Goaltide Daily Current Affairs 2023
Current Affair 1:
Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction
The Hague Convention aims to protect children from the harmful effects of international parental child abduction by providing a straightforward legal procedure for the prompt return of abducted children to their country of habitual residence.
The idea behind the Convention is not to settle a child custody dispute. The Convention merely backs the notion that child custody matters should be decided by the court in the country of the child’s habitual residence and that a parent should not unilaterally remove a child from such a country without the knowledge or consent of the other parent unless an exception applies.
More than 100 countries, including the United States, have signed the Convention. India is not one of those countries. The United States has tried to encourage India to accede to the Convention for years.
In its Annual Report on International Child Abduction, 2023, the U.S. Department of State (as it has in the past) cited India as one of the “Countries Demonstrating a Pattern of Noncompliance” concerning any protocols regarding international parental child abduction.
Current Affair 2:
List of “Critical Minerals for India”
What are critical minerals and why we need to focus on these minerals?
One of the cited definitions suggests that a mineral is labelled as critical when the risk of supply shortage and associated impact on the economy is (relatively) higher than the other raw materials.
The Ministry of Mines accordingly constituted a seven-member Committee under the chairmanship of Joint Secretary (Policy), Ministry of Mines dated 01.11.2022 to identify the list of minerals critical to our country.
The Committee had a series of deliberations amongst the members and decided to have a three-stage assessment to arrive at a list of critical minerals.
Current Affair 3:
Biomass Co-Firing Policy
Biomass co-firing stands for adding biomass as a partial substitute fuel in high efficiency coal boilers. Coal and biomass are co-combusted in boilers that have been designed to burn coal.
For this purpose, the existing coal power plant has to be partly reconstructed and retrofitted. Co-firing is an option to convert biomass to electricity, in an efficient and clean way, and to simultaneously reduce GHG emissions of the power plant.
As per the India’s Biomass co-firing policy:
Ministry of Power has issued revised policy on biomass utilization for power generation through co-firing in coal-based power plants on 08.10.2021. This policy mandates the use of 5% biomass pellets made primarily of agro-residue along with coal in thermal power plants with effect from one year from the date of issuance of this policy.
As per this policy, the obligation to use biomass pellets in thermal power plants shall increase to 7% with effect from two years after the date of issuance of this policy.
So far, around 1.80 Lakh MT of biomass fuel has been co-fired in 47 thermal power plants in the country totaling a capacity of 64,350 MW. Out of this, more than 50000 MT has been cofired during first two months of FY ’23-24, which has also surpassed the previous highest ever annual quantity.
Current Affair 4:
New CSR guidelines ‘Sagar Samajik Sahayog’
The Union Minister of Ports, Shipping & Waterways and Ayush has launched the new guidelines for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) called ‘Sagar Samajik Sahayyog’.
Read Background:
Each Major Port shall at the beginning of the Financial Year prepare a “Corporate Social Responsibility Plan” to allocate funds and identify the projects, programs or activities to be undertaken under CSR.
Ports with a turnover less than ₹100 crores should spend 3-5%, those with a turnover less than ₹500 crores should spend 2-3%, and ports with a turnover more than ₹500 crores should spend 0.5-2% on CSR initiatives.
Just have a look for funding under 78 percent category as mentioned above:
