Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 15 April 2022


Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 15 April 2022

::NATIONAL::

Weapons of Mass Destruction Amendment Bill 2022 

  • The Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Amendment Bill, 2022 has been unanimously passed in Lok Sabha.

About:

  • The Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Act, 2005, to provide against the financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems in line with India’s international obligations.
  • The 2005 Act prohibited the manufacturing, transport, and transfer of weapons of mass destruction, and their means of delivery.

NBC weapons

  • While there is no single, authoritative definition of a WMD in international law, the expression is usually understood to cover nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons. 
  • According to the United States Department of Homeland Security, “A weapon of mass destruction is a nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or other device that is intended to harm a large number of people.”
  • Among them are the Geneva Protocol, 1925, that banned the use of chemical and biological weapons; and the Biological Weapons Convention, 1972, and Chemical Weapons Convention, 1992, which put comprehensive bans on the biological and chemical weapons respectively.
  • India has signed and ratified both the 1972 and 1992 treaties.

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Prakriti

  • Union Minister of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEFCC) launched Prakriti mascot to spread awareness among masses about small changes that can be sustainably adopted for a better environment.

During the event, following green initiatives were launched for plastic waste management:

  • National Dashboard on Elimination of Single Use Plastic and Plastic Waste Management (MoEFCC)
  • Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Portal for Plastic Packaging (CPCB)
  • Mobile App for Single Use Plastics Grievance Redressal (CPCB).
  • Monitoring module for single use plastic (CPCB).

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Germany shuts down Russian darknet marketplace Hydra

  • German has shut down servers of the world’s largest illegal darknet marketplace Hydra, and seized bitcoins worth 23 million euros ($25 million).

About DarkNet

  • Also known as Dark Web, it is that part of Internet which cannot be accessed through traditional search engines like Google nor is it accessible by normal browsers like Chrome or Safari.
  • It generally uses non-standard communication protocols which make it inaccessible to internet service providers (ISPs) or government authorities.
  • Content on DarkNet is encrypted and requires specific browser such as TOR (The Onion router) browser to access those pages.
  • Dark Net itself is only a part of Deep Web that is a broader concept, which includes sites that are protected by passwords.
  • Part of internet that is readily available to general public and searchable on standard search engines is called as Surface Web.
  • It is used by journalists and citizens working in oppressive regimes (to communicate without any government censorship), researchers and students to do research on sensitive topics, law enforcement agencies etc.

World Health Day

  • The Union Health Ministry has said that India has registered a significant decline in the maternal and infant mortality rate and it will achieve the target of Sustainable Development Goals before the deadline of 2030.
  • India has registered a decline of 85 percent in the number of Malaria cases in the last four years.

About:

  • The World Health Day is a global health awareness day celebrated every year on 7 April, under the sponsorship of the World Health Organization (WHO).
  • Since 1950, the World Health Day is held annually on April 7.

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::ECONOMY::

Counter Cyclical Capital buffer

  • The Reserve Bank said it has decided not to activate the countercyclical capital buffer at this point in time as it is not required.

About:

  • The framework on the countercyclical capital buffer (CCyB) was put in place by the Reserve Bank in terms of guidelines in February 2015 wherein.
  • It was advised that the CCyB would be activated as and when the circumstances warranted and that the decision would normally be pre-announced.
  • The framework envisages the credit-to-GDP gap as the main indicator, which may be used in conjunction with other supplementary indicators.
  • The credit-to-GDP gap shall be the main indicator in the CCCB framework in India.
  • As per the RBI, the aim of the CCyB regime is two-fold.

1.    Firstly, it requires banks to build up a buffer of capital in good times, which may be used to maintain the flow of credit to the real sector in difficult times.
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::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

‘XE’ variant of the coronavirus

  • The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) announced that a 50-year-old woman with a travel history to South Africa may have been infected with the newly-discovered ‘XE’ variant of the coronavirus.

About:

  • XE, a sub-variant of Omicron, which caused the third wave of Covid-19 this winter, had not been found in India until now.
  • The XE variant is what is called a ‘recombinant’. This means it contains the mutations found in BA.1 as well as BA.2 varieties of Omicron. This was first discovered in the United Kingdom in January, and so far more than 600 samples of XE have been found in different countries.
  • Recombinant variants are not uncommon. Variants that contain mutations characteristics of two or more known variants occur all the time. In fact, variants that contain the characteristic mutations of Delta and Omicron have also been identified.

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