Daily Current Affairs - 21-12-2021

The International Human Solidarity Day was observed globally on December 20, to honour the “Unity in Diversity”.

Key Facts

Aim of the Day

The International Human Solidarity Day is observed with the aim of raising public awareness on the importance of solidarity, encourage debate on the ways of promoting solidarity for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals including the poverty eradication. The day focuses on new initiatives to eradicate poverty across the world.

Logo of the Day

The logo for the day has been designed by considering its theme. Logo comprises of four humans surrounding the earth, with their arms outstretched. Different colours of the arms symbolises unity in diversity.

History of the day

On December 22, 2005, the United Nations General Assembly has identified solidarity as one of the fundamental and universal values, through resolution 60/209. The UN also noted that, promotion of solidarity culture and spirit of sharing is important to combat poverty. With the same resolution, UN announced to observe the International Human Solidarity Day on December 20.

Why this day is observed?

The International Human Solidarity Day is celebrated to promote the culture of cooperation, equality and social justice.

These of the day

The International Human Solidarity Day is observed under the same theme every year.

World Solidarity Fund

With the launch of initiatives like establishment of World Solidarity Fund to eradicate poverty and proclamation of International Human Solidarity Day, solidarity concept was promoted as significant in the fight against poverty.

On December 19, 2021, United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced to end the censorship in cinematic releases.

Key Points

Significance of the decision

The decision to end censorship is being interpreted as UAE’s effort to become competitive in the Gulf region and appear broad-minded & liberal to foreigners. This step is significant for country, as it tries to diversify its economy by attracting foreign investment and reducing dependence on oil.

What were the norms earlier?

Earlier, the scenes which showed nudity and other inappropriate content, were removed from the movies in UAE. This sometimes affected the plot of movies.

Other decision by government to attract international workers

  1. Recently, government of UAE made changes to the work week in country. This decision was taken as authorities have been trying to promote UAE to attract international workers. Government also reformed its Islamic legal code. From 2022, weekends in UAE will not be operational. Working week for government employees will be from Monday to Friday, and Friday being half day. The work week was changed to make the country work as per western schedules. New working week also help in boosting its tourism and work efficiency.
  2. Apart from that, UAE also came up with some social or “secular-leaning reforms”. Country had decriminalised the consumption of alcohol and allowed out-of-marriage cohabitation.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is set to provide USD 350 million loan for improving access to urban services across India.

Key Points

  1. By accelerating policy actions and reforms of enhancing service delivery and
  2. By promoting performance-based central fiscal transfers to urban local bodies (ULBs).

Sub-programme under Sustainable Urban Development and Service Delivery Programme

Loan agreement for first sub-programme worth USD 350 million was also signed by ministry of finance, under Sustainable Urban Development & Service Delivery Programme. The sub-programme seeks to establish essential policies and guidelines for urban reforms at national level. This programme is in line with the government national flagship programmes, which promote cities as engines of economic growth.

ADB’s loan for skill university in Assam

ADB is also going to provide a USD 112-million loan for establish a skill university in Assam. For this, Government of India and ADB signed a deal on December 17. This university will be key to strengthen industry-aligned & flexible skills education and training system in Assam. Skill University project will support the design and construction of ASU campus. Project will also develop ASU’s management & operating systems and promote professional development of faculty members.

The Kerala University of Fisheries & Ocean Studies (KUFOS) has been chosen to join a research project under a NASA-ISRO collaborative programme.

Highlights

NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission

NISAR is a joint project between NASA and ISRO. Both the organisations are working on it to co-develop and launch a dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar on the Earth observation satellite. NISAR will be launched in 2023 and it will be the first radar imaging satellite that uses dual frequencies. Satellite will be used for remote sensing as well as to observe & understand natural processes on Earth.

Advanced Radar Imaging

NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar will use advanced radar imaging for mapping the elevation of Earth’s land and ice masses. Mapping will be done for 4 to 6 times in a month at resolutions of 5 to 10 meters. Satellite has been designed to observe and measure Earth’s most complex natural processes, like ice-sheet collapse, ecosystem disturbances, and natural hazards like tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides.

NASA-ISRO agreement

Under the agreement between NASA and ISRO, NASA will provide L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a solid-state recorder, a high-rate telecommunication subsystem for scientific data GPS receivers, and a payload data subsystem. On the other hand, ISRO will provide an S-band synthetic aperture radar, satellite bus, launch vehicle, and associated launch services.

Mission Launch

NISAR satellite will be launched from India on January 29, 2023, aboard a GSLV Mk II. The orbit will be a Sun-synchronous.

Life of the mission

Planned mission life is three years.

On December 20, 2021, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) approved the acquisition of Air India, Air India SATS Airport and Air India Express by Talace, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons.

Key Points

Acquisition of Air India

Tata Group came into a share purchase agreement with Central government in October 2021, to purchase the stake of centre in national carrier Air India, Air India Express, and AISATS. Following this, a Letter of Intent (LoI) was issued to Tata Group. After SPA, Tata Group had to fulfil the conditions precedent in the agreement before taking over Air India.

Tata’s Bid

Tata Sons’ subsidiary Talace emerged as the highest bidder for AIR India, under the divestment process. Talace had quoted an enterprise value of Rs 18,000 crore for 100 per cent equity shareholding of Centre. Out of 18000 crores, Telace will retain Rs 15300 crore while rest will be paid to Central government as cash component.

Competition Commission of India (CCI)

CCI is the chief national competition regulator in India. It is a statutory body, working under Ministry of Corporate Affairs. It is responsible for enforcing the Competition Act, 2002 for promoting competition and prevent activities. CCI also looks into cases and investigate if it has negative impact on competition.

On December 20, 2021, Chief Minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik inaugurated T-Setu over River Mahanadi.

Key facts about T-Setu

Reduced distance

Significance of the bridge

Construction of T-Setu is significant because, state government builds a 3-km long fair-weather road (pedestrian track), every year, on Mahanadi River at a cost of Rs 14- Rs15 lakh for facilitating communication for devotees. This road gets washed away in rainy season. As a result, construction of this bridge was a long-standing demand of locals.

Background

Chief Minister had laid foundation stone T-setu on February 28, 2014. But, due to some technical issues, construction work was delayed and started in 2018.

River Mahanadi

Mahanadi is a major river of East Central India, flowing through Chhattisgarh and Odisha. It has a total length of 900 kilometres and drains an area of around 132,100 square kilometres. This river is also famous for Hirakud Dam.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has decided to defer its annual meeting in Davos, because of continued uncertainty over the Omicron variant of coronavirus.

Highlights

World Economic Forum (WEF)

WEF is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation. It is headquartered in Cologny, Switzerland. Klaus Schwab had founded WEF on January 24, 1971. The foundation is mostly funded by its 1,000 member companies as well as public subsidies.

Annual Meeting of WEF

The WEF held its annual meeting at the end of January in Davos every year. Meeting brings together around 3,000 paying members and selected participants including business leaders, investors, political leaders, economists, journalists and celebrities. Discussions are held for up to five days on global issues across 500 sessions.

About Davos

Davos is an Alpine resort town and a municipality located in Davos Region of Switzerland. It has a permanent population of 10,832. It is located on river Landwasser, in the Rhaetian Alps.

The Rhaetian Alps

Rhaetian Alps are a mountain range of Eastern Alps.

The Alps

Alps are the highest and most extensive mountain range system, located entirely in Europe. They stretch for approximately 1,200 km, across eight Alpine countries namely- France, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, and Slovenia (from West to East, in that order).

NASA released the noises captured by the Juno mission, near Jupiter’s moon Ganymede.

Key Points

Closest Approach of Spacecraft

During the closest approach, Juno was within 1,038 kilometres of the Ganymede’s surface. It travelled at a relative velocity of 67,000 kilometres per hour.

Ganymede Moon

Ganymede is a satellite (moon) of Jupiter. It is the largest and most massive moon as well as ninth-largest object of the Solar System. Ganymede is the largest moon without a substantial atmosphere. Its diameter is of 5,268 km and thus 26% larger as compared to planet Mercury by volume. It is the only moon, that have a magnetic field.

Orbit around Jupiter

Ganymede orbits the Jupiter in around seven days. It is in a 1:2:4 orbital resonance respectively with the moons Europa and Io.

Juno Mission

Juno is a NASA space probe, covering planet Jupiter. It was built by Lockheed Martin. The spacecraft is operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It was launched in August 2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, as a part of New Frontiers program. Spacecraft entered the polar orbit of Jupiter in July 2016, to start a scientific investigation of the Jupiter. When the mission will complete, Juno will be intentionally deorbited into atmosphere of Jupiter. Juno is the second spacecraft to orbit Jupiter. First spacecraft was nuclear powered Galileo orbiter, which was operation from 1995 to 2003.

An experiment called “MicroAge” is set to be launched to International Space Station on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

Highlights

How cells will be sent to space?

Human cells have been put into small 3D holders. These cells will be electrically stimulated, once they reach to space. The electrical stimulation will help in inducing contractions in muscle tissue.  This experiment will help scientists in examining the cells closely.

Who will analyse these cells?

These cells will be analysed by Researchers from University of Liverpool. Research will be funded by the UK Space Agency. UK Space Agency has provided £1.2 million in funds to conduct the experiment.

What led to this experiment?

It is known for a long time that astronauts in space tend to lose muscle rapidly. So, people have speculated if that is an accelerated ageing phenomenon. Astronauts at the space station had an analogous problem. Each astronaut on space station exercises at lease 2.5 hours each day. Despite this fact, they lose a significant amount of muscle. They find it difficult to walk for a while, after they return back to earth. Thus, this experiment will be conducted to study the ageing phenomenon.

MicroAge App

Regular updates and details related to the experiment will be provided on the MicroAge App.

In November 2021, around 2,000 pet and stray dogs in Amravati city were affected by canine parvovirus. Veterinarians also cautioned pet owners against a severe outbreak.

About Canine Parvovirus

Cases in Amravati

Spread of virus

Parvovirus spreads through direct contact with the infected dog or by indirect contact with any contaminated object, like hands and clothing of people handling infected dogs. Dogs get exposed to the virus with sniffs, licks, or when they consume infected faeces. Virus can also transmit indirectly when dogs come in touch with the person, who has recently been exposed to an infected dog or when dogs come in contact with contaminated object, such as food or water bowl, collars and leashes.