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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 08 June 2022

::NATIONAL::

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has published a fresh draft of amendments to the Information Technology Rules, 2021.
The amendment proposes the creation of government-appointed appeal committees that will be able to veto content-moderation decisions taken by social media intermediaries like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
What are the proposed amendments to the IT Rules, 2021?
The draft proposes to create government-appointed appeal committees that will be empowered to review and possibly reverse content moderation decisions taken by social media companies.
“The Central Government shall constitute one or more Grievance Appellate Committees, which shall consist of a Chairperson and such other Members, as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint,” MeitY said in the draft.
The draft, which is up for public consultation for 30 days, triggered concerns about the government overriding the decisions of social media platforms.

Multiple events of glacial advances have been witnessed from the YanktiKuti valley situated in the extreme eastern part of Pithoragarh district, Uttarakhand.

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According to a new study,since 52 thousand years (MIS 3) that synchronises with climate variability,
Scientists of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, has reported first time the oldest glacial advance during 52 Kilo years from the Central Himalaya.
They found that moisture-deficient valleys of semi-arid Himalayan regions respond sensitively to enhance precipitation.
The study suggests a regional synchronicity of glacier response to climate variability since MIS 3.
The study carried out was in accordance with the synoptic-scale, climatic perturbation triggered by the North Atlantic millennial-scale climate oscillations.

India’s bilateral trade with all the six members of GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) group countries, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, has increased significantly in 2021-22 on account of increasing economic ties between the two regions.

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India’s exports to the GCC have increased by 58.26 per cent to about USD 44 billion in 2021-22 against USD 27.8 billion in 2020-21, according to the data of the commerce ministry.
The share of these six countries in India’s total exports has risen to 10.4 per cent in 2021-22 from 9.51 per cent in 2020-21.
Similarly, imports rose by 85.8 per cent to USD 110.73 billion compared to USD 59.6 billion in 2020-21, the data showed.
The share of GCC members in India’s total imports rose to 18 per cent in 2021-22 from 15.5 per cent in 2020-21.
Bilateral trade has increased to USD 154.73 billion in 2021-22 from USD 87.4 billion in 2020-21.
These increasing figures assume significance as India is looking at negotiating a free trade agreement with the grouping.
The country has already implemented a comprehensive trade pact with the UAE on May 1, with an aim to boost bilateral trade to USD 100 billion in the coming years.
The GCC was established in May 1981. Its members are Saudi Arabia Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and UAE.

More than a 100 days after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, it is the strategic eastern city of Sievierodonetsk that remains the focus of intense fighting in the battle’s current phase.

Location:

Located nearly 140 km south of the Russian border, Sievierodonetsk is one of the largest cities of the Donbas region.
It is located near the left bank of the Siverskyi Donets river, and has a population of over a lakh. Administratively, Sievierodonetsk falls under Ukraine’s Luhansk oblast (province). It is a big industrial hub known for chemical works and machine-building factories.

Strategic importance:

The offensive is part of a plan that Russian president Vladimir Putin has articulated as “complete liberation” of Donbas.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has echoed the concerns raised by the Reserve Bank of India on cryptocurrencies.

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The market regulator has told that consumer protection and enforcement of any regulatory regime over crypto assets would be challenging due to the decentralised nature of the digital instruments.
As crypto assets are maintained in decentralised distributed ledgers, which are nested in computer nodes spread all across the globe, there is a great likelihood of execution of unauthorised trades not in consonance with any regulatory framework.
The market regulator also said that clarity needs to be brought on whether cryptocurrencies can be legally defined as securities.

Calcium phosphate ceramics, the Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) noted in a press release, are in principle an ideal alternative to conventional metals because bone can eventually replace the ceramic and regrow.
When people need a bone replacement following a fracture, it is often based on a metal part. But metal parts are sometimes toxic over time, and will not help the original bone regrow.

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Calcium phosphate ceramics are substitutes for the bone mineral hydroxyapatite. However, applications of such ceramics in medical settings have been limited, because there is insufficient control over the rate of absorption and replacement by bone after implantation.
Now, in a study recently published in Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, researchers from TMDU and collaborators have studied the transformation of a ceramic into the bone mineral.