Daily Current Affairs and GK | 10 September 2021

Topic: Awards and Prizes

1. Ayaan Shankta conferred the 2021 International Young Eco-Hero award.

• Environmental activist, Ayaan Shankta, has been conferred the 2021 International Young Eco-Hero award for his efforts to solve environmental problems.
• He got third place in the 8-14 age category for his project for the conservation and rehabilitation of Powai Lake.
• His project objective is to raise awareness about pollution and to protect the ecosystem of the lake.
• He is one among the 25 young environmental activists from across the globe to receive the 2021 International Young Eco-Hero Award.
• Ayaan has also written an action report on lake conditions and is currently working on a documentary about Powai Lake.

Topic: State News/ Punjab

2. India’s tallest air purification tower inaugurated at Transport Chowk in Chandigarh.

• India’s tallest air purification tower has been inaugurated at Transport Chowk in Chandigarh.
• The 24 meters tall air purification tower has been inaugurated by UT adviser Dharam Pal to mark the second International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies.
• It has been installed by Pious Air Private Limited. It will purify the air in 500-metre radius.
• Recently, India’s first functional smog tower has been inaugurated at Anand Vihar in Delhi. It has a height of 20 meters.
• Air purification tower: These are large-scale air purifiers to reduce air pollution particles. It removes fine dust particles suspended in the air.

Topic: Summits/ Conferences/ Meetings

3. PM Modi chaired 13^th BRICS Summit.

• PM Modi chaired 13^th BRICS Summit on 09 September 2021 in a virtual format.
• The theme for the Summit is ‘BRICS@15: Intra-BRICS cooperation for continuity, consolidation and consensus’.
• President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro; President of Russia, Vladimir Putin; President of China, Xi Jinping; and President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa attended the meeting.
• India had outlined four priority areas for its Chairship. These are given next.
  • Reform of the Multilateral System
  • Counter Terrorism
  • Using Digital and Technological Tools for achieving SDGs
  • Enhancing People to People exchanges
• PM Modi chaired BRICS Summit for the second time. He had earlier chaired the Goa Summit in 2016.
• 2021 BRICS summit is 13^th BRICS Summit. India hosted BRICS Summit for the third time after 2012 and 2016.

Topic: Reports and Indices

4. IIT Madras topped the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2021 for third time.

• India Rankings 2021 has been released by Union Education Minister Shri Dharmendra Pradhan.
• This is the sixth consecutive edition of India Rankings of Higher Education Institutions in India.
• In its first year in 2016, the rankings were announced for University category as well as for three domain-specific rankings, namely Engineering, Management and Pharmacy institutions.
• Research institutions have been ranked for the first time in India Rankings 2021.
• India ranking 2021 has been prepared by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF).
• National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) was launched in November 2015. It was used for this edition as well as for the past five editions of India Rankings released for the years 2016 to 2021.
• Important Highlights of India Rankings 2021:
  • IIT Madras has come at the first position in Overall Category as well as in Engineering for the third consecutive year.
  • Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru has topped the University as well as Research Institution category introduced for the first time in India Rankings 2021.
  • IIM Ahmedabad has topped in Management subject. AIIMS, New Delhi has occupied the top slot in Medical for the fourth consecutive year.
  • Jamia Hamdard has topped the list in Pharmacy subject for the third consecutive year.
  • Miranda College has retained 1st position amongst colleges for the fifth consecutive year.
  • National Law School of India University, Bangalore retains its first position in Law for the fourth consecutive years.

Topic: Government Schemes and Initiatives

5. Government launched ‘Main Bhi Digital 3.0’ campaign for street vendors.

• Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs launched the ‘Main Bhi Digital 3.0’ campaign in association with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
• It is a special campaign launched for Digital Onboarding and Training of street vendors under the PM SVANidhi scheme.
• BharatPe, Mswipe, PhonePe, Paytm, Aceware will provide digital training to street vendors and issue UPI IDs, QR code. They will train street vendors for conducting digital receipt and payment transactions.
• The Digital Payment Aggregators will support street vendors for adopting digital medium transactions.
• So far, around 45 lakh applicants have applied to take part in this campaign. Around 2000 crore have been disbursed as a loan to street vendors.

Topic: Report and Indices

6. Unemployment rate rose to 10.3% in October-December 2020: NSO survey.

• The unemployment rate for all ages in urban areas rose to 10.3 percent in October-December 2020 as compared to the corresponding months a year ago.
• According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the Unemployment rate for all ages in urban areas was 13.3 percent in July-September 2020.
• As per the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the Unemployment rate for 15 years or above for 2019-20 was 17.2 percent. The Unemployment rate for 2018-19 was 16.9 percent and 2017-18 is 17.2 percent.
• NSO had launched the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) in 2017. Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) gives an estimate of the unemployment rate, Worker Population Ratio (WPR), and Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR).
• Recently, Labour Bureau has started the All India Quarterly Establishment-based Employment Survey (AQEES) to provide quarterly estimates of employment in major sectors.
• The unemployment rate (UR) is the percentage of unemployed persons in the labour force.

Topic: Science and Technology

7. India's first indigenous high ash coal gasification based methanol production plant designed at BHEL's R&D center at Hyderabad.

• India's first indigenous high ash coal gasification based methanol production plant has been designed at BHEL's R&D center at Hyderabad.
• Methanol is also used as a motor fuel in ship engines. It is also used to generate dimethyl ether (DME).
• Methanol is generally derived from natural gas but India doesn’t have much natural gas reserves so it is uneconomical for India. The next option for India is to derive methanol from coal.
• India’s coal has high percentage of ash so internationally present technology for producing methanol from coal was not suitable for India.
• In 2016, the BHEL R&D centre at Hyderabad started high ash coal gasification project to produce 0.25 tons per day methanol.
• After four years, BHEL successfully demonstrated a facility to create 0.25 TPD Methanol from high ash Indian coal by using a 1.2 TPD Fluidized bed gasifier.
• This facility will help in India's Coal Gasification Mission and Coal to Hydrogen Production for Hydrogen Mission.

Topic: Summits/ Conferences/ Meetings

8. India to host G-20 summit in 2023.

• India will host the G20 leaders’ summit for the first time in 2023.
• India will take the G20 presidency from December 1, 2022.
• India will be part of the G20 Troika (preceding, current, and incoming G20 Presidencies) from December 1, 2021, till November 30, 2024.
• Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal has been appointed as India’s Sherpa for the G20. He has replaced Suresh Prabhu as India’s G20 Sherpa.
• The next G20 Summit will be organized from October 30 to 31 under the Italian presidency. Indonesia will host the G-20 summit in 2022 and Brazil will host in 2024.

Topic: Infrastructure and Energy

9. India’s first emergency landing strip on highway inaugurated in Barmer.

• Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari inaugurated an emergency landing strip on the highway in Barmer, Rajasthan.
• It is the first time that a national highway (NH-925) will be used for the emergency landing of IAF aircraft.
• National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has developed a 3km section on the national highway (NH-925) as an emergency landing facility (ELF) for the IAF. It has been developed under the Bharatmala Pariyojana with a cost of ₹765.52 crore.
• Apart from this, 3 helipads have been constructed in Kundanpura, Singhania, and Bakhasar villages under this project.
• The main objective of these projects is to strengthen the security network along the border with Pakistan.
• Indian Air force had conducted mock landings on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in 2017 to show that highways can also be used for landing in case of an emergency.

Topic: Important Days

10. Himalayan Diwas 2021 celebrated by National Mission For Clean Ganga & Naula Foundation.

• Himalayan Diwas 2021 was celebrated by National Mission For Clean Ganga & Naula Foundation in New Delhi.
• This year’s theme is Contribution of Himalayas and our responsibilities. The event was part of ongoing celebration of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.
• Himalayan Diwas is celebrated annually on 9th September in Uttarakhand with the aim to conserve Himalayan ecosystem and region.
• 9th September was officially declared as Himalaya Day in 2015 by the then Chief Minister.
• Director General National Mission for Clean Ganga Rajiv Ranjan Mishra explained the significance of Himalayas and raised concerns over unplanned urbanization in the Himalayas.
• He said Himalayan hill towns face several challenges because of poor building planning and designs, poor infrastructure roads, sewage, water supply etc and unprecedented cutting of trees.

Topic: Defence

11. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh officially inducts MR-SAM into the Air Force in Rajasthan.

• Defence Minister Rajnath Singh officially inducted the Medium-Range Surface-to-Air Missile (MR-SAM) Air Defence System into the Air Force in Rajasthan.
• MR-SAM defence system has a range of 70 kms. It can hit any aircraft, helicopters and incoming missiles.
• It has a speed of Mach-2. It is developed jointly by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) in collaboration with the Indian industry comprising of private and public sectors including MSMEs.
• Defence Minister listed out the measures taken by the Government, including setting up of Defence Industrials Corridors in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu and others.

(Source: News on AIR)

Topic: National News

12. ‘Centre of Excellence on Offshore Wind’ jointly launched by India and Denmark.

• ‘Centre of Excellence on Offshore Wind’ has been jointly launched by India and Denmark as part of Green Strategic Partnership.
• Union Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy R. K. Singh met Denmark’s Minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities Dan Jørgensen in New Delhi on 9 September.
• Mr Singh underlined to the Danish side that energy transition towards green is an important part of India’s policy.
• He pointed out that PM Modi in his Independence Day speech has set a target of 450 Giga Watt of Renewable Energy capacity by 2030.
• He said that India’s whole renewable energy portfolio is already at 146 GW.

Topic: Important Days

13. World Suicide Prevention Day is annually observed on 10 September.

• World Suicide Prevention Day is annually observed on 10 September to raise awareness of suicide and suicide prevention around the globe.
• International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) organizes it. It was observed for the first time in 2003. 
• This year, the theme of World Suicide Prevention Day is “Creating hope through action”.
• The first WHO World Suicide Report, “Preventing Suicide: A Global Imperative," was issued in 2014, focusing on suicide prevention.
• IASP is a Non-Governmental Organization dedicated to suicide prevention. It was founded in Vienna in 1960 by Professor Erwin Ringel and Dr Norman Faberlow.