Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 06 December 2021

::NATIONAL::

In an attempt to improve the connectivity among communities residing along the remote regions of north-eastern regions, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) in 2011 approved the ‘North Eastern States Roads Investment Programme’ (NESRIP).
It envisaged to construct/upgrade a total of 433.42 km-long stretch along 6 North-eastern states of Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura.
The project approved is supposed to be completed by August 2022.

Key highlights:

Improvement and Upgradation of road of Kalitakuchi to Barpeta & Bilasipara to Fakiragram (AS-11) (Tranche-1 Roads in the State of Assam) under NESRIP Project.
Upgrading road sections of Tamulpur to Paneri, Paneri to Udalguri, and 5 major bridges in Tranche-2 roads in the State of Assam under NESRIP.
Improvement & upgradation of road section of Melli-Nayabazar (Section from Km 17.10 to Nayabazar, and Nayabazar to Namchi (Tranche 1 roads in the state of Sikkim).
Improvement and upgradation of Serchhip to Buarpui Road in Mizoram.
Improvement and upgradation of Tupul to Bishnupur and Thoubal to Kasom Khullen stretch in Manipur.
Improvement and upgradation of Udaipur to Melaghar road in Tripura.

There is no proposal to introduce electronic voting in the upcoming general elections, Law Minister informed the Lok Sabha.

About:

e-voting allow electors to vote from faraway cities without going to the designated polling station of their constituencies.
The encrypted remote votes cast are validated at the pre-counting stage to ensure that they have neither been decrypted nor tampered with or replaced.

Benefits:

Concerns:

The United Nations Development Programme aims to almost triple its plastic waste management to 100 cities in India by 2024.

Key highlights:

Across India’s many towns and cities, which are often ranked among the world’s most polluted, the absence of an organized management of plastic waste leads to widespread littering and pollution.
The UNDP programme, which began in 2018, has so far collected 83,000 metric tonne of plastic waste. As India generates about 3.4 million tonnes of plastic waste annually.

Background:

The UNDP is also working with NITI Aayogand have jointly developed a handbook model for local municipalities as well as the private sector.
The handbook provides a comprehensive overview of Plastic Waste Management (PWM) by representing and discussing components of the entire plastic waste value chain.

Rescuers in Indonesia raced to find survivors in villages blanketed by molten ash after the eruption of Mount Semeru killed at least 14 persons and left dozens injured.

About:

Semeru, or Mount Semeru, is an active volcano in East Java, Indonesia.
It is located in a subduction zone, where the Indo-Australia plate subducts under the Eurasia plate.
It is the highest mountain on the island of Java.
The name “Semeru” is derived from Meru, the central world mountain in Hinduism, or Sumeru, the abode of gods.
This stratovolcano is also known as Mahameru, meaning “The Great Mountain” in Sanskrit.

The electronics and IT ministry released a national strategy on block chain for adopting the technology in government systems especially for e-governance services.

About:

The ministry has adopted a multi-institutional approach for the national block chain framework, which includes C-DAC for research and development of the framework, NIC and NICSI for hosting the national-level block chain infrastructure and offering block chain as a service.
The national strategy to evolve a trusted digital platform for providing e-governance services using block chain lays out overall vision and the development and implementation strategies for a National Block chain Platform.
Under the framework, the National e-Governance division will handle the implementation of projects undertaken by various ministries and departments at central as well as state levels.
The strategy seeks state government to develop state-specific block chain applications on the shared block chain infrastructure.

When Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace successfully test-fired Dhawan-1 last month, it became the country’s first privately developed, fully cryogenic rocket engine running on two high-performance rocket propellants — liquid natural gas (LNG) and liquid oxygen (LoX).

About:

The engine was developed using 3D printing with a superalloy.
That has set the city-based firm on a higher trajectory with an ambitious plan to launch the first private space launch vehicle using cryogenic engine Vikram-2 into orbit in two years.
Before that, the two co-founders — C. Pawan Kumar (IIT-Kharagpur, 2012 batch) and Naga Bharath D. (IIT-Madras, 2012 batch) — plan to put their first launch vehicle, 20-metre Vikram-1, based on solid propulsion engine, in space.
This was after successfully designing and developing the solid propulsion rocket engine, the first private firm in the country to do so.
The firm has already won a national award for start-ups in space research and had an online interaction with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.