UPSC QUIZ 14.11.2023

Explanation:

• Centre for Advanced Financial Research and Learning (CAFRAL), a research body set up by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has highlighted a growing risk in bank financing for Non-Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs) and identifies potential dangers in the digital lending landscape
• Also, CAFRAL also warned about fake/illegitimate lending apps gathering personal data, posing potential misuse and safety risks for users.
• CAFRAL observed that banks mostly lend to bigger NBFCs, leading to increased cross-lending within the NBFC sector.
• This creates a network of inter-dependencies and contagion channels that can amplify shocks and transmit them across the system.
• For example, the default of IL&FS in 2018 and DHFL collapse in June 2019, triggered a liquidity crisis and a loss of confidence in the NBFC sector, affecting the asset quality and profitability of banks that had lent to them.

Explanation:

• The urgency to tackle the climate crisis has never been clearer than it is now. Faced with the increasing impacts of climate change, the international community has focused on two key aspects: First, adaptation: 'Loss and Damage Fund' (L&D).
• Adaptation involves proactive responses to climate change, enabling communities and countries to prepare for and respond to climate-related challenges.
• On the other hand, L&D covers the irreversible consequences of climate change, including economic losses, human casualties and environmental degradation.

Establishment of Loss and Damage Fund (L&D Fund)

• Calls for rich countries to accept historical responsibility for climate change go back more than three decades. At the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP 19) to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2013, member states agreed to establish an L&D Fund. The objective of this fund was to provide financial and technical assistance to economically developing countries facing loss and damage due to climate change.
• Despite initial agreements, subsequent COP meetings faced challenges in making the Fund functional, leading to a series of negotiations and discussions.

Explanation:

• Concerned over the rapid decline of Earth's ice caps and glaciers, France is spending $1 billion on polar research over the next decade.
• French President Emmanuel Macron hosted a summit with polar countries and scientists.
• Experts warn that temperatures in the Arctic are rising 4 times faster and half of all glaciers could disappear by 2100. France wants climate action at upcoming UN talks.

Effects of disappearing ice

• Disappearing ice currently threatens millions of people, but shrinking glaciers that provide water and reflecting capacity will threaten billions more.
• Scientists warn of catastrophic and irreversible points as dark oceans absorb more heat where ice once reflected sunlight.

Explanation:

• A significant and growing burden of non-melanoma skin cancer is affecting outdoor workers, with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Organization reporting that approximately one-third of deaths from non-melanoma skin cancer are caused by exposure to sunlight. I have to work.
• Occupational exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation has been identified as the third largest work-related risk factor contributing to cancer deaths globally.
• These estimates have been published in the Environment International Journal.

Scope of exposure

• In 2019, approximately 1.6 billion people of working age (15 years and older) were exposed to solar ultraviolet radiation while working outdoors.
• This is 28% of all persons of working age. Tragically, that same year, approximately 19,000 people in 183 countries lost their lives to non-melanoma skin cancer caused by working outside in the sun. Of these, 65% were men.

Explanation:

• Export of the first trial consignment of bananas to Europe has been facilitated by APEDA.
• India is the world’s largest producer of bananas. APEDA facilitated the first trial shipment of bananas to the Netherlands via sea.
• The first export consignment of one container of bananas to the Netherlands has been flagged off from Baramati, Maharashtra.
• The trial shipment of bananas was sent out by the APEDA-registered 'InI Farms'.
• The export of bananas to the Netherlands would increase the income of farmers.
• After this trial shipment, India is expected to export bananas worth more than USD one billion in the next five years.
• It would increase the income of 25000 farmers and indirectly provide employment to 50,000 people on farms.
• Indian bananas are mainly exported to Iran, Iraq, UAE, Oman, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Afghanistan, and the Maldives.
• India is looking for export opportunities of bananas to the USA, Russia, Japan, Germany, China, the Netherlands, the UK, and France.
• Banana is a major horticultural crop in India. Andhra Pradesh is the largest banana-producing state in India.
• Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh are also the leading producers of bananas in India.