Current Affairs - Current News

On 21st April 2022, NITI Aayog and UNICEF India signed a Statement of Intent (SoI) on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a focus on children.

• The SoI seeks to formalize a framework of cooperation to launch the first report on the ‘State of India’s Children: Status and Trends in Multidimensional Child Development’.

The eighth edition of National Level Pollution Response Exercise NATPOLREX was conducted by the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) off Mormugao harbour in Goa.

• The event was attended by more than 85 participants from 50 agencies, including 29 observers from 22 friendly foreign countries and International Organisations, and two Coast Guard ships from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Recently, a World Bank working paper was released titled ‘Poverty in India Has Declined over the Last Decade But Not As Much As Previously Thought’.

What the Paper said on Extreme Poverty in India?

• Sharp Decline in Extreme Poverty: India's extreme poverty declined 12.3 percentage points lower in 2019 than in 2011 as poverty headcount rate has dropped from 22.5% in 2011 to 10.2% in 2019 with comparatively sharper decline in rural areas.

The government garnered Rs. 96,000 crore under the National Monetisation Pipeline in FY22, surpassing the target of Rs. 88,000 crore.

• The figure could touch Rs.1 lakh crore as data was still trickling in and was yet to be finalised.

The Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu and Bandhavgarh and Pench Tiger Reserves in Madhya Pradesh have been conferred with the Conservation Assured Tiger Standards (CA|TS) international accreditation certificates.

• The certificates were handed over to the officials from the three tiger reserves at Pakke Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh during the 20th National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) meeting held recently.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD), in its first prediction of this year’s monsoon trends, has introduced a new benchmark figure based on 1971-2020 data, showing marginal decline in monsoon rains and overall annual showers in the country over the long period of time.

• The new updated rainfall normal has been prepared based on data of 1971-2020 and will replace the existing rainfall normal based on 1961- 2010 with effect from the southwest monsoon season 2022.

The Vice President of India recently inaugurated National Stakeholders Conference on Localization of Sustainable Development Goals organized by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj.

• The Ministry is organising the Iconic Week from 11th April to 17th April, 2022, to commemorate Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (AKAM) as a Jan-Utsav in the spirit of Jan-Bhagidari.

Shri Vivek Johri, Chairman, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), presented a set of Time Release Studies (TRS) conducted by the department.

Time Release Studies

TRS are essentially a performance measurement tool for assessing the cargo clearance process of the international trade, as recommended by the World Trade Organization (WTO) under the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and the World Customs Organization (WCO).

NITI Aayog has launched the State Energy & Climate Index-Round I on 11th April 2022.

The State Energy & Climate Index (SECI) Round I ranks the states’ performance on 6 parameters:

On 2nd April, 2022, India and Australia signed the India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA). The negotiations for India-Australia ECTA were formally re-launched on 30 September 2021 and concluded on a fast-track basis by the end of March 2022.