• The Uttar Pradesh government has recently released the draft Uttar Pradesh Population (Control, Stabilisation and Welfare) Bill, 2021.
• Incentives and penalties form an integral component of the draft bill.
• These steps are aimed at reducing U.P.’s total fertility rate (TFR), recorded as 2.7 by the National Family Health Survey-4 in 2016, a figure only lower than that of neighbouring Bihar (3.1 as of 2020 in NFHS-5).
• Instead of taking steps towards the Cairo Consensus which calls for promotion of reproductive rights, empowering women, universal education, maternal and infant health, the draft bill have taken the beaten path of a mixture of incentives and penalties to tackle what is a socio-economic issue as a demographic one.

Cairo Consensus

• The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) was convened in 1994 under the auspices of the United Nations and was organized by a secretariat composed of the Population Division of the then UN Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis (now the Department of Economic and Social Affairs) and UNFPA.
• The Conference adopted the Programme of Action by consensus, also known as the Cairo Consensus, which emphasized the fundamental role of women’s interests in population matters and introduced the concepts of sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights. 
• The Programme of Action, adopted by acclamation on 13 September 1994, emphasizes the integral linkages between population and development and focuses on meeting the needs of individual women and men, rather than on achieving demographic targets.
• The Programme of Action builds upon the World Population Plan of Action, adopted at the World Population Conference held in Bucharest in 1974, and the recommendations adopted at the International Conference on Population, held in Mexico City in 1984.

• SpaceIL, the nonprofit Israeli initiative whose spacecraft crashed on the moon two years ago has recently said that it has secured $70 million in funding to make a second attempt at a lunar landing.
• The first “Beresheet” or “Genesis spacecraft” built by SpaceIL and state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries, crashed into the moon moments before touchdown in April 2019, falling short in its attempt to become the first privately funded lunar landing.

Beresheet 2

• The new mission, to be called “Beresheet 2”, was first announced in late 2020.
• It plans to set new global space records through a double landing on the moon and the installment of the lightest ever moon landers, each weighing 60 kg without fuel.
• It will be composed of three spacecraft — an orbiter and two landers — with the mission hoping to follow China in becoming only the second to successfully land on the far side of the moon.
• The orbiter, known as the mothership, is set to remain in space for years serving as a platform for educational science activities through a remote connection that allows students from around the world to participate in deep-space research.

Lai Haraoba Festival

• It is a religious festival celebrated by the Meitei people who are largely settled in and around Manipur.
• It is one of the main festivals still performed in Manipur which has its roots in the pre-Vaishnavite period. 

Meiteis

• They live mostly in the Imphal Valley and make up the majority of the Manipur’s population.
• While the Nagas have mostly converted to Christianity, the Meiteis are predominantly Hindus.
• Politically, Manipur may have been under the suzerainty of Burmese rulers but culturally it remained well-connected with mainland India.

Manipur

• Called the ‘jewel of India’ by Jawaharlal Nehru, Manipur is geographically a small valley surrounded by hills where the Nagas live.
• It was under the control of the Burmese kings until 1826 when under the Yandabo Treaty with the British East India Company, the king of Ava (Burma) recognised the British-supported Gambhir Singh as the king of Manipur.
• In 1891, Manipur came under the British rule as a princely state. 
• Manipur became a part of Independent India on October 15, 1949.

• NTPC Renewable Energy Ltd (NTPC-REL), a 100% subsidiary of NTPC, signed a MoU recently with Union Territory of Ladakh to set up the country’s first green Hydrogen Mobility based project in the region.
• Leh is soon to become India's first city to implement a green hydrogen  based mobility project with zero emission.
• NTPC REL has also received the go-ahead from Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) to set up 4750 MW renewable energy park at Rann of Kutch in Khavada, Gujarat.
• This will be India’s largest solar park to be built by the largest power producer of the country.
• NTPC has recently revised its target of achieving 60GW renewables capacity by 2032, almost doubling the earlier target.
• Recently, NTPC has commissioned India’s largest floating solar project of 10MW at Vishakhapatnam.

1. India’s single largest solar park – Rann of Kutch
2. India’s largest Floating Solar project – Visakhapatnam
3. India’s first Green Hydrogen Mobility project – Ladakh

• Union Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, along with her counterpart, the Hon’ble Finance Minister of Bhutan, Mr Lyonpo Namgay Tshering, jointly launched BHIM–UPI in Bhutan recently.
• This launch fulfils the commitment made by the two countries during the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India’s State visit to Bhutan in 2019.
• Following that visit, India and Bhutan have already enabled inter-operability in acceptance of Rupay cards in each other’s countries in two phases.
• With today’s launch of BHIM-UPI in Bhutan, the payment infrastructures of the two countries are seamlessly connected and will benefit a large number of tourists and businessmen from India who travel to Bhutan each year.
• This will enhance the ease of living and ease of travelling through cashless transactions at the touch of a button.
• Bhutan is the first country to adopt UPI standards for its QR deployment, and the first country in our immediate neighbourhood to accept mobile based payments through the BHIM App.

RBI Retail Direct Scheme

• Recently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had announced the ‘RBI Retail Direct’ scheme.
• It is a one-stop solution to facilitate investment in Government Securities by individual investors.
• Retail investors (individuals) will have the facility to open and maintain the ‘Retail Direct Gilt Account’ (RDG Account) with RBI.

• RDG Account can be opened through an ‘Online portal’ provided for the purpose of the scheme.
• The Non-Resident retail investors eligible to invest in Government Securities under Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 are eligible under the scheme.
• The scheme allows that an investor would be able to bid in G-Secs auctions and buy them in the secondary market as well.

Arctic Amplification

• Global warming and climate change are impacting the Arctic more than the rest of the world.
• A team of scientists have identified iodic acid (HIO3) as a novel driver of new aerosol particle formation in the Arctic which is responsible for Arctic Amplification or Arctic Warming.
• Presence of Iodic acid in the region had not been observed previously, these aerosol particles influence the formation of clouds.
• As these clouds reflect solar radiation (known as Aerosol Radiative Forcing) but also retain heat on the Earth's surface, they have an influence on the warming of the Arctic.

Carbon capture and Sequestration

• Carbon capture and sequestration is the process of capturing waste carbon dioxide (CO2) from large point sources, such as fossil fuel power plants, transporting it to a storage site, and depositing it where it will not enter the atmosphere, normally an underground geological formation.
• Carbon dioxide is naturally captured from the atmosphere through biological, chemical, and physical processes.
• These changes can be accelerated through changes in land use and agricultural practices, such as converting crop and livestock grazing land into land for non-crop fast-growing plants.
• There are different types of

1. Biological  Carbon Sequestration
2. Geological  Carbon Sequestration
3. Industrial Carbon Sequestration
4. Technological Carbon Sequestration

Bryum Bharatiensis

• Indian Scientists have discovered a native moss species in Antarctica named Bryum bharatiensis.
• This is the first time a plant species has been discovered in the four decades of the Indian Antarctic mission.

Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)

• ‘Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)’ causes penile cancer in men and cervical, vaginal, anal & vulvar cancer in women.
• The virus is transmitted through intimate contact like - sexual intercourse, oral or anal sex.
• The Vaccine - In India, two vaccines namely “Gardasil” & “Cervarix” are available.
• These vaccines protects against almost 90% of genital warts in men and women.