(FREE) UPSC Current Affairs 2024 PDF

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 17 January 2022

::NATIONAL::

The Centre has brought all recognised higher education institutions, irrespective of their accreditation or rankings, under the ambit of the Academic Bank of Credit (ABC).

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With aims to enabling students to switch between institutions and multiple entries and exits to and from the programme.
The ABC framework is part of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, and will allow higher education institutions to maintain a digital repository of credits earned by students.
Under ABC, students can choose to study one course in a year in one institution and switch to another one the next year.
The framework also allows students to pursue courses online and earn credits. While mandatory under NEP 2020, institutions have the flexibility of adopting it at a time of their choice.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) on July 28, 2021, notified ABC and issued the UGC (Establishment and Operation of Academic Bank of Credits in Higher Education) Regulations, 2021.

The Tamil Nadu government will install a statue of Col. Pennycuick in Camberley, United Kingdom.

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The British Army Engineer, who was instrumental in constructing the Mullaperiyar reservoir.
He is to known as the visionary’s grit and determination to build the dam in the year 1895 had resulted in farmers carrying out cultivation on over 2 lakh acres of land.
Apart from this, the Mullaperiyar reservoir has also been a prime source of drinking water in the region.

Statue in Madurai:

As a mark of respect, late Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had unveiled Col. Pennycuick’s statue at the Public Works Department campus in Tallakulam, Madurai on January 15, 2000.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and Russia discussed the ongoing situation in Ukraine and its implications for security in Europe.
The talks happened at the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) which took place at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.

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NRC is a forum for consultation with Russia on security issues and cooperation.
NATO was founded in 1949, and is meant to ensure collective protection for its members — the United States, Canada, and American allies in Europe — against the threat of possible post-War communist expansion and aggression by the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union too, formed its own defence and political alliance with Eastern European nations as a counterbalance to NATO — the Warsaw Pact that was signed in 1955. This alliance was disbanded after the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991.
NATO has traditionally focused on Russia and the European neighbourhood, and recognises the need to deter “revisionist” and “militarily advanced” Russia, and the threat posed by rogue nations such as North Korea.
Since April 2014, practical civil and military cooperation under the NRC with Russia has been suspended.
This happened in response to Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, which NATO allies do not recognise and have referred to as “illegal” and “illegitimate”.
This was the first time since WWII that a European nation had annexed territory from another country. The region that Russia annexed in 2014 is now under Russian-backed separatists and even today fighting continues there.

India and the United Kingdom have launched formal Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations. With the aim of concluding an early harvest trade agreement over the next few months.
India is also negotiating a similar early harvest agreement with Australia.

What are early harvest pacts?

Early harvest agreements are used to open up bilateral trade between two countries on a restricted list of goods and services, primarily as a frontrunner to clinching a more comprehensive FTA.
The problem is that, these early harvest schemes potentially target the low-hanging fruits, leaving the tougher goods and services for later.
This strategy can lead to significant delays in wrapping up the mode broad-based FTAs, which could potentially lead to impediments.
India had concluded an early harvest agreement with Thailand in 2004 but has not been able to conclude a comprehensive FTA with the country.
India also has a trade agreement with Sri Lanka dealing with goods but was not able to conclude an agreement on services and investments.

With an overall vision to create a vibrant ecosystem for Semiconductor Chip Design in the country, the Ministry of Electronics and Information (MeitY) is seeking applications from 100 domestic companies, start-ups and MSMEs under its Design Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme.

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Under the DLI Scheme, which was announced by MeitY, was a part of ₹76,000 crore ($10 billion) package that the government announced in December.
It aims to nurture at least 20 domestic companies involved in semiconductor design and facilitating them to achieve turnover of more than ₹1500 Crore in the next 5 years.
C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing), a scientific society operating under MeitY, will serve as the nodal agency for implementation of the DLI scheme.The scheme has three components –

1. Chip Design infrastructure support,
2. Product Design Linked Incentive and

A team of researchers from Kerala and Brazil have identified a new species of a rare, deep-sea mollusc belonging to the family Xylophagaidae from the eastern Arabian Sea.

Key highlights:

The wood-boring, tiny mollusc species has been named Xylophaganandani after Prof. Bijoy Nandan, dean, faculty of Marine Sciences, Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT).
This is the first time that a member of the genus Xylophaga is being recorded from the Arabian Sea.
The word ‘xylophaga’ itself denotes ‘wood eating’.
They are deep-sea dwellers, their presence recorded even at depths of 7,000 metres.

About mollusc: