21st January, 2022 Current Affairs

Sakshi Education

NATIONAL
PM Modi tops global rating amongst world leaders with approval of 71 percent

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has topped the global rating amongst world leaders with an approval rating of 71 percent.
On the list of the 13 world leaders, US President Joe Biden is ranked at number six with a 43 percent rating. Biden is followed by Canadian President Justin Trudeau also at 43 percent and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison at 41 percent.
Even in November 2021, Prime Minister Modi had topped the list of the most popular world leaders.
Morning Consult Political Intelligence is currently tracking the approval of government leaders and country trajectories in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
In May 2020, the same website gave the highest rating to Prime Minister Modi with approval of 84 percent.

BSF: Operation SardHawa

The Border Security Force, BSF launches Operation SardHawa.
Under the operation, the BSF increases the surveillance in the Pakistan border. It is usually launched in the Rajasthan border, especially in the Jaisalmer region. It is a regular annual exercise. It is launched in the month of January.
The Operation SardHawa is conducted during winters and Operation GaramHawa is conducted during summers.
These operations are held to control the infiltration in the borders. During winters thick fog blocks the vision in the border area. This scenario is highly advantageous for the terrorists to cross the border. It is essential for the security forces to stay alert during this season. The BSF conducts Operation SardHawa during winter for this reason. This year, the Operation SardHawa is to be conducted between January 23 and January 28.
The Operation is also launched to keep a hawk’s eye and enhance the security before republic day celebrations.

INTERNATIONAL
India-Central Asia Summit

On January 27, PM Modi will host India – Central Asia Summit. The five central Asian presidents will attend the summit. They are Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyz republic.
This is first India – Central Asia Summit.
The summit is to be held virtually. India has been planning to hold the summit since Modi’s visit to these central Asian countries in 2015.
During the summit, the leaders re expected to exchange their views on international and regional issues. They are expected to mainly focus on security issues.
The countries share their boundaries with Afghanistan. Afghanistan was taken over by Taliban after the US left Afghan soil in August 2021.
This left Indian developmental works in Afghanistan incomplete. Also, the Indian investments made towards the development of Afghanistan went in vain.
Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyz republic share their boundaries with China. India is now involved in 21 – month standoff with China.

Science and Technology
BrahMos supersonic cruise missile successfully test-fired with enhanced capability

BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, with increased indigenous content and improved performance, was successfully test-fired from Integrated Test Range, Chandipur off the coast of Odisha this morning.
The launch was conducted by Brahmos Aerospace in close coordination with the teams of Defence Research and Development Organisation. In this text-book flight, the missile followed the predicted trajectory meeting all mission objectives.
The flight test is a major milestone in the way forward for BrahMos programme. The missile was equipped with the advanced indigenous technologies and followed a modified optimal trajectory for enhanced efficiency and improved performance.
The missile with the modified control system has been fine tuned to achieve an enhanced capability.
This flight test was monitored by all the sensors of the range instrumentation including telemetry, radar and electro-optical tracking systems deployed across the eastern coast and the down range ships.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has complimented the Brahmos, DRDO teams and industry for the successful flight test.

TOI-2180: New Jupiter-like Exoplanet

A group of scientists recently discovered a new planet. The planet is of the size of Jupiter. The new planet is 379 light years away from the earth. It is 105 times denser than the earth. The planet is named TOI-2180 b.
It takes 261 days for the planet to orbit its star. Its surface temperature is 76 degrees Celsius. It is not only denser than the earth, but also denser than the Jupiter. The planet is made of helium and hydrogen. The planet has rings and moons. It dims by half a percent in 24 hour period.
The new planet discovered is a gas giant exoplanet. In our solar system, the Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus and Saturn are the gas giants. Now, Uranus and Neptune are classified as ice giants for their heavily volatile materials. The gas giant planets are made of hydrogen and helium. The gas giants do not have any solid matter. It is full of swirling gases.
Tom Jacobs discovered the exoplanet with the help of NASA telescope. Tom also used the help of TESS to discover the planet. TESS is Transitioning Exoplanet Survey Satellite. It is an explorer programme of NASA.

ECONOMY

RBI’s Digital Payment Index

The Reserve Bank of India recently released the Digital Payment Index. According to the index, the digital payments in the country have increased by 40% in September 2021 as compared to March 2021.
The index measure of online transactions was 304.06 in September 2021.
It was 270.59 in March 2021. In September 2020, the online transaction measure was 217.74. The index is released in the months of March and September.
The base year of the RBI Digital Payment Index is 2018. This means the score of the index for the March period was set to 100. The index value has increased by 2.7 times within three years.
The payments through digital payments have increased by 39.64%. The Unified Payment Interface in the second quarter has increased by 82%. In Q2 around 19 banks joined the UPI system. The number of Point of Sale terminals increased by 13% in Q2 as compared to the previous quarter.

Formulation of the index

The index is formulated based on five parameters.
They are payment enablers (25%), consumer centricity (5%), payment performance (45%), supply side factors (15%), and demand side factors (10%).
The index is published in semi – annual basis. It was first released in March 2021.

ENVIRONMENT

Census in Kaziranga National Park

The Kaziranga National Park is a Tiger Reserve and a World Heritage site. The park recently conducted its water fowl census.
The census is conducted in the 52 wetlands in the parks. In 2021, the bird count increased to 93,491. It was 34,284 in 2020. The bird count has increased by 175% in one year.
Around 126 species were spotted during the census. The census used point count method.
The census reported 868 deers. This includes 173 males, 557 females and 138 yearlings. Unfortunately, the deer population has decreased. Earlier it was 907. The population of deers in the park decreased mainly because of floods.
66,776 wetlands birds were reported. Of this 42,205 were counted in the national park area. 24,571 were counted in Burhachapori Wildlife sanctuary and Laokhowa.
Of all the animals, the bar headed geese were in greatest numbers. There were 16,552 bar headed geese. Also, the census reported 5,631 common teal, 9,493 northern pintail and 2,236 ferruginous ducks.
40,000 hog deers were reported. They are the main food for the tigers in the park.
35 elephants were spotted.
The census found that the swamp deer population was very low. Therefore, the few swamp deers were translocated to Manas National Park. There is no threat of floods in the Manas National Park.
The Swamp Deers are endemic to the Indian sub continent. They have faced a steep decline. The swamp deers were distributed throughout the Himalayan region starting from Uttarakhand to upper parts of Assam including plains of Ganges, Godavari and Indo – Gangetic.

REPORTS

Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2022

The World Economic Forum recently published the Global Cyber security Outlook 2022.
In 2021, the ransom ware attacks have increased by 151%. Each organization faced 270 cyber-attacks on an average.
A successful organization that breached cyber-attacks spent 3.6 million USD.
59% of the cyber leaders believe that there is not difference between cyber resilience and cyber security. It is not so. Cyber security is providing protection to the computers, data storages and internet.
Cyber resilience is anticipating and adapting to cyber-attacks. There is no anticipation component in cyber security. It is an overall protection. Cyber resilience knows its enemy. And cyber security doesn’t.
According to the report, the following two factors have the highest influence on cyber security