Current Affair 1:

Renewable Energy Technology Action Platform (RETAP)

 

News:

India and US launched the new U.S. - India Renewable Energy Technology Action Platform (RETAP) under the Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP).

RETAP’s initial focus is to be on green/clean hydrogen, wind energy, long duration energy storage, and to explore geothermal energy, ocean/tidal energy and other emerging technologies as mutually determined in the future.

India and US outlined an initial workplan regarding RETAP collaboration. Work is guided by five themes:

India-US Energy Partnership background:

On the margins of the April 2021 Leaders’ Summit on Climate, President Biden and Prime Minister Modi announced the launch of U.S.-India Climate and Clean Energy Agenda 2030 Partnership, to advance shared climate and clean energy goals. The agenda 2030 Partnership includes two tracks in the form of the Strategic Clean Energy Partnership (SCEP) and the Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue.

Current Affair 2:

R&D statistics at Glance 2022-2023

 

The Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) in the country has been consistently increasing over the years and has more than doubled from Rs. 60,196.75 crore in 2010–11 to Rs. 127,380.96 crore in 2020–21.

GERD is mainly driven by the Government sector comprising Central Government (43.7%), State Governments (6.7%), Higher Education (8.8%) and Public Sector Industry (4.4%) with Private Sector Industry contributing 36.4% during 2020–21.

Amongst the 12 Central Government major scientific agencies, DRDO accounted for the maximum share of 30.7% of R&D expenditure followed by DOS (18.4%), ICAR (12.4%), DAE (11.4%), CSIR (8.2%) and DST (6.8%), DBT (4.4%) and ICMR (3.1%), MeitY (2.2%), MoES (1.5%), MoEFCC (0.8%), and MNRE (0.1%) during 2020–21.

Women participation in extramural R&D projects has increased significantly to 25% in 2019–20 from 13% in 2000–01 due to various initiatives undertaken by the Government in S&T sector.

During 2021–22 a total of 66,440 patents were filed in India. Out of which, 29,508 (44%) patents were filed by Indian residents.

Current Affair 3:

National Mission on Himalayan Studies (NMHS)

 

Realizing the significance of the Himalaya in the sustainable development of the nation, the “National Mission on Himalayan Studies (NMHS)” is being implemented since 2015-16 across the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) with a Vision "to support the sustenance and enhancement of the ecological, natural, cultural and socio-economic capital assets and values of the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR)”.

   

Current Affair 4:

Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH)

 

The Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH) is a WHO managed network of stakeholders organized to facilitate the implementation of the Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025 and other WHO norms and standards for Digital Health System Transformation.

The Initiative will serve as a platform to enable a wide global ecosystem to work collectively to promote country capacity and strengthen international cooperation in digital health.

<< Previous Next >>