It is the World's 1st‘Floating Nuclear Power Plant’ (FNPP) developed by Russia'sROSATOM.
It is designed to make it possible to supply electricity to hard-to-reach areas, regardless of transport infrastructure & landscape.
It left the Arctic port of Murmansk to begin its 5,000 kilometre voyage to Pevek in northeastern Siberia.
The reactor has the potential to work particularly well in regions with power supply shortages, limited access to electrical grids.
The plant, loaded with nuclear fuel, will replace a coal-fired power plant.
For fossil fuel-based electricity generation, up to 40% of the cost is attributed to the price of coal, oil or gas and for delivery.
This figure is even higher for especially remote locations.
So, the small size, lightweight, and fixed cost of the FNPP eliminate many such challenges.
ROSATOM insists that the vessel is designed to be safe, and will not harm the environment.
However, it has warned of the dangers as "Chernobyl on ice" and a "Nuclear Titanic" bound for catastrophe.
ROSATOM
It is Russian State-run Atomic Energy Corporation.
It is the only company in the world to offer integrated clean energy solutions across the nuclear supply chain and beyond.
It includes the design, build and operation of nuclear power stations, uranium mining, conversion and enrichment.
Globally, the company has the second biggest uranium reserves.
It has 40% of the world's enrichment market and is the world's biggest builder of the latest generation nuclear power stations.
Japan and South Korea’s Feud
South Korea has terminated its military intelligence-sharing pact GSOMIA with Japan.
It comes after Japan removed South Korea's favoured trade partner status and imposed export controls on its important electronics sector.
Tensions between Japan and South Korea have been mounting over trade and intelligence disagreements.
Japan removed South Korea from its list of preferred trade partners, called the “Whitelist.”
Japan alleged that South Korea had broken protocol and illegally shared chemical imports with North Korea. However, South Korea denied the accusation.
The 2 nations share a complicated history.
South Korea has for long complained about wartime atrocities and inadequate apologies for colonial excesses on Japan’s part.
They have fought on and off since at least the 7th Century, and Japan has repeatedly tried to invade the peninsula since then.
In 1910, it annexed Korea, turning the territory into a colony.
When World War 2 began, thousands of women, from across Asia were sent to military brothels to service Japanese soldiers.
Many of these victims, known as "Comfort women" were Korean.
Japan's rule of Korea ended in 1945 when it was defeated in the war.
In 1965, 20 years after Japan's defeat, South Korea agreed to normalise relations, in exchange for millions of dollars in loans and grants.
The issue of "comfort women" remains a sensitive one.
A deal was eventually signed in 2015, Japan apologised and promised to pay 1 bn yen, the amount South Korea asked for to fund victims.
The historic dispute rumbles on, with neither country looking likely to bend.
GSOMIA
It is the “General Security Of Military Information Agreement”.
It was signed in 2016 to streamline intelligence sharing between the U.S., Japan and South Korea about North Korean nuclear activity.
It automatically renews annually unless one of the countries decides to pull out.
Before the GSOMIA, the U.S. had two separate intelligence-sharing agreements with South Korea and Japan.
International Day for Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Abolition
The night of 22 to 23 August 1791, in Santo Domingo (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic) saw the beginning of the uprising.
It was against this background, the ‘International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition’ was commemorated on 23 August each year.
It is to commemorate “the tragedy of the slave trade in the memory of all peoples”.
UNESCO also established an international, intercultural project called ‘The Slave Route’.
It is to document and conduct an analysis of the interactions to which it has given rise between Africa, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean.
Indentured servitude from India started in 1834 and lasted up till 1922, despite having been officially banned in 1917 by British.
Between 1830-1860, the British, French and the Portuguese during the colonisation of India, prohibited slavery.
In Europe in the 1820s, there was a new kind of liberal humanism where slavery was considered inhuman.
It was following this ideology that the colonisers stopped slavery in India.
But it was only to replace it with another form of bonded servitude and termed it ‘indentured labour’.
The British Empire was expanding to South America, Africa and Asia and they needed new labour.
But slavery was considered inhuman. So they developed the concept of contract labour.
In 2011, a plaque was unveiled at the Kidderpore docks in Kolkata in memory of indentured labourers who passed through the city’s port.
On the banks of the Hooghly, the Suriname Ghat is named after one of the colonies to where ships would depart from Kolkata.
At the Suriname Ghat, the Mai-Baap Memorial is an unassuming metal structure that was unveiled.
The statue is a replica of the Baba and Mai monument in Paramaribo, Suriname.
It marks the first Indian migrants in Suriname.
Advisory Board on Bank Frauds (ABBF)
The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has reconstituted the Advisory Board on Bank, Commercial and Financial Frauds as the “Advisory Board for Banking Frauds” (ABBF).
CVC in consultation with RBI, based on ‘YM Malegam’ expert committee on NPAs and frauds, took this decision.
It reconstitutes the body with 4 members, who will have a 2-year tenure.
State-run banks will need to report all cases of large frauds to ABBF.
The board’s jurisdiction would be limited to those cases involving the level of officers of General manager and above in public sector banks.
Individual PSBs would refer all large fraud cases above Rs 50 crore to the board.
On receipt of its recommendation/advice, the PSB concerned would take further action in such matters.
ABBF will decide the course of action for each of these cases, including a reference to investigating agencies such as the CBI.
Normally, frauds and NPAs are considered a consequence of each other, but they are different.
The distinction between a bank fraud and an NPA is that,
A fraud is a criminal offence.
An NPA is a loan or advances wherein the interest and/or instalments of the principal remain overdue for over 90 days.
