- National Solar Mission, now has target installation capacity of 100 gigawatts through Solar by 2022, out of a total of 175 GW from all renewables. Recent agreement between World bank & India-led International Solar Alliance (ISA) (Headquarter: Gurgaon), will provide India with cheap finance, one of the major constraints in growth of solar energy.
India’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has signed an agreement worth 4,200 crore rupees ($625 million) with the World Bank to support its grid connected rooftop solar photovoltaic (GRPV) programme.
- New term: Digital nomads: people who can operate from wherever their laptops can go.
- India’s biggest oil refinery to cost $30 billion, says IOC
State-run IOC, BPCL, HPCL and EIL plan to set up on the west coast.
Reliance Industries holds the distinction of building the biggest refinery in India till now. It built its first refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat with a capacity of 27 million tonnes (mt) , which was subsequently expanded to 33 million tonnes.
- Beijing to hold military-drills in South China Sea
Facts:
South-China Sea dispute between China & other countries over control of Paracels and the Spratlys – two island chains.
Other Country 1: Vietnam: claims it has actively ruled over both the Paracels and the Spratlys since the 17th Century.
Other Country 2: Philippines, which invokes its geographical proximity to the Spratly Islands as the main basis of its claim. Both the Philippines and China lay claim to the Scarborough Shoal (known as Huangyan Island in China).
Other Country 3,4: Malaysia and Brunei also lay claim to territory in the South China Sea that they say falls within their economic exclusion zones, as defined by UNCLOS – the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Brunei does not claim any of the disputed islands, but Malaysia claims a small number of islands in the Spratlys.
Update: The military exercises come as an international tribunal in The Hague prepares to rule on a case brought by the Philippines challenging China’s claims in the strategic waterway.
//South-China sea important for mains/prelims.
// Also keep in mind country location, capitals on map/atlas.
Vietnam: Hanoi
Philippines: Manila
Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur
Brunei: Bandar Seri Begawan
5. Rajasthan: A research team at IIT-Jodhpur has claimed success in using Rajasthani sand to produce 100 per cent pure Squalene, a naturally occurring compound used by cosmetics, nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries.
The discovery will also help curb the killing of sharks, the primary source for Squalene, and reduce the Indian industries’ dependency on foreign companies for the essential hydrocarbon, the researchers said.
Squalene, a naturally-occurring compound helpful in treating heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and hepatitis besides use in skin care, is found in the liver of sharks but in very meagre concentration of three per cent. In low quantities, Squalene is also found in olive and palm oils.
- The first meeting of the BRICS Working Group on Energy Saving and Energy Efficiency began in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.
- India’s first Commercial Court and Commercial Disputes Resolution Centre was inaugurated at Raipur, capital of Chhattisgarh.
- India ranked 35th among 160 countriesin the recently released bi-annual Logistics Performance Index (LPI) 2016 of World Bank Group.
- World’s largest international maritime exercise named RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) 2016 began in Pacific Ocean at Hawaii, United States. RIMPAC 2016 will see participation of navies from 26 countries.
This year it is the 25th edition of biennial exercise in the series that began in 1971.
- Kerala Government has banned ‘electronic cigarette’ alias ‘e-cigarette’ as its use can cause various health issues, including cancer and heart ailments.
e-cigarette: battery-powered devices that emit doses of vaporised nicotine. Visually smoke is produced but it does not contain harmful chemicals and gases such as carbon mono oxide, etc. Further, it also produces the feel of tobacco smoking.
Now, Kerala becomes 4th state, Punjab was the first.
- Climate Change Problem: Kiribati, a collection of 33 coral atolls and reef islands scattered across a swath of the Pacific Ocean about twice the size of Alaska, lies no higher than 6 feet above sea level. The latest climate models predict the world’s oceans could rise 5 to 6 feet by 2100. The prospects of rising seas and intensifying storms “threaten the very existence and livelihoods of large segments of the population,” the government told the UN in a report last year.
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