Current Affairs Questions

Explanation :

• The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) was established in 1944 to manage the administration and governance of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention).
• In 1947, ICAO became a specialized agency of the United Nations linked to Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
• Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, ICAO works with the Convention’s 193 Member States and industry groups to reach consensus on international civil aviation Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) and policies in support of a safe, efficient, secure, economically sustainable and environmentally responsible civil aviation sector.
• ICAO coordinates assistance and capacity building for States in support of numerous aviation development objectives; produces global plans to coordinate multilateral strategic progress for safety and air navigation; monitors and reports on numerous air transport sector performance metrics; and audits States’ civil aviation oversight capabilities in the areas of safety and security.

Explanation :

• African swine fever (ASF) is a highly contagious haemorrhagic viral disease of domestic and wild pigs, which is responsible for serious economic and production losses.
• It is caused by a large DNA virus of the Asfarviridae family, which also infects ticks of the genus Ornithodoros.
• This transboundary animal disease can be spread by live or dead pigs, domestic or wild, and pork products; furthermore, transmission can also occur via contaminated feed and fomites (non-living objects) such as shoes, clothes, vehicles, knives, equipment etc., due to the high environmental resistance of ASF virus.
• ASFV is endemic to sub-Saharan Africa but outbreaks have also occurred in other parts of the world, including Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia (Russia and the Caucasus region), and China.
• ASF is a disease listed in the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Terrestrial Animal Health Code.

 OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code

• The OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code (the Terrestrial Code) provides standards for the improvement of animal health and welfare and veterinary public health worldwide, including through standards for safe international trade in terrestrial animals (mammals, reptiles, birds and bees) and their products.
• The health measures in the Terrestrial Code should be used by the Veterinary Authorities of importing and exporting countries to provide for early detection, reporting and control agents that are pathogenic to animals or humans, and to prevent their transfer via international trade in animals and animal products, while avoiding unjustified sanitary barriers to trade.
• The standards in the Terrestrial Code have been adopted by the World Assembly of the Delegates which constitutes the organisation’s highest decision-making body.

Explanation :

• On the occasion of World Cities Day 2019 (31^st October), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) included Mumbai and Hyderabad in its network of 'Creative Cities' among the 66 cities selected all over the world.
• While, Mumbai has been designated as Creative City of Films, Hyderabad as a Creative City of Gastronomy.
• Earlier, Indian cities like Chennai and Varanasi have been included in UNESCO Cities of Music while Jaipur has been included in the City of Crafts and Folk Arts.

UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN)

• Created in 2004, currently, it has 180 cities which aims towards a common objective of placing creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their development plans at the local level and cooperating actively at the international level.
• The network covers seven creative fields: crafts and folk arts, media arts, film, design, gastronomy, literature and music.

Explanation :

• The ISA was unveiled jointly by India and France at the U.N. Climate Change Conference-CoP-21 in Paris on November 30^th, 2015. It is headquartered at GwalPahari, Gurugram, India.
• The ISA Framework Agreement was opened for signature during the CoP-22 at Marrakesh on 15^th November, 2016.
• The idea was to form a coalition of solar resource-rich countries to collaborate on addressing the identified gaps in their energy requirements through a common approach.
• Towards this, the ISA has set a target of 1 TW of solar energy by 2030.
• Under the alliance, India has set a target to produce 100 GW of solar energy by 2022 and reduction in emission intensity by 33–35% by 2030.
• The ISA is open to 121 prospective member countries, most of them located between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn as this is the region worldwide with a surplus of bright sunlight for most of the year. Till date, 81 countries have taken membership of ISA.

Key Focus Areas

• Promote solar technologies, new business models and investment in the solar sector to enhance prosperity
• Formulate projects and programmes to promote solar applications
• Develop innovative financial mechanisms to reduce cost of capital
• build a common knowledge e-Portal
• Facilitate capacity building for promotion and absorption of solar technologies and R&D among member countries

Explanation :

• NIRVIK scheme has been launched by the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India (ECGC) in order to ease the lending process and enhance loan availability for exporters.

Key Features

• Insurance cover guaranteed will cover up to 90% of the principal and interest.
• The increased cover will ensure that foreign and rupee export credit interest rates are below 4 percent and 8 percent respectively for the exporters.
• The insurance cover will include both pre and post-shipment credit.

Benefits

• Will enhance accessibility and affordability of credit for exporters
• Will make ECGC procedures exporter friendly
• Will help make Indian exports competitive