Comprehensive Current affairs 28 January 2021

CAQM setting up Decision Support System for air quality for Delhi-NCR.

The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) in NCR and adjoining areas has begun the process of setting up a Decision Support System (DSS).

DSS will have a web, Geographical Information System and multi-model based operational and planning decision support tool.

It will have an integrated framework to handle both primary and secondary pollutants using a chemical transport model.

CAQM was recently established for better co-ordination, research, identification and resolution of problems surrounding air quality index in NCR region.

CAQM has replaced the Environmental Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority.

Sree Narayana Guru.

Vice President of India launched a book of poems, “Not Many, But One” (Two Volumes), an English translation of poems of Sree Narayana Guru by Prof G.K. Sasidharan.

He was saint and social reformer born in Kerala into an Ezhava family, a lower caste.

He preached “One Caste, One Religion, One God for All” and also authored ‘Atmopadesa Satakam’ (onehundred verses of self-instruction).

He was one of the greatest proponents and re-evaluators of Advaita Vedanta, the principle of non-duality putforward by Adi Shankara.

He extended this non dualistic principle into practical modes of self-realisation through spiritualeducation, compassion, and peaceful coexistence of humanity.

Western Disturbance.

Western Disturbance (WD), labelled as an extra-tropical storm originating in the Mediterranean, is an area of low pressure that brings sudden showers, snow and fog in northwest India.

• The disturbances will result in fairly widespread light to moderate snowfall in Kashmir and rains in the plains of Jammu .

• The meaning of WD lies in its name. The disturbance travels from the “western” to the eastern direction.

• These travel eastwards on high-altitude westerly jet streams - massive ribbons of fast winds traversing the earth from west to east.

• The Disturbance means an area of “disturbed” or reduced aipressure.

• Equilibrium exists in nature due to which the air in a region tries to normalise its pressure.

• In the term “extra-tropical storm”, storm refers to low pressure. “Extra-tropical" means outside the tropics. As the WD originates outside the tropical region, the word extra-tropical has been associated with them.

• It is associated with rainfall, snowfall and fog in northern India. It arrives with rain and snow in Pakistan and northern India. The moisture which WDs carry with them comes from the Mediterranean Sea and/or from the Atlantic Ocean.

• It brings winter and pre-monsoon rain and is important for the development of the Rabi crop in the Northern subcontinent.

• The WDs are not always the harbingers of good weather. Sometimes WDs can cause

extreme weather events like floods, flash floods, landslides, dust storms, hail storms and cold waves killing people, destroying infrastructure and impacting livelihoods.

• Expert opinion on western disturbances is divided regarding the 2013 floods in Uttarakhand in which over 5000 people were killed, after three days of Incessant Rainfall.

Modified Scheme to Enhance Ethanol Distillation Capacity.

The Department of Food & Public Distribution has notified the modified scheme for Extending Financial Assistance for enhancement of Ethanol Distillation Capacity.

Modified Scheme to Enhance Ethanol Distillation:

• The scheme will provide financial assistance to develop distilleries for producing 1st Generation (1G) ethanol from feed stocks such as cereals (rice, wheat, barley, corn & sorghum), sugarcane, sugar beet etc. or converting molasses-based distilleries to dual feedstock.

Biofuel Categories:

• First generation biofuels: Made from sugar, starch, vegetable oil, or animal fats using conventional technology.

• E.g. Bio alcohols, Biodiesel, Vegetable oil, Bio ethers, Biogas.

• Second generation biofuels: Produced from non-food crops, such as cellulosic biofuels and waste biomass (stalks of wheat and corn, and wood).

• E.g. biohydrogen, bio methanol.

• Third generation biofuels: Produced from micro-organisms like algae.

• Government would bear interest subvention for five years including one-year moratorium against the loan availed by project proponents from banks @ 6% per annum or 50% of the rate of interest charged by banks whichever is lower.

Benefits:

• Create Employment Opportunities.

• Facilitate diversion of Excess Sugar to ethanol production.

• Encourage farmers to diversify their crops to cultivate particularly maize/corn.

• It would facilitate in achieving blending targets of ethanol with petrol and would reduce import Dependency on Crude Oil.

• Enhance Income of Farmers.

Targets:

• 10% blending of fuel grade ethanol with petrol by 2022 & 20% blending by 2030.

• Now, it has been proposed to achieve 20% Blending of ethanol with petrol by 2025.

Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme:

• EBP programme was started in 2003.

• Nodal ministry: Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

• Oil Marketing Companies will procure ethanol from domestic sources.

• Objective: Sale of 5% ethanol blended Petrol.

Aim:

✓ Reducing import dependency

✓ Conserving foreign exchange

✓ Reducing carbon emissions

✓ Provide boost to agriculture sector.

 India and China held military dialogue.

India and China held 16 hours-long marathon military dialogue to resolve an ongoing border dispute and thinning of forces along the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh, government official said on Monday. The ninth Corps Commander level talks between both the countries took place at the Moldo Meeting point almost two months of last dialogue.

The military commanders to convey the details of the meeting to Prime Minister Office.

The Ministry of External Affairs representative was also part of dialogue.

The eight Corps Commander level talks had taken place happened on November 6.

Michael and Sheila Held Prize .

Nikhil Srivastava, a young Indian mathematician, has been named winner of the prestigious 2021 Michael and Sheila Held Prize along with two others for solving long-standing questions on the Kadison-Singer problem and on Ramanujan graphs.

He is from the University of California, Berkeley, along with Adam Marcus, the Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne (EPFL) and Daniel Alan Spielman from Yale University will receive the 2021 Michael and Sheila Held Prize.

The prize consists of a medal and USD 100,000.

They solved long-standing questions on the Kadison-Singer problem and on Ramanujan graphs, and in the process uncovered a deep new connection between linear algebra, geometry of polynomials, and graph theory that has inspired the next generation of theoretical computer scientists.

The Michael and Sheila Held Prize is presented annually and honours outstanding, innovative, creative, and influential research in the areas of combinatorial and discrete optimisation, or related parts of computer science, such as the design and analysis of algorithms and complexity theory.

Investment in upskilling can boost global GDP by $6.5 trillion by 2030.

According to World Economic Forum report, Investment in upskilling has potential to boost the global GDP by $6.5 trillion by 2030, including by $570 billion (over ₹40 lakh crore) in India alone -- the third highest after China and the US.

The study released during the ongoing online Davos Agenda Summit.

It also said that accelerated investment in upskilling and reskilling of workers could create 53 lakh (net) new jobs by 2030, and help develop more inclusive and sustainable economies worldwide.

Country-wise, India has the second highest additional employment potential at about 23 lakh, after the US at close to 27 lakh, but much more than 17 lakh for China.

The report, Upskilling for Shared Prosperity, authored in collaboration with PwC, found that accelerated skills enhancement would ensure that people have the experience and skills needed for the jobs created by the Fourth Industrial Revolution – boosting global productivity by 3 per cent, on average, by 2030.

The additional GDP potential is the highest in China at almost $2 trillion, followed by close to $1 trillion in the US.

Lunar Sample 76015,143.

After taking office as the 46th US President on January 20, Democrat Joe Biden has made a couple of changes to the Oval Office– the commander-in-chief’s principal place of business which is visited by the most powerful people in the world.

Among the changes is the addition of a Moon rock– a sample of Earth’s natural satellite collected by astronauts of the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972, just before Joe Biden began his long career in the US Senate.

Lunar Sample 76015,143, which weighs 332 grams, was collected by Apollo 17 astronaut Ronald Evans and moonwalkers Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan.

143 is a smaller rock that was cut from its parent 76015, a larger rock of 2.819 kg that was chipped off a large boulder 3 km away from the location of the Apollo Lunar Module– the lander spacecraft used during NASA’s Moon missions.

Apollo 17 was the last mission to send humans to set foot on the lunar surface.

The rock has been placed in the Oval Office “in symbolic recognition of earlier generations’ ambitions and accomplishments, and support for America’s current Moon to Mars exploration approach.

2k time trial.

The two-kilometre time trial set at eight minutes and 15 seconds for fast bowlers and 8:30 for batsmen, spinners and wicketkeepers.

It has become mandatory for India’s centrally-contracted cricketers.

What is the 2k time trial?

On a standard athletics track, the distance is covered in five laps of 400 metres each. The timings can be measured with a stop-watch or an electronic clock.

The 2k time trial is a speed-endurance test, according to Ramji Srinivasan, the 2011 World Cup-winning Indian team’s strength and conditioning coach.

How will it help cricketers?

Srinivasan gives the example of someone batting for hours in difficult conditions. “Time trial is going to make you fitter. For example, if you have to cover the last 100 metres in 20 seconds, you cannot stride, you have to sprint.

Especially when your muscles are fatigued, you have to push. For example, a batsman is in the 90s, it is extremely hot and humid outside.

The time trial will help in terms of when to push (and) when to sprint,” Srinivasan said.

. For example, a batsman is in the 90s, it is extremely hot and humid outside.

The time trial will help in terms of when to push (and) when to sprint,” Srinivasan said.