Solution (b)

Vidyanjali Portal:

• Vidyanjali portal aims to facilitate education volunteers, donors or CSR contributors for school development. It will enable community/volunteers to contribute by connecting directly with the government and government-aided schools of their choice.
• According to education ministry, any person who is a citizen of India/NRI/PIO OR any organisation/institution/company/group registered in India can volunteer and contribute in two ways:

• Services/activities
• Assets/material/equipment such as basic civil infrastructure, basic electrical infrastructure, classroom support materials and equipment, digital infrastructure, equipment for extra-curricular activities and sports, yoga, health, etc.

NIPUN (National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy) Bharat Initiative:

• It was launched to create an enabling environment to ensure universal acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy, so that every child achieves the desired learning competencies in reading, writing and numeracy by the end of Grade 3, by 2026-27.
• The Objectives of NIPUN Bharat are:

• To ensure an inclusive classroom environment by incorporating play, discovery, and activity-based pedagogies, linking it to the daily life situations of the children and formal inclusion of children’s home languages.
• To enable children to become motivated, independent and engaged readers and writers with comprehension possessing sustainable reading and writing skills. 
• To make children understand the reasoning in the domains of number, measurement and shapes; and enable them to become independent in problem solving by way of numeracy and spatial understanding skills. 
• To focus on continuous capacity building of teachers, head teachers, academic resource persons and education administrators.
• To actively engage with all stakeholders i.e., Teachers, Parents, Students and Community, policy makers for building a strong foundation of lifelong learning.

Article Link: Shikshak Parv 2021: PM Modi launches five new initiatives for accessible education

Solution (c)

Sustainable Development Goal 12 is about “responsible consumption and production”. It is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2015.

SDG 12 is meant to ensure good use of resources, improving energy efficiency, sustainable infrastructure, and providing access to basic services, green and decent jobs and ensuring a better quality of life for all.

SDG 12 has 11 targets to be achieved by at least 2030. The 11 targets of the goal are: 

1. Implement the 10‑Year Framework of Programs on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns; 
2. Achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources; 
3. Reducing by half the per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and the reduction of food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses;
4. Achieving the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle; 
5. Reducing waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse; 
6. Encourage companies to adopt sustainable practices; 
7. Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable; 
8. Ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development; 
9. Support developing countries scientific and technological capacity for sustainable consumption and production;
10. Develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable tourism;
11. Remove market distortions that encourage wasteful consumption.

The three “means of achieving” targets are: support developing countries to strengthen their scientific and technological capacity; develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts; and remove market distortions, like fossil fuel subsidies, that encourage wasteful consumption.

Article Link: How India is positioned to achieve UN’s sustainable consumption and production goal

Solution (a)

The chemical oxygen demand (COD) is an indicative measure of the amount of oxygen that can be consumed by reactions in a measured solution. 

It is commonly expressed in mass of oxygen consumed over volume of solution which in SI units is milligrams per litre (mg/L). 

A COD test can be used to easily quantify the amount of organics in water. Higher the COD value, the more serious the pollution of organic matter by water.

The most common application of COD is in quantifying the amount of oxidizable pollutants found in surface water (e.g. lakes and rivers) or wastewater. 

COD is useful in terms of water quality by providing a metric to determine the effect an effluent will have on the receiving body, much like biochemical oxygen demand (BOD).

Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) is the amount of dissolved oxygen (DO) needed (i.e. demanded) by aerobic biological organisms to break down organic material present in a given water sample at certain temperature over a specific time period. The high BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand) indicates low water quality and less oxygen for aquatic life.

Article Link: Coal mining, waste discharge, encroachment: River Bhogdoi has been dying a slow death

Solution (c)

Millets, often called ‘nutri-cereals’, encompass a diverse group of cereals and were among the first plants that were domesticated and have served as a traditional staple crop for millions of families in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. More than 90 per cent of millet production today takes place in developing countries of Africa and Asia.

Millets can survive in adverse climatic conditions and provide high energy, high dietary fiber, proteins, many essential minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants, all of which play a substantial role in lowering diabetes. The diversity of millets offers opportunities for economic development through income-generating activities in the food sector.

Capable of growing on poor soils with little or no inputs, millets have a low carbon and water footprint and are resistant to many crop diseases and pests.  

Millets can help tackle lifestyle problems and health challenges such as obesity and diabetes as they are gluten-free and have a low glycemic index (a relative ranking of carbohydrate in foods according to how they affect blood glucose levels).

United Nations General Assembly has adopted the resolution that declares the year 2023 as the International Year of Millets and invites all Member States, the UN and other global organisations to observe the International Year through activities aimed at raising awareness of and directing policy attention to the nutritional and health benefits of millet consumption and their suitability for cultivation under adverse and changing climatic conditions, while also directing policy attention to improving value chain efficiencies.

Article Link: Millets could help India mitigate malnutrition and climate change.

Solution (d)

El Niño is a climate pattern that describes the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. El Nino is the “warm phase” of a larger phenomenon called the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). La Nina, the “cool phase” of ENSO, is a pattern that describes the unusual cooling of the region’s surface waters. El Niño and La Niña are considered the ocean part of ENSO, while the Southern Oscillation is its atmospheric changes.

El Niño events are defined by their wide-ranging teleconnections. Teleconnections are large-scale, long-lasting climate anomalies or patterns that are related to each other and can affect much of the globe. Following are the impacts of strong El-Nino events:

• During an El Nino event, westward-blowing trade winds weaken along the Equator. These changes in air pressure and wind speed cause warm surface water to move eastward along the Equator, from the western Pacific to the coast of northern South America.
• This thick layer of warm water does not allow normal upwelling to occur. Without an upwelling of nutrient-rich cold water, the euphotic zone of the eastern Pacific can no longer support its normally productive coastal ecosystem. Fish populations die or migrate. El Niño has a devastating impact on Ecuadorian and Peruvian economies.
• El Nino also produces widespread and sometimes severe changes in the climate. Convection above warmer surface waters bring increased precipitation. Rainfall increases drastically in Ecuador and northern Peru, contributing to coastal flooding and erosion. Rains and floods may destroy homes, schools, hospitals, and businesses. They also limit transportation and destroy crops. 
• As El Nino brings rain to South America, it brings droughts to Indonesia and Australia. These droughts threaten the region’s water supplies, as reservoirs dry and rivers carry less water. Agriculture, which depends on water for irrigation, is threatened.
• Stronger El Nino events also disrupt global atmospheric circulation. Global atmospheric circulation is the large-scale movement of air that helps distribute thermal energy (heat) across the surface of the Earth. The eastward movement of oceanic and atmospheric heat sources cause unusually severe winter weather at the higher latitudes of North and South America. Regions as far north as the U.S. states of California and Washington may experience longer, colder winters because of El Nino.

Article Link: How is global warming likely to impact the El Nino and La Nina events?