Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 21st July 2021

What is in news : BBMP is set to extend the E-Aasthi project to all the wards in the three core zones – South, East and West.

About :

• Aim  is to sanitise revenue records, bring in transparency and accountability, apart from stamping out illegal transactions and cutting out middlemen
• Process of procuring a software licence from a multi-national company for the project.
• Developed by the National Informatics Centre for all urban local bodies, was later customised for BBMP with help from Directorate of Municipal Administration and State Data Centre.

What is in news : The government on 19th July, 2021 had introduced a Bill in the Rajya Sabha that seeks to repeal the decades old Lighthouse Act of 1927 to make way for shifting to modern aids from lighthouses for marine navigation.

Highlights:

• Bill is very important for developing the entire navigation system of India
• Aimed at maintenance, development and management of marine aids to navigation around the country.
• Development of vessel traffic services for enhancing the efficiency and safety of shipping, marking of wrecks in general waters to indicate sunken or stranded vessels for safe navigation and to protect the environment
• Development of heritage lighthouses across the nation.

ECONOMY

What is in news : Many aquaculture farmers in Andhra Pradesh are planning to update the details of their produce online and market their stocks through e-Santa, an electronic marketplace to export marine products

E-SANTA

• Full form - Electronic Solution for Augmenting NaCSA farmers' Trade in Aquaculture.
• What-
• Digital bridge to end the market divide and will act as an alternative marketing tool between farmers & buyers by eliminating middlemen.
• Use - Farmers can freely list their produce and quote their price while the exporters have the freedom to list their requirements and also to choose the products based on their requirements such as desired size, location, harvest dates etc.

NaCSA

• Full Form - National Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture
• Extension arm of Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), Ministry of Commerce & Industry Govt. of India.
• Objectives - Encourage and uplift the small and marginal farmers through organization of clusters and maintaining Best Management Practices in shrimp culture.

What is in news : As of 25th June, 2021, India has surpassed Japan, China, Russia and Switzerland to become the world’s fifth-largest foreign exchange reserve holder.

Details:

• India’s
  • Balance of payments has surpluses in both the capital and current accounts in the year 2020-21 which largely contributed to the gains in the foreign exchange reserves of the country.
  • Present foreign exchange reserves are sufficient enough to provide a buffer against unforeseen external shocks and also to cover imports for more than 18 months.
• RBI’s intervention in the foreign exchange market to smooth out valuation changes due to movement of the US dollar against other international currencies in the reserve basket, exchange rate volatility, movement in gold prices, inflow of aid receipts and interest earnings from the deployment of foreign currency assets are the main causes for the variation in the country’s Forex reserves.
• Rising foreign exchange reserves which is accompanied by current account deficit shows a balance of payments surplus.

Forex Reserves: The Forex reserves are assets which are held by the central bank of a country and it mainly comprise of bonds, foreign currencies, gold, bank deposits, financial assets and special drawing rights.

What is in news : World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has recently released a report citing the relations between extreme weather events and climate change

Which are the events :

The unprecedented heat wave that drove temperatures across Canada and parts of the United States

Floods in Germany

Cyclones Tauktae and Yaas that hit India's west and east coasts

How is Climate Change responsible :

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere averaged 419 parts per million in May this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Global temperatures are likely to continue to increase due to the release of greenhouse gases

Rising average global temperature is making heavy rainfall more likely. Warmer air carries more moisture, meaning that more water will be released eventually

Temperatures at the Earth’s poles are rising at two to three times the temperature at the equator, which weakens the jet stream of the mid-latitudes, situated over Europe. During summer and autumn, the weakening of the jet stream has a causal effect resulting in slower-moving storms. This can result in more severe and longer-lasting storms with increased intensity.

What is in news : IOC, India’s largest oil firm will build the country’s first ‘green hydrogen’ plant at its refinery in Mathura. This decision has been undertaken with the view of preparing for a future to cater to the growing demands cleaner forms of energy.

Highlights

• Earlier, ‘grey hydrogen’ production projects have been announced making use of fossil fuels such as natural gas.
• Several hydrogen production units are being planned to be set up by IOC.
• With Hydrogen fuel cell powered buses are plying on the road it will be essential to set up hydrogen power plants.

Types of Hydrogen Plants

• Hydrogen is the latest buzz as it is a clean fuel but manufacturing it causes carbon by-products and it is energy-intensive.
• Through the process of coal gasification brown hydrogen is created while this process throws off carbon waste.
• Blue hydrogen uses carbon capture.
• The ultimate clean hydrogen resource is green hydrogen production and it uses renewable energy to create the hydrogen fuel.
• Hydrogen is also said to be a fuel for the future.

Importance of clean energy in India: Forecasts state that Indian fuel demand will climb to 400-450 million tonnes by 2040 as against 250 million tonnes and hence, it will be important to invest in CNG, LNG, ethanol and biodiesel.

About IOC: Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) is a government owned gas and Oil Corporation that was founded in the year 1959. It’s headquarter is located in Delhi and the current chairman is Shrikant Madhav Vaidya.

What is in news : Kickstarting the formal process for building six conventional submarines indigenously under the Project 75 India or P-75I, the government issued a Request for Proposal (RPF) to the two selected Indian Strategic Partners (SP)

AIR INDEPENDENT PROPULSION (AIP) TECHNOLOGY IN SUBMARINES

• Submarines are essentially of two types: conventional and nuclear. Conventional submarines use a diesel-electric engine, and must surface daily for oxygen for fuel combustion. If fitted with an Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) system, the sub needs to take in oxygen only once a week.
• In a fuel cell AIP, an electrolytic fuel cell releases energy by combining hydrogen and oxygen, with only water as the waste product. The cells are highly efficient, and do not have moving parts, thus ensuring that the submarine has a low acoustic signature. Older submarines can be adapted to the AIP system by retrofitting.

• A fuel cell-based AIP, like the one developed by DRDO, is known to deliver better performance compared to other technologies.

PROJECT 75 I

• Project-75(I) envisages indigenous construction of six modern conventional submarines (including associated shore support, Engineering Support Package, training and spares package) with contemporary equipment, weapons & sensors including Fuel-Cell based AIP (Air Independent Propulsion Plant), advanced torpedoes, modern missiles and state of the art countermeasure systems.
• This would provide a major boost to the indigenous design and construction capability of submarines in India, in addition to bringing in the latest submarine design and technologies as part of the project

What is in news : Kickstarting the formal process for building six conventional submarines indigenously under the Project 75 India or P-75I, the government issued a Request for Proposal (RPF) to the two selected Indian Strategic Partners (SP)

About :

• Most advanced anti-missile system in the world
• Range - 600km
• Capable of countering attacks from the space
• Successfully hit a high-speed ballistic target
• Zircon is a part of a new arsenal of weapons of Russia

• The first horticultural crop processing cluster of the State, including a mango processing unit, will be set up in Ramanagaram district on a PPP model, with an estimated investment of ₹500 crore
• India, under its Chairship in 2021, presented the calendar of events for BRICS CGETI 2021, which included the priority areas for deliverables, schedule and scope of the MSME roundtable conference workshop on Services Statistics, and the BRICS Trade Fair. This was followed by a series of presentations, scheduled in separate sessions, made by the concerned Departments of the Government of India on the proposed deliverables during India’s Chairship under the BRICS CGETI track.
• Pedro Castillo has been announced as Peru’s new president-elect, six weeks after a polarising vote in which, Keliko Fujimori, Castillo’s right wing rival, had alleged electoral fraud.
• Leading tyre manufacturer MRF Ltd. is working on a multipronged ‘4R’ strategy to improve sustainability of the industry.The 4Rs relate to reduce, recycle, reuse and renewable

A Stock Market Bubble/Equity Bubble is a type of economic bubble taking place in stock markets when market participants drive stock prices above their value in relation to some system of stock valuation.

Behavioral finance theory attributes stock market bubbles to cognitive biases that lead to groupthink and herd behavior