Current Affairs News Plus (8-Jun-2018)

Global Peace Index (GPI)

• The Global Peace Index (GPI) is an attempt to measure the relative position of nations’ and regions’ peacefulness.
• It is the product of the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) and developed in consultation with an international panel of peace experts from peace institutes and think tanks with data collected and collated by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
• The list was launched in May 2007 and updates have been made on an annual basis since then. It is claimed to be the first study to rank countries around the world according to their peacefulness.
• The index gauges global peace using three broad themes: 
  • the level of safety and security in society, 
  • the extent of domestic and international conflict, and 
  • the degree of militarization.

• India & Global Peace Index

  India has moved up four places to the 137th rank among 163 countries on the 2018 Global Peace Index, due to a reduction in the level of violent crime driven by increased law enforcement, according to a report by an Australian think tank. Iceland remains the most peaceful country in the world, a position it has held since 2008. New Zealand, Austria, Portugal and Denmark also sit in the top five most peaceful rankings. Syria remains the least peaceful country in the world, a position it has held for the past five years. Afghanistan, South Sudan, Iraq and Somalia comprise the remaining least peaceful countries

Pietermaritzburg Railway Station

• It is a railway station in South Africa where a young Mahatma Gandhi was thrown out of a “Whites-only” compartment 125 years ago
• On the night of June 7, 1893, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, then a young lawyer, was thrown off the train’s first class compartment at Pietermaritzburg station after he refused to give up his seat as ordered by racially prejudiced officials
• The incident led him to develop his Satyagraha principles of peaceful resistance and mobilize people in South Africa and in India against the discriminatory rules of the British

Peace dividend

• Refers to the economic benefit received by the citizens of a country when the government redirects spending from military to civilian purposes.
• For instance, countries that took part in World War II witnessed an economic boom after the war ended and soldiers returned to work in the more peaceful sectors of the economy. Resources that were earlier allocated towards war efforts now became available for civilian uses, thus improving living standards. The reduction of taxes, which were earlier used to fund the military, also increased the incentive to work.

Hague Treaty

• The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction or Hague Abduction Convention is a multilateral treaty developed by the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) that provides an expeditious method to return a child internationally abducted by a parent from one member country to another
• The Convention was drafted to ensure the prompt return of children who have been abducted from their country of habitual residence or wrongfully retained in a contracting state not their country of habitual residence
• The primary intention of the Convention is to preserve whatever status quo child custody arrangement existed immediately before an alleged wrongful removal or retention thereby deterring a parent from crossing international boundaries in search of a more sympathetic court

Science Based Targets

• Science Based Targets is a joint initiative of CDP, the UN Global Compact (UNGC), the World Resources Institute (WRI) and WWF.
• It is an initiative to drive corporate climate actions globally.
• It sets emissions reduction targets to ensure that the transformational action is aligned with current climate science.
• It is ‘science-based’ as it is in line with the scale required to keep global temperature increase below 2°C compared to per-industrial temperatures.
• ‘Science-based target setting’ is a way of boosting companies’ competitive advantage in transition to a low-carbon economy.

Methanol Economy

• Methanol Economy is the “Bridge” to the dream of a complete “Hydrogen based fuel systems”.
• Methanol is a scalable and sustainable fuel, that can be produced from a variety of feed stock like Natural Gas, Coal (Indian High Ash Coal), Bio-mass, Municipal Solid waste and most importantly from CO2
• Methanol is a clean burning drop in fuel which can replace both petrol & diesel in transportation & LPG, Wood, Kerosene in cooking fuel.
• The Concept of “Methanol Economy” is being actively pursued by China, Italy, Sweden, Israel, US, Australia, Japan and many other European countries.