3rd November Newspaper Notes - India Bangladesh Land Border Agreement, Olive Ridley Turtles declining, CPCB to segregate polluting industrial establishment, Probable Cure of Ebola

1.There has been a fresh call for ratifying land border agreement between India and Bangladesh which would help in resolving the issue of infiltration at the border by some measure. The bill concerning LBA is opposed on the solid grounds that if LBA gets passed then India will have to loose its few thousand acres of territory to Bangladesh.

2. Gahirmatha beach of Odisha which is a world famous nesting ground for the endangered species of Olive Ridley Turtles has still not seen them visiting this year. Last year also they had not visited the Gahirmatha beach but visited near Rushikulya river  mouth in numbers of around 60000 (2013-14). 

This year till now they have also not visited two other places where they regular arrive in the mid of October. These places are (1) Devi River Mouth (2) Rushikulya River Mouth

An environmentalist has said that the non arrival of turtles may be attributed to the recent Hudhud cyclone but another environmentalist has claimed that they can not be really sure that Hudhud is the reason. He said that the once famous nesting habitats of India have eroded so much that may be the Olive Ridley Turtles are not finding them conducive enough to nest on them. 

3. After getting a direction from Supreme Court, National Green Tribunal (NGT) has order CPCB Central Pollution Control Board to declare on its website the criteria of segregating industrial establishments into 2 classes -

(a) Seriously polluting (b) Not Seriously polluting. 

One more categorization is there – Red, orange and green .

Red category industries include – 

(a) Dyes (b) Pharmaceuticals (c) Tanneries (d) Sugar (e) Distilleries and village industries. 

Orange category includes – (a) Hotels and Restaurants (b) Automobile servicing etc. 

4. Bats have been said to be the biggest transmitter of deadly Ebola -

Bush-meat is a famous item of feeding in West and Central Africa. This Bushmeat can be infected with Ebola as the path can be something like this – Bats to squirrels, porcupines, monkeys and antelopes. Fruits infected with the Ebola virus through Bats can fall in the hand of humans or animals such as monkeys there by manifolding the catastrophic consequences. 

Reasons why Bats themselves are not effected by Ebola – 

Bats have highly actuated and permanent active immune system which protects them from 100 different types of deadly viruses which they carry on them but themselves do not get infected. Some assumptions of gene analysis also suggest that the possible reason of bats not contracting Ebola may be their power to fly but this still has not been proved yet. 

Solution to Ebola may lie in bats – 

Many scientists are working to explore the possibility that whether Bats can be of some help in solving this deadly Ebola virus. Only time would tell whether it can happen or not. 

Important Fact – Ebola disease was discovered in 1976 in Democratic Republic of Congo then known by the name of Zaire.