NIE, UNFCCC, NABARD - Current Affairs Questions and Answers

ANSWER: Second

Explanation:
India has ratified the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol that commits countries to contain the emission of greenhouse gases, reaffirming its stand on climate action.

India’s Permanent Mission to the UN said that India deposited its Instrument of Acceptance of the Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol under the UN Convention on Climate Change.

With this, India became the 80th country to accept the amendment relating to the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, the international emissions reduction treaty.

India’s acceptance reaffirms our continued commitment to climate action,.

India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin, who handed over India’s Instrument, tweeted “maintaining momentum on Climate Change. India submits instrument of acceptance of Doha Amendment to Kyoto Protocol”.

Kyoto Protocol: Know More

• The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
• This commits its Parties by setting internationally binding emission reduction targets.
• The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 and entered into force in February 2005.
• The first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol was from 2008-2012.
• The Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Qatar in December 2012.
• The amendment includes new commitments for parties to the Kyoto Protocol who agreed to take on commitments in a second commitment period from January 2013 to December 2020 and a revised list of greenhouse gases to be reported on by Parties in the second commitment period, according to the UNFCCC website.

ANSWER: e-Shakti

Explanation:
e-Shakti is a pilot project of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for digitisation of Self Help Groups (SHGs).

It was initiated to address certain concerns like improving the quality of book keeping of SHGs and to enable banks to take informed credit decisions about the group through a Management Information System (MIS).

The project covers 25 districts and 1,30,176 SHGs have been digitised as on 31st March, 2017.

As per information compiled by NABARD, about 69,696 SHGs of the SHGs which have been digitised are credit linked as on 31st July, 2017.

No SHG has been de-recognised on account of, or, after digitisation.

The digitisation project does not impact the profit/ loss position of the SHGs.

ANSWER: Ovais Sarmad

Explanation:
Ovais Sarmad, a senior Indian official, in the second week of May 2017 was appointed as the Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The appointment was made after consultation with the Conference of Parties through its Bureau.

Sarmad was appointed to the post at the assistant secretary-general level by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Sarmad will succeed Canada’s Richard Kinley.

At present, Ovais Sarmad serves as Chief of Staff to the Director General of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

He joined IOM in 1990, in Geneva, where he served notably as chief of budget, director of resource management, director of the Global Administrative Centre and chief of Mission to the Philippines.

He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Hyderabad’s Osmania University. He also holds a professional certification in management accountancy from the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in London.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an international environmental treaty negotiated at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992.

The treaty entered into force on 21 March 1994. Its objective is to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.

One of the first tasks set by the UNFCCC was for signatory nations to establish national greenhouse gas inventories of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals, which were used to create the 1990 benchmark levels for accession of Annex I countries to the Kyoto Protocol and for the commitment of those countries to GHG reductions.

The UNFCCC is also the name of the United Nations Secretariat charged with supporting the operation of the Convention, with offices in Haus Carstanjen, and UN Campus (known as Langer Eugen) Bonn, Germany.

ANSWER: NABARD

Explanation:
The Telangana Government signed an MoU with NABARD here for a loan of Rs 874 crore to the Horticulture Development Corporation to cover 3.15 lakh acres under Micro Irrigation scheme for 2016-17 and 2017-18.

A Government release quoted Agriculture Secretary Parthasarathi as saying agriculture in the state is rain-fed and about 42.82 lakh acres depend on bore wells for irrigation.

Due to change in climatic conditions, the ground water level is decreasing and it is the need of the hour for the farmer to use micro irrigation.

Parthasarathi said the target for the year 2016-17 under the NABARD project is to cover 2.23 lakh acres allotted to all districts in the state.

NABARD: Know More

• Headquarters : Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
• Established: 12 July 1982
• Chairman: Dr. Harsh Kumar Bhanwala
• Currency: ₹ (Rupees)
• Website: www.nabard.org

ANSWER: INR 5000 crore

Explanation:
Nabard has hailed the increased focus on irrigation and dairy sectors in the Budget. This includes the hike in the corpus of long term irrigation fund by another INR 20,000 crore, taking the total fund size to INR 40,000 crore.

The FM also announced a dedicated micro irrigation fund which will be set up by NABARD to attain the goal, ‘per drop more crop’, with an initial corpus of INR 5,000 crore.

This will increase the area under irrigation and improve the efficiency of irrigation.

Improving irrigation efficiency is critical for agriculture since there is only 2.4 per cent of the world’s total geographical area and 16 per cent of the world’s population, yet only 4 per cent of the world’s total fresh water resources.

FM Jaitley setting up of a dairy processing and infrastructure development fund at NABARD with a corpus of INR 8,000 crore over three years. The fund will start with a corpus of INR 2,000 crore.

The dairy cooperative network includes:

• 254 cooperative milk processing units,
• 177 milk unions covering 346 districts and
• over 1,55,634 village-level societies.

About 15.1 million farmers have been brought under the ambit of village level dairy corporative societies up to March 2013.

Still, about 80 per cent of this milk is being collected and distributed by unorganised sector.

The budget said the government will provide support to NABARD for computerisation and integration of all 63,000 functional primary agriculture credit societies (PACS) with the core banking system of district central cooperative banks.

This will be accomplished in three years at an estimated cost of INR 1,900 crore, with financial participation from state governments.

ANSWER: Germany

Explanation:
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development has collaborated with the German government for a special programme on Soil Protection and Rehabilitation for Food Security. A high level delegation from Economic Cooperation and Development Ministry of Germany signed the agreement.

• NABARD is anchoring 2 major programmes- soil conservation and rehabilitation of degraded land for food security in MP and Maharashtra and innovation of watershed development for rehabilitation of degraded soil and climate change adaptation in 5 states.
• Programme is part of the German government’s recently introduced special initiative One World, No Hunger on meeting the food security needs of countries.
• India is the only country chosen for this initiative.

ANSWER: NABARD

Explanation:

• NABARD launched the Agri-Credit Monitoring portal, which will help financial institutions to monitor the status of agricultural loans given to farmers.

ANSWER: Both

Explanation:
- NABARD is an apex financing agency for the institutions that provides investment and promote the various developmental activities in rural areas.
- It has replaced the Agricultural Credit Department (ACD) and Rural Planning and Credit Cell (RPCC)
- It provides Core banking solution to co-operative banks

ANSWER: NABARD

Explanation:
NABARD serves as an apex financing agency for the institutions providing investment and production credit for promoting the various developmental activities in rural areas

ANSWER: NABARD

Explanation:
NABARD is the only NIE in the country, at present, for undertaking climate change projects. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) was set up under the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2010 to help developing countries finance clean energy, other mitigation efforts and adaptation to climate change.