Facts in News

                                      Facts in News

Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)

• It is the global organisation of national parliaments.
• It began in 1889 as a small group of parliamentarians, dedicated to promoting peace through parliamentary diplomacy and dialogue.
• Slogan: “For democracy. For everyone.”
• Membership: 179 Member Parliaments and 13 Associate Members.
  • India is a member.
• Mission
  • To promote democratic governance.
  • To work for peace, democracy, human rights,  & gender equality.
• Eight Strategic Objectives
  • Building strong democratic parliaments.
  • Advancing gender equality and respect for women’s rights.
  • Protecting and promoting human rights.
  • Contributing to peace-building, conflict resolution and security.
  • Promoting inter-parliamentary dialogue and cooperation.
  • Promoting youth empowerment.
  • mobilizing parliaments around the global development agenda.
  • Bridging the democracy gap in global governance.
• Financed primarily by its Members out of public funds.
• Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.

Stop TB Partnership

• An international body established in the year 2000, after the First Session of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Tuberculosis Epidemic held in London in March 1998.
• Mandate: To eliminate Tuberculosis as a public health problem.
  • In 2000, it called for collaborative action from ministerial delegations from 20 countries that bear the highest burden of TB, through the Amsterdam Declaration.
• It has 1500 partner organizations which include international, non-governmental and governmental organizations and patient groups.
• The wide participation gives this the credibility and the broad range of medical, social and financial expertise needed to defeat TB.
• Secretariat: Geneva, Switzerland.
• The Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare of India has been appointed the Chairman of the Stop TB Partnership Board, for a period of 3 years.
  • It is a recognition of India’s political commitment to the eradication of TB.

S-400 Deal

• S-400 Triumf is an anti-aircraft weapon system developed in the 1990s by Russia as an upgrade of the S-300 family.
• It has been in service with the Russian Armed Forces since 2007.
• China was the first foreign buyer to make a government to government deal with Russia in 2014.
• In 2017, the S-400 was described as
  • One of the best air-defence systems currently made” by The Economist
  • among the most advanced air defence systems available by SIPRI.
• India is also willing to buy S400 by a USD 5.4 billion Indo-Russia defence deal but the CAATSA law of the US is creating troubles.
• The first batch of S400 is expected to reach India by the end of 2021.
• It can engage nearly 80 targets simultaneously and can detect the incoming threat from a distance of 600km.

Similar Air Defence System of Other countries:

• Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD): US
• Iron Dome and Iron Beam: Israel
• Prithvi Air Defence (PAD) missile (high-altitude interception) and Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile (lower altitude interception): India

Pilibhit Tiger Reserve

• Spread across Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri and Bahraich districts of UP.
• The northern edge lies along the Indo-Nepal Border while River Sharada and Khakra mark the southern boundary.
• Declared as the 45th Tiger Reserve in 2008.
• It represents the only tiger population with ecological and behavioural adaptations of the tiger unique to the Terai Region.
• Park management has developed a Chuka Ecotourism site on the bank of Sharda Sagar dam which is located inside the park.
• Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR) bagged the first international award, TX2, for year 2020 among the 13 tiger range countries for having doubled the number of tigers in less than the stipulated time.
• Recently a tigress was found dead and her 4 cubs went missing in Pilibhit Tiger Reserve.

Mukhyamantri Chiranjeevi Yojana

• Chief Minister of Rajasthan announced the launch of the Universal Health Scheme (UHS) named Mukhyamantri Chiranjeevi Yojana.
• It was announced with Rs 3,500 crore in the upcoming financial year.
•  Under the scheme, cashless health services up to Rs 5 lakh will be provided to all families in the state
• This scheme was announced to reinforce the health infrastructure in Rajasthan.

Countering America’s Adversaries through the Sanctions Act (CAATSA)

• Countering America’s Adversaries through the Sanctions Act (CAATSA) is a federal law and was enacted in August 2017 with the objective of countering the aggression by Iran, Russia and North Korea through punitive measures e.g. imposing sanctions.
• It has a total of 12 types of sanctions.
• Section 231 of the Act empowers the US President to impose sanction on persons engaged in a “significant transaction” with Russian defence and intelligence sectors.
• Two of the most stringent of these sanctions are:
  • It includes suspension of export licences related to munitions, dual-use and nuclear-related items and a ban on American investment in equity/debt of the sanctioned person.
• The US President was given the authority in 2018 to waive the sanctions on a case-by-case basis as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2019.
• In December 2020, the US imposed sanctions on Turkey for its purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile defence system.