Great knot sighting untangles a migration mystery

• Unveiling yet another mystery of avian migrations, a great knot from Russia, belonging to the endangered Calidris tenuirostris (Hors- field, 1821), has found its way to Kerala’s coast, “ying over 9,000 km for a winter sojourn.
• The migratory bird that traversed the Central Asian Flyway (CAF) is only one of the two the other has been sighted at Jamnagar in Gujarat — great knots to be re-sighted in India among the nearly thousand ones tagged with MOSKVA rings in the Kamchatka peninsula in eastern Russia.

About Great knot

Great Knot (Calidris tenuirostris) is a small wader or shorebird. It is a medium-sized shorebird with a straight, slender bill of medium length and a heavily streaked head and neck.

It is an international migratory wading bird that travels vast distances between the Northern Hemisphere breeding grounds and Southern Hemisphere summer feeding grounds.

IUCN Status: Endangered

Distribution: Great Knots occur around coastal areas in many parts of Australia during the southern summer. They breed in eastern Siberia, and when on migration they occur throughout coastal regions of eastern and Southeast Asia.

Habitat: In Australia, Great Knots inhabit intertidal mudflats and sandflats in sheltered coasts, including bays harbours and estuaries. They forage on the moist mud, and they often roost on beaches or in nearby low vegetation, such as mangroves or dune vegetation.

COP-27 forms loss and damage fund, new panel to decide its structure

• Delegates at the U.N.’s climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt thrashed out an agreement on Sunday to establish a ‘Loss and Damages’ fund to compensate the most vulnerable countries for damages from climate-linked disasters, after nearly 40 hours of negotiation beyond the prescribed Friday deadline.
• Crucial questions — such as who will manage this fund, whether contributions are expected from large developing countries and what the fair share of contributors will be — have been left to a “transitional committee” that will make recommendations to enable the actual adoption of the fund at the next Conference of the Parties (COP) of the U.N.’s Framework Convention for Climate Change, to be held in the United Arab Emirates next year.
• The announcement of the L&D fund was the highlight of the two-week long process that saw little agreement among countries on other issues, such as a call to eliminate all forms of fossil fuel or delivering on climate finance to developing countries.
• The conference saw nearly 45,000 participants, including indigenous peoples, local communities, cities and civil society, youth and children.
• The agreement and pledges made on loss and damage aim to unlock greater ambitions for mitigation and adaptation.
• During COP27, financial pledges for loss and damage funding came from multiple countries, including Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, and New Zealand, joining Denmark and Scotland, which had made pledges previously.
• The expected monetary compensation from the L&D fund is estimated to be nearly $500 billion and rising by $200 billion annually, a statement from the office of the Presidency added.

India has given $15 bn as soft loans to neighbours’

• The volume of India’s soft loans to neighbouring countries has increased from about $3 billion to almost $15 billion in the last eight years.
• Speaking at the Purvottar Swabhiman Utsav organised by the Army’s Eastern Command in Guwahati on Sunday, he said the Asian Development Bank had once marked South Asia as the least integrated region on earth.
• In order to change the perception, India replaced the Look East policy with the Act East policy to incorporate neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal in the plan to develop infrastructure and connectivity, Mr. Shringla said.
• “As part of this policy, there is an ambition to upgrade the infrastructure, rail, telecom, power and waterways to strengthen our economic, technological, political and security ties with South East Asia, the fastest-growing region in the world beyond the northeast,” the diplomat said.

India’s rank as per the ‘Network Readiness Index 2022 Report is 61.

Dr. CV Ananda Bose has been appointed as the Governor of West Bengal.

International Gita Mahotsav being organized at Kurukshetra, Haryana

Donyi Polo Airport  is the first Greenfield airport in Arunachal Pradesh inaugurated by PM Modi

India’s first Astro Park cum Science City be developed at Haldwani

Inauguration of the GeoSmart India 2022 Summit in Hyderabad

 Source : THE HINDU