Current Affairs Question - 07 October 2019

Explanation :

• In a major decision to give a boost to Electric Vehicles (EV) in country, the government has approved amendments in Electric Vehicle Charging Guidelines and Specifications.
• These Revised Guidelines and Specifications for charging infrastructure shall supersede the earlier guidelines and standards issued by the Ministry of Power on 14.12.2018.
• A phase-wise installation of an appropriate network of Charging Infrastructure throughout the country has been envisaged in the Guidelines ensuring that at least one Charging Station should be available in a grid of 3 Km X 3 Km in the cities and one Charging Station at every 25 Km on both sides of highways/roads.
• In the first phase,  all Mega Cities with population of 4 million plus as per census 2011, all existing expressways connected to these Mega Cities & important Highways connected with each of these Mega Cities may be taken up for coverage.
• In the second phase, big cities like State Capitals, UT headquarters may be covered for distributed and demonstrative effect.
• To address the concerns in inter-city travel and long range and/or heavy duty EVs, Fast Charging Station for long range and/or heavy duty EVs like buses/trucks etc., shall be installed at every 100 kms.
• Further, the guidelines specifies the type of chargers of different standards (viz. CCS, CHAdeMO, Type-2 AC, Bharat AC 001) thus ensuring that the public charging stations(PCS) owners have the freedom to install the chargers as per the market requirement.

Explanation :

• WEF was established in 1971 by Klaus Schwab, as a not-for-profit foundation and is headquartered in Cologny, Geneva, Switzerland.
• First named the European Management Forum, it changed its name to the World Economic Forum in 1987 and sought to broaden its vision to include providing a platform for resolving international conflicts.

Objective

• The Forum strives in all its efforts to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest while upholding the highest standards of governance.
• Global Competitiveness Report, Global Gender Gap Report, Global Risks Report, Global Information Technology Report, Global Travel and Tourism Report Global Enabling Trade Report and Fostering Effective Energy Transition are important reports being published by the WEF.