World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has released the first-ever global assessment of forest biodiversity.

Key findings:

• There has been a 53% decline in the number of forest wildlife populations since 1970.
• Of the 455 monitored populations of forest specialists, more than half declined at an annual rate of 1.7 per cent, on average between 1970 and 2014.
• While the decline was consistent in these years among mammals, reptiles and amphibians (particularly from the tropical forests), it was less among birds (especially from temperate forests).

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Learning: Do not be confused between Stockholm declaration and Stockholm Convention. The latter deals with PoPs.

The Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, or Stockholm Declaration, was adopted June 16, 1972 by the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment at the 21st plenary meeting as the first document in international environmental law to recognize the right to a healthy environment.

Q Source: Major agreements on environment

Vulcanization or vulcanisation is a chemical process for converting natural rubber or related polymers into more durable materials by heating them with sulfur[1] or other equivalent curatives or accelerators. These additives modify the polymer by forming cross-links (bridges) between individual polymer chains.

Advantages of Vulcanized rubber:

• It has good tensile strength and extensibility.
• Excellent resilience i.e.it returns to the original shape, when the deforming load is removed.
• Low water absorption tendency.
• Higher resistance to oxidation, wear and tear abrasion.
• Better electrical insulator .
• It is resistant to organic solvents (petro, benzene), fats and oils.
• It has higher useful temperature range unlike uncured rubber which becomes soft at high temperature(>335K) and brittle at low temperatures (<283K)

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The Union Cabinet, has approved the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI) Bill, 2017 to be introduced in the Parliament. According to the finance ministry, FRDI Bill, 2017 seeks to protect customers of financial service providers in times of financial distress. The Bill would also help in maintaining financial stability in the economy by ensuring adequate preventive measures, while at the same time providing the necessary instruments for dealing with crisis event

Recognising the importance of data protection and keeping personal data of citizens secure and protected, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India has constituted a Committee of Experts under the Chairmanship of Justice B N Srikrishna, Former Judge, Supreme Court of India and comprising of members from Government, Academia and Industry to study and identify key data protection issues and recommend methods for addressing them. The committee will also suggest a draft Data Protection Bill. Protection of Data is expected to provide big boost to Digital economy of the country.