(FREE) UPSC Current Affairs 2024 PDF

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 26 April 2022

::NATIONAL::

Nearly 40 years after India first signed the Antarctic Treaty, the government has brought in a draft Indian Antarctic Bill, 2020.

What is the Antarctica Bill?

The draft bill is the first domestic legislation with regard to Antarctica in India.
Twenty-seven countries have domestic legislations on Antarctica. Many others, such as India, are now following suit.
While India has been sending expeditions to Antarctica for the past 40 years, these expeditions have been circumscribed by international law.
The Bill now puts into place a comprehensive list of regulations related to Antarctica, for such scientific expeditions, as well as for individuals, companies and tourists.
A domestic legislation will further provide more validity to the Antarctic Treaty, and subsequent protocols, of which India is a signatory.
It extends the jurisdiction of Indian courts to Antarctica, for crimes on the continent by Indian citizens, or foreign citizens who are a part of Indian expeditions.
The Bill introduces an elaborate permit system for any expedition or individual who wishes to visit the continent.
The Bill further enlists elaborate standards for environmental protection as well as waste management.
The Bill prohibits drilling, dredging, excavation or collection of mineral resources or even doing anything to identify where such mineral deposits occur — the only exception is for scientific research with a granted permit.

In Ladakh, a community museum was inaugurated in Gya - Sasoma villages of Leh district.

About:

This is aims of preserving and forwarding its rich cultural heritage to future generations.
In the first of its kind in India, Gya - Sasoma villagers in Leh, have contributed a variety of articles and collections to establish the Community Museum in a traditional Ladakhi House.
Gya is the first village and oldest inhabitation in Upper Ladakh.
Along with the Gya-Sasoma villagers, women associations of the villages, the Department of Museology National Museum Institute, NMI New Delhi, and the LAHDC, Leh together have participated in the establishment of the Community Museum.
In the Museum, traditional utility items, textiles, dresses and the antiquities of day-to-day life of Gya-Sasoma are the main attractions.

United Nations Population Fund(UNFPA) released State of World Population 2022 report.
The report is titled as “Seeing the Unseen: The case for action in the neglected crisis of unintended pregnancy”.

Key highlights of the report:

Over 60% of unintended pregnancies end in abortion and 45% of abortions are unsafe, causing 5% to 13% of maternal deaths.
13 % of women in developing countries begin childbearing before they turn 18.
Between 2015 and 2019, 121 million unintended pregnancies occurred across world every year, and one in every seven of these occur in India.

Key factors contributing to unintended pregnancies:

Lack of sexual and reproductive health care and information.
Harmful norms and stigma surrounding women controlling their own fertility and bodies.
Judgmental attitudes or shaming in health services.
Poverty and stalled economic development.

India has for the third time invoked the peace clause for exceeding the 10% ceiling on support it offered its rice farmers.

About:

India has informed the WTO that the value of its rice production in 2020-21 was $45.56 billion while it gave subsidies worth $6.9 billion, which comes out to 15.14% as against the permitted 10%.
The peace clause protects India's food procurement programmes against action from WTO members in case the subsidy ceilings are breached.
India first invoked the clause in 2020 when it became the first country to do so.

Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and Peace Clause:

3 Pillars of AoA:

Under market access conditions, both developed and developing nations were to convert all non-tariff barriers into tariffs.
Domestic support includes the classification of subsidies into 'boxes' depending their effects on production and trade.

The Punjab Mandi Board has decided to send a ‘digital form J’ on the WhatsApp number of farmers from this Rabi procurement season.
The move is expected to benefit around 9 lakh registered farmers who will be looking to sell their crop (wheat) at MSP during this procurement season.

About:

‘J form’ is the sale receipt of a farmer’s agricultural produce in mandis (grain market). These forms were earlier issued manually by arthiyas (commission agents) because in Punjab, a majority of farmers sell their crops through such agents only.
Also, this form is an income proof for a farmer who sells his crop.
Before digitisation of the J form, several arhtiyas had the habit of keeping these forms with themselves, instead of providing it to the farmers, which was their right. Hence, many farmers ended up having no record of their income after selling their crops.

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Larsen & Toubro (L&T), and ReNew Power (ReNew) have signed a binding term sheet to set up a Joint Venture (JV) company to develop the green hydrogen sector in India.

How will the JV help develop the green hydrogen sector?

The Joint Venture will aim to supply green hydrogen at an “industrial scale”.
“The IndianOil-L&T-ReNew JV will focus on developing green hydrogen projects in a time-bound manner to supply it at an industrial scale.
The research and development capacity of IOC and the renewable energy expertise of ReNew would make the partnership “a significant step” in the production of green hydrogen.
The Centre has released draft guidelines on the National Hydrogen Mission which aims to increase production to 5 million metric tonnes (MMT) by 2030 to meet about 40 per cent of domestic requirements. Green hydrogen is produced through electrolysis of water using renewable energy.
Nearly all of the hydrogen currently produced in India is grey hydrogen using natural gas and ammonia. The government is aiming to use green hydrogen as a substitute for grey hydrogen which is used by oil refiners and fertiliser manufacturers.