International Day of Clean Air for Blue

IN NEWS?

• The very first international day of clean air for blue skies will be held on September 7th, 2020.

About

• The United Nations General Assembly adopted the resolution to hold an International Day of Clean Air for blue skies on December 19, 2019, during its 74th session and invited the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to facilitate the observance of the International Day, in collaboration with other relevant organizations.
• The Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) worked with UNEP and the Republic of Korea to advocate for the day in the lead up to the decision.
• The first celebration will set a precedent for an important and exciting new international day for clean air to be celebrated annually.

THE DAY AIMS TO:

• Raise public awareness at all levels—individual, community, corporate and government—that clean air is important for health, productivity, the economy and the environment.
• Demonstrate the close link of air quality to other environmental/developmental challenges such as – most and foremost – climate change and the global Sustainable Development Goals.
• Promote and facilitate solutions that improve air quality by sharing actionable knowledge best practices, innovations, and success stories.
• Bring together diverse international actors working on this topic to form a strategic alliance to gain momentum for concerted national, regional and international approaches for effective air quality management.

EMPHASIS ON AIR POLLUTION AND ITS EFFECTS

• The International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies was introduced to acknowledge the threats posed by air pollution and to encourage every country in the world to take preventive measures.
• Countries pledged to promote and support sustainable development in "The future we want", an outcome document of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.
• The UN also came up with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which is a resolution comprising 17 goals and 169 targets for countries.

WAY FORWARD

• Given the current backdrop with the wide-scale transmission of COVID-19, the Day assumes an even more important role in propagating the urgent need to address air pollution and the challenges it poses while adding emphasis on moving toward sustainability at an individual, national as well as global level.

First World Solar Technology Summit

IN NEWS?

• World Solar Technology Summit (WSTS) being organized by the International Solar Alliance (ISA), on 8th September 2020.

About

• The inaugural will witness the rolling of an action- packed agenda with the conclusion and announcement of three agreements between ISA and International Institute of Refrigeration, a second with Global Green Growth Institute and a third agreement with National Thermal Power Corporation.
• A tripartite agreement between India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the World Bank and the International Solar Alliance is also set to be inked.
• ISA’s technology journal, Solar Compass 360 will also be launched during the summit by Dr Dharendra Yogi Goswami, Professor in the University of South Florida and Director of the Clean Energy Research Centre.
• Four technical sessions will see a galaxy of renowned academicians, scientists, researchers as well as industry leaders deliberate on the future prospects of the solar PV technology and the vision for solar energy up to 2030 and beyond.
• The entire proceedings will be available live in four languages: English, Spanish, French and Arabic.

INTERNATIONAL SOLAR ALLIANCE

• The International Solar Alliance (ISA) is an alliance of 121 countries initiated by India, most of them being sunshine countries, which lie either completely or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.
• The primary objective of the alliance is to work for efficient exploitation of solar energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
• The alliance is a treaty-based inter-governmental organization. Countries that do not fall within the Tropics can join the alliance and enjoy all benefits as other members, with the exception of voting rights.
• After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states world-wide.
• The initiative was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the India Africa Summit, and a meeting of member countries ahead of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in November 2015.
• It is headquartered in India. In January 2016, Narendra Modi, and the then French President François Hollande jointly laid the foundation stone of the ISA Headquarters and inaugurated the interim Secretariat at the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) in Gwal Pahari, Gurugram, India.

Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle

Why in NEWS?

• The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on September 07, 2020, successfully flight tested a Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV).

About

• In a giant leap for indigenous defence technologies and a significant milestone towards a `Sashakt Bharat and `Atmanirbhar Bharat’ India has for the second time successfully flight-tested HSTDV.
• With this successful test, DRDO has demonstrated capabilities for highly complex technology.
• This will serve as the building block for NextGen Hypersonic vehicles in partnership with the private industry.

HSDTV

• HSTDV project is an ambitious project of DRDO and is intended to serve multiple military and civil purposes.
• It is an unmanned scramjet demonstration aircraft for hypersonic speed flight.
• India is pushing ahead with the development of ground and flight test hardware as part of an ambitious plan for a hypersonic cruise missile.
• While it can be used for launching cruise missiles it will also serve the purpose for launching satellites at a low cost.
• The HSTDV is intended to attain autonomous scramjet flight for 20 seconds, using a solid rocket launch booster.
• The research will also inform India’s interest in reusable launch vehicles. The eventual target is to reach Mach 6.5 at an altitude of 32.5 km.
• Under this project, DRDO is developing a hypersonic vehicle that will be powered by a scram-jet engine.
• It is being developed by DRDO with assistance from Israel, UK and Russia.

Use

• This is dual-use technology, which when developed, will have multiple civilian applications.
• It can be used for launching satellites at low cost.
• It will also be available for long-range cruise missiles of the future. E.g.: Brahmos 2

Global Multidimensional Poverty Index and India

Why in NEWS?

• NITI Aayog as the nodal agency has been assigned the responsibility of leveraging the monitoring mechanism of the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to drive reforms.

About

• As the Nodal agency for the MPI, NITI Aayog has constituted a Multidimensional Poverty Index Coordination Committee (MPICC).
• Experts from OPHI and UNDP, as the publishing agency, have also been onboarded for their technical expertise.
• Global MPI is part of Government of India’s decision to monitor the performance of the country in 29 select Global Indices.
• The objective of the “Global Indices to Drive Reforms and Growth (GIRG)” exercise is to fulfil the need to measure and monitor India’s performance on various important social and economic parameters and enable the utilisation of these Indices as tools for self-improvement, bring about reforms in policies, while improving last-mile implementation of government schemes.

Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

• Global MPI is an international measure of multidimensional poverty covering 107 developing countries and was first developed in 2010 by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for UNDP’s Human Development Reports.
• The Global MPI is released at the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development of the United Nations in July, every year.
• MPI is based on the idea that poverty is not unidimensional (not just depends on income and one individual may lack several basic needs like education, health etc.), rather it is multidimensional.
• The index shows the proportion of poor people and the average number of deprivations each poor person experiences at the same time.
• MPI uses three dimensions and ten indicators which are:

1. Education: Years of schooling and child enrollment (1/6 weightage each total 2/6);
2. Health: Child mortality and nutrition (1/6 weightage each, total 2/6);
3. Standard of living: Electricity, flooring, drinking water, sanitation, cooking fuel and assets (1/18 weightage each, total 2/6)

• A person is multidimensionally poor if she/he is deprived in one third or more (means 33% or more) of the weighted indicators (out of the ten indicators). Those who are deprived in one half or more of the weighted indicators are considered living in extreme multidimensional poverty.
• MPI is significant as it recognizes poverty from different dimensions compared to the conventional methodology that measures poverty only from the income or monetary terms.
• According to Global MPI 2020, India is 62nd among 107 countries with an MPI score of 0.123 and 27.91% headcount ratio, based on the NFHS 4 (2015/16) data.
• Neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka (25th), Bhutan (68th), Nepal (65th), Bangladesh (58th), China (30th), Myanmar (69th) and Pakistan (73rd) are also ranked in this index.