Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 14 July 2021

::NATIONAL::

The Union Culture Minister said the National Archives’ records related to freedom fighters would be digitised within a year as a part of the commemoration of 75 years of Independence next year.
He said that the National Archives of India, which houses over 18 crore pages, 64,000 volumes and 1.2 lakh maps, had started the digitisation process, but it would take a long time to complete.

About:

The National Archives of India is an Attached Office under the Ministry of Culture.
It was established in 1891 at Kolkata(Calcutta) as the Imperial Record Department.
Following the transfer of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911, the present building of the National Archives of India was constructed in 1926 in Delhi.
There are over 50 lakhs files/documents presently in the holdings in the National Archives of India.

REL, a 100% subsidiary of NTPC, signed a MoU with Union Territory of Ladakh, to set up the country’s first green Hydrogen Mobility project in the region.

About:

The signing of the MoU was also marked with the inauguration of NTPC’s first solar installations in Leh in form of solar trees and a solar car port.
The MoU will enable NTPC to help Ladakh develop a carbon free economy based on renewable sources and green hydrogen. This is also in line with the Prime Minister’s vision of a ‘carbon neutral’ Ladakh.

Google has been hit with a 500 million euros fine by France’s Competition Authority for failing to negotiate in good faith with news organisations over the use of their content.
The authority accused Google of not taking an order to do so seriously. The fine is the latest skirmish in a global copyright battle between tech firms and news organisations.

Background:

Last year, the French Competition Authority ordered that Google must negotiate deals with news organisations to show extracts of articles in search results, news and other services.
In 2019, France became the first EU country to transpose a new Digital Copyright Directive into law.

Key highlights:

The law governed so-called neighbouring rights which are designed to compensate publishers and news agencies for the use of their material.
As a result, Google decided it would not show content from EU publishers in France, on services like search and news, unless publishers agreed to let them do so free of charge.
News organisations felt this was an abuse of Google’s market power and two organisations representing press publishers and Agence France-Presse (AFP) complained to the competition authority.
The new ruling means that within the next two months Google must come up with proposals explaining how it will recompense companies for the use of their news.

The European Union has approved a Military Training Mission in Mozambique to support armed forces there to protect the civilian population.

About:

It aims to train and support the military in restoring security to northern Cabo Delgado, which has been plagued by extreme violence amid Jihadist attacks since 2017.
The mission will involve military training, including operational preparation, specialised training in counter-terrorism and training and education in the protection of civilians. Its mandate will initially last for two years.
During this period, its strategic objective will be to support the capacity building of the Mozambican Armed Forces units that will form part of a future rapid reaction force, a Council of the European Union statement noted.
Over the last three years, more than 2,800 people have died in the violence which has forced about 9,00,000 others from their homes.

Cabo Delgado:

Cabo Delgado is the northernmost province of Mozambique.
As well as bordering the neighbouring country of Tanzania, it borders the provinces of Nampula and Niassa.
The region is an ethnic stronghold of the Makonde tribe, with the Makua and Mwani as leading ethnic minorities.

Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has recently secured trademark registrations in three countries - Bhutan, UAE and Mexico.

About:

Now the total number of countries with Trademark registrations for the word mark “KHADI” has increased to nine.
A trademark can be any word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination of these things to recognise/distinguish a particular goods/services from other competitors.

Advantage:

Countries from across the oceans decided to tackle marine plastic litter under the ambitious global project called ‘GloLitter Partnerships Project’.

About:

Marine litter is any persistent, manufactured or processed solid materials discarded into the sea or rivers or on beaches or brought indirectly to the sea with rivers, sewage, storm water or winds. It is a form of marine pollution.
At least 8 million tons of plastic end up in our oceans every year, and make up 80% of all marine debris from surface waters to deep-sea sediments.
A plastic bottle can last up to 450 years in the marine environment.