Goaltide Daily Current Affairs 2022

Jun 27, 2022

Current Affair 1:
Commonwealth adopts ‘Living Lands Charter’ for future generations

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Commonwealth leaders have officially adopted the Living Lands Charter: A Commonwealth Call to action on Living Lands (CALL), which commits all 54 member countries to safeguarding global land resources while taking coordinated action on climate change, biodiversity loss and sustainable land management.

The non-binding agreement was announced at the conclusion of the 2022 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kigali, Rwanda,

All countries agreed to voluntarily dedicate a ‘Living Land’ in their respective country to the future generations, in line with the Strategy set for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

It seeks to strengthen synergies and coordinated action at national, regional and global levels, of relevant actions under the three Rio Conventions — namely, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD); the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Current Affair 2:
Nigeria’s latest lithium find

 

High-grade lithium has been discovered in Nigeria. But this is not very important. We have to understand Lithium.

What is lithium and why is it important?

The Geological Agency described the lithium as high grade because what’s been found has between 1-13 per cent oxide content. Normally exploration begins at levels as low as 0.4 percent.

Grade (in per cent) is a measure of concentration of the lithium in the minerals and or rocks that contains it. Therefore, the higher the grade the more the economic viability. Higher grades are very rare for metals like lithium.

Lithium constitutes about 0.002 percent of Earth’s crust. Found in minor part of igneous rocks and one of the largest concentrations in granites.

Why it is important?

Lithium is a metallic mineral in very high demand by manufacturing industries. Seven years ago the bulk of demand for lithium was split between ceramics and glasses (35 per cent) and greases, metallurgical powders, polymers, and other industrial uses (over 35 per cent). Less than 30 per cent was for batteries. But by 2030, batteries are expected to account for 95 per cent of demand.

Lithium and most lithium minerals are mined along with other high-value metallic minerals such as tin, niobium-tantalum (columbite-tantalite) and uranium (in pyrochlore).

We will look at Global Production now,

Global Lithium Production: Ek idea rakhiye ki Lithium production gas increased lot.

Greenbushes mine in Western Australia is the largest hard-rock lithium mine in the world.

 

 

China’s Lithium Dominance

In 2020, Australia, Chile, and China collectively made up 88% of global lithium production. After mining, the lithium supply chain involves refining, processing, and packaging the lithium into batteries—and the majority of this occurs in China.

In 2019, China produced 80% of the world’s refined battery chemicals, in addition to 73% of lithium-ion battery cells.

But what’s driving the Lithium rush?


 

 

 

With respect to India,

Lithium reserves in India: Researchers at the Atomic Minerals Directorate( under India’s Atomic Energy Commission) have estimated lithium reserves of 14,100 tonnes in a small patch of land surveyed in the Southern Karnataka’s Mandya district recently. Also, to be India’s first ever Lithium deposit site found.

India heavily depends on imports from other countries.

Current Affair 3:
Tokenisation Explained.

 

Tokenization is the process of turning sensitive data into non-sensitive data called "tokens" that can be used in a database or internal system without bringing it into scope. Tokenization can be used to secure sensitive data by replacing the original data with an unrelated value of the same length and format. The tokens are then sent to an organization’s internal systems for use, and the original data is stored in a secure token vault.

The purpose of tokenization is to swap out sensitive data—typically payment card or bank account numbers—with a randomized number in the same format but with no intrinsic value of its own. This differs from encryption, where a number is mathematically changed, but its original pattern is still stored within the new code—known as format-preserving encryption.

Tokenization is the process of removing sensitive data from your business systems by replacing it with an undecipherable token and storing the original data in a secure cloud data vault. Encrypted numbers can be decrypted with the appropriate key. Tokens, however, cannot be reversed, because there is no mathematical relationship between the token and its original number.

 

Token will be unique for a combination of card, token requestor (i.e. the entity which accepts request from the customer for tokenisation of a card and passes it on to the card network to issue a corresponding token) and device (referred hereafter as “identified device”).

Earlier when we used to make payments through cards (debit/credit) from a PoS machine or any merchant website (amazon/flipkart) then these merchants used to store our card information for further processing of data. But now with tokenization allowed by RBI, when we will submit our card details on the merchant website then a token will be generated by the card networks (VISA/MASTERCARD) and it will be sent to our mobile and this token then we will enter on the merchant website and the merchant website will not be allowed to store our exact card details.

Card Issuers (Banks), Card Networks (Mastercard/Visa) can now offer tokenization services and they will be called Token Service Providers (TSPs). Tokenisation of card data shall be done with explicit customer consent.

RBI has extended the deadline to implement tokenization to 30th Sept. 2022.

Current Affair 4:
BRICS call for Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism

 

We will see some basic about BRICS grouping then we will proceed to news.

  1. The acronym BRIC was first used in 2001 by Goldman Sachs in their Global Economics Paper, "The World Needs Better Economic BRICs" on the basis of econometric analyses projecting that the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China would individually and collectively occupy far greater economic space and would be amongst the world’s largest economies in the next 50 years or so.
  2. As a formal grouping, BRIC started after the meeting of the Leaders of Russia, India and China in St. Petersburg on the margins of G8 Outreach Summit in 2006. The grouping was formalized during the 1st meeting of BRIC Foreign Ministers on the margins of UNGA in New York in 2006. The 1st BRIC Summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on 16 June 2009.
  3. It was agreed to expand BRIC into BRICS with the inclusion of South Africa at the BRIC Foreign Ministers’ meeting in New York in September 2010. Accordingly, South Africa attended the 3rd BRICS Summit in Sanya, China on 14 April 2011.

A small stat about BRICS.

Summits: Important to know, whether India hosted Summits, how many summits.

Also, learn about New Development Bank

At the fourth BRICS Summit in New Delhi (2012), the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa considered the possibility of setting up a new Development Bank to mobilize resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS and other emerging economies, as well as in developing countries

During the sixth BRICS Summit in Fortaleza (2014), the leaders signed the Agreement establishing the New Development Bank (NDB).

The Bank’s membership is open to members of the United Nations. NDB commenced the admission of its first new member countries in the second half of 2021.

Membership, Voting, Capital and Shares

  1. It shall be open to borrowing and non-borrowing members.
  2. The New Development Bank shall have an initial subscribed capital of US$ 50 billion and an initial authorized capital of US$ 100 billion.
  3. The initial subscribed capital shall be equally distributed amongst the founding members.
  4. The voting power of each member shall equal its subscribed shares in the capital stock of the Bank.

About news:

The BRICS countries on Thursday expressed strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including the cross-border movement of terrorists, and terrorism financing networks and safe havens.

In a declaration issued at the end of the 14th BRICS Summit (recently held), the five-member grouping also called for expeditious finalisation and adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism within the UN framework.

In 1996, with the objective of providing a comprehensible legal framework to counter terrorism, India proposed to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) the adoption of the "Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism” (CCIT). It has not been adopted till now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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