Current Affairs in Short: 2 December 2021

Facial Recognition Technology to be launched at 4 Indian airports

• The Minister of State in the Ministry of Civil Aviation General VK Singh said in Lok Sabha that the Facial Recognition Technology has not yet been introduced at any airports in India. He added that, however, as part of the first phase of Digi Yatra Implementation FRT will be implemented at 4 airports.

• The proposed Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem will go live in March 2022. The system will be scaled up in a phased manner for adoption across various airports in India.

• The Minister also said that as per the Digi Yatra Policy, the registration for the Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem will be optional for the passengers.

• To avail the Digi Yatra Services, the passengers will be required to send the travel details via an app to the Biometric Boarding System of the departing airport.

COVID-19 discussed in Lok Sabha under Rule 193

• Lok Sabha discussed COVID-19 under Rule 193. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla acknowledged that the discussion on COVID is timely because of the emergence of a new Omicron Variant.

• Lok Sabha Speaker during the session also commended the MPs who came up with innovative things to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in respective constituencies.

• Vinayak Raut of Shiv Sena, initiating the discussion, thanked Prime Minister Modi, all the Chief Ministers, and the Union and State Health Ministers to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in an effective manner.

Two cases of Omicron Variant reported in India

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed on December 2, 2021, that two cases of new Covid variant Omicron have been reported in India in the last 24 hours.

• Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry, said that both the cases are from Karnataka and all the primary contact tracing and secondary contact tracing of both the cases have been detected and tested.

• 373 cases of Omicron COVID variant have been detected in 29 nations so far and a maximum of 183 cases have been reported in South Africa followed by Netherlands and Botswana.

• Agrawal, on the increased transmissibility of new variant, said that the early data suggests an increased growth rate, however more evidence-based study is required.

India and European Union to set up Clean Energy and Climate Partnership

• European Union and India have agreed to step up their climate partnership and Clean energy. India-EU energy panel was co-chaired by Ministry of External Affairs Secretary (West), India, and Deputy Director-General for Energy, EU.

• Both the panels have agreed on a detailed work programme until 2023 for implementing the 2016 India-EU Clean Energy and Climate Partnership.

• They also agreed on increased technical cooperation in energy efficiency, green hydrogen, renewable energy, grid integration, power market design, cold chain, and sustainable financing.

• European Union also expressed its support for the close cooperation between International Energy Agency and India.

Bramha Mishra, Mirzapur fame passes away

• Actor Bramha Mishra, known for portraying Lalit in the ‘Mirzapur’ series has passed away. Actor Divyenndu, on December 2, 2021, informed everyone about the news on Instagram.

• The reason behind the sudden demise of Bramha Mishra is still unknown.

• Several celebrities expressed their shock and grief after learning about the unfortunate news.

• Bramha Mishra had also starred in the famous ‘Kesari’ movie which also starred in Akshay Kumar.