Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 03 October 2015

:: National ::

India unveils ambitious climate action plan

Invoking Mahatma Gandhi's thoughts on environment sustainability, the Union government on Friday unveiled its climate action plan for 2021-2030 setting new targets to reduce green house gas emissions and laying out a roadmap to tackle climate change.
The climate action plan – called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) in climate change parlance – revolves around three focal points of increasing share of renewable energy, increasing green cover to absorb carbon emissions and reducing emissions intensity of gross domestic product.
Without stating targets for absolute emission cuts like Brazil, India said it aims to reduce emissions intensity or emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 33-35% by 2030, from 2005 levels.
Ahead of the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, India had committed to reduce its emissions intensity by 20-25%, and the environment ministry said it has already achieved a 12% reduction. This essentially means the new target to reduce emissions intensity by 35% is doable.
Announcing the broad goals, Union minister for environment, forests and climate change Prakash Javadekar said the targets were set keeping in mind the responsibility of achieving climate justice for the poor.
"India's contributions represent utmost ambitious action in the current state of development. Though India is not part of the problem, it wants to be part of the solution." He added that India's per capita emission is 1.6 tonnes/person against the world average of 5 tonnes/person.
Key to the reduction in emissions is going to be the ambitious plan to scale up share of non-fossil fuel in energy production to 40%.
For this, the government has planned to ramp up production of solar energy, wind energy, hydro-electric power and nuclear energy.
In its official document though, the government has not specified a break-up of how much each renewable sector will contribute to achieve the target of 40%.
India's dependency on coal, however, will continue. A foreseeable scaling up in the manufacturing sector under the Make in India programme may hamper reduction in emissions. In addition, the climate action plan stresses that aforestation by 2030 will help absorb carbon emissions of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes, something experts are sceptic about.
The government has estimated that at least $2.5 trillion would be required between now and 2030 to fulfill the climate action targets.
Javadekar said the responsibility of funding climate action plans of developing nations lies with the developed nations. "We can achieve these with the help of transfer of technology and low-cost international financing, including from Green Climate Fund," he said.
The country's climate action plan was well received by environmental campaigners, academicians and think-tanks. "India's INDC is fair and is quite ambitious, specifically on renewable energy and forestry," said Sunita Narain, director general, Centre for Science and Environment. Analysing the action plan, a CSE note said India's emission targets are similar to that of China's and called the renewable energy targets more ambitious than that of US.

:: Business ::

Centre to register postal bank by year end

The government is likely to register the postal bank by the end of the year while a pilot for payment services will be launched around January 2017.
According to sources, as per the timeline for setting up postal bank, approval from NITI Aayog will be secured by mid-October followed by public investment board’s nod by October-end and Cabinet approval in November.
“The registration for postal bank is planned be done in December and a pilot will be launched in January 2017,” said an official in the Communications and IT Ministry.
He said the bank will be an independent company with initial corpus of Rs 300 crore and the new entity will enter into revenue sharing model with the Department of Posts (DoP).
The Reserve Bank had granted in-principle approval to 11 applicants, including DoP, in August to set up payments banks.
As per RBI guidelines, payments banks would offer a limited range of products such as demand deposits and remittances. They will not be allowed to undertake lending activities and will initially be restricted to holding a maximum balance of Rs 1 lakh per individual customer.
They will be allowed to issue ATM or debit cards as also other prepaid payment instruments, but not credit cards.

Over 4GW of solar capacity to go on stream by the end of this fiscal

The country is set to add more than 4 GW of solar power by March 2016, the largest annual addition of capacity in the solar sector, according to a document of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).
By the end of the current fiscal, the solar energy sector is expected to commission 4,345 MW of new capacity. Of this, 3,775 MW of capacity will be added under the state governments’ policies category, while about 570 MW of capacity is to be added under Central government schemes.
Tamil Nadu tops the list with about 1,214 MW capacity set to be commissioned, while Telengana is likely to add about 1,166 MW. Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh are expected to add 432 MW and 350 MW respectively. Eight other states will contribute the rest of the capacity increases.
Under the central government category, about 330 MW will be added through the viability gap funding scheme (phase II and Batch I of National Solar Mission), while 240 MW will be added through rooftop programmes.
As of September 18, India has added a cumulative grid-connected solar capacity of 4,262 MW. Among the states, Rajasthan tops the table in solar capacity addition with the state contributing 1,175 MW capacity.
Gujarat is ranked number two with a contribution of 1,000 MW. Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have contributed 649 MW, 379 MW and 279 MW respectively. During the first half of this fiscal, 518 MW of capacity has been commissioned.
The MNRE document also indicates that 10,859 MW of solar capacity is expected to be commissioned during 2016-17 by public sector undertakings (PSUs), states and the rooftop sector. PSUs and the rooftop segment are projected to add a combined capacity of 9,244 MW.
Meanwhile, the tariff for solar power declined as low as Rs.5 per kWh. The weighted average tariff for solar fell to Rs.5.65 per kWh, quoted in solar projects in Punjab, in September from Rs.12.16 per kWh quoted in NSM Batch 1 during December 2010, data in the report showed.

:: Sports ::

India lost 1st T 20 to South Africa

In a contest that produced 399 runs in 39.4 overs, a few key aspects tend to get lost in the din. But with the advantage of hindsight, when one takes a closer look, it is not difficult to find the moments that turned the contest on its head and gave South Africa a 1-0 lead in the three-match T20 series here on Friday.
The scoreboard does not reflect the ease with which South Africa chased down the target of 200. Even when centurion Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli were setting up their 138-run second-wicket stand, before India posted 199 for five, the South Africans did not lose hope.
The match-winning partnership of 105 between Duminy and Farhaan Behardien was built on the sound foundation of 77 between A.B. de Villiers and Hashim Amla. The fall of the openers, followed by debutant S. Arvind’s wicket of skipper Faf du Plessis — all in the space of 18 runs — had raised visions of an Indian victory. But the resolute fourth-wicket pair did not give the hosts another reason to rejoice.