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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 08 November 2021

::NATIONAL::

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation released data showing its world Food Price Index (FPI) averaging 133.2 points in October, the highest since July 2011.

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No less significant, though, is the way the FPI has oscillated since the outbreak of Covid-19.
In May 2020, when the global economy was in the doldrums, it had collapsed to a four-year low of 91.1 points. From there to a ten-and-a-quarter-year-high now has been quite a climb.
Much of this roller-coaster has had to do with oil.

Fuel and food:

One reason why petroleum and agri-commodity prices move in tandem is the bio-fuels link.
When crude prices rise, blending ethanol from sugarcane and corn (maize) with petrol or diverting palm and soybean oil for biodiesel production becomes that much more attractive.
Cotton, likewise, turns relatively affordable vis-à-vis petrochemicals-based synthetic fibres.
Also, since corn is primarily an animal feed, its diversion to ethanol leads to substitution by other grains, including wheat, for livestock use.
The same happens to sugar, as mills step up the proportion of cane crushed for fermenting into alcohol.

National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) InvIT attracted two international pension funds asmarquee investors.
Infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) are investment scheme similar to mutual funds that allow investment from individuals and institutional investors in infrastructure projects to earn a portion of income as return.
It is part of government’s plans to tap alternative sources of financing to boost public spending on roads and infrastructure sector.

Benefits of InvITs:

Ocean Clean-up, a Netherlands Based non-profit organization aims at eliminating the Great Pacific GarbagePatch.
Also known as the Pacific trash vortex,it is a collection of marine debris/garbage in the North Pacific Ocean.

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This garbage patch is actually two distinct collections of debris bounded by the massive North PacificSubtropical Gyre (gyre as a large system of swirling ocean currents).
It is composed of the Western Garbage Patch, located near Japan, and the Eastern Garbage Patch,located between the U.S. states of Hawaii and California.

Where does all the waste go?

Getting trash out of the ocean is a herculean task in itself, but perhaps just as important is what to do with it once it’s on dry land.
The Ocean Cleanup says 95% of the plastic it collects can be recycled.
The organization has already begun turning that plastic into products like sunglasses to be sold on its website. Slat said the group will soon pivot away from sunglasses and is in contact with brands to create other products.
For other objects like wood, glass and the remaining plastic that can’t be recycled, the group manages the waste in accordance with local legislations as it explores alternative recycling options.

The third Edition of Goa Maritime Conclave (GMC) – 2021 is being held from November 7 to 9 under the aegis of Naval War College, Goa.

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The theme for this year’s edition of GMC is ‘Maritime Security and Emerging Non-Traditional Threats: A Case for Proactive Role for IOR (Indian Ocean Region) Navies’.12 Indian Ocean will participate in the event.
GMC aims to bring together regional stakeholders (of Indian Ocean Region) and deliberate on the collaborative implementation strategies in dealing with contemporary maritime security challenges.
The GMC is the Indian Navy’s outreach initiative providing a multinational platform to harness the collective wisdom of practitioners of maritime security and the academia towards garnering outcome oriented maritime thought.
The conclave would build upon the working level deliberations of the Goa Maritime Symposium-21 held in May this year, as the Sherpa event for the Conclave.

India recorded a power supply shortage of 1,201 million units in October 2021 — the highest in 5.5 years — due to a crunch in coal stocks available with thermal plants.
The shortage was mostly restricted to Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Punjab and Rajasthan.

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In October, Gujarat recorded a power shortage of 215 million units, the highest for any month in more than a decade. With a shortage of 77 million units, Jharkhand too recorded its highest deficit in more than a decade.
Supply shortage was also observed in Uttar Pradesh and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir in October, however, they were not an anomaly but were similar to the general trend observed in the regions.
The power shortage was primarily due to a supply crunch of coal to 135 thermal plants. As on November 5, the average coal inventory held by the plants would last only seven days.
Historical data were compiled from the Central Electricity Authority, and October 2021 data were compiled from day-wise reports available with the National Load Despatch Centre.

Scientists studying the galaxy Messier 87 (M87) – which surrounds the only black hole to have been imaged so far – have come up with a theoretical model of the jets of material emanating from M87.
The calculated images published in Nature Astronomy resemble closely what is observed, and help confirm Einstein’s theory of relativity.

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Messier 87 (also known as Virgo A or NGC 4486, generally abbreviated to M87) is a supergiant elliptical galaxy with several trillion stars in the constellation Virgo.
One of the most massive galaxies in the local universe, it has a large population of globular clusters—about 15,000 compared with the 150–200 orbiting the Milky Way—and a jet of energetic plasma that originates at the core and extends at least 1,500 parsecs (4,900 light-years), traveling at a relativistic speed.
It is one of the brightest radio sources in the sky and a popular target for both amateur and professional astronomers.