Solar e-Waste
Category: Environment
- India will likely stare at a pile of a new category of electronic waste, namely solar e-waste.
- Currently, India’s e-waste rules have no laws mandating solar cell manufacturers to recycle or dispose waste from this sector.
- India’s PV (photovoltaic) waste volume is estimated to grow to 200,000 tonnes by 2030 and around 1.8 million tonnes by 2050.
- India is among the leading markets for solar cells in the world, buoyed by the government’s commitment to install 100 GW of solar power by 2022.
- So far, India has installed solar cells for about 28 GW and this is largely from imported solar PV cells.
- Solar cell modules are made by processing sand to make silicon.
- These modules are 80% glass and aluminium, and non-hazardous. Other materials used, including polymers, metals, metallic compounds and alloys, and are classified as potentially hazardous.
IRGC and FTO
Category: International
- US has designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including its Qods Force, as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO).
- The designation as FTO will impose sweeping economic and travel sanctions.
- IRGC was set up in 1979 after Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution as an ideologically-driven branch of the armed forces of Iran, to protect the newly established Islamic system from hostile foreign powers and internal dissensions.
- The IRGC is today a 125,000-strong force with ground, naval, and air wings, tasked with internal and border security, law enforcement, and protection of Iran’s missiles.
- It controls the Basij militia, a semi-government paramilitary force estimated to have up to a million active members.
- The elite Quds Force or Qods Corps is an elite wing of the IRGC, reporting directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It has perhaps 10,000-20,000 members, and carries out unconventional warfare beyond Iran’s borders, often working with non-state actors such as the Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and the Palestine.
FMPs
Category: Economy
- An FMP (Fixed Maturity Plan) is one of the debt products that are offered to many first-time investors looking for an alternative to fixed deposits because they are tax efficient.
- FMPs are closed end debt funds with a maturity period that can range from one month to five years.
- Because debt funds enjoy long-term capital gains tax after three years, typically three-year FMPs are now popular.
- FMPs are predominantly debt-oriented, and their objective is to provide steady returns over a fixed-maturity period, thereby protecting investors from market fluctuations.
Bank Credit
Category: Economy
- Total bank credit exposure stood at ₹111 lakh crore in 2018 with the mid and large corporate segment accounting for the largest share of 43%.
- Consumer lending [retail, agriculture and priority sector lending] is the second biggest segment with a share of 35%.
- The MSME segment [business lending to both corporate entities and individuals] stands third with a share of 23%.
Homo luzonensis
Category: Sc & tech
- A new species of ancient human has been discovered in a cave in the Philippines.
- Excavated in Callao Cave in Luzon island, the specimen is named Homo luzonensis and is dated to 67,000 years ago.
- The newest discovery challenges the fairly straightforward idea of human evolution.
- The traditional narrative suggests that homo sapiens evolved from the ancient species of homo erectus in Africa and dispersed from there around 50,000 years ago.
- With the new finding, it becomes clear that the homo sapiens were definitely coexisting with other human species in other parts of the globe.
- The fossils suggest that the species was less than 4 ft tall and possibly even shorter than yet another ancient species called Homo floresiensis, sometimes called the “hobbit”.
