1st May 2025

Explanation - A first of its kind attempt to boost the country's computing power, the National Super Computing Mission is steered jointly by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) and Department of Science and Technology (DST) and implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.
The Mission plans to build and deploy 24 facilities with cumulative computing power of more than 64 Petaflops. Till now C-DAC has deployed 11 systems at IISc, IITs, IISER Pune, JNCASR, NABI-Mohali and C-DAC under NSM Phase-1 and Phase-2 with a cumulative compute power of more than 20 Petaflops.
With the revised plan in place, the first supercomputer assembled indigenously, called Param Shivay, was installed in IIT (BHU) and was inaugurated by the Prime Minister. Similar systems Param Shakti and Param Brahma were installed at IIT-Kharagpur and IISER, Pune. They are equipped with applications from domains like Weather and Climate, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Bioinformatics, and Material science.

Explanation - GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, is a public-private global health partnership with the goal of increasing access to immunisation in poor countries. It is a United Nations-backed organisation which coordinates vaccinations across the world. It was created in the year 2000 as a successor to the Children's Vaccine Initiative, which had been launched in 1990. GAVI brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry in both industrialised and developing countries, research and technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private philanthropists. It has an observer status in World Health Assembly. GAVI supports many vaccine programmes such as Human Papillomavirus Vaccine, Polio Vaccine, Japanese Encephalitis, Typhoid, Cholera, Rotavirus, Yellow fever, Pentavalent vaccine etc.

Explanation - It is the implementation wing of the National Council for Rejuvenation, Protection, and Management of River Ganga also known as National Ganga Council (setup in 2016; which replaced the NRGBA). NMCG was established in the year 2011 as a registered society. It has a two-tier management structure and comprises of Governing Council and Executive Committee. The aims and objectives of NMCG are - To ensure effective control of pollution and rejuvenation of the river Ganga by adopting a river basin approach to promote inter sectoral coordination for comprehensive planning and management.

Explanation - The Act includes establishment of the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) to promote, protect and enforce the rights of consumers. The CCPA will be empowered to conduct investigations into violations of consumer rights and institute complaints/prosecution, order recall of unsafe goods and services, order discontinuance of unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements, impose penalties on manufacturers/endorsers/publishers of misleading advertisements. The rules for prevention of unfair trade practice by e-commerce platforms will also be covered under this Act. Under this act every e-commerce entity is required to provide information relating to return, refund, exchange, warranty and guarantee, delivery and shipment, modes of payment, grievance redressal mechanism, payment methods, security of payment methods, charge-back options, etc. including country of origin which are necessary for enabling the consumer to make an informed decision at the pre-purchase stage on its platform. The New Act also introduces the concept of product liability and brings within its scope, the product manufacturer, product service provider and product seller, for any claim for compensation. The Act provides for punishment by a competent court for manufacture or sale of adulterant/spurious goods. The court may, in case of first conviction, suspend any licence issued to the person for a period of up to two years, and in case of second or subsequent conviction, cancel the licence. District CDRC - Entertain complaints where value of goods and services does not exceed Rs 1 crore. State CDRC - Entertain complaints where the value is more than Rs 1 crore but does not exceed Rs 10 crore. National CDRC - Entertain complaints where the value exceeds Rs 10 crore.

Explanation - The Union Cabinet has given its approval for ratification of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer for phase down of Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by India, adopted by the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on October, 2016 at 28th Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol held at Kigali, Rwanda. On October 15, 2016, 197 countries adopted an amendment to phase down HFCs under the Montreal Protocol in Kigali, Rwanda. The Kigali Amendment aims for the phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by cutting their production and consumption. The amendment added HFCs to the list of controlled substances and approved a timeline for their gradual reduction by 80-85 per cent by 2047.