Atlas Agenda - 2.0 Ep - 5 ft. Gowtham A R | Places in News | UPSC | Shankar IAS Academy | #upsc

Hi, this is Gautam. Welcome to the fifth episode of Atlas Agenda 2.0. And for this episode, we'll be covering events from the last week of July to the first week of August. [music] So, we are going to deal with four issues right now. And uh these issues span across different parts of the world. The first will be regarding uh in a serious earthquake in one of the southern islands of Japan. The second is regarding an illegal immigration issue in the northern part of Africa where there is a Spanish enclave. The third is about the Megad issue which has again come up in news which is a long-standing dispute between the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu with reference to the Kabir River. And the fourth and last one is about a small island in the Pacific Ocean which is called as Naru which is renamed itself as Nauru. So we will start with the first issue. So the death toll rises to 18 as rescue was formed through the quake rubble in southwestern Japan. So the magnitude of the earthquake was measured to be 7.1. So what we want to do right now is understand few basic questions regarding the location of Japan and why is Japan highly vulnerable to earthquakes. So these are the basic questions which you want to address. As we discussed earlier, anything comes up in news, we want to go behind the news and understand some critical issues. So let's start with where Japan is located. Japan is present in eastern part of Asia and as all of you would know Japan is an archipelago of countries. It is primarily made up of four major islands. The four islands are Hokkaido. Then there is Punju. Then we have Shiku and after Shiku we have Ku. South of Kyu we have a group of islands called as Vuku. As part of Yuki Islands we have Okinawa. you know was a major island which most of you would recognize in Japan. Now the earthquake 7.3 magnitude happened in this specific town Kumar Mu. Kuma motor is present in the island of Kyushu. And even though the entire uh archipelago of Japan is highly vulnerable, this is an important point from clay tectonics theory. To understand the issues, you have to think back to the basics of geomorphology. Geomorphology explains the geohysical phenomena like earthquakes, volcanoes and mountain building by the interaction between lithospheric slabs called as tectonic plates. So if you have two plates converging against each other, the denser of the two plates will have a tendency to sink into the astrosphere. You know that the astrosphere has high concentration of radioactive elements. And when you have more radioactive elements, there is a greater tendency for heat and extremely high temperature. And the lighter plate has a tendency to float above the subducting plate. So as the subducting plate experiences greater temperature in the asenosphere, there are changes in its physical and chemical nature. A flexible plate will become more and more rigid as water is drained out of the plate due to vaporization. Simultaneously the heat will start to fracture different segments of the plates and any serious fracture in the subduction zone can create an earthquake and the point of energy release as many of you know is focus and what we want to do right now is look at Japan and understand what are the tectonic plates which are surrounding Japan. So let me start with the next diagram where we have the tectonic plates in order just a second. So we are in this slide and uh Japan is at the triunction of three important plates. So what are they? First let me start with the famous plate which all of you know the Pacific plates. Pacific plate is a major plate and it's the largest plate in the world right there. So Pacific plate is along that direction and in the southern part of the Japanese archipelago you have a minor plate called as a Philippines plate and Philippines plate you clearly understand it is at convergence right here and here we have one more major plate called as the Eurasian plate. So I believe the picture is pretty clear. This is where you have the Korean peninsula just for clarity. That's the Korean peninsula and this is the archipilago of Japan which you find right now. Now the point of earthquake, this specific earthquake is in this Ku island right here. Right there. Okay. So that's where you have Komoo and you can clearly see from the observation that this island of Kujo is very close to the conversion plate margin where you have the Philippines plate which is denser than the Urasian plate subducting and this area which I had mentioned before which is called as Ruku Islands. If you remember Riku Islands is where you have the trench because whenever you have two blades you know subducting with each other this deep area which is under the ocean know well below the surface of water is where you have the formation of trenches and this is an extended uh subduction margin where you have the Ruku trench and uh you know above the sea we can it's possible for us to look at the Ruku islands which are formed from volcanic activity. So this is where you have Kujuan the Kumamoto region. So the primary observation states that most likely the subduction of the Philippines plate under the urasian plate the major cause of earthquake but it is very much possible that along with the subduction there could have been faults within the urasian plate which might have triggered the earthquake. Now whenever an earthquake is appearing in news uh they always make sure that uh they uh mention about the different types of earthquake measurement and uh if you recall there are two important ways in which you can measure earthquakes and we have both RT scale and mercali scale. RT scale if uh I think most of you would remember is a magnitude scale. It measures the total amount of energy which is released from an earthquake. Merkeli scale on the other hand is an intensity scale. Rather than measuring energy, the Mali scale measures the impact or damage which is caused by the earthquake. But in this news article, something else was reported and we just want to look into that and based on that we just want to have a discussion. Right? Just a second. Yes. So directly posted as a question. Let's see whether you can answer the slide before this. There you go. So consider the following statements on the Shindu scale of SH H. The first statement says it measures intensity. The second statement says the maximum value is 10 and instead of well as the Mali scale. So those who want to attempt can pause the video for a few seconds and then try answering this question. Which of the statements given are correct? Right. Congratulations for those of you who got the questions right. The answer for this question is A. It is true that the Shindo scale of shaky measures intensity but its maximum value is seven. So this was a difficult factual question but since it has appeared in news it's beyond Victor and Mali scale is better to have this uh additional scale when we prepare for so with this let me take you to the second issue there was a news the headline clearly says is a slice of Europe and Africa. This was a news because this is a Spanish enclave which is inside the continent of which is inside the country of Morocco in the northern part of Africa. So we have to ask a few questions on what are these Spanish territories which are in North Africa and how exactly Spain got this area and third question why do we have a sudden spike in immigration? What is the reason where more than 50,000 people decided that they have to cross over the sea? you know they have to take a risk because the fencing is pretty stronger in parts of Suda and why did it happen so first let me introduce where the incident happened so this is Spain and this is Portugal that's your Iberian peninsula Iberian peninsula includes two countries Spain and Portugal land areas surrounded by water on three sides and this is the northern part of Africa and you're specifically looking at Morocco you have five Spanish territories in the northern part of Africa and the one which was selectively used was It was Suda. Apart from Suda, you also have one more city state called as Manila. Beyond these two city states of Suda and Mala, you also have three group of rocky islands. The three group of rocky islands are together called as Plazar Soberania. There you go right there. And they're together called as Plazar Soberania and Plaza Subberia right here. So this is Suida and Malila the autonomous city states. After that you have the Shafarina's islands. After the Shafarina's islands you have the Alusimas. After Alissimas you have the Bento Lago. So all these five areas are the Spanish inclaves in northern part of Africa of which two are enclave city states and then three are rocky islands. So the question which we have to ask ourself is why here? How exactly or why is this area important that forces Spain to control this territory even after so many years of colonization history? It's primarily because of the location. Look carefully. This is your straight of Gibralar. Straight of Gibralar is a very small passage which connects your Atlantic Ocean with the Mediterranean Sea. So if ships are passing through, they have to go through the straight one way or the other. And if you look at the location of Suida, Sua is right here. Sua as it is a small enclave has heavy fencing on the land area with Morocco. So it is very difficult for people to cross over from Morocco into the Spanish enclave. So if they are trying to cross over into illegally they have to take a very risky route by crossing over from sea and all of a sudden there was a spike of close to uh 50,000 people. So we just need to uh understand why exactly this happened. That's because of a false rumor. The rumor goes that uh if uh refugees reach parts of Sua then Spain would naturally grant them citizenship. Believing the false rumor, large number of people had taken the risk. But the question which you have to ask ourself is how exactly did Sweda come under Spanish control. Well, this dates back to 15th and 16th century. If you go back to history in the 15th and 16th century, the supremacy of controlling the Atlantic Ocean belonged to the Portuguese and the Spanish. And before the French and the British entered, it was the Spanish and Portuguese who were constantly fighting for control of territory. The territorial control did not end with parts of Africa and parts of Asia, but it also spilled over into major trading ports and islands. That is exactly how Spain captured the enclave of Sua from Portugal in the year 1580 and after capturing it is made sure that it has developed this area over a period of time and it continues to be an important city for trade. Now you have to keep it in mind that this reason for illegal immigration is because of a problem in the other part of Africa. We had discussed about this in an earlier episode regarding Mali where we spoke about the Sahil region. The Sahil region is present south of the Shahara desert. Here you have countries like Niger, Mali, Chad including parts of Sudan and these countries are politically unstable and they have a collapsing economy which is triggered partially by climate change. Because of this there is large distress migration from parts of Sahil. So refugees take a lot of risk crossing the shahara desert and once you cross the shahara desert and reach northern part of Africa from northern part of Africa it's possible to either try to reach Spain or France on the other side of Mediterranean Sea you should also note one of the other reasons for this trigger in illegal immigration is the situation in Morocco in Morocco even though there is a high number of uh literacy high number of people who have studied who are graduates you still have the issue of generating enough employment opportunities for them. So that is with reference to the discussion on Soita and let's say whether you can get the second question correct. Consider the following countries Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece. How many of the above European countries have enclaves in northern part of Africa? So feel free to pause the video and then try to answer this particular question. Right? So for those of you who got it correct, congratulations. The answer for this question is A. Spain is the only country which continues to hold enclaves in northern part of Africa whereas the other countries which border the Mediterranean Sea in southern part of Europe do not. So it is only Spain that's an easier point for prelims examination. So with this let me take you to the next issue. Yeah it continues to bug now and then you have to discard and then get back again. Now there it is. The issue which you're going to see right now is actually a static issue. It's been there for quite some time. So again with reference to uh cavary water sharing the issue has boiled over between the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. But you have to keep it in mind. This time it is very specific to the dam at Mead. So we have to ask ourselves some basic questions. Where exactly is a dam and what is the purpose of construction? Why exactly there is a dispute? So with these questions, let's begin to look at the location of the map. So this is the the black line which you see right here that is the border between the two states of Karnataka and Dhamadu and for reference you can pretty much see where the city of Bengaluru is a very important uh metropolitan city in the world today and very important city for India's economic growth, GDP and development. So with this in mind you have to know that 100 kilometers away from Bengaluru is where the present meat dam is planned. It's right here. So you can pretty much understand how far it is. And where is it present? Like approximately 3 kilometers from the place where the river Caviri meets with the tributary Araati. So this is the Caviri river and the Kawi river meets with the Arakawati river and just immediately south of the just 3 km hardly is where you have the planned construction of Megatu. So this is the location perspective on where exactly it is present. Now we have to ask two questions like one from the Karnataka perspective and the second from the Tamilad perspective. What exactly is the reason why they want to go for dam construction. So first let's start from what is the design of this the second part then let's answer the question directly. So if you look at this particular issue I was insistent right from the start that it is not a current issue. This issue as old as 1948 immediately after India obtained independence. So you have to know the main purpose of the project initially was about hydroelectric power generation. You have to know across the Kaviri river we already have major hydroelectric power projects and reservoirs including Krishna dam the company reservoir. Beyond them the initial plan was actually about having a hydroelectric power. Later if you look at the present idea of construction of the dam at Meadu the plan is to construct a reservoir. Pardon me. And this reservoir is expected to have a capacity of approximately 67 TMC of water. Now the main reason for this is actually right there. You have to keep it in mind that if you look at the population of Bengaluru today, it is roughly 1.3 crores of 13 million. And right now this is the water which is supplied to the city of Bengaluru, 1450 million [clears throat] lit a day. And you know that if you take the last 25 years of India's uh you know economic growth compared to even cities like Mumbai or Delhi or Hyderabad or Chennai it is a state it is a city of Bengaluru which has experienced a tremendous amount of economic growth and urban sprawl. So as you know there is more and more migration into the city of Bengalur. The city has expanded and with the expansion you have more and more water demand. So it is expected that within the next 5 years the population may come close to 2 crores or 20 million. Think about it two cror people living in a single city. So if this is going to be a water requirement then it is projected to increase not double but close to triple of the current water requirement if you keep the problems of climate change. So you want to link this with the last point from the 2018 Supreme Court judgment. Karnataka has been allocated and allocated an additional 4.75 TMC ft of water. So by constructing the reservoir, Karnataka aims to use that excess 4.75 TMC ft of water which was acknowledged by the Supreme Court judgment. This additional water to be diversion for the city of Bengaluru. So you have to know there will be losses with a distance to we have a distance of close to 100 km. So that is the aim regarding the construction of the reservoir. So this is from the uh Karnataka's perspective. Now let's look at the issue from Tamil Nadu's perspective. Now why is there the dispute on construction? Because at the end of the day the plan is only to use that excess amount of water or additional water which has been given by Supreme Court judgment. So if Karnataka goes for reservoir construction, why is there confusion in the state of Tamadu? It's because of the location of Tamil Nadu. As all of you would know, Tamon is one of the few places which does not receive excess rainfall during a southwest monsoon as primarily because of the location of western gards. Western guards are a strong orographic barrier and the southwest monsoon winds are mostly blocked by western guards creating rain shadow effects for the state of Tamadu. So most of the state is dry during the highest monsoon months that is starting from June to September. Now why is it important? Well because Indian agriculture even though the penetration has crossed 50 55%. You have to understand that micro irrigation has not really expanded in India. So without rainfall it is pretty difficult to go ahead with your agriculture especially in the cavary delta region right here. So the cow delta region is practically again is practically the rice bowl of India right here. It's on the eastern coastal plane. So without having enough rainfall as it's already a rain shadow region the consistent flow of water from Kavi river is essential for continuing agriculture in the state of Tamil Nadu. So when you go for another reservoir in the state of Karnataka, it naturally becomes yeah it naturally becomes one more additional level of control. So if you have a dam right here then that's one more knob which you can control. So naturally that is the main reason uh for the issues in Tamadu where you have a serious question of trust. Okay. where if you have one more reservoir will it become one more level of control where during the dry months we may not receive as much water as is required for our agricultural system. Again keep this in mind that this issue is something which usually uh occurs every four years or every seven years based on the amount of rainfall received. If the amount of rainfall quantum of rainfall received is pretty high in a particular month then we do not have in in a particular year we do not have an issue. The problem usually arises in drought years because when there is drought years there is always this question of water sharing you know spiking through. So to solve this problem you have to understand there are some deep structural issues across the cavary river basin and until and unless those issues are solved the dispute cannot be completely resolved even if you know uh the central government steps in even if the high court is stepping in or the supreme court is stepping in or the cavary water management authority is stepping in. So there it is. Let's understand the structural issues which you want to tackle. Fine. The first point is regarding urban spraw in Bengaluru. Urban sprawl is a term which is assigned when you have uncontrolled expansion of the urban area into the surrounding rural areas. In 1970s if you look at Bengaluru the total builtup area that is the area which was uh covered by concrete uh and roads and buildings was less than 50%. And in the last 50 years starting from 1975 to 2025 if you check the data the builtup area has increased to 97 to 98%. So at the cost of urban expansion most of Bengaluru's lakes and the wetlands has been lost. So once the city starts losing its surface water it starts exploiting its groundwater and once the groundwater reaches you know uh a situation of alarm or emergency then the surface water resources surrounding Bengaluru becomes a serious issue. So the answer lies within Bengalur itself where there has to be greater reclamation of wetlands so that the city is able to serve its own needs rather than collecting water from the surrounding rural areas or overexploitation of groundwater. Keep that in mind. This problem is not unique to the city of Bengaluru. You have the same issue for the city of Chennai where Chennai is originally a place where you had more than 700 wetlands. And if you are following news regularly, there are multiple articles written about Palikarn marsh land every two weeks or 3 weeks where they speak about how exactly to construct or should we allow for urban expansion around Palikarn marsh land which is already suffering from plastic pollution and heavy metal pollution due to poor waste management. So you have to know that this urban sprawl issue is not typical to Bengaluru. It is also true for places like Chennai or a place like Hyderabad where wetlands and local water resources were sacrificed for the development of the city you know horizontally instead of vertically. That's one major issue it has to be addressed. Second is regarding water intensive agriculture. You have to know the crops like rice and sugar cane consume a lot of water. It's not about water consumption alone. It's about the method of irrigation. Rice cultivation in India primarily uses flood irrigation system and even for other crops which do not require as much water as rice. You have to know that you do not have penetration of micro irrigation systems in India. When we talk about micro irrigation, we are talking about drip or sprinkle irrigation which has better chances of providing efficient water and micro irrigation penetration is roughly around 11 to 12% based on the economic survey which was released last released this year. So only if you start improving water efficiency in agriculture, total water requirement can be reduced. So water intensive agriculture is a common thing for the entire cavary basin in both the states of Karnataka and Tamada which has to be looked at. Third is regarding the loss of tributaries. One of the major problems in drainage basin conservation in India is that the focus is on the main river and few tributaries of the main river. But if you read the down to earth magazine which was you know published last week you know the last fortnight they had discussed about the importance of yeah they had discussed about the importance of drains. Drains become active only during the uh monsoon season. They are seasonal flows which are present only for some point of time. But the problem is when seasonal rivers are reclassified as drains then automatically you don't have the concept of conservation of those seasonal or ephemeral streams which are active only for four to five months of the year. So with more and more expansion of agriculture with more and more urbanization those areas become dump sites for waste. So river basin management has to become holistic where instead of few tributaries the entire system has to be relocated. It's very much possible through land records and data starting from 1960s and '7s to trace the origin or trace the location of major tributaries not just for Kiri river basin but for several other lakes and wetlands. So once you start recovering existing water sources then only then only then it is possible to make sure that even under a drought issue even under a drought year the situation between the two states does not escalate. So that is why I've headlined it as you know a structural problem so as long as you solve the structural problem this issue will not resolve itself on its own. So we'll have to wait and see how this continues. Okay. So let me throw show you question number three. Consider the following rivers Hawati, Vawati and Shravati. How many of the above rivers are tributaries of river cavi? So feel free to pause the video and then try to answer this particular question. Right. Congratulations for those of you who got the question correct. The answer for this question regarding tributaries of river caviri is a again one only. Bedawati is a tributary of another important river in Karnataka tungadra. And if you take Shraati, Shravati is a west flowing river on the western part of Karnataka from western guts. This is famous for joke holes as all of you would know. Let me take you to the last issue. It's a minor issue. Here we go. Pacific Island officially changes his name to Noo. So let me just show you where it is. And uh we just want to ask ourselves a question. Is there anything unique about Z? So here is no. So you to want to to have references keep this in mind. This is Australia and uh this is where you have Papa Newu Guini. So to the eastern side of Papa New Guinea usually when we prepare we prepare Solomon Islands but immediately south of your equator. Okay the where you have my index finger that's where you have the equator immediately south of equator you where you have this small island energy now. So keep this in mind maybe important for your prelims mapping systems because they can ask you to arrange islands. So it's north of Solomon Islands. So economic perspective is pretty easy to understand. When you are a small island in the Pacific Ocean, naturally you have a very large exclusive economic zone which is highly efficient which which is highly useful if you're trying to exploit resources. One more thing which I'd like to discuss about now you know is one important research which they had and using past tense this island was highly rich in rock phosphate and if you go to 1980 it was one of the richest countries in the world when you take per capita why because as you know phosphate is the raw material for persotic fertilizer so throughout the 20th century starting from even early 1900s you had a lot of companies coming to no coming to NU or no to exploit rock phosphoritch. So once you have extensive mining then you naturally know what happens to your land area. Most of your land area becomes uncultivable. Well it's not a problem if you make sure that you use the money properly because with exports of phosphate and phosphatic fertilizer large number of companies you know companies coming in you had a lot of investment because of investment it led to tremendous amount of economic growth and that economic growth became disposable income. But the disposable income which you have if it is not invested properly and most of it is used for wasteful spending then when your resources begin to decline then you have a serious problem. That's exactly what happened to the island. Their economic growth and the total amount of money which they made in this business was not saved properly and was wasted. So finally when rock phosphate resources declined there was a sudden economic crash in the 20th century. So that's the problem with having too much of resources or the resource cost theory where most of your uh specialization expertise and economy is based on one single commodity and when the commodity is lost then you automatically have economic collapse. So with this let me take you to the last discussion. This is just a quick recall I just want to make. uh in the third episode that is in uh mid July we had discussed about Mediterranean wildfires and Mediterranean wildfires has been consistently in use through uh July 4th week and even the 1st and second week of August. So I just want to address a term which was in use because back then when we made the video this is not popularly reported even though it is an existing climatic term. Just know what is climatic whiplash? Climatic whiplash is a condition where you have extreme rapid change in your climatic system. Meaning if you take Mediterranean climate, Mediterranean climate as all of you know has wet winters. Hopefully I'm able to finish this without any interrupt. No, the stencil and dry summer. We had clearly explained earlier that Mediterranean climate is made of shrubs, right? You have you have a steerable type of forest. So that is why during a dry summer there is a greater chance of wildfire. Now think about a condition where your winters are really wet. You have extremely high amount of rainfall in winter season. So what happens? Well, you have tremendous growth of shrubs. You have a lot of grass also. Now you have very thick vegetation. Now follow that up with the summer which is extremely dry. So you're creating a dipole condition where your winter is having more rainfall and your summer is having very less rainfall. So during these extremely dry conditions when you have too many plants there's greater chance that the wildfire will continue to persist and spread. If your rainfall was limited then you may not have that level of thickness or undergrowth. So keep that in mind. Climate whiplash is an extreme event where you have an oscillation between two different climatic regimes or rapid or severe change in your weather and climate. So with that, let me wrap up the fifth episode of artist agenda. And I know that we're lagging by two weeks. That's because of because of other commitments. But uh in the following two weeks, I think we'll be we'll pretty much match up those backlogs and then we'll be on track. Thanks for your time. This is Goautam signing off. [music]