Prelim Bits 09-09-2018

World Summit on Accreditation

• Union Human Resources and Development ministry has recently inaugurated world summit on Accreditation.
• The summit is a biennial Summit organised by National Board of Accreditation (NBA).
• The summit provides platform to stakeholders to share their knowledge and information on accreditation.
• NBA has already organised three Summits in 2012, 2014 and 2016.

National Board of Accreditation

• NBA is an autonomous organisation under Ministry of Human Resource Development.
• It engaged in quality assurance of the programs offered by the professional and technical institutions in India through accreditation.
• It has been accorded Permanent Signatory Status of Washington Accord since June, 2014. 
• It has adopted internationally implemented outcome-based assessment and accreditation to ensure the graduates are globally competent.

Dawn Mission

• Dawn mission was launched by NASAdeploying spacecrafts to study the asteroid Vesta and dwarf planetCeres.
• It is the only mission ever to orbit two extraterrestrial targets and will characterize the early solar system andthe processes that dominated its formation.
• Vesta and Ceres are celestial bodies believed to have accreted early in the history of the solar system.
• Dawn orbited giant asteroid Vesta for 14 months from 2011 to 2012, then continued on to Ceres, where it hasbeen in orbit since March 2015.
• The spacecraft is likely to run out of a key fuel known as hydrazine which keeps it oriented and in communication with Earth.

Ceres and Vesta

• Ceres is the earliest known and smallest of the dwarf planet.
• It is also the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
• Thus Ceres is both dwarf planet and asteroid.
• Vesta is the second most massive body in the asteroid belt, surpassed only by Ceres.

Indo-France Space Relationship

• France has offered India its expertise in space medicine, astronaut health monitoring, life support and radiation protectionfor India’s proposed manned space mission – Gangayaan.
• French space agency (CNES)  has already launched human spaceflights in its Proxima mission in 2016.
• The partnership will also allow the French space agency to learn from India’s developments in the field of crew transport.

Wind Power Generation

• India has set an offshore wind power capacity target of 5 GW by 2022 and, 30 GW by 2030.
• As per the estimates of the Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis (IEEFA), both China and India will ride the offshore wind power wave
• India's offshore wind power generation capacity is seen climbing to 30 GW by 2030, on par with China.
• It accounts for 30 per cent of the envisaged capacity of 100 GW in Asian economies.
• The balance capacities will be contributed by South Korea , Japan, Taiwan and the rest to be added up jointly by Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam.

Source: PIB, Business Standard