Current Affairs - Current News

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has notified a traffic management policy framework for drones. It envisages private, third-party service providers for ensuring safe operations.

Highlights

• Automated Traffic Management: Under the framework these Unmanned Traffic Management Service Providers (UTMSP) will extend automated, algorithm-driven software services instead of voice communication as in the traditional Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems.

Kerala has won the award for the ‘city with the most sustainable transport system’.

• The award will be presented on October 29 at Delhi, by Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri

On 23 October 2021, China has passed a law to strengthen border protection.

• This is the first time that the People's Republic of China, founded 72 years ago, has a dedicated law specifying how it governs and guards its 22,000-km (14,000-mile) land border.
• The Land Borders Law will come into effect on Jan. 1, 2022.

On 22nd October 2021, at a London meet of Trade Ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) nations (United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada), they came to an agreement on principles to govern cross-border data use and digital trade.

Highlights

• The deal sets out a middle ground between highly regulated data protection regimes used in European countries and the more open approach of the United States.

• On 20th October 2021, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released Production Gap Report 2021.
• The Production Gap Report — first launched in 2019 — tracks the discrepancy between governments’ planned fossil fuel production and global production levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C.

After the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD, also known as the Quad or QUAD) - a strategic dialogue between the United States, India, Japan and Australia, a new ‘Quad’ is emerging.

• Recently, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his counterparts from Israel, the US and the UAE have agreed to establish a forum for economic cooperation at a virtual quadrilateral meeting (on 18 October 2021).

On 2nd October 2021, the Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) launched a web portal – ‘Wetlands of India Portal’.

• The portal is a single point access to all information relating to wetlands.

The Union Culture Ministry and International Buddhist Confederation, in association with the government of Uttar Pradesh, is organising the Abhidhamma Day (20th October 2021) on the auspicious occasion of Ashwin Poornima.

• The day marks the end of three-month rainy retreat - Varshavaas or Vassa - for the Buddhist monks and nuns during which time they stay at one place and pray.

Aiming to roll out an overhauled Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) from kharif 2022, the government has constituted a working group comprising officials from Centre, key crop-producing states and top executives of public sector insurance companies to suggest “sustainable, financial and operational models.”

On 16th October 2021, Lucy spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA.

• Lucy will be the first spacecraft to study Jupiter's Trojan Asteroids.
• As well as the Trojans, Lucy will do a fly-by of an asteroid in the solar system’s main asteroid belt, called Donald Johanson in honor of the lead discoverer of the fossilized human ancestor known as Lucy, from which the NASA mission takes its name.