Today's Current Affairs -11th November 2022

INTERNATIONAL

Saudi Arabia bolsters its green initiatives amid climate change concerns

• Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said, the kingdom would contribute $2.5 billion to a green initiative in the Middle East over the next ten years, and host its headquarters.
• The Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, will also aim for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, the crown prince said in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt, as world leaders gathered for the COP27 climate change conference. Saudi Arabia plans to rely on renewables for 50 percent of its electricity generation by 2030, the crown prince said, removing 44 million tons of carbon emissions by 2035.
• The Middle East Green Initiative was launched by the crown prince last year with the aim of reducing carbon emissions from regional hydrocarbon production by more than 60 percent.
• It also aims to plant 50 billion trees across the Middle East and restore an area equivalent to 200 million hectares of degraded land. The initiative will reduce global carbon levels by 2.5 percent.

IMF agrees $4.5 billion loan for Bangladesh to combat economic crisis

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provisionally agreed a $4.5-billion support programme for Bangladesh, with the country’s finance minister saying the deal would help prevent economic instability escalating into a crisis.
• Bangladesh’s $416-billion economy has been one of the world’s fastest growing economy for years. But rising energy and food prices, sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, along with shrinking foreign exchange reserves, have swelled its import bill and current account deficit.
• It became the third South Asian nation to secure a “staff-level agreement” with the IMF for loans this year, after Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
• Bangladesh’s economic mainstay is the export-oriented garment industry, which is bracing for a slowdown as big customers like Walmart are saddled with excess stocks as inflation forces people to prioritise their spending.

 NATIONAL

IBDC: Government launches India’s first national repository for life science data

• India’s first National Repository for Life Science data was unveiled by Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh. The National Repository for Life Science data was generated from publicly-funded research in India.
• The ‘Indian Biological Data Centre’ (IBDC) was established at the Regional Biotechnology Center. It has a storage capacity of four petabytes and is also home to the ‘Brahm’ High-Performance Computing facility.
• Before the National Repository for Life Science data was unveiled the sciences data was stored in data repositories in Europe and the US till now.
• The computational infrastructure at IBDC has also been made available for researchers who are interested in performing computational-intensive analysis.

 SPORTS

Virat Kohli becomes the first to score 4000 T20I runs, leaps past Brian Lara as the overseas batter with most runs at Adelaide Oval

• Indian star cricketer, Virat Kohli has scripted history as he became the first batter in history to reach 4000 runs in T20 Internationals. Kohli reached the landmark in the second semi-final of the T20 World Cup 2022 against England in Adelaide. Earlier, Kohli became the all-time leading run-scorer in the men’s T20 World Cups against Bangladesh in Adelaide, overtaking Mahela Jayawardene’s record of 1016 runs, which was set in 2014. Kohli, remarkably, raced to the magnificent milestone while batting at an average of 53.34. He is the only batter in the shortest format to average over 50 and reached the milestone in 115 matches.
• Kohli was named Player of the Tournament in both the 2014 and 2016 T20 World Cups, making him the only male cricketer to do so. Kohli is also the highest run-scorer in the history of T20I cricket. On the list, he is ahead of captain Rohit Sharma, Martin Guptill, Babar Azam, and Paul Stirling. Kohli currently has a strike rate of nearly 140 and an average of more than 50. Kohli is also the top scorer in the T20 World Cup 2022 with over 270 runs in 6 matches.

India to host 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships; MoU signed between BFI President Ajay Singh and IBA President Kremlev

• India to host the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championship 2023. In a press conference held in New Delhi, an MoU was signed between the International Boxing Association (IBA) and the Boxing Federation of India (BFI). The MoU was signed in the presence of IBA President Umar Kremlev and BFI President Ajay Singh. The occasion was also felicitated by world champion Nikhat Zareen.
• BFI and IBA will work to introduce the historic bout review system at the Women’s World Boxing Championship 2023.
• The Women’s World Boxing Championship 2023 will see a total prize pool of approximately INR 19.50 crore and the gold medalist will be awarded approximately INR 71 lakh.
• Boxing in India has grown significantly and India’s hosting of the Women’s World Boxing Championship 2023 is a milestone for the country.

Teenager Holger Rune wins first tennis Masters title against Djokovic in Paris

• 19-year-old Danish player, Holger Rune has defeated the six-time champion, Novak Djokovic to clinch his first Men’s single, 2022 Masters Title in Paris. He has become the youngest winner of the Paris tournament since Boris Becker in 1986. He is the fifth first-time Masters winner this season and will be the first Danish man to break into the top 10. While the Men’s double was won by Wesley Koolhof (Netherlands) and Neal Skupski (United Kingdom).
• Djokovic looked set to cruise to a 91st career title. The sixth-seeded Serb wrapped up the first set with a love hold on serve, then had Rune 0-40 down in the opening service game of the second set. He drew on his experience as a 21-time Grand Slam singles champion to pressure Rune in a 12th game lasting nearly 20 minutes, but Rune held his nerve for his third title of the year and of his blossoming career.

 IMPORTANT DAYS

World Usability Day 10th November 2022: Theme, history, significance and all

• Every year on the second Thursday of November, the world observes World Usability Day. The date is also mentioned on the UN calendar. World Usability Day, which will fall on November 10 this year, is also known as ‘Make Things Easier’ day. “Usability” is a quality that evaluates how efficiently and effectively a person can use a product, as well as how satisfied he or she is with the process.
• The day aims to bring together communities of professional, industrial, educational, citizen, and government groups to work towards a common goal– making essential services and products easier to access and use. The purpose of the day is to both celebrate and educate. Celebrating the creation of usable products and educating the public about how usability affects our daily lives. Its purpose is to improve the way our world works.
• The theme of World Usability Day 2022 is “Our Health”. The theme for this year is to evaluate systems that provide healthcare in all of its various forms, such as virtual/telehealth, electronic health records, healthcare products, and all digital health-related solutions. This theme will assist us in exploring timely and critical issues such as continuity of care, access to treatment, telemedicine, mental health systems, exercise, nutrition, and many others.

 SUMMIT'S & MOU's

Atal Innovation Mission launches women centric challenges under ANIC program

• Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog has launched Woman centric challenges under phase-II of the 2nd edition of the Atal New India Challenge (ANIC). ANIC is an initiative by AIM, NITI Aayog targeted to seek, select, support and nurture technology-based innovations that solve sectoral challenges of national importance and societal relevance. through a grant-based mechanism of up to INR 1 crore. ANIC’s Woman centric challenges address the major issues faced by woman from all spheres of life.
• These include driving women hygiene through innovation, innovations to improve women’s safety, professional networking opportunities for women, innovations that make working mothers’ life better, and easing the life of Rural Women. These Challenges crafted ANIC to address the major issues faced by woman from all spheres of life. I encourage innovators to visit our website and apply for this noble initiative at earliest.”

 RANKING

Census, NPR database declared as critical information infrastructure

• The government has declared certain databases related to the Census and the National Population Register (NPR) as critical information infrastructure. In a notification issued recently, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said the decision was taken after exercising the powers conferred to it under the Information Technology Act, 2000 (Amended 2008).
• The Centre declares the computer resources relating to the Census Monitoring and Management System, the Self Enumeration and Civil Registration System (CRS) web portals, mobile applications for house listing, population enumeration and updating the NPR as critical information infrastructure (CII) of the office of the registrar general and census commissioner, it said.
• The linked databases, including the NPR database, the Census database and the CRS database, the computer resources set up and installed at the National Data Centre, the office of the registrar general and the census commissioner, Delhi, the Disaster Recovery Site and the data centres at Bengaluru and Lucknow have also been declared as CII, according to the notification.

 BANKING AND ECONOMY

Union Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman approves India's First Sovereign Green Bonds Framework

• Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman approves the final Sovereign Green Bonds framework of India. This approval will further strengthen India’s commitment towards its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs) targets.
• The Framework comes close on the footsteps of India’s commitments under Panchamrit as elucidated by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, at COP26 at Glasgow in November, 2021. The approval is fulfillment of the announcement in the Union Budget FY 2022-23 by the Union Finance Minister that Sovereign Green Bonds will be issued for mobilising resources for green projects.
• It will help in attracting global and domestic investments in eligible green projects. The proceeds generated from issuance of such bonds will be deployed in Public Sector projects which help in reducing carbon intensity of the economy.
• A green bond is a debt instrument with which capital is being raised to fund ‘green’ projects, which typically include those relating to renewable energy, clean transportation, sustainable water management etc.