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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 12 March 2022

::NATIONAL::

National Youth Parliament Festival

Lok Sabha Speaker, Shri Om Birla addressed the valedictory function of the 3rd edition of National Youth Parliament Festival -2022 in the Central Hall of Parliament, New Delhi.

About:

The National Youth Parliament Festival (NYPF) is organised to hear the voice of the youth, who will join various careers in coming years, including public services.
NYPF is based on the idea given by the Prime Minister in his Mann Ki Baat Address on 31st December, 2017.
Taking inspiration from the idea, the 1st edition of NYPF was organised from 12th January to 27th February, 2019 with the theme “Be the Voice of New India and Find solutions and Contribute to Policy”.
2nd edition of NYPF was organized from 23rd December, 2020 to 12th January, 2022 with the theme “YUVAAH- UtsahNaye Bharat Ka” through virtual mode.
3rd edition of NYPF was launched on 14th February 2022 at District level through virtual mode.

BIS asks soy product makers to use ISI mark

The Bureau of Indian Standards asked manufacturers of soya products to use ‘ISI mark’ on their products by taking BIS quality certification.

About:

The ISI mark is a standards-compliance mark for industrial products in India since 1955.
The mark certifies that a product conforms to an Indian standard (IS) developed by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the national standards body of India.
To maintain the quality and safety of these soy products, physical, chemical, and microbiological parameters and their test methods are standardised.
Implementation and certification of the Indian standards on soy products will aid in integrating soy products into the Indian diet.
Thus, enhanced quality and safety of the soy products will benefit the producer by commanding better prices and the end consumers will receive safe products, enhancing the overall public health.
BIS has published seven Indian standards for soy products like fat soy flour, soy milk, soy nuts, soy butter and soy amrakhand.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Colombo Security Conclave

The Colombo Security Conclave, a grouping of India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Mauritius, adopted a road map for cooperation and collaboration in areas such as maritime security, counterterrorism and drug trafficking.

About:

The fifth meeting of national security advisers of the Colombo Security Conclave, which was held in the Maldives, also identified five broad areas of cooperation to strengthen regional security.
The member states agreed on a road map for cooperation and collaboration that will “facilitate robust mechanisms for coordinated responses, capacity building and strengthening information flow”.

The five pillars of cooperation are
1.   maritime safety and security,
2.   countering terrorism and radicalisation,
3.   combating trafficking and transnational organised crime,
4.   cyber security,
5.   protection of critical infrastructure and technology, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

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India, Canada to restart trade-pact talks

India and Canada have decided to restart talks for a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) and will strive to seal an investment-protection agreement as well.

About:

Bilateral goods trade between the two nations stood at $6.3 billion in 2021 and the two sides agreed that a comprehensive trade agreement would help bolstertrade and investment flows.
CEPA negotiations will be formally relaunched, and the two countries will consider an interim agreement or Early Progress Trade Agreement (EPTA) that could be concluded early as a transitional step.
India is eyeing market access for its sweet corn, baby corn and bananas in Canada, while Ottawa is keen to export its cherries and lumber to India.
The EPTA shall include ‘high level commitments in goods, services, rules of origin, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, and dispute settlement, and may also cover any other areas mutually agreed upon’.

:ECONOMY::

Loan Guarantee Scheme forCovid Affected Sectors

Union Ministry of Financehas decided to extend the credit guarantee scheme for building healthcare and medicalinfrastructure by three months to June 2022.

About:

Loan Guarantee Scheme for Covid Affected Sectors (LGSCAS) aimed at upscaling the medical infrastructure in the country, specifically targetingunderserved areas.
It provides a guarantee of 50 percent for brownfield projects and 75 percent to greenfieldprojects for loans sanctioned up to Rs.100 crore to set up facilities at urban or rural locations.
For aspirational districts, guarantee covers for both brownfield expansion and greenfield projectsshall be 75%.
It partially mitigates credit risk (primarily construction risk) and facilitate bank credit at lowerrates of interest.

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::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

Chandrayaan-2 orbiter makes new discovery about distribution of gas in moon’s atmosphere

New data from Chandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2 (CHACE-2) mass spectrometer on Chandrayaan-2 show the distribution of Argon-40 gas in the lunar ‘exosphere’, beyond the areas this was known to exist.

About:

Though, Argon-40 (Ar-40) is known to exist in the lunar exosphere, the knowledge on its distribution at higher latitudes is lacking.
Chandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2 experiment aboard Chandrayaan-2 orbiter has continuously observed Ar-40 in latitude range of -60 to +60 degrees.
The observed global distribution indicates that the interaction of Ar-40 with the surface is similar in low and mid latitude regions.
The CHACE-2 observations hint at a requirement for improvement in our understanding of the surface-exosphere interactions and source distributions of Ar-40.

What are ISRO’s launch vehicles?

The main objective of Chandrayaan-2 mission was to demonstrate ISRO’s capability to make a soft landing on the moon.
The mission had a lander and a rover component that were supposed to carry out a number of experiments on the lunar surface.

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