DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS

26 AUGUST 2022

1 – World Governance Indicators: 

GS II

Governance

• What is governance, exactly?
• The traditions and structures by which a country’s authority is exercised are referred to as governance. This encompasses the process of selecting, monitoring, and replacing governments; the government’s ability to devise and implement appropriate policies; and citizens’ and the state’s respect for the institutions that control economic and social relations.
• What are World Governance Indicators, and how do they work?
• The World Governance Index ranks 215 countries based on six governance dimensions:
• ‘Accountability and Voice.’
• ‘Political Stability and Violence Abatement’
• ‘Effectiveness of Government’.
• ‘Quality Regulatory’.
• ‘Law of the land.’
• ‘Corruption Control.’
• Sources: These aggregate indicators are based on over 30 individual data sources from survey institutes, think tanks, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), international organisations, and private sector firms such as the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, and Freedom House, among others.
• WGI plays an important role in determining a country’s sovereign credit rating.
• The Indian government is concerned:
• According to the government, the World Governance Indicators (WGI) are based on impressions from the Western press or small surveys of NGOs and a few academics, many of whom lack an India specialist.
• The WGI results might suffer as a result of these institutes’ harsh remarks about India. This could lead to a downgrading of India’s sovereign rating.
• India’s performance in the most recent World Golf Championships:
• On all six measures, India’s WGI score is much lower than the BBB Median.
• Global rating organisations such as S&P and Fitch provide BBB as an investment-grade rating.
• When the ratings of countries are listed in descending order, a WGI score below BBB Median indicates that India is below the centre.
• Major Events That Affected India’s WGI Ranking:
• The Kashmir problem.
• Activists are being harassed.
• Laws against dissent.
• NGO licences are being revoked.
• Source – The Hindu

2 – NASA Voyager Mission:

GS III

Science and Technology

• Regarding the Voyager mission:
• NASA probes launched in the 1970s were only supposed to examine the outer planets, but they just kept going.
• Voyager 1 left Earth a few days after Voyager 2 on September 5, 1977, and left our solar system in 2013.
• The Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM) is a NASA mission that aims to extend NASA’s solar system exploration beyond the region of the outer planets to the outer boundaries of the Sun’s sphere of influence, and possibly beyond.
• The Voyager spacecraft are the third and fourth humans to travel beyond our solar system’s planets. Pioneers 10 and 11 were the first to escape the Sun’s gravitational pull, but on February 17, 1998, Voyager 1 passed Pioneer 10 to become the farthest human-made object in space.
• So far, following aspects have been accomplished:
• Only Voyager 2 has ever studied Neptune and Uranus during planetary flybys.
• It is the second object created by humans to exit our Solar System.
• Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited all four gas giant planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune — and discovered 16 moons, as well as phenomena such as Neptune’s oddly fleeting Great Dark Spot, Europa’s ice shell fissures, and ring structures on each planet.
• What is the definition of interstellar space?
• The heliopause is used by scientists to indicate the boundary between interstellar space and our solar system, albeit it can extend all the way to the Oort Cloud, which is 1,000 times further away from the sun than Earth’s orbit.
• The Solar System:
• The heliosphere is a bubble that forms around the sun due to the outward flow of solar wind and the inward flow of interstellar wind. The heliosphere is the region of the solar wind that is impacted by the sun’s dynamic features, such as magnetic fields, energetic particles, and solar wind plasma. The heliopause is the boundary between the heliosphere and interstellar space.
• Source – The Hindu

3 – Global Report on Assistive Technology:

GS III

Science and Technology

• What exactly is Assistive Technology?
• Any device, piece of equipment, software programme, or product system used to help persons with disabilities increase, maintain, or improve their functional abilities is referred to as assistive technology (AT).
• Prosthetics, braces, walkers, bespoke switches, special-purpose computers, screen readers, and specialised curricular software are just a few examples.
• The following are the report’s main findings:
• Over 2.5 billion people seek some form of assistance.
• A billion people, mostly in low- and middle-income nations, are denied access.
• By 2050, the number of people who require assistive equipment is expected to reach 3.5 billion.
• This is due to the world’s ageing population and the increased prevalence of noncommunicable diseases.
• There are substantial shortages in service provision and competent employees for assistive technology in the areas of cognition, communication, and self-care.
• Important suggestions:
• Increase access to education, health, and social services.
• Ensure that assistive products are available, safe, effective, and affordable.
• Increase the size, diversity, and quality of your staff.
• Users of assistive technology and their families should be actively involved.
• Combat stigma by raising public awareness.
• Indian government initiatives for the disabled include:
• Accessible India Campaign: Creating a Barrier-Free Environment for People with Disabilities
• Disabled Rehabilitation – Deen Dayal Scheme
• Students with Disabilities – National Fellowship
• Project for Disability Identification.
• Source – The Hindu

4 – Project WARDEC:

Prelims Specific Topic

• WARDEC is a working name for the upcoming ‘Wargame Research and Development Centre’ in New Delhi.
• It will be India’s first simulation-based training centre, using virtual reality wargames designed using artificial intelligence (AI).
• It will be produced by the Army Training Command and the Rashtriya Raksha University in Gandhinagar (RRU).
• The Army will utilise it to teach soldiers and test their strategies via “metaverse-enabled gameplay.”
• Source – The Hindu