29th March, 2022 Current Affairs

Sakshi Education

NATIONAL

Lok Sabha passes Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2022 for inclusion of Darlong community in list of Tripura

The Lok Sabha has passed the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2022.
The bill seeks to amend the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950 for inclusion of certain community in the list of Scheduled Tribes in relation to the State of Tripura.
The Bill proposes to "Darlong" community as a sub-tribe of "Kuki" in the list of Scheduled Tribes.
Moving the bill in the House, Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda said that the Narendra Modi government is committed to the development of tribal areas and the welfare of tribal community. He said, the bill has been brought with an intention to include Darlong community as a sub tribe of Kuki community in Tripura.
The amendment is proposed because in hilly area the people of same community are residing as different sub tribes and are excluded from the list for longtime.

Government accords in-Principle approval to set up 21 green field airports across the country

Government has accorded in-principle approval to set up 21 green field airports across the country..
These airports include Mopa in Goa; Navi Mumbai, Sindhudurg and Shirdi in Maharashtra; Bijapur, Hassan, Kalaburagi and Shimoga in Karnataka; Dabra in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh; Kushinagar and Jewar (Noida) in Uttar Pradesh.
Other states where these airports will come up are Gujarat, Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Sikkim, Kerala and Arunachal Pradesh.
Eight of these 21 airports have already been operationalized.
Greenfield Airport is a term used to identify a new airport, built from scratch in a new location. Such airports are constructed to support the projected requirements of traffic of the existing airport.

INTERNATIONAL

UNHCR says Russia-Ukraine conflict has triggered Europe’s worst refugee crisis

UNHCR has said the Russia-Ukraine conflict has triggered Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II. The Agency said speed and breadth of refugees fleeing to countries including Poland, Romania, Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia as well as Russia is unprecedented in recent times.
According to the latest tally announced by the UNHCR, total exodus now stands at 3.87 million. The Agency's senior emergency coordinator in Poland, Alex Mundt said until there is a political solution, there is no guarantee that the trend of new arrivals will decrease.
The International Organization for Migration, IOM, has also estimated that more than 6.5 million people in Ukraine have been driven from their homes due to conflict but remain displaced inside the country. IOM said another 12 million people are believed to be trapped in places where fighting has been intense, or do not want to leave.

Mexico Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard to be on 2-day India visit

Foreign Minister of Mexico Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón will be on a two-day visit to India from 29th Mar.
This is the first visit of Mr. Casaubón to India in his capacity as Foreign Minister.
External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar and Mr Casaubón will undertake a comprehensive review of bilateral relations and will also discuss international issues of mutual interest.
The Mexican Foreign Minister is also scheduled to visit Mumbai. Mr. Casaubón's visit follows Dr Jaishankar’s visit to Mexico City in September last year.
Currently, Mexico is India’s second-largest trade partner in Latin America and is a member of the UNSC alongside India for the period 2021-22.

India renews scholarship for descendants of Bangladesh Liberation War fighters for five years

The government of India has renewed the scholarship scheme for the descendants of the liberation war of Bangladesh launched in 2017 for another five years beginning 2022-23.
This year a total of 1497 students have been selected for the scholarship scheme from Bangladesh. It includes 501 students at the Higher Secondary level (HSC) and 996 at the Undergraduate (UG) level.
The current scholarship scheme was re-launched in April 2017 during the visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to India. This new scheme was set to benefit 10,000 students from Bangladesh for a period of five years at the Higher Secondary (Taka 20,000) and Undergraduate (Taka 50,000) Levels. Till now, 19,082 students have benefited under this scheme, and an amount of Tk 44.99 crore has been utilized, said a press release issued by the High Commission of India.

Nepal PM Sher Bahadur Deuba to visit India from 1st April

Nepal Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba will pay an official visit to India from the 1st to 3rd of April at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He will be accompanied by his wife Dr. Arzu Deuba and a high-level delegation. This will be the first bilateral visit abroad by the Prime Minister of Nepal after assuming his office in July last year.
India and Nepal enjoy age-old and special ties of friendship and cooperation. In recent years, the partnership has witnessed significant growth in all areas of cooperation.

New round of Ukraine-Russia peace talks to be held today in Istanbul

Another round of talks between Russia and Ukraine aimed at ending the tension between the nations is scheduled to be held today in Istanbul. Ahead of the talks, the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country is prepared to declare its neutrality, as Moscow has demanded, and is open to compromise on the fate of the Donbas, the contested region in the country’s east.
Russia has long demanded that Ukraine drop any hope of joining NATO, which Moscow sees as a threat.
Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he has launched an effort to achieve a cease-fire that would allow aid to be brought in and people to move around safely.
Griffiths is in close contact with other countries in the hope of involving Russia in meaningful negotiations, including Turkey, Qatar, Israel, India, China, France and Germany, the UN chief added.

ECONOMY

Grains godowns of states to be made part of FCI’s digitized system soon

To complete digitization of food grain storage facilities across states, the government will soon roll out a system for real-time tracking of rice and wheat stored in state government godowns, in terms of their volume and quality.
As part of the depot online system (DOS), around 2,200 storage facilities or godowns owned and hired by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) have already been integrated into the digital network. However, more than 14,000 godowns of the state governments haven’t been made part of the integrated system. Once these godown are linked to a central portal, rice and wheat stocks with government agencies could be ascertained on a real-time basis.
Many states including Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat follow a decentralized procurement model to manage procurement, storage and distribute grain under the public distribution system (PDS). Surplus grains are handed over by them to the FCI for distribution to grain-deficient regions.

Government’s total liabilities rise 2 pc to Rs 128.41 lakh cr in Dec quarter

The government’s total liabilities rose to Rs 128.41 lakh crore in December quarter from Rs 125.71 lakh crore in the three months ended September 2021, according to the latest public debt management report. The increase reflects a quarter-on-quarter increase of 2.15 per cent in October-December 2021-22.
In absolute terms, the total liabilities, including liabilities under the ‘Public Account’ of the government, jumped to Rs. 1,28,41,996 crore at the end of December 2021. As of September 30, the total liabilities stood at Rs. 1,25,71,747 crore.
Public debt accounted for 91.60 per cent of the total outstanding liabilities in December quarter compared to 91.15 per cent at the end of September. Nearly 25 per cent of the outstanding dated securities had a residual maturity of less than 5 years.
The ownership pattern of the central government securities indicates that the share of commercial banks stood at 35.40 per cent at end-December 2021, lower than 37.82 per cent at end-September 2021.

AWARDS

Prof Wilfried Brutsaert bags Stockholm Water Prize 2022

Professor Emeritus Wilfried Brutsaert has been named as the Stockholm Water Prize Laureate 2022. He has been awarded for his groundbreaking work to quantify environmental evaporation. Wilfried Brutsaert is Professor in Engineering Emeritus at Cornell University, USA.
His innovative works on Evaporation and Hydrology are of lasting theoretical and practical importance, particularly in view of climate change. In addition, Wilfried Brutsaert has pioneered novel approaches to understanding changes in groundwater storage.
The Stockholm Water Prize is the world’s most prestigious water award and is often described as the Nobel Prize of water.
The prestigious Prize has been awarded since 1991 to people and organizations for extraordinary water-related achievements.
The Prize is awarded by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) in cooperation with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Mario Marcel wins the Governor of the year award 2022

Mario Marcel, the Governor of the Central Bank of Chile, has won the Governor of the year award at the Central Banking Awards 2022. Banco Central de Chile is the name of the central bank of Chile.
When Mario Marcel was named governor of the Central Bank of Chile (BCCh) in October 2016, he took over the leadership of an institution that had secured a reputation as one of the most independent and well-run central banks in Latin America.
Marcel took steps to further improve the institution. He changed its internal management structure, reducing the number of monetary policy meetings from 12 to eight.
The BCCh also improved the quality of its communications in both English and Spanish. But the BCCh’s reputation, as well as Marcel’s own, would be put to a severe test from 2019.

Francis Kéré becomes first African to win Pritzker Prize 2022

Architect, educator and social activist Francis kéré has been announced as the 2022 laureate of the Pritzker architecture prize 2022, the award often referred to as architecture’s highest honor. He was born in the small village of gando in Burkina Faso, kéré is the first black architect to win the coveted award.
Established by the Hyatt Foundation in 1979, the Pritzker architecture prize is bestowed on architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of talent, vision, and commitment. in 2021, the award went to French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal while in 2020 saw Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell of Grafton architects were honoured.

APPOINTMENTS

Pramod Sawant takes oath as Chief Minister of Goa for 2nd term

Pramod Sawant took oath as the Chief Minister of Goa on March 28, 2022, for the second straightfive-year term. Sawant led the BJP in the recently concluded 2022 Goa Assembly elections and won 20 seats in the 40-member Goa Assembly.
Mr. Sawant was administered the oath by Governor PS Sreedharan Pillai at the Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee stadium near Panaji.
Mr. Sawant is an Ayurveda Medical practitioner by profession. He was sworn in as Chief Minister in March 2019 after the death of the sitting chief minister Manohar Parrikar. Mr Sawant represents the Sanquelim constituency.

Maltese PM Robert Abela sworn in after landslide victory

The Prime Minister of Malta, Robert Abela has been sworn in for a second term after his ruling Labour Party won the 2022 general election in a landslide victory. He was administered the oath of office by President George Vella.
Abela was first sworn in as prime minister in January 2020 after the former Labour Party leader and Prime Minister Joseph Muscat resigned.
It was the first electoral test for Abela, a 44-year-old lawyer since he took the helm of the tiny Mediterranean island nation in January 2020 following a Labour party vote. Labour secured a majority of almost 40,000 votes over its Nationalist Party rivals — a huge margin in the tiny EU state which has just 355,000 registered voters.

Published date : 29 Mar 2022 06:44PM