IASbaba Press Information Bureau 12th to

19th August, 2018

ARCHIVES

(This week’s PIB is prelims focussed. Hence, enlisting only the important matter to be remembered)

Road Safety Brand Ambassador: Shri Akshay Kumar

India’s ‘ease of doing business’ ranking: 100th position

2022: India has resolved to send manned spacecraft to the space by 2022 (will be the fourth country to do this)

Won Gold in 65 kg freestyle wrestling at Asian Games 2018: Bajrang Punia

SHE-Box: The Ministry of Women and Child Development has provided a facility to all working women to file complaints under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 with it.

Swadesh Darshan Scheme: One of the flagship scheme of Ministry of tourism for development of thematic circuits in the country in a planned and prioritised manner.

International team of scientists including 18 Indian scientists decode complex wheat genome:

• The information generated will help to identify genes controlling complex agronomic traits such as yield, grain quality, resistance to diseases and pests, as well as tolerance to drought, heat, water logging and salinity.
• Will go a long way in developing climate-resilient wheat and help tide over possible impact of climate change on farm output – feeding the ever-increasing world population and helping address global food security

Ease of Living Index

• Launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
• To empower citizens in aspiring for a better quality of life from their city authorities
• Index based on an open and participatory assessment of cities along with physical audit of urban metrics in a transparent manner

Ministry of AYUSH:

• Has introduced new Central Sector scheme for promoting pharmacovigilance of Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Homoeopathy (ASU&H) Drugs.
• To develop the culture of documenting adverse effects and undertake safety monitoring of Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Homoeopathy drugs and surveillance of misleading advertisements appearing in the print and electronic media.

NAVIC: India’s own GPS is all set to be launched and will place it in the club of select countries which have their own indigenous navigation systems. The GPS has been named NavIC—Navigation with Indian Constellation.

The other countries that have their own indigenous system are

• Russia: GLONASS—Global Navigation Satellite System
• European Union: Galileo Positioning System
• Japan: Quasi-Zenith Satellite System—QZSS
• China: Beidou Navigation Satellite System—BDS

The NavIC will be useful in terrestrial, aerial and marine navigation. Along with that, tracking, managing disaster and gathering geodetic data will be a few of the other uses of the system.

Unnat Bharat Abhiyan 2.0

A flagship program of MHRD, GOI

• Higher Education Institutions of Human Resource Development Ministry under its flagship program – Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) 2.0 participated in Gram Sabhas, on the occasion of Independence Day.
• 688 institutions are selected on a Challenge Mode (426 technical and 262 non- technical) which are reputed Higher Educational Institutes (both public and private) of the country, which have adopted total no. of 3555 villages for their development through UBA.

Vision: Inspired by the vision of transformational change in rural development processes by leveraging knowledge institutions to help build the architecture of an Inclusive India.

Mission:

• • Enable higher educational institutions to work with the people of rural India in identifying development challenges and evolving appropriate solutions for accelerating sustainable growth.

• Aims to create a virtuous cycle between society and an inclusive academic system by providing knowledge and practices for emerging professions and to upgrade the capabilities of both the public and the private sectors in responding to the development needs of rural India. 

Goals

• To build an understanding of the development agenda within institutes of Higher Education and an institutional capacity and training relevant to national needs, especially those of rural India.

• To re-emphasize the need for field work, stake-holder interactions and design for societal objectives as the basis of higher education.

• To stress on rigorous reporting and useful outputs as central to developing new professions.

• To provide rural India and regional agencies with access to the professional resources of the institutes of higher education, especially those that have acquired academic excellence in the field of science, engineering and technology, and management.

• To improve development outcomes as a consequence of this research. To develop new professions and new processes to sustain and absorb the outcomes of research.

• To foster a new dialogue within the larger community on science, society and the environment and to develop a sense of dignity and collective destiny.

Revolutionizing the treatment of Strokes: A new Clot buster, PEGylated Streptokinase has been developed at CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology (CSIR-IMTECH), Chandigarh, and is all set to revolutionize the treatment of ischemic strokes

• Ischemic stroke is a condition caused by a dysfunction in the supply of blood to the brain due to emboli, thrombus or atherosclerosis occurring in cerebral arteries.
• According to the American Stroke Association (ASA), brain strokes are the second leading cause of death in the world with a staggering 15 million people effected causing 11 million people either die or become permanently disabled. Surprisingly, the prevalence of stroke is much higher in India than the West and about 87% of all strokes are ischemic strokes.

India’s only lab for conservation of endangered species: Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES) – a dedicated facility of CSIR’s Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad that uses modern biotechnologies for conservation of endangered wildlife.

• Has developed methods for collection and cryopreservation of semen and oocytes from wildlife and successfully reproducing endangered blackbuck, spotted deer and Nicobar pigeons.
• Through this work, it has established Genetic Resource Bank for Indian wildlife.
• So far, genetic resources from 23 species of Indian wild animals have been collected and preserved.
• This facility would increase the collection of genetic resources from wildlife through collaboration with zoos in India.
• It would also facilitate exchange of genetic material between the Indian zoos for maintaining genetic diversity and conservation management made accessible to scientists and wildlife managers for implementing conservation programs.

World Elephant Day:

To focus attention of various stakeholders to support various conservation policies to help elephants, including

• Improving enforcement policies to prevent the illegal poaching and trade of ivory
• Conserving elephant habitats
• Providing better treatment for captive elephants
• Reintroducing some captive elephants into sanctuaries

Current population estimates for Asian elephants in the country, as per 2017 Census, are about 30,000.  Asian elephants are confined to South Asia and South East Asia and about 60 per cent of global population of Asian elephants is found in India.  

As an acknowledgement of the important role played by the elephants in the social, religious and cultural life of people in India, elephants were declared as a National Heritage Animal in the year 2010.

Project Elephant

In order to conserve the Asian Elephants the Project Elephant started in 1992, with the objectives of –

• Conservation and protection of viable population of wild elephants in their natural habitats in the country
• Restoration of natural habitats and traditional corridors/migratory routes or movement paths used by the elephants, wherever necessary, through eco-restoration, acquisition etc.;
• Ensuring safeguards against poaching and other threats
• Mitigation and control of human elephant conflicts
• Welfare and management of captive elephants
• Creating a viable mechanism to ensure inter-state and regional and national level coordination in protecting and conserving the elephant and its ranges

Exercise Pitch Black 2018: A biennial multi-national large force employment warfare exercise hosted by Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF)

• To foster closer relationship between the participating friendly forces and to promote interoperability through exchange of knowledge and experience.
• The aim for participating crew and specialist observers was to expose them to op environment in international scenarios.

Successful Flight Tests of

Smart Anti Airfield Weapon: Indigenously developed – capable of destroying variety of ground targets using precision navigation.

Anti-Tank Guided Missile ‘HELINA’: Guided by an Infrared Imaging Seeker (IIR) operating in the Lock on Before Launch mode. It is one of the most advanced Anti-Tank Weapons in the world.

Person in News

V.S. Naipaul: Won the 2001 Nobel Prize for Literature

Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee:

• During his tenure as prime minister, India carried out five underground nuclear tests in the Pokhran desert in Rajasthan, 24 years after its first nuclear test (Smiling Buddha) in 1974.
• Vajpayee’s birthday, 25 December, would be marked as Good Governance Day.
• In February 1999, Vajpayee initiated a new peace process aimed towards permanently resolving the Kashmir dispute and other conflicts with Pakistan. The resultant Lahore Declaration espoused a commitment to dialogue, expanded trade relations and mutual friendship and envisaged a goal of denuclearised South Asia
• Operation Vijay: Kargil war (took place during his tenure as Prime Minister)

Quotes

Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu

• Road connectivity is key to national development and added the connectivity has the potential to bring a positive change in lives of people living in remote corners of rural India.
• Infrastructure development is not only a condition of development of the country, but the criteria for development. It ensures social capacity and security
• Connectivity is an essential and important component in bridging the urban rural divide
• National Highways symbolize social, economic and business unity of the country