Basel Convention - Control of Tran boundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal
India Strongly opposes the plastic waste and e-waste dumping by other countries in India through this convention.
Rotterdam Convention - Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade
Under the Rotterdam Convention, two new chemicals (Phorate and HBCD) were added in the list for mandatory Prior Informed Consent procedure in international trade.
Stockholm Convention - Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
Under the Stockholm Convention it is decided to list “Dicofol” is listed as a top pollutant without any exemption.
Economic Census
Economic Census is being conducted since 1977, by Ministry of Statics and Program Implementation (MoSPI).
The Economic census will provide detailed information on operational and other characteristics such as number of establishments, number of persons employed, source of finance, type of ownership etc.
This information used for micro level/ decentralized planning and to assess contribution of various sectors of the economy in the gross domestic product (GDP).
Total Six Economic Censuses (EC) has been conducted till date.
Artemis Mission
Artemis is NASA’s next mission to the Moon; ARTEMIS stands for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of Moon’s Interaction with the Sun.
The mission consists of spacecraft to measure what happens when the Sun’s radiation hits our rocky moon, where there is no magnetic field to protect it.
The ARTEMIS mission uses two of the five in-orbit spacecraft from another NASA Heliophysics constellation of satellites (THEMIS) that were launched in 2007 and successfully completed their mission earlier in 2010.
The ARTEMIS mission allowed NASA to repurpose two in-orbit spacecraft to extend their useful science mission, saving tens of millions of taxpayer dollars instead of building and launching new spacecraft.
Chirstchurch Call for Action
Christchurch Call for Action outlines collective, voluntary commitments from governments and online service providers intended to address the issue of terrorist and violent extremist content online.
The signatories promised to implement laws related to regulating terrorist content online and curbing the spread of extremism while maintaining international human rights laws.
India recently signed the Christchurch Call for Action.
The US refused to sign the document saying it was “not in a position to join” because it needs to assure freedom of speech, adding that it supports the general idea of the agreement.
MRSAM
Indian Navy and DRDO has recently test fired Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM).
The Indian Navy achieved a significant milestone in enhancing its Anti Air Warfare Capability with the maiden cooperative engagement firing of the Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM).
The MRSAM has been developed by DRDO along with Isralei Aerospace Industries and has been manufactured by Bharat Dynamics Limited, India.
Each MRSAM weapon system comprises of one command and control system, one tracking radar, missiles, and mobile launcher systems.
