IASbaba Press Information Bureau 15th to

21st July, 2018

ARCHIVES

GS-2

Cabinet approves

Special Remission to Prisoners on the occasion of 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi – Homage to the Father of Nation and the humanitarian values Mahatma Gandhi stood for.

Signing of Memorandum of Understanding amongst BRICS Nations: On the Regional Aviation Partnership Cooperation viz. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa

Impact: Has the potential to spur greater trade, investment, tourism and cultural exchanges amongst the BRICS Nations.

Areas of Cooperation:

• Public Policies and best practices in regional services;
• Regional Airports;
• Airport infrastructure management and air navigation services;
• Technical cooperation between regulatory agencies;
• Innovation;
• Environment Sustainability; including deliberation of global initiatives;
• Qualification and Training

MoU between India and Cuba: On cooperation in the field of Traditional Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy

MoU between India and Indonesia: On cooperation in the field of pharmaceutical products, pharmaceutical substances, biological product and cosmetics regulatory functions

• • To forge better understanding about each other’s regulatory requirements
  • Facilitate India’s export of pharmaceutical products

• Establish a framework for fruitful cooperation and exchange of information between the two countries in matters relating to Pharmaceutical products regulation on the basis for equality, reciprocity and mutual benefit.

MoU between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance, Bahrain: To strengthen the accounting, financial and audit knowledge base within Bahrain

Special Package for Irrigation Projects in Vidarbha, Marathwada and other chronically drought prone areas of rest of Maharashtra: Completion of these projects will ensure assured source of water to the farmers in the command area of these projects. This will increase yield of their crops and thereby increase the income of the farmers.

GS-3

Infrastructural Projects in North Eastern Region

(Topic: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.)

100% subsidy is being provided by Ministry of Shipping under Central Sector Scheme for development of IWT infrastructure in North Eastern States.

Comprehensive Telecom Development Plan for the North-Eastern Region (NER):

• Installation of 2817 mobile towers for providing mobile coverage in 4119 uncovered villages of Arunachal Pradesh and two districts of Assam

• Provision of mobile services on 2G+4G technology for installation of 2173 mobile towers in 2374 uncovered villages and along National Highways

Bharatmala Pariyojana

• Road stretches aggregating to about 5301 km in NER have been approved for improvement.
• Out of this, 3246 km road length has been approved for development of Economic Corridor in North East.
• To augment railway network, 7 railway projects consisting of 3 new lines and 4 doublings have been taken up during last three years and current year which are at various stages of execution.
• For providing cross-border rail linkage, foundation stone for Agartala-Akhaura Rail-Link was laid in July, 2016 which will connect the existing Agartala station in Tripura to Akhaura Station of Bangladesh Railways.

19 new waterways (11 in Assam, 5 in Meghalaya, 1 each in Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram & Nagaland) have been declared as National Waterways (NWs)

To augment tele-connectivity, BharatNet is being implemented to create network infrastructure for providing Broadband connectivity to all Gram Panchayats (GPs) (approx. 2,50,000) in the country including Gram Panchayats (GPs) of North Eastern Region.

Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS-UDAN) has been launched to provide connectivity to unserved and under-served airports and promote regional connectivity by making the airfare affordable through Viability Gap Funding (VGF).

Traditional and Sustainable Farming in North Eastern Region

(Topic: Agriculture; Major crops cropping patterns in various parts of the country)

Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North Eastern Region (MOVCDNER)

Aims at

• Development of certified organic production in a value chain mode to link growers with consumers
• Support the development of entire value chain starting from inputs, seeds, certification and creation of facilities for collection, aggregation, processing, marketing and brand building initiative.

The assistance is provided for cluster development, on/off farm input production, supply of seeds/planting materials, setting up of functional infrastructure, establishment of integrated processing unit, refrigerated transportation, pre-cooling/ cold stores chamber, branding, labelling and packaging, hiring of space, hand holdings, organic certification through third party, mobilization of farmers/processors etc.

National Bamboo Mission (NBM)

Focused on development of Bamboo inter alia in the North Eastern States, which has nearly 60% of the country’s Bamboo growing stock.

• Aims at holistic development of the Bamboo sector (including in NER) by incentivizing construction industry to give impetus to the use of Bamboo in construction
• Seeks to mandate eco-friendly Government constructions through use of Bamboo and Bamboo products to give a fillip to this eco-friendly industry.

Sagarmala initiative: Hi-tech Labs in Centre of Excellence in Maritime & Ship building (CEMS)

(Topic: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.)

Startup in skill development for maritime and shipbuilding sector; promoted by Indian Register of Shipping (IRClass) in partnership with Siemens and Ministry of Shipping

A key initiative of Sagarmala programme for improved skill development in ship building and ship repair –

• Will provide industry-relevant employable skills to students in the port and maritime sector
• Will further boost Make in India and Skill India efforts in the maritime sector

Please Note:

Tourism Sector alone has created 14.62 million job opportunities in the country in the last four years.

Largest cave network of Asia: In Meghalaya

PENCIL: Platform for Effective Enforcement for No Child Labour – An online portal to ensure effective enforcement of the provisions of the Child Labour Act and smooth implementation of the National Child Labour Project (NCLP) Scheme

• Connects Central Government to State Government(s), District(s) and all District Project Societies
• Further the Ministry has instructed all the concerned States where NCLP Scheme is sanctioned, to form State Resource Centre (SRC) under the chairmanship of State Labour Secretary, which would monitor the enforcement of Child Labour Act, coordinate for the rescue of children and adolescents, child tracking system and supervise all the functions through PENCIL portal.
• SRC would also prepare and implement awareness generation plan to curb the menace of child labour in the State.

Observatory for Gravitational Waves study: The Government of India has given ‘In-Principle’ approval for Construction and Operation of Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Laboratory – India (LIGO) in India in collaboration with LIGO Laboratory, United States of America.  This is the third observatory identical to the two LIGO observatories in USA.

BrahMos: Supersonic cruise missile

• A joint venture between DRDO of India and NPOM of Russia; named after the Brahmaputra and Moscow rivers
• BrahMos missile has established itself as a major force multiplier in modern-day complex battlefields with its impeccable land-attack, anti-ship capabilities with multi-role and multi-platform abilities.
• Capable of being launched from land, sea and air, completing the tactical cruise missile triad for India
• Has a strike range of around 290 km and is described as the world’s fastest supersonic cruise missile

Chandrayaan-II Mission: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to deploy a rover on the lunar surface through Chandrayaan-2 mission.  The instruments on Rover will conduct in-situ analysis of elements such as Na, Mg, Al, Si, etc; in the vicinity of landing site.

• India’s second mission to the Moon is a totally indigenous mission comprising of an Orbiter, Lander and Rover
• Would orbit around the moon and perform the objectives of remote sensing the moon. The payloads will collect scientific information on lunar topography, mineralogy, elemental abundance, lunar exosphere and signatures of hydroxyl and water-ice.

Shram Suvidha Portal

• Allotment of Unique Identity i.e. Labour Identification Number (LIN)  for effective, efficient and real-time governance in Labour Administration
• To bring transparency and accountability in enforcement of labour laws through Online Inspection System and Filing of Online Inspection Report
• Common Online Registration and Filing of Self-Certified and Simplified Single Online Annual Return for multiple labour laws to ease the complexity of compliance
• Unified ECR under EPFO/ESIC to encourage compliance by reducing transaction costs and promoting ease of business

Installation of a remote sensing instrument- LiDAR for assessment of offshore wind resource at Gulf of Khambat, off the Gujarat Coast: By National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE), an autonomous institution under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy

Energy Target of the Government: Installing 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by the year 2022

• 100 GW from solar
• 60 GW from wind
• 10 GW from bio-power
• 5 GW from small hydro-power

Bhartiya Niredeshak Dravyas (BNDTM): CSIR- National Physical laboratory (NPL) has signed a MoU with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) for indigenous development of petroleum certified reference materials (CRMs) under trade name of Bhartiya Niredeshak Dravyas (BNDTM).

• Ensure maintaining highest standard quality ecosystem for petroleum products used by all stakeholders including common man
• Will save vital foreign exchange through import substitution for CRMs

Personality in News

Saint Kabir

• Writings influenced Hinduism’s Bhakti movement and his verses are found in Sikhism’s scripture Guru Granth Sahib
• He was Ramananda’s disciple
• Kabir suggested that True God is with the person who is on the path of righteousness, considered all creatures on earth as his own self, and who is passively detached from the affairs of the world.
• Kabir’s legacy survives and continues through the Kabir panth (“Path of Kabir”), a religious community that recognises him as its founder and is one of the Sant Mat sects. Its members are known as Kabir panthis.

Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore

• Reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
• Author of Gitanjali – he became in 1913 the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• Referred to as “the Bard of Bengal”
• His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India’s Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh’s Amar Shonar Bangla. The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
• Founded, Visva-Bharati University

Netaji Subha Chandra Bose

• An Indian nationalist whose defiant patriotism made him a hero in India, but whose attempt during World War II to rid India of British rule with the help of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan left a troubled legacy
• Gave the slogan – Jai Hind

Rishi Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

• An Indian writer, poet and journalist – a key figure in literary renaissance of Bengal as well as the broader Indian subcontinent
• Composer of Vande Mataram, originally in Sanskrit stotra personifying India as a mother goddess and inspiring the activists during the Indian Independence Movement

Dr. Syama Prasad Mukherjee

• An Indian politician, barrister and academician, who served as Minister for Industry and Supply in Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet.
• After falling out with Nehru, Mukherjee quit the Indian National Congress and founded the right wing nationalist political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh, a predecessor to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in 1951.
• Since BJP is the successor party of Bhartiya Jana Sangh, Mookerjee is regarded as the founder of BJP too

Quotes:

The Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu

On Agriculture

• Agriculture is the backbone of Indian economy and it should be on the top of the agenda of the Government
• There is a need to make agriculture remunerative and farmers must be encouraged to take up allied activities like poultry, horticulture, sericulture, bee keeping, dairy and others to improve income.
• There is a need to put in place for easy availability on loan at an affordable price and assured power must be supplied to farmers living in villages.
• The rural areas have to become thriving hubs of economic activities with the agriculture playing an important role in the overall prosperity of the rural people

Women Empowerment

• Empowerment of women is central to achieving the objective of inclusive, equitable and sustainable development
• Women empowerment is not only a national goal but also a global agenda
• We cannot achieve a double digit growth without women’s active participation
• Property and land rights are keys to women empowerment

Union Minister for Minority Affairs Shri Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi

• The philosophy of Sufism spreads the thoughts of peace and harmony. Evil of Terrorism can be countered with the Philosophy of Sufism