IASbaba Press Information Bureau (PIB) – 18^th Dec to 24^th Dec 2016

ARCHIVES

Note: The number of articles covered is just three as all Ministries and Departments have uploaded Year End Reviews, Christmas and New Year Wishes. Important articles from year end reviews will be uploaded separately. Keep track of it.

GS-3

Satellites Designed for Benefit of Farmers

(Topic: Agriculture and S&T)

About- The satellite-enabled services in conjunction with ground data, to support farmers in India include weather forecasting, agro-advisory, soil moisture and agricultural extension activities to support farming operations in the country.

Application of satellites in agricultural field includes–

• Horticultural crop inventory and site suitability for expansion in under-utilised areas
• Crop assessment using medium and high resolution satellite data
• Field data collection with field photos using mobile App
• Crop cutting experiments based on satellite derived crop information.

Schemes by ISRO and Department of Agriculture Cooperation and Farmer’s Welfare

• Forecasting Agricultural Output using Space, Agro-meteorology and Land based observations (FASAL) (Don’t confuse with Fasal Bima Yojana)
• National Agricultural Drought Assessment and Monitoring System (NADAMS) and
• Internalised the monitoring of irrigation infrastructure at Central Water Commission.

Satellites and Objectives—

• Resourcesat-2A (PSLV-C36) launched in 2016
  • To provide multispectral images for inventory and management of natural resources
  • Crop production forecast
  • Wasteland inventory
  • Land & Water Resources development
  • Disaster Management Support.
• INSAT-3DR (GSLV-F05) launched in 2015
  • Designed for enhanced meteorological observations, including vertical profile of the atmosphere in terms of temperature and humidity for improved weather forecasting and disaster warning.
• RISAT-1 (PSLV-C19) launched in 2012
  • To provide all weather imaging capability useful for agriculture, particularly paddy and jute monitoring in kharif season and management of natural disasters.

measures to raise India’s ranking in ‘Ease of Doing Business’ to top 50 in the world

(Topic: Finance)

About Ease of Doing Business—

• Is an index created by the World Bank
• Higher rankings (a low numerical value) indicate better, usually simpler, regulations for businesses and stronger protections of property rights.
• India ranks 130^th position in 2017

Steps taken to improve the rank–

• eBiz portal–to make it easier for entrepreneurs to start and run businesses.
• Shram Suvidha Portal–only portal for filing returns, challan and making online payment for EPFO & ESIC contributions as well as other filings and payments.
• Passage of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code– reduce the average time taken for the insolvency process.
• Doing away with requirement for minimum paid up capital–The minimum paid-up share capital requirement was Rs 1 lakh for a private company and Rs 5 lakh for a public company. This requirement has now been done away with for incorporating private as well as public companies in India.
• Time for registering companies reduced: The government has made the process for registering a company faster by reducing the time taken from almost 10 days in December 2014 to 5 days in December 2015. This year the government plans to further reduce the time taken to 1-2 days.

GARV-II App

(Topic: Infrastructure–Power)

About–to provide access to electricity to all households in the country. Under this module, village-wise and habitation-wise base line data on household electrification for all States.

Features of GARV-II App

• 6 lakh villages, with more than 15 lakh habitations having 17 crore people, has been mapped for tracking progress on household electrification.
• Enable the people to participate in the development work and can give their input about rural electrification programme. Thus, the rural electrification work would be open to public scrutiny.
• GARV-II will have a citizen engagement window ‘SAMVAD’ to enhance participation.
• Status of village-wise works sanctioned under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) and release of funds to the States for these projects has also been mapped in ‘GARV-II’.

Grameen Vidyutikaran (GARV) App

• Monitoring of village electrification programme, the data of only 18,452 un-electrified villages had been mapped.