Daily Current Affairs Quiz: August 11, 2023

ANSWER: B

ANSWER: C

ANSWER: A

ANSWER: B

• The National Power Committee (NPC) has asked States to provide suggestions for offering incentives to buyers and sellers on the surplus power portal, PUSHp, to encourage wider participation, which has been found missing.

About PUSHp portal

• The portal is a national-level generating capacity utilisation mechanism to help States, which are facing power cuts, buy power.
• The tariffs are regulated and determined by the concerned regulatory commissions.
• PUSHp portal, which was launched in March 2023 and began power transactions on April 3, has seen 17 States utilising it.
• So far, 14 requests have been processed and the power has been reallocated to the new beneficiaries.
• Working
  • DISCOMs have tied up long term PPAs (power purchase agreement) for power supply and have to pay fixed charges even when they do not schedule the power.
  • The DISCOMs will be able to indicate their surplus power in block times / days / months on portal.
  • DISCOMs in need of power will be able to requisition the surplus power.
  • The new buyer pays both variable charge (VC) and fixed cost (FC) as determined by Regulators.

Benefits

• This will reduce the fixed cost burden on DISCOMs, and enable the available generation capacity to be utilized optimally.

Shortcomings

• There is a lack of participation from the States of northern region (NR), eastern region (ER) and limited requisition to avail the surplus power available on the portal from all regions.

ANSWER: C

• Foreign Secretary recently told a Parliament committee that the Raisina Dialogue is now among the most significant global level think tank events in the

About Raisina Dialogue

• Raisina Dialogue is an annual conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics addressing issues facing the global community.
• It derives its name from Raisina Hill, the seat of Indian government.
• Since 2016, this annual event is held by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), which is an independent think tank in collaboration with Ministry of External Affairs.
• The Dialogue is structured as a multi-stakeholder, cross-sectoral discussion involving heads of state, cabinet ministers, and local government officials, who are joined by thought leaders from the private sector, media, and academia.
• The 8th Edition was held in March 2023 under the theme– “Provocation, Uncertainty, Turbulence : Lighthouse in the tempest”
  • It saw the presence of the Prime Minister of Italy and at least 30 foreign ministers.

ANSWER: A

• Russia is to launch its first lunar landing spacecraft Luna-25 in nearly half a century.
• The Luna-25 spacecraft, weighing 1.8 tons and carrying 31 kg of scientific equipment, will spend five to seven days in lunar orbit before descending to one of three possible landing sites near the south pole.
• Its primary task will be to collect rock samples from a depth of up to 15 cm to test for the presence of frozen water.
• The Luna-25 mission will take off from the Vostochny cosmodrome

ANSWER: B

• Government e-Marketplace (GeM) commemorated its 7th Foundation Day
• Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is India’s online marketplace for public procurement.
• Launched in 2016, GeM facilitates transparent and efficient procurement for government t departments, organizations, and PSUs.
• Nodal Ministry– Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• The procurement of goods and services by Ministries and the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) is mandatory for goods and services available on GeM.
• Presently, the platform boasts an impressive catalogue of over 2.75 lakh services spanning across more than 280 categories, complemented by more than 34 lakh products.
• A hallmark of GeM’s success lies in its dedication to cost savings, having enabled the government to save over ₹45,000 crore since 2016.

ANSWER: C

• It is a naval exercise between India and UAE to be conducted at Port Rashid (man-made commercial port) in Dubai this year.
• INS Visakhapatnam, and INS Trikand are participating in the exercise.

ANSWER: D

• It was launched by Kerala government to expedite the registration process for migrant workers.
• Contractors, who bring guest workers to the state, and employers can register the workers in the portal.
• It also allows workers to register themselves individually as well.

ANSWER: D

• The Himachal Pradesh government has notified the Mukhyamantri Van Vistar Yojana that aims to expand the green cover of the state through integrated site-specific afforestation by including 250 hectares of the barren areas under plantation in various hills and mountains in the first phase during the financial year 2023-24.
• For this purpose, a task force has also been notified with principal chief conservator of forest as the team leader.
• The scheme has objectives
  • to prevent soil erosion, excessive runoff on degraded and refractory hill slopes, and
  • provide forest ecosystem and livelihood opportunity to the local population in those areas which are devoid of forest cover in vicinity.