Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 09 November 2022

::NATIONAL::

National Population Register

• Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) 2021-22 annual report said that, there is a need to update the National Population Register (NPR) again to incorporate the changes due to birth, death and migration for which demographic and other particulars of each family and individual are to be collected.

About:

• The NPR, first prepared in 2010 and updated in 2015 by collecting information.
• According to Citizenship Rules 2003 is the first step towards compilation of a National Register of Citizens (NRC). 
• The Union government has clarified on multiple occasions that there was no proposal to compile the NRC as of now.
• The report said that the NPR is prepared under various provisions of the Citizenship Rules, 2003, framed under the Citizenship Act, 1955. 
• “In 2015, a few fields such as name, gender, date and place of birth, place of residence and father’s and mother’s name were updated and Aadhaar, mobile and ration card numbers were collected. 
• To incorporate the changes due to birth, death and migration, there is a need to update it again.
• The NPR that has a database of 115 crore residents is to be updated along with the first phase of Census that has been indefinitely postponed due to COVID-19. 
• NPR could be updated through self-enumeration as it is proposed to allow residents to update their own data fields after following some authentication protocols on a web portal.

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Aerosol pollution

• A recent study by scientists from the Bose Institute in Kolkata has revealed that aerosol pollution in West Bengal is anticipated to rise by 8% and continue to remain in the “highly vulnerable” red zone in 2023. This is the second highest forecasted aerosol pollution level in the country after Bihar.

About:

• Aerosols are fine particulates that float in the atmosphere. 
• Aerosol pollution refers to particles in the air emitted by vehicles and factories that burn fossil fuels. 
• This pollution contributes to asthma, bronchitis, and long-term irritation of the respiratory tract, which can lead to cancer.
• High aerosol amounts include particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) among other pollutants as well as sea salt, dust, black and organic carbon.
• Primary aerosols like dust, soot, or sea salt, come directly from the planet’s surface. They get lifted into the atmosphere by gusty winds, shot high into the air by exploding volcanoes, or they waft away from smokestacks or flames.
• Secondary aerosols form when different things floating in the atmosphere—like organic compounds released by plants, liquid acid droplets, or other materials—crash together, culminating in a chemical or physical reaction.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Mastodon

• Mastodon, an open-source social network has seen a surge in new sign-ups in recent days, overwhelming the site and its founder as the tiny operation struggles to keep up.

About:

• Mastodon is free and open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services. 
• It has microblogging features similar to the Twitter service, which are offered by a large number of independently run Mastodon nodes (technically known as instances), each with its own code of conduct, terms of service, privacy options, and moderation policies.
• Each user is a member of a specific Mastodon instance (also called a server), which can interoperate as a federated social network, allowing users on different nodes to interact with each other. 
• This is intended to give users the flexibility to select a server whose policies they prefer, but keep access to a larger social network. 
• Mastodon is also part of the Fediverse ensemble of server platforms, which use shared protocols allowing users to also interact with users on other compatible platforms, such as PeerTube and Friendica.

Carbon Billionaires

• An Oxfam report titled, Carbon Billionaires: The investment emissions of the world’s richest people, has said the world’s richest people emit “unsustainable amounts of carbon,” as compared with an ordinary person.

About:

• This report is based on the fact that every human on Earth has a carbon footprint, which can be divided into “personal consumption emissions, emissions through government spending and emissions linked to investments”.
• An analysis of the investments of 125 of the world’s richest billionaires was conducted by Oxfam International, and the report was published in November, 2022.
• It demonstrated that on average, billionaires are responsible for emitting “3 million tonnes” of carbon a year, which is, “more than a million times the average for someone in the bottom 90% of humanity”.
• It further found out that the 125 billionaires taken as a sample fund about 393 million tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) per year.
• This is equivalent to the “annual carbon emissions of France,” which is a nation of 67 million people. 
• In comparison, it said, “it would take 1.8 million cows to emit the same levels of CO2e as each of the 125 billionaires,” and “almost four million people would have to go vegan to offset the emissions of each of the billionaires”.

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::Economy::

Trade settlement for export promotion schemes in Indian rupee

• The government of India allowed trade settlement in the Indian currency for export promotion schemes.

About:

• With the amendment to the Foreign Trade Policy, invoicing, payment, and settlement of trade can now take place in Indian rupee.
• The Government of India has made suitable amendments in the Foreign Trade Policy and Handbook of Procedures to allow for International Trade Settlement in Indian Rupees (INR) i.e., invoicing, payment, and settlement of exports/imports in Indian Rupees. 
• Accordingly, benefits/incentives/fulfilment of Export Obligations under the Foreign Trade Policy will be extended for realisations in Indian Rupees as per the RBI guidelines.

::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

Vikram-S

• India’s first privately developed rocket, Vikram-S, is poised to create history as it undergoes final preparations at the ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) launchpad in Sriharikota for launch between November 12 and 16.

About:

• It was developed by the Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace.
• The mission named ‘Prarambh’ (the beginning), since it is the first mission for Skyroot.
• With this maiden mission, Skyroot is set to become the first private space company in India to launch a rocket into space.
• The launch mission will be a suborbital spaceflight, and will carry three customer payloads to the intended orbit.

Suborbital spaceflight:

• A suborbital spaceflight refers to a height of around 100km from the Earth's surface, and is done at a lower altitude than an orbital flight, which reaches at least a low-Earth orbit — between around 200km to 2,000km from Earth.
• Suborbital flights are known to be important for conducting tests of space missions, before final commercial missions take place.

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