Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 14 June 2021

::NATIONAL::

Every year, the Indian Coast Guard’s “Operation Olivia”, initiated in the early 1980s, helps protect Olive Ridley turtles as they congregate along the Odisha coast for breeding and nesting from November to December.

The Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) is listed as vulnerable under the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red list.
All five species of sea turtles found in India.
Variants are included in Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and in the Appendix I of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which prohibits trade in turtle products by signatory countries.
Odisha has also formulated laws for protecting Olive Ridley turtles, and the Orissa Marine Fisheries Act empowers the Coast Guard as one of its enforcement agencies.

The Olive Ridley has one of the most extraordinary nesting habits in the natural world, including mass nesting called arribadas.
The 480-km-long Odisha coast has three arribada beaches at Gahirmatha, the mouth of the Devi river, and in Rushikulya, where about 1 lakh nests are found annually.

ONGC has launched an initiative to revive the struggling handicraft projects and empower the local artisans.
Five projects supported by ONGC include.
Bamboo Cottage: An age-old art of crafting decorative items with bamboo alive by artisans of Jhabua District (MP).
Dhokra: An ancient metal casting craft and lost wax technique Cire Perdue by artisans of Dhenkanal(Odisha).
Lac: A forgotten culture of lac cultivation based on forest resources to be revived by training communities in Khunthi and Ghumla districts (Jharkhand).
Bhotia: A traditional craft of wool dyeing by Bhotia (Bhotiya) tribe in Uttarakhand.
Assam Silk: Handloom weaving in Assam.

According to a new UN report, the GDP of SIDS decline thrice more than other developing countries in 2020.
This is due to impact of COVID-19 on tourism sector as most of SIDS are heavily reliant on tourism.
SIDS are a distinct group of developing countries facing specific social, economic and environmental vulnerabilities which were recognised at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development(UNCED) i,e., Earth Summit (1992).
This group of states comprises 38 UN Member States and 20 non-UN members/Associate Members ofRegional Commissions.

Britain and the EU are locked in an escalating diplomatic feud over Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that borders the 27-nation bloc. The EU says Britain must fully implement the agreement, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, that the two sides agreed and ratified.

The UK and EU agreed to put the Northern Ireland Protocol in place to avoid the introduction of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
It states that Northern Ireland will remain part of the UK's customs territory - so if the UK signs a free trade deal with another country, Northern Irish goods would be included.
However, Northern Ireland will have to stick to some EU rules to allow goods to move freely into the Republic.
Goods moving from the rest of the UK to Northern Ireland will not be subject to a tariff unless they are "at risk" of being moved into the EU afterwards.

Article 16 is a clause in the Northern Ireland Protocol that is intended to be used when the protocol - which is designed to avoid a post-Brexit hard border on the island of Ireland - is leading to serious "economic, societal or environmental difficulties".
It allows either the UK or the EU to act unilaterally to avoid such difficulties.
Invoking the article is considered to be the option of last resort and the idea is that it is used when the parties have been unable to agree on a joint approach to solving those problems.

They are external assets in the form of gold, SDRs (special drawing rights of the IMF) and foreign currency assets (capital inflows to the capital markets, FDI and external commercial borrowings) accumulated byIndia and controlled by RBI.

According to IMF they help in supporting and maintaining confidence in the policies for monetary and exchange rate management.
They also limit external vulnerability by maintaining foreign currency liquidity to absorb shocks during times of crisis or when access to borrowing is curtailed.

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced that it has selected EnVision as its next orbiter that will visit Venus sometime in the 2030s.
The missions called DAVINCI+ and VERITAS have been selected based on their potential for scientific value and the feasibility of their development plans.

EnVision is an ESA led mission with contributions from NASA.
It is likely to be launched sometime in the 2030s. The earliest launch opportunity for EnVision is 2031, followed by 2032 and 2033.
Once launched on an Ariane 6 rocket, the spacecraft will take about 15 months to reach Venus and will take 16 more months to achieve orbit circularisation.
The spacecraft will carry a range of instruments to study the planet’s atmosphere and surface, monitor trace gases in the atmosphere and analyse its surface composition. A radar provided by NASA will help to image and map the surface.
EnVision will follow another ESA-led mission to Venus called ‘Venus Express’ (2005-2014) that focussed on atmospheric research and pointed to volcanic hotspots on the planet’s surface.