International Conventions on Chemical Wastes
- Basel Convention - Control of Tran boundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal
- India Strongly opposes the plastic waste and e-waste dumping by other countries in India through this convention.
- Rotterdam Convention - Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade
- Under the Rotterdam Convention, two new chemicals (Phorate and HBCD) were added in the list for mandatory Prior Informed Consent procedure in international trade.
- Stockholm Convention - Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
- Under the Stockholm Convention it is decided to list “Dicofol” is listed as a top pollutant without any exemption.
Economic Census
- Economic Census is being conducted since 1977, by Ministry of Statics and Program Implementation (MoSPI).
- The Economic census will provide detailed information on operational and other characteristics such as number of establishments, number of persons employed, source of finance, type of ownership etc.
- This information used for micro level/ decentralized planning and to assess contribution of various sectors of the economy in the gross domestic product (GDP).
- Total Six Economic Censuses (EC) has been conducted till date.
Artemis Mission
- Artemis is NASA’s next mission to the Moon; ARTEMIS stands for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of Moon’s Interaction with the Sun.
- The mission consists of spacecraft to measure what happens when the Sun’s radiation hits our rocky moon, where there is no magnetic field to protect it.
- The ARTEMIS mission uses two of the five in-orbit spacecraft from another NASA Heliophysics constellation of satellites (THEMIS) that were launched in 2007 and successfully completed their mission earlier in 2010.
- The ARTEMIS mission allowed NASA to repurpose two in-orbit spacecraft to extend their useful science mission, saving tens of millions of taxpayer dollars instead of building and launching new spacecraft.
Chirstchurch Call for Action
- Christchurch Call for Action outlines collective, voluntary commitments from governments and online service providers intended to address the issue of terrorist and violent extremist content online.
- The signatories promised to implement laws related to regulating terrorist content online and curbing the spread of extremism while maintaining international human rights laws.
- India recently signed the Christchurch Call for Action.
- The US refused to sign the document saying it was “not in a position to join” because it needs to assure freedom of speech, adding that it supports the general idea of the agreement.
MRSAM
- Indian Navy and DRDO has recently test fired Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM).
- The Indian Navy achieved a significant milestone in enhancing its Anti Air Warfare Capability with the maiden cooperative engagement firing of the Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM).
- The MRSAM has been developed by DRDO along with Isralei Aerospace Industries and has been manufactured by Bharat Dynamics Limited, India.
- Each MRSAM weapon system comprises of one command and control system, one tracking radar, missiles, and mobile launcher systems.
Sources: PIB, The Hindu
