India-Mauritius CECPA
- India-Mauritius Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement (CECPA) will be the first trade Agreement to be signed by India with a country in Africa.
- This limited agreement will cover Trade in Goods and Services, Rules of Origin, Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, Dispute Settlement, etc.,
- It will also cover the Movement of Natural Persons, Telecom, Financial services, Customs Procedures and Cooperation in other Areas.
- It covers 310 export items for India, and Mauritius will benefit from preferential market access into India for its 615 products.
- Both have agreed to negotiate Automatic Trigger Safeguard Mechanism (ATSM) for a limited number of highly sensitive products within two years of the Signing of the Agreement.
e-Chhawani Portal
- It is an online multi-tenancy central platform.
- It aims to provide citizen-centric municipal services to the citizens across 62 Cantonment Boards.
- The residents of cantonment areas can register their complaints regarding civic issues and resolve them while sitting at home.
- People can get their documents like trade licence, sewerage connectivity applications can be made through the portal.
Cantonment Board
- A cantonment board, an urban local body, established for municipal administration for civilian population in the cantonment area.
- It is set up under the provisions of the Cantonments Act of 2006 – a legislation enacted by the Central government.
- It works under the administrative control of the Defence Ministry of the Central government.
- They are grouped into four categories on the basis of the civil population as - Above 50,000; 10,000 to 50, 000; 2500 to 10, 000 and below 2500.
Extinction Rebellion
- Extinction Rebellion (XR) was launched in the United Kingdom in 2018, as a response to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that declared,
- We only have 12 years to stop catastrophic climate change and
- We have entered the 6th mass extinction event.
- It is a global movement to persuade the governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency.
- It is a decentralised and politically non-partisan movement that uses,
- Non-violent Direct Action and
- Civil Disobedience.
- It asks the groups to rebel and self-organise, without the need for anyone’s permission, to come up with collective action plans that adhere to the group’s core principles and values.
- The group has “three core demands” to the governments around the world, in order to confront the climate and ecological emergency that the world is faced with.
- It wants governments to “Tell the Truth”, “Act Now”, and “Go Beyond Politics”.
Juvenile Justice Amendment Bill, 2021
- The Union Cabinet approved amendments to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015.
- As per the amendment, the district magistrates (DM) and additional district magistrates (ADM) will monitor the functioning of various agencies responsible for implementation of the JJ Act in every district.
- The DM can independently evaluate juvenile police unit, specialised Child Welfare Committees (CWC) and registered Child Care Institution (CCI).
- The district child protection unit will function under district magistrate.
- Before becoming a member of the CWC, background and educational qualification checks will be done.
- Before registration of a CCI, DM will conduct its capacity and background check, and submit recommendations to state government.
- The definition of “child in need of care” and protection of the JJ Act has been expanded to include,
- Child victims of trafficking and drug abuse and
- Children abandoned by their guardian.
- At present, the Act has three categories of petty, serious and heinous crimes. The amendment categorises certain previously undefined offences as 'serious offences' where the,
- Sentence is more than seven years but no minimum sentence is prescribed or
- A minimum sentence of less than seven years is provided.
- There is a proposal to appoint a nodal office in each embassy to monitor the child adopted abroad.
Mars Missions
- Three Mars missions - UAE’s Hope, NASA’s Perseverance and China’s Tianwen-1 - are set to land on Mars in the year 2021.
- Earth and Mars are at their closest distance relative to each other every 26 months and this is when Earthlings try to send missions to Mars.
- Currently, there are 10 spacecraft from five different space agencies, either orbiting or on the ground on Mars.
- NASA has a lander (Mars Insight), a rover (Curiosity), and three orbiters (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, MAVEN);
- India has an orbiter (Mangalyaan-1)
- European Union has 2 orbiters (Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter)
- UAE has an orbiter (Hope)
- China has an orbiter (Tianwen-1)
Hope
- Hope Orbiter, the UAE’s Mars mission, underwent orbital insertion.
- The UAE became the fifth national space agency (after the US, EU, Russia, and India) to reach Mars.
- The UAE mission will study the Martian atmosphere.
- It will seek to address the question of how and why Mars lost its atmosphere.
- The loss of the atmosphere resulted in the loss of surface water, and possibly the environment hospitable to life.
Perseverance
- Perseverance Rover is NASA’s 4th generation Mars Rover.
- [NASA’s previous Mars Rovers were Sojourner (Mars Pathfinder Mission in 1997), Spirit and Opportunity (Mars Exploration Rover Mission in 2004), and Curiosity (Mars Science Laboratory in 2012).]
- Perseverance is en route to Mars, and is set to land at Jezero Crater, which was likely filled with water in the past.
- In the dried up lake bed at Jezero Crater, it will look for fossils or some biosignatures.
- Also, it will produce oxygen on the Martian surface for the first time, using atmospheric CO2 from the Martian atmosphere.
- It will cache rock samples that will be returned to Earth by a subsequent European Space Agency/NASA mission.
Tianwen-1
- Chinese National Space Agency’s Tianwen-1 is the first mission from China to Mars.
- Tianwen-1 carries an orbiter, a lander, and a rover.
- Unlike NASA rovers, it will orbit Mars for few months before attempting to land in May, 2021 at Utopia Planitia.
- [Utopia Planitia was selected for landing, as it would possibly have ancient groundwater deposits.]
- It has a suite of instruments to address a range of scientific questions.
- It has a ground penetrating radar instrument to look for water under the Martian surface.
Starship Enterprise
- Starship Enterprise, a preparation for revolutionising Mars exploration, is being developed by the SpaceX in Boca Chica.
- [Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a private US-based company, has a long-range goal of starting a commercial service to transport passengers to Mars.]
- Starship represents the best shot at landing humans on Mars, which is not underwritten financially by government money.
- It promises to reduce mission costs by 95% to 99% by using innovations like refuelling the spacecraft in orbit, and manufacture of rocket fuel on Mars using materials that are found on Mars.
Source: PIB, The Indian Express, Times Now, Economic Times, Business Standard
