Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 01 March 2022

::NATIONAL::

TheNational Green Tribunal has said, the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Jal Shakti to regulate and control ground water extraction in the country is only a new cover provided to the old scheme with minor variations, alterations and modifications.

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Guidelines do not address the root cause and central issue, i.e., protection and preservation of ground water, prevention of depletion, and effective attempt for recharge and restoration.
Earlier, Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) issued guidelines to regulate the extraction of groundwater, which include:
Mandatory for new and existing industries, infrastructure projects, mining projects and bulk water suppliers abstracting groundwater to get a No objection certificate (NoC) for withdrawal of groundwater.
Exempts domestic consumers, rural drinking water schemes, armed forces, farmers and MSMEs drawing water up to a limit from NOC requirement.
NOC holders will have to pay groundwater abstraction and restoration charges’ based on the quantum of extraction.
Annual water audits are compulsory for industrial users.
Non-compliance of NOC conditions may attract a penalty between Rs 50,000 to Rs 10 lakh.

The Tamil Nadu government has commenced work for the country’s first dugong conservation reserve in the Palk Bay region.

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Dugongs are endangered species that are protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
The Wildlife Institute of India (WII), in a study, reported that only 200-250 dugongs are left in the wild of which 150 are found in the Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar off Tamil Nadu.
The WII said that the area was being used as a breeding ground and therefore identified as critical habitat.
The size of the Dugong reserve will be tentatively spread over 500 sq km and will be located in the northern part of the Palk of Bay from Adirampattinam to Amapattinam.
The cost of establishing a reserve for the first five years would be Rs 5 crore.
A dugong and calf were first sighted in Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar in 2018. Six dugongs were rescued and released back to sea but 11 had die.

Ukraine has filed an application before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), instituting proceedings against the Russian Federation concerning ‘a dispute…relating to the interpretation, application and fulfilment of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’ (the ‘Genocide Convention’).
Ukraine has accused Russia of falsely claiming that ‘acts of genocide have occurred in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts of Ukraine’, and of using that as a pretext to recognise the independence of these regions and of going to war against Ukraine.

International court:

The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN).
Like the PCIJ, the ICJ is based at the Peace Palace in The Hague.
It is the only one of the six principal organs of the UN that is not located in New York City.
The ICJ has 15 judges who are elected to nine-year terms by the UN General Assembly and Security Council, which vote simultaneously but separately.
The judges of the court are assisted by a Registry, the administrative organ of the ICJ. English and French are the ICJ’s official languages.

Background:

It was established in June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations and began work in April 1946.
The court is the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ).
After World War II, the League of Nations and PCIJ were replaced by the United Nations and ICJ respectively.
The PCIJ was formally dissolved in April 1946, and its last president, Judge José Gustavo Guerrero of El Salvador, became the first president of the ICJ.

The world’s largest cargo aircraft, the Antonov An-225, has been ‘destroyed’ in an attack on its base at Hostomel/Gostomel airport in Ukraine.

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Known formally as the ‘Cossack’, its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operating code, the world knew the ‘super-heavy transport plane’ better by its Ukrainian name, ‘Mriya’, or ‘the Dream’.
The six-engine 84-metre-long behemoth, with its 32-wheel landing gear, had its first flight on December 21, 1988, built mainly for the transportation of the Buran shuttle orbiter and components of the Energiya carrier rocket.
It made its maiden landing in India, in May 2016, at Hyderabad’s Shamshabad airport while en route to Perth to deliver a 117-tonne power generator (from Prague, the Czech Republic) to a mine in Australia.
It played an important role too in the COVID-19 fight, ferrying nearly 100 tonnes of medicines, laboratory kits, medical masks and personal protective equipment in various missions across Europe, Canada and to Africa.

SEBI noted that National Stock Exchange (NSE), country’s largest equities and derivatives exchange, was a systemically important Market InfrastructureInstitution (MII).
Stock exchanges, depositories and clearing houses are all MII’s and constitute a key part of thenation’s vital economic infrastructure.
MII’s provide infrastructure which is necessary for the smooth and uninterrupted functioning of the securities market.
Their systemically important nature was also highlighted by Jalan committee (2010) reportstating MII’s phenomenal growth in terms of market capitalisation of listed companies, capital raised and the number of investor accounts with brokers and depositories.

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In 1986, Government of India designated 28 February as National Science Day.
The day is aimed at spreading the message of importance of science and its application in human life.
This year theme is- Integrated Approach in Science andTechnology for Sustainable Future.
On this day, Indian Physicist Sir C.V. Raman announced discovery of ‘Raman Effect’ for which he was awarded Nobel Prize in 1930.
Light consists of particles called photons; whose energy is directly proportional to frequency with which they travel.
When they strike molecules in a medium at high speeds, they bounce back and scatter indifferent directions depending on the angle with which they hit the molecules (known as Raman Effect).
Blue light is scattered most.