Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 28 October 2022

::NATIONAL::

Union home minister Amit Shah announced that, the government will set-up branches of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in all the states by 2024 to deal with terrorism cases, even as he asked them (the states) to join hands with the Centre in dealing with borderless crimes, cross-border terrorism and organized crimes.

About:

To achieve a decisive victory in the fight against terrorism, the legal framework is being strengthened, under which provision has been made to declare individual terrorists by amending the NIA and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
e NIA has been given extra territorial jurisdiction powers as well as authority to confiscate the property acquired by terrorists. Now, we have decided that NIA branches will be established in all the states by 2024,” Shah said at the two-day conference.

About NIA:

National Investigation Agency (NIA) is the Central Counter Terrorism Law Enforcement Agency of India.
Parent agency is Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
Establishment:NIA was created after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks with the enactment of the National Investigation Agency Act 2008.

Jurisdiction:

The agency is empowered to deal with terror related crimes across states without special permission from the states.
A State Government may request the Central Government to hand over the investigation of a case to the NIA, provided the case has been registered for the offences as contained in the schedule to the NIA Act.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of the Vadodara transport aircraft manufacturing facility on October 30.

About:

This is the first project of its kind in which a military aircraft will be manufactured in India by a private company.
16 aircraft will be delivered in flyaway condition and 40 will be manufactured in India by the Indian Aircraft Contractor, TATA Consortium of Tata Advanced Systems Limited and Tata Consultancy Services.
In September 2021, Cabinet Committee on Security had approved the procurement of 56 C-295MW transport aircraft from Airbus Defence and Space S.A.
The first 16 fly-away aircraft are scheduled to be received between September 2023 and August 2025.

External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar has appealed to all nations to rise above political differences to address terrorism.

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This will be the first such meeting of the UNSC-CTC in India since its establishment in 2001.
The Permanent Representative of India to the UN serves as the Chair of the CTC for 2022.
The overarching theme of the meeting would be 'countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes’.
The Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) was established by Security Council resolution 1373 (2001), which was adopted unanimously on 28 September 2001 in the wake of the 11 September terrorist attacks in the United States.

The Committee aims to

Criminalize the financing of terrorism
Freeze without delay any funds related to persons involved in acts of terrorism
Deny all forms of financial support for terrorist groups
Suppress the provision of safe haven, sustenance or support for terrorists
Share information with other governments on any groups practicing or planning terrorist acts
Cooperate with other governments in the investigation, detection, arrest, extradition and prosecution of those involved in such acts; and
Criminalize active and passive assistance for terrorism in domestic law and bring violators to justice.

It is an annual report of the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
WMO is the specialised agency of the UN for meteorology (weather and climate), operationalhydrology and related geophysical sciences.

Key findings of 2022 report

Atmospheric levels of the 3 main greenhouse gases warming our planet - carbon dioxide,methane and nitrous oxide- all reached new record highs in 2021.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal recently appealed to the Union government to print images of Goddess Lakshmi and Lord Ganesh on new currency notes for the country’s “economic prosperity.

Role of RBI in issuing notes

Section 22 of The Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, gives RBI the “sole right” to issue banknotes in India.
Section 25 states that “the design, form, and material of bank notes shall be such as may be approved by the Central Government after consideration of the recommendations made by the [RBI’s] Central Board”.

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Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG), an autonomous research institution under DST, Government of India, has developed the magnetometer as part of its technology development program.
It is one of the most accurate magnetometers extensively used by all magnetic observatories around the world, making way for reducing the cost of sampling and sensing experiments essential for geomagnetic sampling.
The sensor installed at Alibag Magnetic Observatory (MO) can absolve India’s dependence on commercial OVH magnetometers for performing geomagnetic field measurements.
OVH magnetometers are known for their higher accuracy, higher sensitivity, and efficient power consumption and hence find applications in all magnetic observatories worldwide as well as in international space programs.
A team from IIG’s instrumentation division used various spectroscopic tools and theoretical simulations to understand the working of the OVH sensor.