Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 05 September 2022

::NATIONAL::

Attorney General of India K K Venugopal has declined a request for consent to initiate criminal contempt of court proceedings against Senior Advocate and Member of Parliament Kapil Sibal for certain remarks that he made during a speech on the subject of “Judicial Rollback of Civil Liberties” on August 6

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Around the world, “contempt of court”, or simply “contempt”, is understood as a set of legal provisions that firewall courts, and safeguard and protect their ability to dispense justice.
The Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute defines contempt as “the disobedience of an order of a court” and, “also conduct tending to obstruct or interfere with the orderly administration of justice”.
It is also understood to describe acts of defiance or disrespect of court orders or judges, and to ascribe motives to them.
According to The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, contempt of court can either be civil contempt or criminal contempt.
Civil contempt means “wilful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court, or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court”.
Criminal contempt, on the other hand, is attracted by “the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which:

(i) scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court; or

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The day is celebrated on the birth anniversary of educationist and former President Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.
President DroupadiMurmu will confer National Awards to 46 selected teachers for the year 2022 in New Delhi.
The Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education has been organising a national level function on Teachers Day every year to confer the National Awards to best teachers of the country. The selection is done through a transparent and online three stage selection process.
The purpose of National Awards to Teachers is to celebrate the unique contribution of teachers in the country and to honour those teachers who through their commitment and industry have not only improved the quality of school education but also enriched the lives of their students.

The melting of the Greenland ice sheet will unavoidably raise the global sea levels by at least 10.6 inches or 27 centimetres.

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Also referred to as dead or doomed ice, zombie ice is one that is not accumulating fresh snow even while continuing to be part of the parent ice sheet. Such ice is “committed” to melting away and increasing sea levels.
The research points to an equilibrium state where snowfall from the higher reaches of the Greenland ice cap flows down to recharge edges of the glaciers, and thicken them.
It says that over the last several decades there has been more melting and less replenishment.
By calculating minimum committed ice loss based on the ratio of recharge to loss, the scientists have projected that 3.3% of Greenland’s total ice volume will melt, and this will happen even if the global temperature is stabilized at the current level.
But given that global warming is predicted to get worse, the melting and the corresponding rise in sea level could be much worse. The study says it could reach as much as 30 inches (78 centimetres) if Greenland’s record melt year (2012) becomes a routine phenomenon.

The U.S. State Department has approved a potential $1.1 billion sale of military equipment to Taiwan, including 60 anti-ship missiles and 100 air-to-air missiles, amid heightened tensions with China.

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The package was announced in the wake of China’s aggressive military drills around Taiwan following a visit to the island last month by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking U.S. official to travel to Taipei in years.
The sale includes Sidewinder missiles, which can be used for air-to-air and surface-attack missions, at a cost of some $85.6 million, Harpoon anti-ship missiles at an estimated $355 million cost and support for Taiwan’s surveillance radar programme for an estimated $665.4 million, the Pentagon’s Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said.

A World Bank panel has agreed to look into environmental damage from under-construction Vishnugad Pipalkoti Hydro Electric Project (VPHEP) on the Alaknanda River in Chamoli District,Uttrakhand.

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Home to 3 major river basins (Ganga, Indus and Brahmaputra), the Indian Himalayas have a richhydroelectric potential.
In the aftermath of the Kedarnath floods of 2013, the Supreme Court halted the development ofhydroelectric projects in Uttarakhand pending Environment Ministry review.
Based on the B.P. Das committee report, the Ministry permitted seven hydroelectric powerprojects in advanced stages of construction including VPHEP in the Ganga river basin.

Japan’s government has “declared a war on floppy disks”. Decades after the unwieldy magnetic storage disks became obsolete and were phased out globally.

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Japan’s digital ministry has announced that it will finally do away with floppy disks and other outdated technology in a bid to modernise its bureaucracy.
Japan may be home to some of the world’s leading tech giants, but the Japanese have always had an affinity for older technology.
According to report, cassettes were still widely used in 2015. Meanwhile, in 2019, the country’s cyber security minister publicly admitted that he had never used a computer in his life.

About Floppy Disks:

Popularly used between the 1970s and 1990s, a floppy disk is a removable disk storage device used to save computer data and programmes.
The disk, first developed by IBM, is only able to store about 800 KB of data, which is about 0.0008 GB.