Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 01 July 2022

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Niti Aayog has proposed setting up green hydrogen corridors and providing grants and support to entrepreneurs to promote its production, storage and export.
In a report titled 'Harnessing Green Hydrogen - Opportunities for Deep Decarbonisation in India', Niti Aayog also said there is a need to facilitate investment through demand aggregation and dollar-based bidding for green hydrogen.

About Green Hydrogen:

Green hydrogen is produced by electrolysis of water using renewable energy or from biomass.

Key observations of the report:

Green hydrogen can abate 3.6 gigatons of cumulative CO2 emissions by 2050Key
Demand: Hydrogen demand in India could grow more than fourfold by 2050,representing almost 10% of global demand.
Industrial Decarbonisation: Green Hydrogen is crucial for decarbonisation ofharder-to-abate sectors such as fertilizers, refining, methanol, maritimeshipping, iron & steel and transport.

The government allowed firms like ONGC and Vedanta to sell locally produced crude oil to any Indian refinery for turning it into fuel, such as petrol and diesel, as it deregulated one of the last few avenues that were still under its control.
While contracts for oilfields awarded since 1999 gave producers the freedom to sell oil, the government fixed buyers for crude produced from older fields, such as Mumbai High of ONGC and Ravva of Vedanta.
However, the ban on the export of crude oil will continue.

Impact:

Greater transparency in production, infrastructure and marketing of crude oil. All exploration and production (E&P) companies willnow have freedom to sell oil from their fields in the domestic market.
Incentivizing private investments in the upstream oil and gas sector forincreased exploration and production; helping to reduce importdependence.
Promotion of Ease of Doing Business through greater operationalflexibility to operators/industry.
Increased Government Revenues through royalty and cess.

Representatives of NATO member states gathered in Madrid on Tuesday (June 28) for a summit.
They will be finalising their first strategic concept document since 2010, which will lay out the present challenges faced by the alliance and its strategy for the future.

About:

Established in 1949 with the signing of the Washington Treaty in response to the perceived threat of theSoviet Union’s expansion in post-war Europe.
NATO is a security alliance of 30 countries from North America and Europe.
The principle of collective defence is at the very heart of NATO’s founding treaty.
Fundamental goal is to safeguard the Allies’ freedom and security by political and military means.

Key highlights:

NATO approved the new Strategic Concept, which describes how NATO will address threats and challenges in its securityenvironment in coming years.
NATO to boost number of troops on high alert to over 300,000 compared to 40,000 troops that currently make up NATOResponse Force (NRF).
NATO Membership Invitations for Finland and Sweden, after Turkey lifted its veto on their membership.
The document de¬nes Russia as the most signi¬ficant and direct threat to NATO’s security.

Russian forces left out the strategic Black Sea outpost of Snake Island, in a major victory for Ukraine that could loosen the grip of Russia’s blockade on Ukrainian ports.

About:

Snake Island, also known as Serpent Island or Zmiinyi Island, is an island belonging to Ukraine located in the Black Sea, near the Danube Delta, with an important role in delimiting Ukrainian territorial waters.
On 24 February 2022, two Russian navy warships attacked and captured Snake Island. On 30 June 2022, Ukraine said that it had pushed Russian forces from the island.
The bare rocky outcrop overlooks sea lanes to Odesa, Ukraine’s main Black Sea port, where Russia is blocking food cargos from one of the world’s leading grain suppliers.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman released the Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP)- 2020 in New Delhi.

About:

In the report, seven states have been identified as the top achievers based on implementation of the Business Reforms Action Plan. The states are Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Telangana and Tamil Nadu.
The report further mentioned that Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh figure under the Achievers category. While Assam, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Jharkhand, Kerala, Rajasthan and West Bengal have been placed in the Aspirers category.

NASA launchedCislunar AutonomousPositioning SystemTechnology Operations andNavigation Experiment(CAPSTONE), a CubeSat that will fly in cislunar space, the orbital space near anaround the Moon.

About CAPSTONE:

The orbit is known as a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO), located at a precise balance point in the gravities of Earth and the Moon.
It is headed toward an orbit intended in the future for Gateway, a Moon-orbiting outpost (partof NASA’s Artemis program).
As a pathfinder for Gateway, CAPSTONE aims to help reduce risk for future spacecraft byvalidating innovative navigation technologies, and by verifying the dynamics of the halo-shapedorbit.