at least,” said Cheng, explaining that the world’s ocean temperatures kept rising last year, despite reports that global carbon emissions fell as people stayed indoors due to COVID-19 restrictions

The study also found that over the past eight decades, the world’s oceans have been warmer in each decade than in the previous one. The effects of ocean warming manifest in the form of more typhoons, hurricanes and extreme rainfall.

In addition to ocean temperatures, researchers involved in the study calculated the salinity of ocean water. They found that areas of high salinity had increased in salinity, whereas the opposite was true for areas of lower salinity.

Researchers also shared data recorded by China’s IAP and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the study.

There are things in life that can be predicted reasonably well. The tides rise and fall. The moon waxes and wanes. A billiard ball bounces around a table according to orderly geometry.

And then there are things that defy easy prediction: The hurricane that changes direction without warning. The splashing of water in a fountain. The graceful disorder of branches growing from a tree.

These phenomena and others like them can be described as chaotic systems, and are notable for exhibiting behavior that is predictable at first, but grows increasingly random with time.

Because of the large role that chaotic systems play in the world around us, scientists and mathematicians have long sought to better understand them. Now, Caltech’s Lihong Wang, the Bren Professor in the Andrew and Peggy Cherng department of Medical Engineering, has developed a new tool that might help in this quest.

In the latest issue of Science Advances, Wang describes how he has used an ultrafast camera of his own design that recorded video at one billion frames per second to observe the movement of laser light in a chamber specially designed to induce chaotic reflections.

The camera makes use of a technology called compressed ultrafast photography (CUP), which Wang has demonstrated in other research to be capable of speeds as fast as 70 trillion frames per second. The speed at which a CUP camera takes video makes it capable of seeing light—the fastest thing in the universe—as it travels.

But CUP cameras have another feature that make them uniquely suited for studying chaotic systems. Unlike a traditional camera that shoots one frame of video at a time, a CUP camera essentially shoots all of its frames at once. This allows the camera to capture the entirety of a laser beam’s chaotic path through the chamber all in one go.

That matters because in a chaotic system, the behavior is different every time. If the camera only captured part of the action, the behavior that was not recorded could never be studied, because it would never occur in exactly the same way again. It would be like trying to photograph a bird, but with a camera that can only capture one body part at a time; furthermore, every time the bird landed near you, it would be a different species. Although you could try to assemble all your photos into one composite bird image, that cobbled-together bird would have the beak of a crow, the neck of a stork, the wings of a duck, the tail of a hawk, and the legs of a chicken. Not exactly useful.

Wang says that the ability of his CUP camera to capture the chaotic movement of light may breathe new life into the study of optical chaos, which has applications in physics, communications, and cryptography

Its distinctive butterfly shape is caused by one star interfering with the gas expulsion pattern of another

star at the center of this tie-dye apparition is collapsing, a process scientists have watched and measured for decades. In 2020 astronomers overcame the 3,000 to 6,500 light-years separating us from this celestial beauty, named NGC 2899, for the clearest picture of it yet.

Though the phenomenon is called a planetary nebula, the term is a misnomer. These cosmic clouds appear when a star burns through the hydrogen at its core. The outer layers of the star separate while the center falls inward, transforming into a white dwarf. As it caves, the core generates ultraviolet radiation and six-million six-million-mile-per-hour winds. Clouds of gas, laden with elements ejected by the star through its lifetime, glow under the heat of the radiation and are shoved outward by the winds. In the image of NGC 2899, oxygen (blue) is surrounded by hydrogen (pink).

The expelled gas is normally fairly round, so early astronomers in the 1700s assumed the spectacle came from a planet—hence the phenomenon’s name. Discovered in 1835 by English astronomer John Herschel in the constellation Vela, NGC 2899 looks like a butterfly because it is made of two stars. Scientists think that one of them is collapsing andthat the second is interfering with the normal gas expulsion pattern, creating the symmetrical form of only 10 to 20 percent of planetary nebulae. The spectacular sight will eventually show up closer to home: our own sun should reach this phase of its life span in several billion years.

On Thursday, nine former officials who served the state of Michigan in the US, including the state’s former governor Rick Snyder, were charged in connection with a criminal investigation into the Flint water crisis.

Michigan’s Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym L Worth announced that after 12 months of jury proceedings, the nine officials were indicted on a total of 42 counts “related to a series of alleged actions and inactions that created the historic injustice of the Flint Water Crisis”.

“We must remember that the Flint Water Crisis is not some relic of the past. At this very moment, the people of Flint continue to suffer from the categorical failure of public officials at all levels of government, who trampled upon their trust, and evaded accountability for far too long,” Hammoud was quoted as saying in a statement

Former governor Snyder was charged with two counts of willful neglect of duty. “As Governor of the State of Michigan, a public officer did willfully neglect his mandatory legal duty to protect citizens of this state against disaster and/or emergency,” his indictment mentions.

Snyder, who is a Republican became Michigan’s 48th governor and was sworn in on January 1, 2011. He remained in this position until 2018.

What was the Flint Water Crisis?

The Flint water crisis is an ongoing public health crisis that began in 2014 when the City of Flint in Michigan–which has a population of roughly 100,000–changed its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint river. This switch caused the water distribution pipes to corrode, as a result of which lead and other contaminants were leached into the municipal drinking water.

This led to an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, a serious type of pneumonia caused by the Legionella bacteria and other health complications in thousands of its residents. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), people can get sick from this if they breathe in mist or accidentally swallow bacteria-containing water into the lungs.

While the water supply was switched back in 2015, the damage was long-lasting and many residents of the city continued to suffer.

In January 2016, the state of Michigan declared a state of emergency and in October the same year, residents of the city were advised not to drink the municipal tap water unless it was filtered.

As per an article published in the American Water Works Association (AWWA) in 2016, which described the water crisis, a few weeks after the water source was switched despite warnings and concerns from some officials, residents started complaining about the colour, taste and odor of their drinking water. In May 2014, some residents informed officials that the water was causing rashes, especially in children.

As per a Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) conducted by the CDC in May 2016, over 66 percent of the households in the city reported one or more adult members experiencing at least one behavioural health issue “more than usual” and 54 percent of the households reported that at least one child experienced at least one behavioural health issue.

But why was the water source changed?

The AWWA article notes that in order to reduce costs for treated water Flint officials decided to join the newly formed Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA) in 2013, which was constructing a pipeline to transmit water from Lake Huron.

In the meantime, the city of Flint had the option to either purchase treated water from the Detroit Water and Sewage Department (DWSD), which was sourced from Lake Huron or treat water from the Flint river on its own.

After officials failed to strike a short-term agreement with DWSD, Flint officials decided to use water from the Flint river and treat it at the Flint Water Service Center (FWSC). But the water wasn’t treated properly at the FWSC, resulting in lead contamination.

The article also notes that while the Flint river water is difficult to treat, “oversights and missteps” combined with “inherent chemical conditions” set the stage for the water crisis.

A report published in 2017 by the Michigan Civil Rights Commission said that race and racism played a role in causing the water crisis even though both black and white residents were victims. The report is based on the testimony of over 150 residents, community leaders, experts, academics and government officials

We are not suggesting that those making decisions related to this crisis were racists, or meant to treat Flint any differently because it is a community primarily made up by people of color. Rather, the disparate response is the result of systemic racism that was built into the foundation and growth of Flint, its industry and the suburban area surrounding it,” the report said.

”The crisis has been the subject of a film and a documentary film. A 2017 TV film called Flint directed by Bruce Beresford starring Queen Latifah featured her as a woman dealing with the effects that the contaminated water had on her and her family. A documentary on the subject, also titled “Flint”, was released in 2020 and is based on half a decade of research into the crisis and the failure of officials to respond to it.

Accepting that it had led to “confusion” and spawned a lot of “misinformation”, messaging service WhatsApp Saturday announced it will be delaying the implementation of its new privacy policy until May 15. This, the Facebook product hopes, will give users more time to “review the policy at their own pace”.

Why has WhatsApp delayed the implementation of the new privacy policy?

Ever since it announced the new policy in early January, there was confusion over whether this means parent company Facebook, which has been facing some trust deficit globally, will get to access user messages. As this confusion, partly caused by a hard-to-understand privacy policy which chose to not spell out how the changes will play out on ground, gained ground, millions of users across the world chose to look at options, even as WhatsApp gave users the option to accept or leave the service

What happens now?

Nothing really changes in the privacy policy, which WhatsApp later clarified does not change anything when it comes to personal messaging and only impacts some new messaging with businesses. However, now users have till May 15 to read through, internalise and accept the new policy and its changes. Earlier, the deadline was February 8, which had added to the panic among users and fears that something drastic is on the anvil.

WhatsApp has also reiterated in the new post that users have nothing to be worried about. “WhatsApp was built on a simple idea: what you share with your friends and family stays between you. This means we will always protect your personal conversations with end-to-end encryption, so that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see these private messages. Which is why we don’t keep logs of who everyone’s messaging or calling. We also can’t see your shared location and we don’t share your contacts with Facebook,” it says.

Will this help WhatsApp end the exodus of users?

To a certain extent, yes. But the damage has been done. What the new privacy policy has done is remind users about the linkages between Facebook and WhatsApp, which many would not have taken seriously so far. With Facebook’s not-so-great record in privacy, users seem to be rethinking if they want to be messaging everybody from their parents to bosses via a service owned by the social network.

Both Signal and Telegram have benefited from this exodus, so much so that both services seem to be struggling to handle the influx of new users — Signal services were disrupted on Friday. What could come to WhatsApp’s advantage in the long run is the network effect, which will gradually sink in as users realise that those who they want to chat with have not moved along with them to the same alternative option. And this could be what WhatsApp might be hoping from with the delayed adoption of the privacy policy.

Vestas has temporarily taken around 150 of its V150 machines out of service “in an abundance of caution” after identifying a blade fault as the cause of a turbine collapse in Sweden late last year.

A investigation into the V150 4.2MW collapse at the Aldermyrberget wind farm found a bonding failure on blade-root inserts due to a manufacturing issue at a single supplier, confirmed a spokesman for the Danish wind giant.

Vestas has halted around 150 of the turbines that could potentially be exposed to the same issue, which caused a loose blade to destabilise the Swedish turbine and collapse, he added.

“Vestas is taking this step out of an abundance of caution and is working to put a solution in place to get the turbines safely operating again,” the spokesman told Recharge, adding that the company is liaising with customers over options for repair or replacement.

No other operational turbines have been affected, and the fault is not related to two other V150 blade incidents in the US and Australia last year, said Vestas.

Nobody was hurt in the incident at the Aldermyrberget project, which is owned by Wpd and was ramping up for full commissioning when the turbine collapsed in November.

The V150 has been a huge commercial success for Vestas over the last few years, with thousands of the turbines ordered for deployment in markets around the world as developers move to more powerful machines. The OEM had booked more than 10GW of orders for the V150 4.2MW by mid-2020

Astonishing glow-in-the-dark discoveries were recently made in Africa, after scientists recently discovered reptiles that glow in the dark… literally! Namibia’s geckos shine bright under black lights, as stated in a study recently published in Scientific Reports.

According to the report, the stripes and blots on the reptile prevent it from being identified by predators, and keep them singled out from other geckos. A lot of such discoveries have been made recently across the world. In Australia, platypuses with fluorescent markings were discovered. 

Astonishing glow-in-the-dark discoveries were recently made in Africa, after scientists recently discovered reptiles that glow in the dark… literally! Namibia’s geckos shine bright under black lights, as stated in a study recently published in Scientific Reports.

According to the report, the stripes and blots on the reptile prevent it from being identified by predators, and keep them singled out from other geckos. A lot of such discoveries have been made recently across the world. In Australia, platypuses with fluorescent markings were discovered.

The particular species in question have translucent skin, with even their bones glowing under ultraviolet light.

Dr Mark Scherz from Germany’s University Potsdam, part of the Adaptive Genomics Group recently spoke to Live Science about the astonishing discovery, claiming that the colour was shocking to the researchers.

“Actually it turns out quite a few other species, including geckos, have sufficiently transparent skin that their bones’ fluorescence can be seen through it under a sufficiently strong UV light,” Scherz said.

“We have observed in captivity that, although these animals are largely solitary, they do run up to one another to greet each other after a short period of separation,” Scherz added.

 “They also lick condensation from each other’s bodies. So there are lots of reasons that being able to see each other over long distances would be useful for these geckos,” he further said.

Due to the prevailing Covid-19 situation, the Centre has decided against having any foreign head of state or government as the chief guest for this year’s Republic Day event on January 26, news agency PTI reported. This is the first time in 55 years that India is not going to have any chief guest for the Republic Day parade.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, “Due to the global Covid-19 situation, it has been decided that this year there will not be any foreign head of state or government as the chief guest for our Republic Day event.”

The central government was thinking on these lines after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had called up Prime Minister Narendra Modi and expressed “regret” that he would not be able to be chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations. Johnson took this decision in view of the fresh national lockdown in the UK due to the new, more contagious mutant strain of the novel coronavirus.

The last time India did not send an invitation to any head of state was in 1966 due to the untimely demise of then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. The new government headed by Indira Gandhi was sworn in on January 24, 1966 – only two days ahead of the Republic Day parade.

The Republic Day celebrations have been truncated this year on account of the pandemic. Last year’s Independence Day celebrations had also been scaled down.

An invitation to be chief guest at India’s Republic Day is a special honour for the visiting foreign dignitary. New Delhi has been weaving strategy with hospitality while deciding on the chief guest. The choice is dictated by a number of factors — strategic and diplomatic, business interests, and geo-politics.

Even though galaxies are known to die out, scientists never could witness the process of a galaxy dying out, until now. Using a high tech telescope, scientists saw the galaxy, ID2299, ejecting out the star forming gases and losing its fuel. As per a press statement, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) spotted the galaxy ejecting nearly half of its star-forming gas. Also, the speed of this ejection was “equivalent to 10,000 Suns-worth of gas a year”. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) was a partner in the observation and the team thinks that this celestial event has been triggered by a collision with another galaxy.

As per the statement, galaxies begin to ‘die’ when they stop forming stars. Now they are getting to actually see how the process takes place. The galaxy is nine billion years away. Hence, what we are seeing now is when the Universe was just 4.5 billion years old.

“This is the first time we have observed a typical massive star-forming galaxy in the distant Universe about to ‘die’ because of a massive cold gas ejection,” said lead researcher Annagrazia Puglisi, who is associated with the Durham University, UK, and the Saclay Nuclear Research Centre, France.

Apart from ejecting out material, the galaxy is also forming stars. The rate of creating stars is very rapid, almost hundreds of times faster than our galaxy, the Milky Way. The result of this fast creation will be that the remaining gas in ID2299 will be consumed gradually, over a few tens of millions of years.

Earlier, it was believed that winds caused by star formation and the activity of black holes at the centres of giant galaxies caused the ejection of star-forming material into space. But the recent case shows that mergers of galaxies can also lead to the shutting down of a galaxy.

“ALMA has shed new light on the mechanisms that can halt the formation of stars in distant galaxies. Witnessing such a massive disruption event adds an important piece to the complex puzzle of galaxy evolution,” said Chiara Circosta, a researcher at the University College London who was part of the research. The study has been published in the journal

The House of Representatives on Wednesday made Donald Trump the first US president to be impeached twice, formally charging him with incitement an insurrection just a week after a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol. Here’s a guide to what happens next:

Is the impeachment proceeding over?

No. Impeachment refers only to the House, the lower chamber of Congress, bringing charges, or Articles of Impeachment. The next major step is for the Senate, the upper chamber, to have a trial to determine Trump’s guilt. A two-thirds majority is needed to convict Trump. If all 100 senators are present for the vote, at least 17 Republicans need to join the Democrats to convict Trump

When will the trial begin?

The Senate’s Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has rejected Democratic calls for an immediate impeachment trial and said it cannot begin until after the Senate returns from a recess on Jan. 19. That means the trial will likely begin after Trump leaves office on Jan. 20.

The House must formally transmit the charge against Trump to the Senate before the trial can begin.

What is Trump’s likely defense in the Senate trial?

The House approved a single article of impeachment — a formal charge — accusing Trump of “incitement of insurrection,” focused on a speech he delivered to thousands of supporters shortly before the pro-Trump mob rampaged through the Capitol. Trump is likely to argue at trial that his remarks were free speech protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment and that, while he told supporters to “fight,” he did not intend it as a literal call to violence.

Trump released a videotaped statement on Wednesday, shortly after the impeachment vote, saying he condemned last week’s violence. “Violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country and no place in our movement,” Trump said.

So a former president can be impeached?

Yes. The consensus among scholars is that a “late impeachment” is constitutional. These scholars note that impeachment is used not just to remove officials from office, but also to disqualify them from future office. That means there is still a reason to try Trump after he leaves the White House.

The Constitution states that one punishment for conviction is “disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.”

Under Senate precedent, only a simple majority of the Senate is needed for disqualification. Historically, that vote only happens after a conviction. It’s not clear if someone must be convicted to be disqualified.

How long will the trial last?

The US Supreme Court has said the Senate has wide latitude to set its own rules for how to conduct an impeachment. But under the current rules in effect, a trial would take at least a few days.

There are hundreds of social security schemes in India, from housing to food, from maternity benefit and child welfare to old age support. Many of them are funded at very low level that limits their effectiveness. While their performance vary across the states it is broadly believe many of these schemes are infected with problems that limit their impact.

Problems with Social Security Schemes.

First, there is a problem of eligibility. Often one should not be getting a benefit gets it (inclusion error) while who should be getting did not get (exclusion error)

Second, there is a problems of leakage, wastage, corruption in the delievey process.

third, even if the implement process is faultless that is free from above given problems it would consume a lot administrative resources and manpower for other duties to be performed by the administration.

Fourth, some of the schemes involve subsidies which distort the allocation of resource. For example subsidies for water and electricity arguably causes environmental damage ( falling of underground water tables, power blackout). Moreover they benefit relative better off people than they benefit poor since poor consume less of the relevant good and services. For example power subsidies benefit those who have electricity connection and among those who consume very high electricity.

Steps to improve the social security schemes.

Reduce the number of schemes drastically to a manageable number, all of which are aimed at most important risk. However removing any schemes no matter how inefficientive it is will hurt some vulnerable groups so there should be a proper plan for compensation for people while caring out social reform .

The should focus on ensuring that citizen choice is at the center of social protection schemes. For example families should be given an option whether they want food ration or cash or direct benefit transfer.

In general, thrust should be given on moving to uniform and universal transfer as much as possible. Cash transfer reduces administrative cost, corruption and other various distortion which there in case of in kind transfer.

Any new basic income schemes whether targeted at a specific group like farmer or more generally to poor people must provide sufficient income and the entitlement should be linked to inflation so that it goes up as price increases.

Conclusion

Social protection should improve from current state and it increase huge administrative cost, facilitate huge corruption and have not significantly improve the standard of living of poor and vulnerable society. It is important because huge percentage of Indian depend upon some sort of social protection schemes.

Tigers are majestic creatures — whether it’s their stripes or just the way their face appears, it’s both adorable and menacing. And it is no secret that tigers around the world are striving hard to keep up with the world, with their population so low, they’ve been categorized as endangered and are listed on the Red List of Threatened Species published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

However, what’s rarer are white tigers. They’re not found in the wild and a few dozens that do exist globally are in captivity. And recently, another white tiger has joined this list. 

The little one was born around a week ago, weighing just a kilogram at birth, according to director Eduardo Sacasa in a conversation with AFP.

Upon birth, Nieve’s mother rejected it and now it is being raised by the zoo staff. The cub is being kept away from the mother now and is being bottle fed by Sacasa’s wife, Mariana Arguello, who helps him manage the zoo which as of now consists of 700 animals as well as a rescue centre. 

While feeding Nieve, Arguello said in a statement to AFP, “She has not lost her appetite; every three hours she gets the bottle. If not, she screams… also if the milk gets too cold.” 

Existence of white tigers

In case you didn’t know, white tigers are essentially forms of the Royal Bengal tigers that originate in India, however, what makes them white is a rare recessive gene. They are different from albino tigers or categorised as a different species. 

In Nieve’s case, she came from a couple of coloured mother and father. However, the mother, who was saved after being abandoned by a circus crew had inherited the gene from her grandfather, who was white.  As of now, no white tigers exist in wild habitat, all of them are raised and nurtured in captivity. 

The Union government on Monday (January 11) announced a new online single window clearance portal for the coal sector to speed up the operationalisation of coal mines. The announcement was made alongside the signing ceremony for the first tranche of coal blocks to be auctioned for commercial use.

What is a single-window clearance portal?

A single window clearance portal is aimed at allowing successful bidders for coal blocks to be able to obtain all required clearances, including environmental and forest clearances, from a single portal with progress monitoring, instead of having to go to multiple authorities.

The portal should allow successful bidders to operationalise coal mines more quickly.

“Presently, about 19 major approvals, or clearances are required before starting the coal mine in the country. In the absence of unified platform for grant of clearances companies were required to approach different departments, leading to delay in operationalization of the coal mines,” Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi said, adding that the portal would be operationalised in a phased manner.

How will this help?

Industry sources said that the sector has long sought a single window clearance system to help with quicker operationalisation, as obtaining the requisite clearances was taking over 2-3 years for successful bidders in many cases.

“It is definitely a good move as coal blocks which were auctioned off in earlier tranches used to take more than a 2-3 year period to get operationalised,” said an expert.

The expert added that some coal blocks auctioned as far back as 2015 has still not been operationalised due to delays in obtaining required clearances.

The expert noted that the Parivesh mechanism for forest and environment related clearances would likely be merged into the single window clearance mechanism which is expected to help with the operationalization of the coals blocks that are set to be auctioned in the upcoming auctions.

The third test between India and Australia in Sydney ended up in draw. On any other day this result would be nothing but disappointment but on 11 January 2021 fifth day of third test, India was chasing a mammoth target of 407 runs and have lost two very important wicket previous day for just 98 which means implies that either India bats remaining 97 overs or chase remaining runs. On the other hand, Australia needed just 8 wicket to win the match and take a decisive lead of 2-1. To make situation worse India’s star allrounder Ravindra Jadeja has dislocated his thumb and couldn’t bat. Given the circumstance defeat was inevitable but not for this India team which batted resolutely, aggressively and patiently to deny Australia a comfortable win.

How steep was the degree of difficulty?

India came to this test match with one experience bowler Jasprit Bumrah. Ishant Sharma injured himself during IPL, Mohammad Shami fractured him left arm while batting during 1st test match, Virat Kohli took parental leave and Umesh Yadav hurt his calf muscles during 2nd test match. India’s had Mohammad Siraj playing his 2nd test match and Navdeep Saini making his debut in this match. They lost the toss and had to bowl a big disadvantage in this ground, the racist slurs hurl at them and top of it Ravindra Jadeja was injured during the match.

How Day 5 pan out ?

• India: 100 runs in 35.2 overs (213 balls), Extras 2
• India: 150 runs in 52.3 overs (318 balls), Extras 4
• 4th Wicket: 50 runs in 103 balls (Pujara 13, Pant 35, Ex 2)
• Drinks: India – 152/3 in 53.0 overs (Pujara 26, Pant 35)
• RR Pant: 50 off 64 balls (4 x 4, 3 x 6)
• India: 200 runs in 67.6 overs (412 balls), Extras 5
• 4th Wicket: 100 runs in 197 balls (Pujara 24, Pant 73, Ex 3)
• Lunch: India – 206/3 in 70.0 overs (Pujara 41, Pant 73)
• CA Pujara: 50 off 170 balls (7 x 4)
• India: 250 runs in 78.1 overs (473 balls), Extras 8
• New ball taken after 80th over
• Drinks: India – 262/4 in 84.0 overs (Pujara 70, Vihari 0)
• Over 91.4: Review by Australia (Bowling), Umpire – Reiffel, Batsman – Ashwin (Struck down)
• Tea: India – 280/5 in 96.0 overs (GH Vihari 4, R Ashwin 7)
• Final – 334-5 in 131.0 overs (GH Vihari 23 (164), R Ashwin 39 (128)

Following the draw series remain tied at 1-1 after 3 match the last match of the border gavaskar trophy is to be played at Brisbane from 15 -19 January 2021.

A dwarf giraffe named Nigel, born in 2014, stands with an adult male at an undisclosed location in Namibia on March 26, 2018. Photo: Giraffe Conservation Foundation via Reuters

Being tall is the giraffe’s competitive advantage, giving it the pick of leaves from the tallest trees, so scientists were stunned to find two giraffe dwarves on different sides of Africa.

“It’s fascinating what our researchers out in the field found,” Julian Fennessy, co-founder of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, told Reuters in a videocall on January 8. “We were very surprised.”

Most giraffes grow to 15 to 20 feet (4.5m to 6m), but in 2018, scientists working with the foundation discovered an eight-and-a-half-foot (2.6m) giraffe in Namibia. Three years earlier, they had also found a 9-foot 3-inch (2.8m) giraffe in a Ugandan wildlife park.

They published their findings in the British Medical Journal at the end of December.

In both cases, the giraffes had the standard long necks but short, stumpy legs, the paper said. Skeletal dysplasia, the medical name for the condition, affects humans and domesticated animals, but the paper said it was rare to see in wild animals.

Footage taken by the foundation showed the Ugandan giraffe standing on thick, muscled legs in the dry savanna of Murchison Falls national park in northern Uganda, while a taller animal with the usual long, stick-like legs walked behind it.

“Unfortunately there’s probably no benefit at all. Giraffes have grown taller to reach the taller trees,” Mr. Fennessy said. He added that it would most likely be physically impossible for them to breed with their normal-sized counterparts.

Numbers of the world’s tallest mammal have declined by some 40% over the past 30 years to around 1,11,000, so all four species are classified by conservationists as “vulnerable”.

Apple, Amazon and Google have suspended the social network called parler saying that the platform has not taken enough measures to make sure that content inciting violence remains in check.

What is Parler?
It is a social media platform that is considered to be an alternative to Twitter and is popular with conservatives. The platform describes itself as being the world’s “premier free speech platform”. “Speak freely and express yourself openly, without fear of being “deplatformed” for your views,” the website of the platform says.

Why was it suspended?
The move has come following the events of January 6 when an armed mob of Trump supporters stormed Capitol Hill and clashed with the police as Congress convened to validate Joe Biden’s presidential win.

The platform is favoured by right-leaning users and as per media reports was actively used by supporters of US President Donald Trump, including several of those who participated in the Capitol Hill siege.

In a letter addressed to the developers of the Parler app by Apple, which was published by The New York Times, the company said that the measures taken by Parler were inadequate “to address the proliferation of dangerous and objectionable content on your app”.

“Parler has not upheld its commitment to moderate and remove harmful or dangerous content encouraging violence and illegal activity, and is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines,” it said in the letter.

Amazon too has given similar reasons for banning the platform and maintains that the “violent content” on the website violates their terms of service.

The suspension means that users can no longer download the app from the Apple app store or the Google play store. Amazon, on the other hand, has suspended the platform from its web-hosting service called Amazon Web Services

A web hosting service is a mechanism through which companies provide space to websites on a physical server where they can store data and other information necessary for their websites to function. Since Parler was not able to find an alternative hosting service, it effectively went offline at 11:59 am PST on Sunday and will not be back up until it is able to find a new hosting service provider.

What does the suspension mean?

Following the siege, Trump’s Twitter and Facebook accounts were suspended by the two tech giants, a move which some of his critics have lauded. On Friday, Twitter wrote in a blog post “After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.

“In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action. Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open,” it added.

Twitter said that two tweets made by Trump on January 8 violated their “Glorification of Violence” policy, as a result of which his account was permanently suspended from the platform.

Even so, these moves taken by the tech giants in the last one week have reignited the debate on the power that tech companies have in censoring content. A report in The Financial Times said that while Trump’s critics have applauded his “deplatforming”, “which many say were long overdue. But others worry that the moves demonstrate how much political power has been built up by a handful of private companies.”

This, however, is not the first time that platforms have taken such an action. In October last year, YouTube announced that it would be taking additional measures to block content related to QAnon, a pro-Donald Trump conspiracy theory or movement. In July 2020, Twitter and TikTok blocked some hashtags and removed some accounts related to it and in August Facebook announced a ban on QAnon groups. Social networking website Reddit also banned one of its largest pro-Trump subreddits (a community forum), citing a violation in its updated policy on hate speech in July last year.

In 2019, the FBI said that fringe political conspiracy theories including QAnon are a domestic threat and likely to “motivate some domestic extremists, wholly or in part, to engage in criminal or violent activity.”

In 2020, Norway further cemented its position as a world leader in renewable technologies, as battery electric vehicles (BEVs) made up more than half of all vehicles sold in the country during the year.

Last year, the market share of BEVs rose to 54 per cent, up from 42 per cent in 2019, as per data released by the Norwegian Road Foundation (OFV). Only a decade ago, BEVs made up just 1 per cent of the overall market.

If hybrid vehicles are included, the share of electric vehicles in 2020 is 83 per cent. Petrol and diesel cars, which commanded a 71 per cent market share in 2015, are now at 17 per cent

Also last year, Germany’s Volkswagen replaced US-based Tesla as the largest electric vehicle producer in the country.

How Norway became a electric vehicles pioneer

Norway, which is the biggest producer of crude oil in Western Europe, has in the recent past made a shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. A country roughly the size of Maharashtra in terms of area, it began the electric push in the 1990s in an effort to cut pollution, congestion, and noise in urban centres.

In 2017, Norway’s parliament set a non-binding goal to ensure that all cars sold should be zero emissions by 2025. The UK and Germany plan to do this by 2030, and France by 2040. In India, the government has set a target of 30 per cent vehicles becoming EV by 2030.

To achieve its target, Norway has been giving tax incentives for fully electric vehicles, which make them cheaper to buy compared to similar internal combustion (IC) engine models. Norway also taxes IC engine cars more heavily than most European countries.

The government lets electric cars run on bus lanes, while toll roads are free for them. Parking lots offer a free charge, and new charging stations are continuously being built on the nation’s highways — a mix of regular charging stations and fast-chargers. At the moment, Norway has 10,000 publicly available charging points.

Currently, Norway has the highest per capita all-electric (battery only) cars in the world – over 1,00,000 in a country of just over five million people. The country does not manufacture cars (with the exception of a Norwegian city electric car called Buddy produced by a homegrown firm Buddy Electric) and pretty much all of its vehicle fleet is imported.

The country’s policies have also encouraged carmakers to use Norway as a testing ground. As per the CNN report, Volkswagen’s luxury brand Audi was the market leader in 2020, selling 9,227 units of its e-tron model, followed by Tesla’s Model 3, which sold 7,77o units. Volkswagen’s ID.3 came third at 7,754.

Among fossil fuel-driven cars too, Norway has encouraged petrol cars over diesel ones. To do this, some of the country’s regions began charging higher road tolls for diesel cars than for petrol vehicles. Because of such policies, the share of diesel vehicles fell from 75.7 per cent in 2011 to 8.6 per cent in 2020.

As per a Reuters report, although BEVs had in the past crossed the 50 per cent mark in market share in individual months, 2020 was a special achievement since these cars crossed the combined share of models with IC engines for a year as a whole.

Now, alongside its advances in electric vehicles, Norway is also pushing for the next frontier — hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Experts, however, say Norway’s policies are difficult to replicate in other parts of the world, mainly because the country can offer generous subsidies thanks to its revenues from oil and gas production.

Thanks to its hydrocarbon wealth, Norway has been able to build the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, currently valued at $1.3 trillion.

Indian export growth has remained low mainly due to low scale of production, low productivity of labour, institutional friction. Any policy from government must encourage greater scale, specifically labour reform that allows easier separation from firms and workers. Textile, mobile and electronic industries can be catalyst for growth and employment if one encourage scale. Micro policy like trade agreement, simpler documentation procedure at port, improved credit access and infrastructure up gradation will help. The ongoing strain between United States of America and People Republic of China may be an opportunity as firms seek an alternative trade relationship. Labour abundantly India could be a good alternative.

Problems In Export Sector.

In the twenty five years since 1992, when India began liberalizing its trade regime, India’s share of world export rose from 0.5% in 1992 to 1.7% in 2017. The export share of India’s much celebrated export increases from 0.5% in 1992 to 3.4% 2017. To put these number in context, over the same period the Chinese share of merchandise export increases from 1.8% to 12.8%. Bangladesh also increases its share of merchandise export from 0.09% to 0.2% over the same period. Moreover, world export are 30% of its GDP while for India share of export to India’s GDP is 20%.

Lethargic pace of India’s export growth has constraint India’s growth potential as it failed to tapped into the global demand and supply. Many exporters especially in textile and other small and medium enterprises which provide huge jobs in the economy lags behind in technology and innovation to compete in global competition. India’s labour force lacked sufficient skills and labour regulation makes it hard for the firms to operate and employ labour. Lastly, our transport system are outdated, insufficient and badly planned and bureaucratic red tape makes it even worse to compete in global competition.

What’s need to be done?

The solution to low export lies in fixing both micro and macro issues. Macro refers to the issue with export while micro refers what need to be done at the lower level to boost the export.

Macro Issue Solution.

Scale – It is successful for a export sector. Hurdle to land acquisition, labour regulation, inadequate power and other infrastructure support must be provided to the firms as it promotes the firms to increase the scale of production which not only leads to the growth of economy, exports but also provides employment.

Fundamental labour reforms – Reforms are needed to encourage large scale, labour incentive production while maintaining the workers right. This will help tradition industries like textiles, footwear, leatherworks and wood products and boost employment in the economy.

Better transportation infrastructure – The government need to work on improving the integration of different mode of transportation with each other, introducing modern warehousing, custom and improving integration with logistics and industrial park.

Micro Issue Solution

Improving credit access – Credit flows to exporters have to be encouraged to grow in order to facilitate export. The majority of India’s exporters are SME’s with limited access to external financing. Bank credit is often their only source of financing. These flows must be stable, so that SMEs can plan their production properly.

Simplify the GST refund – GST refund to the small and medium enterprises must be robust to help the exporter. Refunds are still slow. This means that SMEs are typically under pressure because they may not have enough capital. SMEs are typical labour intensive and constitute percentage of total export have performed very poorly recently.

Tariff – Resists temptation to raise tariff rates in response to economic pressure such as sudden increase in import. As most exporter use imported inputs, tariff reduces the competitiveness of Indian exporter.

Global Integration of Electronic Industry – This industry has one of the fastest growing global supply chains one that India’s has not been able to take advantage unlike China, Indonesia, Taiwan. According to world bank India’s entry to global supply chain faces many hurdles like : (1) poor transportation infrastructure (2) low skill of workforce due to huge investment needs to be done on training of labour (3) complexity of land acquisition (4) lengthy and unpredictable import clearance.

Export is one of the very important components of economy and plays a very important role in economic growth of the country. It also provides immense employment and uplift millions of Indians from poverty. India’s has underperformed in export sector since liberalization in 1992 but all is not lost several needs to be taken so that we can perform to our potential in coming decade.

The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) in Paris announced in July last year that no “leap second” would be added to the world’s official timekeeping in December 2020.

Scientists think days are getting shorter than 24 hours because the planet is spinning faster than it has in 50 years and a full day has been taking less than normal since last year. According to the Daily Mail, July 19, 2020, was the shortest day since scientists began keeping records in the 1960s – 1.4602 milliseconds shorter than the full 24 hours. It is a retreat from previous records showing that for decades, the Earth took slightly longer than 24 hours to complete a rotation.

The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) in Paris announced in July last year that no “leap second” would be added to the world’s official timekeeping in December 2020. Leap seconds are time adjustments like leap years and timekeepers at IERS have added leap seconds to 27 days since the 1970s, with the most recent on December 31, 2016. According to the Daily Mail, they keep atomic time in line with solar time, thereby keeping satellites and communications equipment in sync. The next possible date for a leap second is June 30, 2021, as  leap seconds are always added on the last day of June or December.

According to scientists, the days are on average about 0.5 seconds shorter than 24 hours. Though the time difference is noticed only at the atomic level, experts say its impact could be significant. World timekeepers are debating whether to delete a second from time — called a “negative leap second” — to account for the change and bring time passage back into line with the rotation of the Earth.

Peter Whibberley of the National Physical Laboratory in the UK said, while speaking to the Telegraph, that the Earth is spinning faster now than at any time in the last 50 years. “It’s quite possible that a negative leap second will be needed if the Earth’s rotation rate increases further, but it’s too early to say if this is likely to happen. There are also international discussions taking place about the future of leap seconds, and it’s also possible that the need for a negative leap second might push the decision towards ending leap seconds for good,” Whibberley, a senior research scientist, said.

Peter Whibberley of the National Physical Laboratory in the UK said, while speaking to the Telegraph, that the Earth is spinning faster now than at any time in the last 50 years. “It’s quite possible that a negative leap second will be needed if the Earth’s rotation rate increases further, but it’s too early to say if this is likely to happen. There are also international discussions taking place about the future of leap seconds, and it’s also possible that the need for a negative leap second might push the decision towards ending leap seconds for good,” Whibberley, a senior research scientist, said.

A study published in Science Advances in 2015 suggests global warming may be the reason behind the Earth’s speedier rotation.A study published in Science Advances in 2015 suggests global warming may be the reason behind the Earth’s speedier rotation.

BTS is a Korean band which is also known as Bangtan Boys. It is a seven member South Korean boys band that was formed in 2010 and debuted in 2013 under Big Hit Entertainment. It is composed of RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook who write and produce much of their own output. It is a hip hop group. Their lyrics are very heart touching and are often focused on personal and social commentary. They touch on the themes of mental health, troubles of school-age youth, loss, the journey towards loving oneself and individualism.

After debuting in 2013 with their single album 2 Cool 4 Skool, BTS released their first Korean-language studio album, Dark and Wild, and Japanese-language studio album, Wake Up in 2014. The group’s second Korean studio album, Wings (2016), was their first to sell one million copies in South Korea. By 2017, BTS crossed into the global music market, leading the Korean Wave into the United States and breaking numerous sales records. They became the first Korean group to receive a certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for their single “Mic Drop”. They topped the US Billboard 200 chart with their first Korean act with their studio album Love Yourself: Tear (2018). BTS has become the fastest group.

BTS has sold over 20 million albums on the Gaon Music Chart. It is the best selling artist in South Korean history and hold the best selling album in South Korea. You must listen to their songs as they are very heart touching and people can relate to it. You will feel calm and relaxed.

Pokemon Detective Pikachu is a 2019 mystery film directed by Rob Letterman. The film was produced by Legendary Pictures in association with Toho. It is the first live-action Pokemon film. The story was written by Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit, and Nicole Perlman. Ryan Reynolds stars as the voice and facial motion capture of Pikachu, with Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Suki Waterhouse, Omar Chaparro, Chris Geere, Ken Watanabe and Bill Nighy in live-action roles.

The plot follows aspiring trainer Tim Goodman and the titular Pokemon as they attempt to uncover the mysterious disappearance of Tim’s father, Harry. In the Pokemon Universe, Tim Goodman is a 21-year-old insurance adjuster who gave up his dream being a Pokemon trainer following the death of his mother and his estrangement from his father Harry, a police detective. Tim is contacted by the police of Ryme City, a city where humans and Pokemon battles are illegal. He is informed by Harry’s friend, Detective Hideo Yoshida, that Harry was killed in a car accident. Tim goes to Harry’s apartment to sort things out and meets Harry’s police partner, a deerstalker-clad amnesiac talking like Pikachu whom only Tim can understand while all others could only hear him saying “Pika-Pika”. Tim accidentally releases a mysterious purple gas from a vial he finds in Harry’s office. The pair escape from there and then Pikachu explains that after losing his memory following the crash, he believes that Harry also survived the crash as police never found his body. The rest what follows is thrilling as the pair tries to find out Harry. You should surely watch the action-packed movie and see whether they are successful in their mission or not.

Music has been given by Henry Jackman. The cinematography has been done by John Mathieson. The movie has been edited by Mark Sanger. The budget for the movie for $150 million and the box office has reached about $433 million. The ratings for this movie is extremely good and it is a must watch. You would enjoy and love watching this.

Last year, the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) announced that a hole in the Arctic ozone layer, believed to be the biggest reported, has closed.

The ozone hole’s closing was because of a phenomenon called the polar vortex, and not because of reduced pollution levels due to Covid-19 lockdowns around the world, reports said.

The hole in the North Pole’s ozone layer, which was first detected in February, had since reached a maximum extension of around 1 million sq km, according to scientists at the German Aerospace Center.

The European agency tweeted on April 23, “The unprecedented 2020 northern hemisphere #OzoneHole has come to an end. The #PolarVortex split, allowing #ozone-rich air into the Arctic, closely matching last week’s forecast from the #CopernicusAtmosphere Monitoring Service.”

The importance of the ozone layer

Ozone (chemically, a molecule of three oxygen atoms) is found mainly in the upper atmosphere, an area called the stratosphere, between 10 and 50 km from the earth’s surface. Though it is talked of as a layer, ozone is present in the atmosphere in rather low concentrations. Even at places where this layer is thickest, there are not more than a few molecules of ozone for every million air molecules.

But they perform a very important function. By absorbing the harmful ultraviolet radiations from the sun, the ozone molecules eliminate a big threat to life forms on earth. UV rays can cause skin cancer and other diseases and deformities in plants and animals.

Ozone holes

The ‘ozone hole’ is not really a hole — it refers to a region in the stratosphere where the concentration of ozone becomes extremely low in certain months.

The ‘ozone holes’ most commonly talked about are the depletions over Antarctica, forming each year in the months of September, October and November, due to a set of special meteorological and chemical conditions that arise at the South Pole, and can reach sizes of around 20 to 25 million sq km.

Such holes are also spotted over the North Pole, but owing to warmer temperatures than the South Pole, the depletions here are much smaller in size. Before this year, the last sizable Arctic ozone hole was reported in 2011.

Why this year’s Arctic ozone hole was massive

This year, the ozone depletion over the Arctic was much larger. Scientists believe that unusual atmospheric conditions, including freezing temperatures in the stratosphere, were responsible.

As per a European Space Agency report, cold temperatures (below -80°C), sunlight, wind fields and substances such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were responsible for the degradation of the Arctic ozone layer.

Although Arctic temperatures do not usually fall as low as in Antarctica, this year, powerful winds flowing around the North Pole trapped cold air within what is known as the polar vortex— a circling whirlpool of stratospheric winds.

“By the end of the polar winter, the first sunlight over the North Pole initiated this unusually strong ozone depletion—causing the hole to form. However, its size is still small compared to what can usually be observed in the southern hemisphere,” the report said.

Scientists believe that the closing of the hole is because of the same polar vortex and not because of the lower pollution levels during the coronavirus lockdown.

Ozone recovery

As per the Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion data of 2018, the ozone layer in parts of the stratosphere has recovered at a rate of 1-3 per cent per decade since 2000. “At these projected rates, the Northern Hemisphere and mid-latitude ozone is predicted to recover by around 2030, followed by the Southern Hemisphere around 2050, and polar regions by 2060,” the report said.