Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 08 April 2022

::NATIONAL::

The government plans to partner with the private sector as well as volunteer groups for its scheme for protection of vulnerable children such as those abandoned or missing.

Key highlights:

The Ministry of Women and Child Development sent its draft guidelines for Mission Vatsalya Scheme to States and Union Territories and solicited suggestions by April 18, 2022.
Mission Vatsalya is essentially rechristening of a pre-existing scheme called Child Protection Services, and also includes child welfare services.
The Union Cabinet approved Mission Vatsalya in January, 2022 and the draft guidelines is the first document that makes public the government’s intent for the scheme.
To encourage public participation, develop synergy in efforts and utilize the resources available for success of the mission, the civil society, people’s groups and various volunteering organizations can be encouraged to participate under Mission Vatsalya in a systematic and planned manner.
These could include organisations under government initiatives such as Bharat Scout and Guide, NSS Volunteers, Nehru Yuva Kendras and more NGOs and Self-Help Groups could be identified.
The Ministry has also proposed a Vatsalaya portal that will allow volunteers to register so that State and District Authorities can engage them for executing various schemes.

Union Minister for Science and Technology has informed that, only Indian entities will be permitted to carry out mobile-mapping and street-view surveys, and those in Indian territorial waters.

About:

Indian entities are defined under “Guidelines for acquiring and producing geospatial data and geospatial data services, including maps” issued by Department of Science and Technology (DST) in 2021.
Geospatial data is information which describes objects, events or other features with a location on or near the surface of the earth.
Two main types of geospatial data are, Vector Data and Raster Data.

Importance of Geospatial Data

It will significantly benefit diverse sectors of economy and will significantly boost innovation in the country.
It will enhance emergency response preparedness.

Russia’s membership to the Human Rights Council (HRC), to which it was elected in 2020, was suspended after the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted, 93 to 24, with 58 abstentions, including India, to adopt a resolution suspending Moscow from the UN body.

About:

Russia became the first P-5 country to be suspended from any UN body and also the only country apart from Libya in 2011 to be removed from the 47-member top human rights body.
India again wriggled out of a difficult situation by abstaining (its 10th abstention in 10 votes on Ukraine) even though the abstention this time worked in the favour of the US and other Western countries who wanted to expel Russia for alleged violations in Ukraine.
Russia had warned the UNGA member-states that an abstention will be seen as an unfriendly gesture and also hurt bilateral ties.
The resolution needed support only from 2/3 countries present and voting. Abstentions didn’t count. India has so far abstained from all 10 votes in UN on Ukraine. China voted against the resolution to suspend Russia.
India's emphasis on due course is significant as there was unease apparently among a large section of the member-states to expel Russia without waiting for the outcome of a probe into the violations. The resolution was adopted with support only from 93 out of 193 countries as abstentions didn't count.

India has welcomed the decision by the International Energy Agency (IEA) to release 120 million barrels of crude oil from its strategic reserves, in addition to the release of 180 million barrels of crude oil from the strategic reserves of the US.

Key highlights:

The move is aimed at calming crude oil prices that hit a 14 year-high of $139 per barrel in March.
India had in November announced that it would release 5 million barrels from the strategic reserve as part of a coordinated effort with other crude oil importing countries to stabilise the price of crude oil. The move cooled the price of Brent to about $100.2 per barrel.

International Energy Agency:

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organisation.
It was established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1974 in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis.

About:

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has estimated the archipelago’s palm oil production for 2021-22 (October-September) at 45.5 million tonnes (mt). That’s almost 60% of the total global output and way ahead of the next bigger producer: Malaysia (18.7 mt).
It is also the world’s No. 1 exporter of the commodity, at 29 mt, followed by Malaysia (16.22 mt).
Yet, the country has seen domestic prices of branded cooking oil spiral, from around 14,000 Indonesian rupiah (IDR) to 22,000 IDR per litre between March 2021 and March 2022.

There are two possible reasons.

The first has to do supply disruptions — manmade and natural — in other cooking oils, especially sunflower and soyabean.

Union Minister of State Science & Technology said that EOS-02 satellite will be launched in second quarter of 2022.
EOS-02 is Technology demonstration satellite for various new technologies with applications that include agriculture, forestry, geology, hydrology, miniaturised power electronics, reaction wheels etc. and forming the payload for SSLV-1.

The details of the satellites included in the EOS series are as follows:

EOS-01: Earth Observation satellite meant for Agriculture, Forestry & disaster management support
EOS-02: Technology demonstration satellite for various new technologies with applications that include agriculture, forestry, geology, hydrology etc. and forming the payload for SSLV-1.
EOS-03: First Agile Earth Observation satellite in Geostationary orbit and applications which include near real time imaging, quick monitoring of natural disasters, spectral signatures for agriculture, forestry etc.
EOS-04: Radar Imaging satellite meant to provide high quality images under all weather conditions for applications such as Agriculture, Forestry & Plantations, Soil Moisture & Hydrology and Flood Mapping.
EOS-05: Earth Observation Satellite in the Geostationary Orbit.