Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 30 March 2022

::NATIONAL::

Assam and Meghalaya decided to end their five-decade-old border dispute in six of the 12 contested locations that often raised tensions between the two states.

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The agreement was signed in the presence of Union Home Minister by Chief Ministers of Assam and Meghalaya respectively.
The pact will resolve the protracted dispute in six of the 12 places along the 884.9 km border between the two states.
With the signing of the agreement, 70 per cent of the border dispute between the two states has been resolved and hoped that a solution will be found for the remaining six locations soon.
Assam shares a 2743 km boundary with Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and West Bengal. It is locked in border disputes with Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh.
There are 36 villages in the six places, covering an area of 36.79 sq km, with regard to which the agreement has been reached.
Out of the 12 points of dispute between Assam and Meghalaya, the six areas with relatively less critical differences were taken up in the first phase.

Wealth Mission in collaboration with East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), has set upDecentralized Waste Management Technology Park at New Jaffrabad.

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Technologies deployed:

Xaper for segregating fresh mixed municipal solid waste into compostable, recyclable,combustible, and inert fractions.
‘Plasma pyrolysis Unit’ for thermal disintegration of carbonaceous material in an oxygen-starved environment into environment friendly components.

A study by researchers from The Netherlandshas examined blood samples of 22 persons, all anonymous donors and healthy adults, and found plastic particles in 17 of them.

What are microplastics?

Microplastics are tiny bits of various types of plastic found in the environment. The name is used to differentiate them from “macroplastics” such as bottles and bags made of plastic.
There is no universal agreement on the size that fits this bill — the U.S. NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the European Chemical Agency define microplastic as less than 5mm in length.
However, for the purposes of this study, since the authors were interested in measuring the quantities of plastic that can cross the membranes and diffuse into the body via the blood stream, the authors have an upper limit on the size of the particles as 0.0007 millimetre.

What were the plastics that the study looked for in the blood samples?

The study looked at the most commonly used plastic polymers.
These were polyethylene tetraphthalate (PET), polyethylene (used in making plastic carry bags), polymers of styrene (used in food packaging), poly (methyl methylacrylate) and poly propylene. They found a presence of the first four types.

The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will be operationalised on 1 May, said Union commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal.
The deal, which was signed last month, looks to UAE as a gateway to Africa, other GCC and Middle Eastern countries, CIS countries and some European countries, said Goyal while addressing a Business-to-Business (B2B) Meet on India-UAE CEPA in Dubai.

Key highlights:

Under this, domestic exporters of as many as 6,090 goods from sectors such as textiles, agriculture, dry fruits, gem and jewellery would get duty-free access to the UAE market.
The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) was signed by India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in February which aims to boost bilateral trade to $100 billion in the next five years from current $60 billion.
The two countries have agreed to set up a technical council on Investment, Trade Promotion and Facilitation, as part of the agreement signed.
Overall, the UAE is offering duty elimination on over 97% of its products which account for 99% of Indian exports here in value terms.
Immediate duty-free access covers all labour-intensive sectors such as gems and jewellery, textiles and apparel, agricultural and fish products, leather, footwear, and sport goods, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and many engineering products.
Currently, India is exporting about $26 billion worth of goods to the UAE, almost 90% of them will get total tariff (or customs duty) elimination on Day 1 itself. Going forward, the rest of the 9.5% (about 1,270 goods) will also get zero duty.

Bangalore Rose onion received the Geographical Indication tag in 2015.
It is a unique variety of onion that is found only in and around Bangalore, Karnataka.
It is also known as gulabieerulli.
It has flat base bulb, spherically shaped, deep scarlet red colour, high pungency and packed with phenols and anthocyanins.
It has higher levels of protein, phosphorous, iron and carotene.

Nagpur Oranges got GI tag in 2014 under Geographical Indication of Goods, (Registration and Protection) Act 1999.
They are characterised by unique sweet-sour flavour. This flavour is obtained only under specific soil and agro-dimatic conditions of the Vidarbha region.

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A super computer is a very fast computer used in advanced scientific applications.
PARAM Shakti was developed under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).
NSM is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Department of Science and Technology and implemented by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore.