Today Current Affairs: 28th April 2022 for UPSC IAS exams, State PSC exams, SSC CGL, State SSC, RRB, Railways, Banking Exam & IBPS, etc
Table of Contents
ACI Worldwide Report On Real-Time Transactions:
As per the ACI Worldwide Report on Real-time transactions, in the year 2021, India’s real-time transactions increased to 48.6 billion. This is almost threefold of China which is the closest challenger having 18 billion transactions.
- India’s transaction volume is seven times greater than the combined volumes of the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany, and France which stand at 7.5 billion.
- This widespread adoption of real-time payments in 2021 has resulted in cost savings that are estimated at USD $12.6 billion for Indian consumers and businesses.
- This has helped in unlocking USD 16.4 billion of economic output which represents 0.56 per cent of India’s GDP.
- The study has been published by ACI Worldwide, a Miami based payments system company, in association with the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), and GlobalData, a data and analytics firm.
- The growth of QR code payments and UPI-based mobile payment apps among merchants, along with the increase in digital payments usage during the COVID-19 pandemic has helped real-time payments secure 31.3 per cent of the country’s total payments transaction volume in 2021.
- Consumers are shifting to digital real-time payment methods from cash means that the real-time payments’ share of the total payments volume will be crossing 70 per cent in 2026.
- The net savings of consumers and businesses have been forecasted to rise to USD 92.4 billion in the year 2026 and this will help in generating an additional economic output of USD 45.9 billion which is equivalent to 1.12 per cent of India’s forecasted GDP.
Lucy Mission: NASA
NASA’s Lucy mission — set to explore a group of asteroids that follow behind and in front of Jupiter’s orbit — hit a snag recently when one of its solar arrays failed to unfurl.
- NASA will perform two steps over the next several months to fully reveal an unfurled solar array.
- Launched in October 2022, this is NASA’s first mission to explore the Jupiter Trojan asteroids.
- It is a solar-powered mission.
- It is estimated to be over 12 years long, during the course of which the spacecraft will visit eight asteroids covering a distance of about 6.3 billion km to deepen the understanding of the “young solar system”.
- The mission is designed to understand the composition of the diverse asteroids that are a part of the Trojan asteroid swarms, to determine the mass and densities of the materials and to look for and study the satellites and rings that may orbit the Trojan asteroids.
River Ranching Programme:
Over 10,000 fish fingerlings of Indian major carps — catla, rohu and mrigal — were released in the Ganga at Sangam nose under the ranching programme organised by ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute (CIFRI), Prayagraj, recently.
- The exercise has been undertaken for conservation and promotion of fish species that are becoming extinct in the Ganga.
- Nationwide River Ranching Programme was launched in Uttar Pradesh in 2021.
- River Ranching is a form of aquaculture in which a population of a fish species (such as salmon) is held in captivity for the first stage of their lives.
- They are then released, and later harvested as adults when they return from the sea to their freshwater birthplace to spawn.
- River ranching programme was introduced as special activity under the ‘Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) scheme to augment and enhance fish production and productivity by expanding, intensifying, diversifying and utilizing land & water productively.
- National Fisheries Development Board, Hyderabad is the nodal agency under central component of the PMMSY.
Fasal Bima Pathshala:
Government of India will conduct ‘Fasal Bima Pathshala’ under ‘Kisan Bhagidari Prathmikta Campaign’ during the period from 25th April to 1st May 2022 as a Jan Bhagidari movement under Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav.
- Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Shri Narendra Singh Tomar will chair the National level special programme on ‘Fasal Bima Pathshala’ on 27th April 2022.
- He will connect with farmers in all the Implementing States across the country through specially organized ‘Fasal Bima Pathshala’ coordinated by CSC from 1 lakh locations across the country.
- The Campaign aims to make the farmers aware about key scheme aspects of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) like basic scheme provisions, importance of insuring the crops and how to avail scheme benefits etc. in the ongoing Kharif Season 2022 along with facilitating farmers in getting benefit of the PMFBY scheme.
- Under this campaign, the broader focus will be on importance of PMFBY/RWBCIS (Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme) and how farmers can enrol under the scheme and avail the benefit of the scheme.
World Immunization Week 2022:
World Immunization Week 2022 was celebrated from 24th to 30th April 2022.
- The theme of 2022 is Long Life for All and it aims to unify people around the idea that vaccines make it possible for us to follow our dreams, protect our loved ones and live a long, healthy life.
- World Immunization Week is a health campaign coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and celebrated in the last week of April, every year.
- It aims to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease.
- Immunization saves millions of lives and is widely recognized as one of the world’s most successful and cost-effective health interventions.
- Yet, there are still nearly 20 million unvaccinated and under-vaccinated children in the world today.
International Finance Corporation:
The Medical Education and Drugs Department (MEDD) and International Finance Corporation (IFC) have joined forces to prioritise health care projects with emphasis on Medical Education under the public-private partnership (PPP) model in Maharashtra.
- IFC will be the transaction advisor for the PPPs to develop super-specialty hospitals and medical education facilities across the state.
- International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution that offers investment, advisory, and asset management services to encourage private sector development in developing countries.
- It is a member of the World Bank Group and is headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States.
- It was established in 1956 as the private sector arm of the World Bank Group to advance economic development by investing in strictly for-profit and commercial projects that purport to reduce poverty and promote development.
- The IFC is owned and governed by its member countries, but has its own executive leadership and staff that conduct its normal business operations.
- It is a corporation whose shareholders are member governments that provide paid-in capital and which have the right to vote on its matters.
World Intellectual Property Day:
Every year on the 26th of April, World Intellectual Property Day is observed across the globe. This day is celebrated with the aim of raising awareness regarding the impact of how copyright, patents, designs, and trademarks affect our day-to-day life.
- Intellectual property (IP) rights are used to encourage creativity and innovation in societies across the world.
- The day looks to find the potential of the world’s younger generation to find a better solution for the transition to a future that is sustainable.
- Intellectual Properties refer to the creations of the mind and they can be in many fields like literary, inventions, artistic works, symbols, designs, images, and names.
- IP is a type of non-physical asset that is owned by an individual or a company.
- WHO is committed to establish an approachable and balanced system for international intellectual property rights.
- Hence, this day plays an important role in helping young creators, inventors, and entrepreneurs to use intellectual property to generate income, achieve their goals, tackle global and local challenges, and create jobs, by supporting national as well as community development.
- The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Convention came into effect in the year 1970 and in 2000, the member states of WIPO declared 26th April as World Intellectual Property.
- The theme of 2022 World Intellectual Property Day : IP and Youth innovating for a better future is the theme of this year’s World Intellectual Property Day.
Four Years Of Unnat Bharat Abhiyan 2.0:
Unnat Bharat Abhiyan 2.0 (UBA 2.0) has successfully completed four years on 25th April 2022. On this day in the year 2018, UBA 2.0 was launched with the aim of bringing transformational changes in the processes of rural development processes.
- The Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) is a flagship programme that falls under the ambit of the Ministry of Education and aims to link the country’s Higher Education Institutions with a set minimum of five villages so that these higher institutions can help in contributing to the social and economic betterment of the communities of these villages by using their knowledge base.
- The National Coordinating Institute of the UBA programme is the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi).
- Under UBA, two major domains for the holistic development of villages are covered which are:
- human development
- material (economic) development in an integrated manner.
- Unnat Bharat Abhiyan objective is to engage the students and the faculties of the Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) to understand the country’s rural realities.
- Under this scheme, the students and the faculties help in identifying the developmental issues that are being faced in the rural areas and coming up with sustainable solutions.
- Under UBA, existing innovative technologies are identified, selected, and customized for innovative solutions, as required by the people.
- The HEIs also contribute to devising systems that can help in the implementation of the various Government programmes.
- At present, under this scheme 748 Institutions are participating. 605 institutions have been selected for Phase-2.
- Out of the selected 292 are Non-Technical Institutions and 313 are Technical Institutions.
Russia’s Withdrawal From UNWTO:
The UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has announced that Russia has decided to withdraw from the UNWTO. The announcement was made by UN World Tourism Organization Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili.
- According to the UNWTO, Russia decided to withdraw from this organization ahead of a vote by the body to suspend Russia for its war against Ukraine.
- This development comes amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
- The UNWTO had earlier called the Russian aggression against Ukraine as being inconsistent with the United Nations Charter and being against the UNWTO’s fundamental aim.
- The UNWTO had earlier announced in the month of March that it wants to suspend Russia due to the conflict.
- This decision must be approved by 2/3rd of its members (159 members) at the convention that began on 27th April 2022 in Madrid.
- Even after Russia’s decision to withdraw, the UNWTO will go ahead with the vote.
- This is the first time the UNWTO has met to discuss the suspension of one of its member nations.
- The UNWTO is an organization of the United Nations that has been entrusted with the promotion of sustainable, responsible, and universally accessible tourism.
