Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 05 August 2022

::NATIONAL::

Incorporating two of the promises made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Glasgow conference last year, India enhanced its climate change targets for 2030.

About:

It was now committing itself to at least 45 per cent reduction in emissions intensity of GDP (emissions per unit of GDP) from 2005 levels. The existing target was a 33 to 35 per cent reduction.
At the same time, India is also promising to ensure that at least 50 per cent of installed electricity generation capacity in 2030 would be based on non-fossil fuel-based sources. This is an increase from the existing 40 per cent target.
Both these enhanced targets have been included in India’s updated NDC, or nationally determined contributions, that every country has to periodically finalise and submit to the UN climate body.
The updated NDC was approved by the union cabinet. India’s first NDC was submitted in October 2015, just ahead of the finalisation of the Paris Agreement, which formalised this process.

About:

CVC is a statutory body set up in 1964 on recommendations of Committee on Prevention ofCorruption, to advise and guide Central Government agencies in field of vigilance.
CV Commissioner consist of a chairperson and not more than two Vigilance Commissioners asMembers.

Appointment of CVC and its Members:

They are recommended by a three-member committee consisting of the Prime Minister, theUnion Minister of Home Affairs, and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

As part of a global ‘China-plus-one’ strategy adopted post the Covid-19 pandemic that caused massive supply-chain disruptions, a group of western nations are cooperating to develop alternatives to China to ensure key industrial supplies.

About:

A new US-led partnership initiative of 11 nations aims to bolster critical mineral supply chains. India is not part of this arrangement — called the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) — but New Delhi is working through diplomatic channels to fetch an entry.
The US and 10 partners — Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea (South Korea), Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the European Commission — have come together to form the MSP. The new grouping is aimed at catalysing investment from governments and the private sector to develop strategic opportunities.
The new grouping could focus on the supply chains of minerals such as Cobalt, Nickel, Lithium, and also the 17 ‘rare earth’ minerals.
What are rare earth elements?

China launched aggressive and unprecedented military exercises near Taiwan in response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island that Beijing claims as part of its territory.
As the long-range, live-fire drills began with China’s Eastern Theatre Command firing several ballistic missiles, Taiwan said that it was “preparing for war without seeking war”.
The “porcupine doctrine”
The “porcupine doctrine”, which was proposed in 2008 by US Naval War College research professor William S Murray, is a strategy of asymmetric warfare focused on fortifying a weak state’s defences to exploit the enemy’s weaknesses rather than taking on its strengths.
It is about building defences that would ensure that Taiwan “could be attacked and damaged but not defeated, at least without unacceptably high costs and risks”.
In its 2021 Quadrennial Defence Review, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence defined asymmetric systems as ones that are “small, numerous, smart, stealthy, mobile and hard to be detected and countered”, and “associated with innovative tactics and employments”. According to Taiwan’s former Chief of the General Staff Admiral Lee Hsi-ming, these systems are “a large number of small things”.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has launched the Unified Logistics Interface Platform’s (ULIP) Hackathon – ‘LogiXtics’ in order to crowdsource more ideas which will benefit the logistics industry.

About:

ULIP is designed to enhance efficiency and reduce logistics cost in India by creating a transparent platform that can provide real time information to all stakeholders and remove all asymmetry information.
The ULIP Hackathon – LogiXtics is organised by NITI Aayog and Atal Innovation Mission and supported by National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (NICDC) and NICDC Logistics Data Bank Services Limited (NLDSL).
NITI Aayog was entrusted by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the task of exploring the role of technology in various sectors. ULIP was conceptualised as one of the technology platforms in the logistics sector.
ULIP is being developed as a technology platform in the logistics sector which will provide real time information to all stakeholders and will converge visibility of multi-modal transport across the existing systems of various Ministries/Departments working in silos.

The Indian Space Research Organization will send a small satellite launch vehicle from Sriharikota.

About:

It is a three-stage vehicle with all solid propulsion stages.
The mission is to launch Earth Observation Satellite, EOS-02, and a co-passenger satellite, 'Azaadi SAT', into low earth orbit. The satellite will be launched from Sriharikota at around 9.18 a. m.
The 'Azaadi Satellite' is designed by 750 girl students of government schools in rural areas from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.