Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 08 February 2022

::NATIONAL::

Indian Footwear and Leather Development Programme (IFLDP) (erstwhile IFLADP) has been approved for continuation from 2021-22 with an approved financial outlay of ₹1,700 crore.

Key objectives of the scheme:

Structure of the scheme:

The draft delimitation working paper is second set of proposals shared by the Commission as the first one was rejected by regional parties.

Key highlights regarding recommendations:

For the first time, proposed reserving nine seats for Scheduled Tribes & Seven seats for Scheduled Castes.
Proposed carving out an additional constituency in some districts to balance the representation for geographical areas with inadequate communication.
Proposed reframing of Lok Sabha constituencies.
Delimitation Exercise in Jammu and Kashmir
Till 2019, Delimitation exercises in Jammu and Kashmir Have been different from those in the rest of the country.
While Delimitation of Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir Was governed by Constitution of India, delimitation of state’s Assembly seats was governed by the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution.
After the abrogation of J&K’s special status in 2019, Delimitation Commission was setup for delimitation of Lok Sabha andAssembly seats in the newly-created Union Territory would be as per the provisions of the Indian Constitution.

US restored sanctions waivers to Iran to allow international nuclear cooperation projects, as indirect American-Iranian talks on reviving the 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran enter the final stretch.

About:

The waivers had allowed Russian, Chinese and European companies to carry out non-proliferation work to effectively make it harder for Iranian nuclear sites to be used for weapons development.
The waivers were rescinded by the United States in 2019 and 2020 under former President Donald Trump, who pulled out of the nuclear agreement.
The JCPOA was the result of prolonged negotiations from 2013 and 2015 between Iran and P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States).
It happened due to the backchannel talks between the US (President Barack Obama) and Iran, quietly brokered by Oman, in an attempt to repair the accumulated mistrust since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The JCPOA obliged Iran to accept constraints on its uranium enrichment program verified by an intrusive inspection regime in return for a partial lifting of economic sanctions.
When Donald Trump became president, he pulled out of the deal, calling ita “horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made”.
The US decision was criticized by all other parties to the JCPOA (including the European allies) since Iran complies with its obligations, certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

A team of Argentine scientists is using micro-organisms native to Antarctica to clean up pollution from fuels and potentially plastics in the pristine expanses of the white continent.

Key findings:

The tiny microbes munch through the waste, creating a naturally occurring cleaning system for pollution caused diesel which is used as a source of electricity and heat for research bases in frozen Antarctica.
The continent is protected by Madrid Protocol in 1961 that stipulates it must be kept in a pristine state.
The research on how the microbes could help with plastic waste could have potential for wider environmental issues.
This work uses the potential of native microorganisms like bacteria and fungi that inhabit the Antarctic soil, even when it is contaminated and make these microorganisms eat the hydrocarbons.
The team has now started to research how the microbes could help clean up plastic waste elsewhere. Both fuels and plastics are polymers, molecules made up of long chains of mainly carbon and hydrogen.

The government said that the World Oil Outlook 2021, flagship publication by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC.
It has projected that the oil demand in India is expected to reach around 11 million barrels per day by 2045 as compared to approximately 4.9 million barrels per day in 2021.

About:

Union Minister notified that, the government is taking various steps to provide for the country’s energy security including Tamil Nadu, through, inter alia, increasing domestic production of oil and gas in all States of India, diversifying import sources to new countries and regions.
The government is diversifying energy sources beyond traditional hydrocarbons to emerging fuels like Ethanol, Compressed Bio-Gas, and Hydrogen through schemes such as Ethanol Blending Program, Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation.

NASA-funded asteroid detection system, Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), has become the first survey capable of searching the entire dark sky every 24 hours for near-Earth Objects (NEOs).

About:

ATLAS is an asteroid impact early warning system, developed by the University of Hawaii Institute forAstronomy (IfA).
Now comprised of four telescopes, ATLAS has expanded its reach to the southern hemisphere from the two existing northern-hemisphere telescopes on Haleakala and Mauna-Loa in Hawaii to include two additional observatories in South Africa and Chile
It has two existing northern-hemisphere telescopes on Haleakala and Maunaloa in Hawaii.
ATLAS is now able to search the entire dark sky every 24 hours.Consequently, it has become an important asset to NASA's ongoing efforts to find, track, and monitor near-Earth objects.