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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 05 October 2021

::NATIONAL::

The Union government notified the Plastic Waste Management (Second Amendment) Rules, 2021 allowing recycled plastic in food packaging.

About:

Amendment said that carry bags made of recycled plastic or products made of recycled plastic can be used in food packaging.
Experts have voiced apprehension over the move as there is a possibility of presence of poisonous substance in recycled plastic bags.
As Plastic is used in variety of sectors, it raises concern of the source of recycled plastic that will be used in food contact applications.
Use of recycled plastic was prohibited for food contact applications in the Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016.

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It is a digital skills programme to enhance the employability of youth by imparting digital skills that are required in an increasingly technology driven era.
This is a joint initiative with Microsoft India.
Free of cost training in digital skills including basic skills as well as advance computing will be provided to more than three lakh youths in the first year.
Jobseekers can access the training through National Career Service (NCS) Portal.
It gives priority to job-seekers of semi-urban areas belonging to disadvantaged communities.

About:

Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth, is an association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language.

Members:

Brazil, Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Portugal,Sao Tome and Principe, and Timor-Leste.
Main objectives of CPLP includes political and diplomatic coordination; cooperation in all areas;and promotion and diffusion of the Portuguese language.

The International Monetary Fund said while the crypto ecosystem continues to grow, it poses serious challenges to a country’s financial stability.

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It added that this could be particularly true for emerging markets and developing economies.
India has seen a massive spurt in crypto users of late.
The number of blockchain start-ups surpassed 300 in 2021, with the daily crypto trading volume peaking between $300 -$500 million.
As per Global Consumer Survey in 2020, 99 per cent of its respondents responded that they did trade in cryptocurrencies.
India ranks higher than China, United States, Germany and Japan in crypto adoption. Nigeria, Vietnam and Philippines topped the mentioned survey.
Challenges posed by the crypto ecosystem include operational and financial integrity risks from crypto asset providers, investor protection risks for crypto-assets and Defi, and inadequate reserves and disclosure for some stablecoins.

Other information:

IMF in its Global Financial Stability Report 2021 pointed out that for emerging market and developing economies, adoption of cryptocurrency might be luring but they also come with a set of potential macro-financial risks, especially with respect to asset and currency substitution.
IMF referred to this phenomenon as ‘cryptoization’.

Basel III is an internationally agreed set of measures developed by the Basel Committee onBanking Supervision in response to the financial crisis of 2007-09.
The measures aim to strengthen the regulation, supervision and risk management of banks.

It has 3 pillars:

Other information:

Members are committed to implementing and applying standards in their jurisdictions within the time frame established by the Committee.
Reserve Bank of India had deferred implementation of provisions made under Basel III capital due to uncertainty related to Covid crisis.

American scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian have won the 2021 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.

What did they find?

In 1997, Dr. Julius and his team published a paper in Nature detailing how capsaicin, or the chemical compound in chilli peppers, causes the burning sensation.
They created a library of DNA fragments to understand the corresponding genes and finally discovered a new capsaicin receptor and named it TRPV1.
This discovery paved the way for the identification of many other temperature-sensing receptors.
Ardem Patapoutian further studied if these receptors can be activated by mechanical stimuli. His team poked cells with a micropipette and identified a cell line that produced an electric signal in response.
They identified a single gene, which when silenced made the cells insensitive to the poking. They named this new mechanosensitive ion channel Piezo1.