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*When a tiger dies in a national park, it makes it to the front pages of newspapers, and bureaucrats and animal lovers go into a huddle to avert another tiger death. Also applies to elephants, rhinos, leopards and snow leopards.

*However, several smaller species die, or are near extinction, or are threatened in India.

*The Great Indian Bustard

*The House Sparrow

*The Shy Indian Pangolin

*The Caracal

*The Slender Loris

*The Star Tortoise

One of the rarest species and undoubtedly one of the most endangered

State bird of Rajasthan

Endemic to Jaisalmer and Pokhran

The world population of the bird may be just 80

Disappeared from Kuno: MP

Rajasthan and Gujarat

Found all over India

Scales more expensive than gold

Meat too is in demand in China

Found in the Western Ghats

Tortoise are traded in the pet market

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*The National Board for Wildlife in 2012 identified more than 15 species, including the

magnificent Hangul of Kashmir and the Barasingha of Madhya Pradesh, as critically

endangered.

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*It is true that in protecting the tiger we are protecting an ecosystem.

*Support should be extended to its prey base and the less glamorous species of the

region.

*The hog deer, which are prolific breeders, were the principal food of the tiger in the

grasslands of Corbett National Park in the sixties. There was an abundance of them

and it was a major species of the park, vital for the survival of the tiger. Now there

may be just 20 of them in Corbett and no one seems concerned.

*Though the preferred food of the tiger is the chital, there were not enough of them

in the sixties to provide sustenance for the tiger, so the focus was on the hog deer.

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*The mouse deer (scientific name Chevrotain) is a miniature, just a foot high and

tiptoes like a ballerina.

*It can be found in the Sal forests of south India, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal.

*Mouse deer meat is said to be delectable and before the Wildlife Act came into

existence, it cost thrice the price of any other meat.

*The mouse deer raises its young in the hollow of the fallen Sal, but unfortunately

these trees are used as fuel wood.

*Malabar civet cat may have gone into extinction

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*Manipur’s State animal, the brow-antlered deer or Sangai, which lives on the floating

morass of Loktak Lake, is also fighting for survival with numbers down to around 200.

*Sangai festivals and Sangai tour services, Manipur is going all out to protect them.

*With so many small animals on the verge of extinction, it is time we gave priority to

animals on the basis of the threat perception to them.

*Today, we have the expertise to save them but lack the political will.

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*-• The dawn of the information age opened up great opportunities for

the beneficial use of data.

• It also enhanced the perils of unregulated and arbitrary use of

personal data.

• Unauthorised leaks, hacking and other cyber crimes have rendered

data bases vulnerable.

• Conflict:

• Massive scope for progress provided by the digital era

• The fear of loss of individual autonomy

• That is foregrounded in any debates about data protection laws.

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*White Paper made public by the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee

*to elicit views from the public

* European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, 2016, in which

1. Data protection is comprehensive

2. Exemptions limited

*American model in which

1. Norms are stringent for government departments processing personal information

2. While private entities have to abide by the norms of giving notice and receiving consent.

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*An enlightened citizenry will only help itself in participating in the search for a good

data protection framework.

*India does not have a separate law for data protection, though Section 43A of the

Information Technology Act provides a measure of legal protection of personal

information.

* In 2012, the Justice A.P. Shah Committee recommended a set of principles for a legal

framework for protecting privacy.

*Drawn from OECD guidelines, these principles were centred on sufficient notice and disclosure

to citizens when data are collected, limitations on data collection and use, and norms related to

data securety and accountability.

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*The Srikrishna Committee has also flagged seven major principles.

1. It wants the law to be technology-agnostic and enshrine the principle of informed

consent.

2. It favours data minimisation and accountability of those who process and control

data.

3. It privileges a holistic approach as the law would apply to both government and

private entities, but with “differential obligations”.

It is legitimate to collect personal data in the public interest, but this information

should be protected and used only for the purposes it was collected.

*Above all, the law must provide for a suitably empowered statutory authority to

enforce its promised protection to citizens’ data.

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*The reprieve Mr. Varadkar has earned has come at a critical stage in Ireland’s negotiations in the European Union over the implications of Britain’s exit from the bloc.

*At issue is the maintenance of the status quo of open borders with Northern Ireland, which underpins the landmark 1998 Good Friday agreement.

*Britain’s withdrawal from the EU customs union could lead to the reintroduction of security checkpoints.

*Agreement on the status of the Irish boundary is one of the three EU preconditionsfor Brexit negotiations to move to the next phase, to discussions on a free-trade agreement between London and Brussels.

*There has been greater progress on the other two elements of the terms of Britain’s divorce — a

financial settlement and the reciprocal rights of U.K. and EU citizens.

*The broader reality is that Britain is Ireland’s largest market, and the gateway for sizeable exports to Europe and the rest of the world.

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*The Pope has been in South Asia this week, with the focus of his stops in Bangladesh

and Myanmar on the reconciliation and rehabilitation of more than 836,000 Rohingya

(including 623,000 since August, according to the UN’s International Organisation for

Migration) who have fled gruesome violence in Myanmar.

*U.S., Brit, Canadian, Singapore’s Foreign Minister, Bangladesh Foreign Minister,

German, Swedish and Japanese Foreign Ministers.

*China decided to play a mediatory role

Biggest nation, smallest voice

*No Indian leader has, however, visited them.

*Why India has been so soft-footed and silent in comparison?

*Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s own visit to Myanmar

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*Moreover, in Bali, India refused to endorse a 50-nation parliamentarian conference’sdeclaration because it referenced the Rohingya. Every other South Asian country, including Buddhist-majority Bhutan and Sri Lanka, endorsed the Bali declaration.

*“Operation Insaniyat (Humanity)”: only one of several countries including the U.S., Turkey, Azerbaijan, Malaysia and others to do so.

*India, which has a tradition of rushing humanitarian aid and medical assistance, doctors and volunteers to other nations — for example, after the 2004 tsunami, the 2008 Cyclone Nargisthat hit Myanmar, and the 2015 Nepal earthquake — has been seen to visibly hold back during the Rohingya crisis.

*UN fact-finding mission to Myanmar — 135 countries voted in favour of the resolution.

*BIMSTEC

*Security Council seat: often cited its record as a fence sitter at the UN

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Spurt in rape cases, with M.P., U.P. leading the table

*In a first, data of fake notes included in NCRB report

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GDP shrugs off GST as Q2 growth rebounds to 6.3%

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‘Final GST data may push up Q2 GDP’

*The Goods and Services Tax (GST) appears to have had an immediate and significant

impact on economic growth, according to tax analysts and government officials.

*The fiscal second quarter (July-September), which coincided with the July 1 roll-out

of GST, saw GDP growth accelerate to 6.3%, from 5.7% in the first quarter.

*The new indirect tax regime had an impact — both in terms of the methodology of

calculating GDP, as well as on the performance of the input parameters themselves.

*Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is calculated by adding the indirect taxes figure to

Gross Value Added (GVA), and subtracting subsidies, Mr. Anant said, highlighting the

reason that GST collections are so crucial for accurate GDP computation.

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‘Achieving 10% GDP growth challenging’

*Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday that achieving a 10% GDP growth rate was

challenging and would depend on how the world is moving.

*On reforms, the Finance Minister said India had structurally reformed and there was no finishing line in reforms.

*Mr. Jaitley said the Goods and Services Tax (GST) started with different tax rates and had rationalised the rates on many items.

*Going forward, future rationalisation of rates would depend on revenue collections, he

said, indicating the merger of 12% and 18% rates into one while keeping a “thin” line of luxury and demerit items in the top 28% band.

*Currently, the GST has four rates of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. The Finance Minister said a cogent GST mechanism had been developed and no country in the world had a 5% tax rate.

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Storm wreaks havoc in south T.N., Kerala

*At least nine people were killed in Tamil

Nadu and Kerala on Thursday as heavy rain

and strong winds lashed the southern parts

of the two States after a depression in the

Bay of Bengal turned into a cyclonic storm

— Cyclone Ockhi.

*The first tropical cyclone for the season

‘Ockhi’, named by Bangladesh (meaning

eyes), is likely to move towards

Lakshadweep Islands and intensify into a

severe cyclonic storm by Friday.

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200 militants killed in 2017: Kashmir DGP

*Says it is a huge landmark for establishing peace and stability in the State and

commends the security forces.

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U.K.-based NRIs pledge Rs 500 crore for Ganga

*Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has kicked off an international road trip to draw

investment and technology sharing into the government’s Clean Ganga Mission in

London this week.

*The visit had already resulted in ₹500 crore of pledges for investment for the

development of the riverfront from a number of U.K.-based Indian business leaders,

including Anil Agarwal, the Hindujas, Prakash Lohia and Ravi Malhotra.

*He dismissed criticism over the length of time taken by the project, insisting that

doing it as an integrated conservation mission was key to its success.

*“We wholeheartedly appeal to all Indian companies, NRIs and the diaspora to

participate in the Namami Gange,” Mr. Gadkari said.

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Winter may be warmer than 40-year normal

*Winter temperatures across the country are, are on the whole, expected to be cooler

than last year.

*However in keeping with the trend in recent years, they are likely to be warmer than

the 40-year ‘normal’ winter temperatures, according to a forecast by the India

Meteorological Department.

* In general, maximum and minimum temperatures across most States are likely to elevated.

*The season-averaged mean temperatures are likely to be warmer than normal by

0.5C to 1C in all the subdivisions of the entire country.

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Mid-air refuelling feat by IAF

*For the first time, an IL-78 refueller aircraft of the Indian Air Force on Thursday carried out air-to-air refuelling of the Embraer transport aircraft that has the indigenous Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) system Netra mounted on it.

*“A mere 10-minute in-flight refuelling can generate four more hours of flight. The achievement has given a tremendous boost to the IAF’s operational capability,” the IAF said in a statement.

*The AEW&C — also called eye-in-the-sky — is capable of long-range surveillance and a force multiplier. Air-to-air refuelling allows the aircraft to stay airborne much beyond their limits, allowing better exploitation of capabilities.

*“The ‘Probe and Drogue’ air-to-air refuelling method, practised by IAF pilots, requires exceptional flying skills as the receiving aircraft has to accurately insert the receptacle probe into the basket-shaped drogue trailing the tanker aircraft, the statement said.

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U.K. defends ties amid Trump row

*May says invitation to the U.S.

President will not be withdrawn as

demanded by Mayor Sadiq Khan

*Following Downing Street’s

condemnation of Mr. Trump’s

retweeting of postings by far-right

group Britain First — alongside other

political parties — Mr. Trump lashed

out at Prime Minister Theresa May

online, first tagging the wrong

Twitter account in his response.

“Theresa May, don’t focus on me, focus on the

destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking

place within the United Kingdom. We are doing

just fine.”

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Answers

1. Who committed the most daring murder of Curzon Wyllie in 1909 in London?

a) BN Dutta

b) Ramprasad Bismil

c) Bhagat Singh

d) ML Dhingara

2. Which is not a Central Service?

a) Indian Police Service

b) Indian Foreign Service

c) Indian Audit and Accounts Service

d) Indian Revenue Service

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Questions

1. Buddha did not talk of spiritual aspects, such as gold, soul, life after death etc, because

a) He did not intend to establish a formed religion

b) He was concerned only with ethical aspects of life

c) He wanted to resolve only the practical aspects of life

d) He considered such speculation as unnecessary

2. The religious literature of the Jains at the early stage was written in

a) Ardamagadhi

b) Pali

c) Sanskrit

d) None of these

3. Mahatma Gandhi discontinued his Fast Unto Death against Communal Award because

a) The Congress made Gandhi to accept the award

b) Brit Govt withdrew the Communal Award

c) Conclusion of Poona Pact

d) Weaker classes openly opposed the award

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