(FREE) UPSC Current Affairs 2024 PDF

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 02 April 2022

::NATIONAL::

Union Government has notified fresh wage rates under rural job guarantee programme NREGS for financial year 2022-23.

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It guarantees 100 (which may extend upto 150 days in drought/natural calamity notified rural areas) of wage employment in a financial year, to a rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
The MGNREGA wage rates are fixed according to changes in the CPI-AL (Consumer Price Index-Agriculture Labour), which reflects the increase in the inflation in rural areas.
The wage rates, notified by Ministry of Rural Development under sub-section (1) of Section 6 of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, will be effective from April 1.
Of the 31 states and UTs, which saw a hike in wages, the maximum 7.14 per cent has been recorded in Goa — from Rs 294 per day in 2021-22 to Rs 315 per day in 2022-23. The lowest increase of 1.77 per cent is in Meghalaya where the new wage rate has been fixed at Rs 230 per day from the existing Rs 226 per day.
Apart from Meghalaya, two other states — Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland — have also witnessed an increase of less than 2 per cent in NREGS wages.

The first scientific population estimate of Indian peninsular wolves (Canis lupus pallipes) has revealed that only 3,100 members of the species are left in the country.

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Indian wolf is a subspecies of grey wolf.
It is one of the common large carnivores found in scrub, grasslands and agro-pastoral regions of semi-arid India.
Highest concentration is currently in Madhya Pradesh, followed by Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh.
Threat- Hunting, encroachment and land conversion, growing man-animal conflict.
Conservation status
Endangered species in Schedule 1 of Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.Appendix 1 of CITES.
It comes under Least Concern category as per IUCN.

World Energy transition Outlook 2022 was launched by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) at the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue.

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It sets out priority areas and actions based on available technologies that must be realised by 2030 to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century.
Energy Transition is a pathway toward transformation of the global energy sector from fossil-based to zero-carbon by the second half of this century.
At its heart is the need to reduce energy-related CO2 emissions to limit climate change.

Steps taken by India:

Intra-State Transmission System- Green Energy Corridor.
Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) Scheme to de-dieseliste the farm sector.
Offshore Wind Energy policy (2015) to harness the potential of offshore wind energy.
Approved an investment of Rs 1,500 crores in the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), which provides project financing to the Renewable Energy (RE) sector.
Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid & Electric Vehicles in India (FAME INDIA) scheme.
National Solar Mission, National Biofuels policy, UJALA scheme for affordable LEDs, etc.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi call of making Bay of Bengal the bridge of connectivity, prosperity, and security and stressed that regional cooperation has become a greater priority in the present scenario.

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The 5th BIMSTEC Summit hosted by Sri Lanka.
The signing of the Charter was the main outcome of this summit. Under this Charter, the members were expected to meet once in every two years.
With the Charter, the BIMSTEC now has an international personality. It has an emblem, it has a flag. It has a formally listed purpose and principles that it is going to adhere to. It represents significant evolution of the grouping.
India will be the “security pillar” of the BIMSTEC. For developing the organisation into a formal structure, the leaders of the member-countries had agreed to divide the working of the grouping into seven segments, with India providing leadership to the security pillar.
The Prime Minister called for a Free Trade Agreement among the member countries.
This is the 25th year of the establishment of BIMSTEC. He said the outcome of this landmark summit will write a golden chapter in the history of BIMSTEC.
India will provide financial assistance of one million dollars to increase the operational budget of the Secretariat.

Government of India has approved nearly ₹433.72 crores for 28 ULBs in the state to remediate over 3.7 crores MT of waste Legacy Waste Remediation Proposal of Telangana.

About Lakshya Zero Dumpsite:

It is one of the aims under Swachh Bharat Mission - Urban 2.0.
It seeks to remediate approx 16 crores metric tonnes (MT) of legacy waste has covered around 15000 acres of prime land across the nation.
Will help in furthering the vision of resource recovery and principles of the circular economy.

The Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways travelled travelled to the Parliament House in a ToyotaMirai vehicle, which sports three hydrogen tanks, and can be refuelled in an estimated five minutes.
The hydrogen-based Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV) also has a 1.24 kWh lithium ion battery pack. The car is powered by a 182 hp electric motor.

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In the Union Budget for 2021-22 last year, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed launching a Hydrogen Energy Mission in 2021-22 for generating hydrogen from green power sources.
Typically, there are four broad categorisations of electric vehicles—conventional hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), BEVs and FCEVs.
FCEVs such as Toyota’s Mirai, Honda’s Clarity and Hyundai’s Nexo use hydrogen gas to power an on-board electric motor.
FCEVs combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, which runs the motor. Since they’re powered entirely by electricity, FCEVs are considered EVs, but unlike BEVs, their range and refuelling processes are comparable to conventional cars and trucks.
The major difference between a BEV and a hydrogen FCEV is that the latter enables a refuelling time of just five minutes, compared to 30-45 minutes charging for a BEV. Also, consumers get about five times better energy storage per unit volume and weight, which frees up a lot of space for other things, while allowing the rider to go farther.