Daily Current Affairs for 29th Sept 2021

GS PAPER II NEWS

Iceland first country to elect women-majority parliament

Why in News

• • Iceland has elected Europe’s first parliament with a majority of women. It is a milestone for gender equality in the island nation of the North Atlantic. Women candidates won 33 seats in Althing, Iceland’s 63-member parliament, when the counting of votes was over.

Key point

• • The three parties of the outgoing coalition government led by Prime Minister Katrin Jacobsdatyr won a total of 37 seats in the vote.
  • The alliance has got two seats more than the last election and is likely to remain in power.
  • The election results are being considered as a milestone for gender equality in the island nation of the North Atlantic.
  • Iceland’s coalition government has increased its majority in the country’s 63-seat parliament from 35 to 37 after elections held on September 25.
  • According to the report, the election results left open a future cabinet coalition as the success of the coalition parties still remained uncertain. Altogether eight parties were represented in the parliament.

Iceland’s Parliament

• • For the first time, Iceland’s parliament will have more female MPs (33) than male MPs (30).
  • Prime Minister Katrin Jacobsdatyr said on 26 September 2021 that negotiations to form the government would be complicated.
  • Leaders of the three coalition parties had said before the election that if the government was formed, it would be the first option to discuss the government’s continued cooperation.
  • Voter’s turnout 80 across the country. 1 percent, which is slightly less than the last election in 2017.

Opinion polls

• • Opinion polls indicated victory for Left parties. There was competition for seats between 10 parties. But, the middle right ‘Independence Party’ got the most votes and won 16 seats.
  • Women won seven of these 16 seats. The centrist Progressive Party took the biggest lead and managed to win 13 seats. The Progressive Party had won five more seats than last time.

GS PAPER II

World heart day

Why in News

• • September 29 is celebrated all over the world as World Heart Day.

Key point

• • Heart is one of the most important organs of the human body. If the heart stops working, the person dies. In today’s time, due to continuous new types of diseases and our bad routine, health is being affected badly, due to which the heart also suffers a lot.
  • People in the age group of 25 to 60 years are falling prey to this disease in India.
  • According to the World Heart Federation, most deaths are due to heart diseases.
  • Heart disease ie heart disease can occur in many ways. It can bother you in many ways and its symptoms are also different.

Objective

• • The sole purpose of World Heart Day is to focus on awareness among people to reduce the problems related to the heart.
  • Through this, people are made aware of heart health by organizing programs in many countries every year.

Importance

• • In today’s time, the number of heart patients is increasing rapidly. At the same time, many people are dying due to heart-related diseases.
  • Some research on heart patients suggests that heart disorders have also been reported in younger people.
  • In such a situation, through World Heart Day, people are inspired and made aware to keep the heart healthy as well as reduce the risk of heart disease.

History

• • In view of the rapidly increasing cases of heart patients in the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) had proposed to celebrate World Heart Day.
  • The World Health Organization had announced the celebration of World Heart Day for the first time in the year 2000.
  • After that every year it started being celebrated on the last Sunday of September.
  • After this, from the year 2014, World Heart Day started being celebrated on 29 September.

Conclusion

• • Due to the rapid increase of heart diseases, people need to be aware of it so that this disease can be kept away. The right treatment at the right time is very essential to deal with the diseases. For this, it is necessary that some precautions should be taken towards the heart, and they should be strictly followed.

GS PAPER II

National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA)

Why in News

Union Home and Cooperation Minister attended the 17th Foundation Day celebrations of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in New Delhi as the Chief Guest.

Key point

• • The theme of this year’s Foundation Day is ‘Evolutionary Impact of Disaster Events in the Himalayan Region’.
  • On this occasion the training manual of Aapda Mitra Scheme and plan document of Aapda Mitra and Common Alerting Protocol were released.
  • Leading experts in the technical session discussed the wide ranging impacts of disaster events including landslides, cloudbursts, earthquakes and Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) in the Himalayan region of the country.

Documents related to the following schemes were released on the occasion:

1. Aapdamitra
   1. Release of Manual of Training of Aapdamitra
   2. Release of plan document of Aapdamitra
2. CAP (General Alert Protocol)

Plan document of Common Alert Protocol (CAP) released

1. Simplified Guidelines for Building Earthquake Resistant Environments
2. Guidelines on Cold Wave.

National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA)

• • The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) headed by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is the apex body for disaster management in India.
  • Under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, setting up of NDMA and creating an enabling environment for institutional mechanism at the state and district level has been made mandatory.
  • NDMA has been empowered to formulate policies, plans and guidelines for disaster management.
  • India envisages development of ethos for prevention, mitigation, preparedness and response.

GS PAPER II

Iceland first country to elect women-majority parliament

Why in News

• • Iceland has elected Europe’s first parliament with a majority of women. It is a milestone for gender equality in the island nation of the North Atlantic. Women candidates won 33 seats in Althing, Iceland’s 63-member parliament when the counting of votes was over.

Key point

• • The three parties of the outgoing coalition government led by Prime Minister Katrin Jacobsdatyr won a total of 37 seats in the vote.
  • The alliance has got two more seats than the last election and is likely to remain in power.
  • The election results are being considered as a milestone for gender equality in the island nation of the North Atlantic.
  • Iceland’s coalition government has increased its majority in the country’s 63-seat parliament from 35 to 37 after elections held on September 25.
  • According to the report, the election results left open a future cabinet coalition as the success of the coalition parties still remained uncertain. Altogether eight parties were represented in the parliament.

Iceland’s Parliament

• • For the first time, Iceland’s parliament will have more female MPs (33) than male MPs (30).
  • Prime Minister Katrin Jacobsdatyr said on 26 September 2021 that negotiations to form the government would be complicated.
  • Leaders of the three coalition parties had said before the election that if the government was formed, it would be the first option to discuss the government’s continued cooperation.
  • The voter turnout across the country was 80.1 percent, which is slightly less than the last election in 2017.

Opinion polls

• • Opinion polls indicated a victory for Left parties. There was competition for seats between 10 parties. But, the middle right ‘Independence Party’ got the most votes and won 16 seats.
  • Women won seven of these 16 seats. The centrist Progressive Party took the biggest lead and managed to win 13 seats. The Progressive Party had won five more seats than last time.

GS PAPER III

Why in News Landsat 9 Satellite

Why in News

• • The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched a powerful satellite Landsat 9. Along with this, four small satellites have also been launched.

Key point

• • This launch was done from the Atlas V rocket from the Space Force Base in California.
  • NASA’s new Landsat 9 satellite along with its partner Landsat 8 will monitor the health of our planet by taking pictures of the entire Earth every 8 days.
  • At present the earth is facing the dangerous side effects of climate change. Observations from space could help find a better view of evolution.

Profit

• • NASA says that satellite information has also proved helpful to farmers in deciding better and useful crops.
  • Apart from this, free information will prove helpful to many countries in better use of their agricultural resources.
  • NASA has sent a powerful and advanced satellite into space. Its job is to monitor the Earth. Landsat 9’s job is to help its companion satellite Landsat 8 by reaching space.
  • Satellites will collect pictures of the planet by making one revolution of the Earth every 99 minutes and 14 revolutions every day for these eight days. These photos will be added to the data sets that have been available to people for 50 years for free.
  • NASA says the capabilities of medium resolution images will help researchers identify signs of human activity and their effects on Earth.

Landsat 9

• • Landsat 9 is an advanced technology advanced satellite which is the ninth satellite of its series.
  • It will be operated by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and consists of two instruments.
  • Operational Land Imager 2 will capture images of visible, near-infrared and shortwave infrared light on Earth. At the same time, Thermal Infrared Sensor 2 (TIRS-2) will study the temperature of the Earth’s surface areas.
  • Landsat 9 is a joint mission of NASA and the US Geological Survey, which has been helping to understand Earth’s processes and their many changes over the past five decades.
  • The Landsat series has measured many changes in the movement of glaciers in Antarctica, the amount of water used for agriculture, deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 satellites

• • At present, NASA’s Landsat 7 and Landsat 8 satellites are in operation and their orbit pattern is every 16 days, so that every 8 days the picture of the earth is taken every 8 days.
  • Landsat’s instruments orbit the Earth to take pictures of 185 kilometers long at a time. Its each pixel is 30 meters big.

When was the first Landsat launched

• • NASA launched the first Landsat in the year 1972.
  • Its name is Earth Resource Technology Satellite which took 8 million pictures of Earth. NASA says that these satellites give scientists a global view of the changing Earth.