Syllabus subtopic: Important International institutions, agencies and fora, their structure, mandate.
Prelims and Mains focus: about the key highlights of the report and its significance
News: The UN projects India's economy to grow by 5.7 per cent in the current fiscal year and expects it to rise to 6.6 per cent in the next.
Background
UN's Chief Economist Elliott Harris presented a dire picture of the global economy last year when the world's gross product growth rate dropped to 2.3 per cent, the lowest in a decade.
He said that rising tariffs and rapid shift in trade policies were responsible for the lower growth rate with the United States-China trade disputes playing a significant part.
Key highlights of the report
Reasons for slowdown highlighted in the report
Green signals in the report
What next?
Another barometer of economic growth in India and the world will be coming out on Monday when the International Monetary Fund releases its World Economic Outlook report.
Source: Indian Express
Syllabus subtopic: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests
Prelims and Mains focus: about the India-EU summit and its significance; about Raisina Dialogue and its importance
News: PM Modi is likely to visit Brussels in March for the next India-European Union summit. While the dates have not been officially announced, the proposed date is likely to be March 13.
Background
India-EU Summit 2017
About the Raisina Dialogue:
Participants:
The conference is a multi-stakeholder, cross-sectoral meeting involving policy and decision-makers, including but not limited to Foreign, Defence and Finance Ministers of different countries, high-level government officials and policy practitioners, leading personalities from business and industry, and members of the strategic community, media and academia.
Significance of the event:
The Raisina Dialogue was born in 2016, in the belief that the Asian century that the world was talking about was not about any exclusive geographical region. It was rather about the engagement of global actors with Asia and of Asia with the world. So this dialogue took birth as a platform, where the old and the new could work together, to discover their connections, their inter-dependence.
About European Union (EU)
Source: Indian Express
Syllabus subtopic: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.
Prelims and Mains focus: about the satellite and its applications; about geostationary orbit
News: The nation's latest communication satellite, GSAT-30, was sent to space from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou at 2:35 a.m. IST on Friday.
About the launch
About GSAT-30 satellite
Applications
About Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
Source: The Hindu
Syllabus subtopic: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment
Prelims and Mains focus: about the judgement of the NGT Bench and concerns raised on waste treatment
News: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has warned that local bodies will be liable to pay a compensation for failure in waste treatment.
Concerns raised by NGT
About the NGT judgement
Note: click on the link below to read about the topic in detail
Source: The Hindu
Syllabus subtopic: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment
Prelims and Mains focus: about the NGT order regarding groundwater extraction; about the groundwater situation in India; about CGWA
News: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Friday pulled up the State governments of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh over inaction towards large- scale illegal extraction of groundwater in “critical” and “semi-critical” areas.
What did the NGT Bench direct them to do?
India’s groundwater situation
About Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA)
Central Ground Water Authority has been constituted under Section 3 (3) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 to regulate and control development and management of ground water resources in the country.
Powers & Functions:
The Authority has been conferred with the following powers:
Regulatory measures:
Source: The Hindu
Syllabus subtopic:
Prelims and Mains focus: about the rise in imports of solar equipments and the reasons for govt. failure to curb it; about solar power scenario in India; about PV cell
News: Five years of a concerted solar power push, a key policy thrust area for the NDA government, has come at a cost — the value of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules imported since FY’14 adds up to $12.93 billion, or Rs 90,000 crore.
Import cost too high?
Reasons for lack of domestic production of PV panels & modules
Measures taken by the govt.
India’s solar power ambition
The government has a target of 175 GW of installed clean energy capacity by March 2022, of which 100 GW is expected to be solar. Over the last five years, solar power has seen its installed capacity grow around 12 times to over 31 GW, according to Central Electricity Authority data.
About Photovoltaic (PV) cell
A photovoltaic (PV) cell, commonly called a solar cell, is a non- mechanical device that converts sunlight directly into electricity. Some PV cells can convert artificial light into electricity.
Solar photovoltaic cells are grouped in panels (modules), and panels can be grouped into arrays of different sizes to produce small to large amounts of electricity, such as for powering water pumps for livestock water, for providing electricity for homes, or for utility-scale electricity generation.
Applications of photovoltaic systems
The smallest photovoltaic systems power calculators and wristwatches. Larger systems can provide electricity to pump water, to power communications equipment, to supply electricity for a single home or business, or to form large arrays that supply electricity to thousands of electricity consumers.
Some advantages of PV systems are:
Source: Indian Express
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