March 2022 Current Affairs

World Air Quality Report 2021:

·        This report has been based on the data of PM2.5 air quality taken from 6,475 cities in 117 regions, countries, and territories from across the globe.

·        New Delhi has been ranked the world’s most polluted capital city for the second consecutive year as per IQAir’s 2021 World Air Quality Report.

·        Bhiwadi was the most polluted city in India, followed by Ghaziabad, Delhi and Jaunpur.

·        Bangladesh was the most polluted country, followed by Chad, Pakistan and Tajikistan. India was the fifth most polluted country.

·        The 2021 World Air Quality Report by Swiss organisation IQAir is the first major global air quality report based on updated annual WHO air quality guidelines for PM2.5. The new guidelines were released in September 2021 and cut existing annual PM2.5 guideline values from 10 μg/m³ to 5  μg/m³.

·        PM2.5 concentration in New Delhi increased by 14.6 per cent in 2021 to 96.4 μg/m³, compared to 84 μg/m³ in 2020.

·        BIMSTEC is an international organisation of seven South Asian and Southeast Asian nations. These are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The Leadership is rotated in alphabetical order of country names. The permanent secretariat of BIMSTEC is in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

·        The Summit was hosted by the Government of Sri Lanka, which was the chair nation of BIMSTEC. At the conclusion of the Summit, Thailand took over as chair nation of BIMSTEC. The year 2022 marks the 25th year of the establishment of BIMSTEC.

·        The theme of the Summit was “Towards a Resilient Region, Prosperous Economies, Healthy People”.

·        During the Summit, leaders witnessed the signing of three BIMSTEC agreements

1.     BIMSTEC Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters

2.     BIMSTEC Memorandum of Understanding on Mutual Cooperation in the field of Diplomatic Training

3.     Memorandum of Association on Establishment of BIMSTEC Technology Transfer Facility

·        Adoption and signing of the BIMSTEC Charter, which would lead to putting in place s set of rules, a framework and long-term goals. This will help to streamline the operations of BIMSTEC and allow the organisation to enhance its potential.

·        Adoption of the ‘Master Plan for Transport Connectivity’ which lays out a guidance framework for connectivity-related activities in the region in the future.

·        Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi announced that India will provide USD 1 million to the BIMSTEC secretariat to increase its operational budget.

River Rejuvenation Project:

·        Ministry for Forest, Environment, and Climate Change announced the project for the rejuvenation of 13 major rivers in the country and Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) prepared the detailed project reports (DPRs) for these rivers.

Selected Rivers

1.     Himalayan Rivers: Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, Sutlej, Yamuna, and Brahmaputra.

2.     Deccan or Peninsular Rivers: Narmada, Godavari, Mahanadi, Krishna, & Cauvery.

3.     Inland drained Category River: Luni.

·        The cost of the project is projected to be 19,342.62 crores and will take five years to be implemented.

·        The plan is to rejuvenate rivers by creating riparian forests or planting trees along the river. This project could increase India’s forest cover by up to 7,417 square kilometers. The riparian forests function as the natural buffers and biofilters, thereby supplementing the self-purification process of rivers.

·        These forests will create creating carbon sinks, as they absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide; thereby helping India in meeting the carbon sequestration goals.

Four goals of the project: The river rejuvenation project seeks to achieve the following four goals:

1.     Sustainable management of rivers and their landscapes.

2.     Biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration.

3.     Improving sustainable livelihoods.

4.     Knowledge management.

MSME Idea Hackathon 2022:

Recently Union MSME Minister Narayan Rane has announced MSME Innovative Scheme (Incubation, Design and IPR) as well as MSME Idea Hackathon 2022.

Important Points:

• This MSME innovation scheme will develop and promote latent innovation in the MSME sector.
• It will act as a hub for innovation activities.
• This is a novel idea for MSMES, which combines incubation, design intervention and IPR protection to inspire them to become MSME champions with increased awareness of innovation.
• It will act as a hub for activities related to innovation endeavors and also provide guidance to turn good business ideas into reality.

Green Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV):

• Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari has inaugurated the world’s most advanced technology-developed Green Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV) Toyota Mirai at New Delhi.
• Toyota Mirai is India’s first Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV), which is completely powered by Hydrogen.
• Toyota Mirai has been launched by Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt Ltd and International Center for Automotive Technology (ICAT) under a pilot project, to study and evaluate the performance of Toyota Mirai on Indian roads and climatic conditions.

Khel Mahakumbh:

• The 11th edition of the Khel Mahakumbh began on March 12 at Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
• Khel Mahakumbh, which began in Gujarat in 2010 with 16 sports and 13 lakh participants, now includes 36 general sports and 26 para-sports.
• The 11th Khel Mahakumbh has received over 45 lakh registrations.

Kavach:

• Union Minister of Railways inspected the trial of ‘Kavach’ working system between Gullaguda-Chitgidda Railway stations on Lingampalli-Vikarabad section in Secunderabad Division of South Central Railway.
• ‘Kavach’ is the automatic train anti-collision system developed by the Indian Railways. It is also known as Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS).
• The KAVACH is an indigenously developed ATP system by Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) in collaboration with Indian industry.
• KAVACH is meant to provide protection by preventing trains to pass the signal at Danger (Red) and avoid collision.
• It activates the train braking system automatically if the driver fails to control the train as per the speed restrictions. In addition, it prevents collision between two Locomotives equipped with functional KAVACH system.
• It is a state of the art electronic system of Safety Integrity Level – 4 standards.

Trends in International Arms Transfer 2021 Report:

• The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has released its latest report on Trends in International Arms Transfer, 2021.
• The report placed India at the top of the list. 85% of India’s overall imports were from three countries. Russia (46%), France (27%), and the USA (12%) were the top three largest exporters of arms to India during the period.
• USA, with 39% share, retained its standing as the world’s largest arms exporters during 2017-21.
• Russia (19%), France (11%), China (4.6%) and Germany (4.5%) were among the top 5 largest exporters respectively.
• India was 23rd largest exporter during 2017-21, with a share of just 0.2% of the global exports

Global Plastics Treaty:

The United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) has voted to develop an international legally-binding instrument to end plastic pollution.

Background: The vote took place on March 2^nd and will aim to implement the treaty by the year 2024.

Details

• The decision was agreed by representatives of 175 nations at the fifth session of UNEA in Nairobi, Kenya.
• The resolution identifies the threat posed by plastic to human health and environment. It urges parties to take measures to efficiently reduce negative impact.

Theme of UNEA session: The theme was set as “strengthening actions for nature to achieve the sustainable development goals”.

The resolution

• An intergovernmental negotiating committee (INC) will be established by the UNEA resolution, which will submit draft agreement by 2024.
• The instrument will be made legally binding. It will focus on designing recyclable products and materials, along with international scientific and technical cooperation between members.
• A forum will be convened by UNEP for sharing knowledge and best practices. Member countries will hold open discussion for the next two years until a draft instrument is made.
• A diplomatic conference will be convened by UNEP to adopt the outcome of INC and open it for signatures in 2024.
• Private sector and stakeholders will have to participate in the implementation of the treaty and promote measures at local, regional and global levels.

PARAM Ganga:

• The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has designed and installed a supercomputer named “PARAM Ganga”, at IIT Roorkee.
• PARAM GANGA has a 1.66 PFLOPS supercomputing capacity (Peta Floating-Point Operations per Second).
• C-DAC was in charge of designing and commissioning it as part of the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).
• The critical components for PARAM GANGA and an indigenous software stack developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing are manufactured and assembled in India (C-DAC).
• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) and the Department of Science and Technology have collaborated on the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) (DST).
• The C-DAC and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore are working on it.

Sujalam 2.0:

• On 23rd March 2022, the Sujalam 2.0 campaign was launched by Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, the Union Minister of Jal Shakti.
• This campaign has been launched for grey water management.
• The launch event was held virtually by the Ministry of Jal Shakti’s Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS).
• The objective of campaign is managing grey water through the participation of the people. Under this campaign, there are plans to mobilize communities such as schools, panchayats, and anganwadis to help in grey water management.
• Funds for grey water management will be provided from the Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin Phase II or through grants under the 15th Finance Commission as well as the MGNREGS or through the convergence between all of them.
• Grey water refers to the domestic wastewater that is generated in households, office buildings, etc. and is without faecal contamination. Sources of grey water include showers, sinks, washing machines, baths, etc.

SLINEX 2022 Exercise Begun:

• From 07 March to 10, the ninth edition of the Indian and Sri Lankan Navy bilateral maritime exercise SLINEX (Sri Lanka–India Naval Exercise) is held at Visakhapatnam.
• This exercise is conducted in two phases, with the Harbor Phase happening at Visakhapatnam on March 7 and 8 and the Sea Phase within the Bay of Bengal on March 9 and 10.
• SLINEX aims to extend mutual affection, interoperability, and the exchange of best procedures and practices for multi-faceted maritime operations between the 2 navies.