Current Affairs 14-07-2020:

Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY)

What is in news?

Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman chaired a meeting to review the implementation of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY)

About:

• The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana was launched in 2016 and is being administered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.

• It provides a comprehensive insurance cover against failure of the crop thus helping in stabilising the income of the farmers.

•  All food & oilseed crops and annual commercial/horticultural crops for which past yield data is available.

• The prescribed premium is 2% to be paid by farmers for all Kharif crops and 1.5% for all rabi crops. In the case of annual commercial and horticultural crops, the premium is 5%.

• The scheme is compulsory for loanee farmers availing Crop Loan /Kisan Credit Card (KCC) account for notified crops and voluntary for others.

• The scheme is implemented by empanelled general insurance companies. The selection of the Implementing Agency (IA) is done by the concerned State Government through bidding.

PRESS TRUST OF INDIA (PTI)

What is in news?

The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry’s Land and Development Office (L&DO) has issued notice to the PTI over dues for its office on Parliament Street. The notice comes just weeks after state broadcaster Prasar Bharati threatened to cancel its subscription to the PTI.

About:

• Press Trust of India (PTI) is the largest news agency in India employing over 400 journalists and 500 part-time correspondents located in most of the district headquarters in the country.

• It is a non-profit cooperative. It was registered in 1947 and started functioning in 1949.

• It is headquartered in New Delhi. Its corporate office is located in New Delhi and registered office in Mumbai.

Facts to remember:

• A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters.

• Reuters, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Associated Press (AP) are the prominent global news agencies having offices in most countries of the world and cover all areas of information.

AFGHANISTAN–PAKISTAN TRANSIT TRADE AGREEMENT (APTTA)

What is in news?

Pakistan will allow Afghanistan to send goods to India via the Wagah border from July 15. The decision, part of Islamabad’s commitment under the Pakistan-Afghanistan Transit Trade Agreement, is expected to boost Afghanistan’s exports to India.

About:

• The Afghanistan–Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (also known as APTTA) is a bilateral trade agreement signed in 2010 by Pakistan and Afghanistan that calls for greater facilitation in the movement of goods amongst the two countries.

• The 2010 APTTA allows for both countries to use each other's airports, railways, roads, and ports for transit trade along designated transit corridors.

• The 2010 agreement supersedes the 1965 Afghanistan Transit Trade Agreement, which granted Afghanistan the right to import duty-free goods through Pakistani seaports.

TNF-RELATED APOPTOSIS-INDUCING LIGAND (TRAIL)

What is in news?

Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras have shown that the active compound from the common household spice turmeric — curcumin — can enhance cancer cell death.

About:

• TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) is an agent with the ability to programme cell death (apoptosis) and has triggered many preclinical studies the world over.

• The IIT-M research team chose curcumin as it is known to inhibit carcinogenesis and induce apoptosis in various cancer cells.

• The researchers isolated leukaemia cells from cancer patients and found that non-toxic concentrations of curcumin can significantly increase the efficiency of TRAIL-induced cell death.

NATGRID

What is in news?

The National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) has signed an MoU with the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to access the centralised online database on FIRs and stolen vehicles.

About:

• The MoU will give NATGRID access to the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) database, a platform that links around 14,000 police stations. All State police are mandated to file FIRs in the CCTNS.

• NATGRID seeks to become the one-stop destination for security and intelligence agencies to access database related to immigration entry and exit, banking and telephone details of a suspect on a “secured platform”.

• The project First conceptualised in 2009 under then Home Minister P. Chidambaram, has got a renewed push under Home Minister Amit Shah. The project aims to go live by December 31.

• It will be a medium for at least 10 Central agencies such as the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing to access data on a secured platform. The data will be procured by NATGRID from 21 organisations such as the telecom, tax records, bank, immigration etc.

Dehing Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary :

What is in news?

Assam government has decided to upgrade the Dehing Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary into a national park.

About :

• Also known as the Jeypore Rainforest is a part of Dehing Patkai Elephant Reserve .

• Located in Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts, the 111.19 sq km Dehing Patkai was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 2004. It is home to 47 mammal, 47 reptile, and 310 butterfly species.

• It forms the largest stretch of lowland rainforest in the country.

• Dehing is the name of the river that flows through this forest and Patkai is the hill at the foot of which the sanctuary lies.

What is a National Park?

• According to the Indian Ministry of Environment & Forests, a national park is  area, whether within a sanctuary or not, [that] can be notified by the state government to be constituted as a National Park, by reason of its ecological, faunal, floral, geomorphological, or zoological association or importance, needed to for the purpose of protecting & propagating or developing wildlife therein or its environment.

• National parks in India are IUCN category II protected areas.

• India’s first national parkwas established in 1936 as Hailey National Park, now known as Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand.

What is Wild life sanctuary?

• A wildlife sanctuary is an area where animal habitats and their surroundings are protected from any sort of disturbance. The capturing, killing and poaching of animals is strictly prohibited in these regions.

• They aim at providing a comfortable living to the animals. India has beautiful wildlife sanctuaries, with dense forests, large rivers, high and beautiful mountains.

TANGAMS

What is in news?

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister released a book titled Tangams: An Ethnolinguistic Study Of The Critically Endangered Group of Arunachal Pradesh.

About:

• The Tangams are a little-known community within the larger Adi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh and reside in the hamlet of Kugging in Upper Siang district’s Paindem circle.

• Tangams are now concentrated in only one village (Kugging), with 253 reported speakers.

• As per the UNESCO World Atlas of Endangered Languages (2009), Tangam — an oral language that belongs to the Tani group, under the greater Tibeto-Burman language family — is marked ‘critically endangered’.

• The languages of Arunachal Pradesh have been classified under the Sino-Tibetan language family, and more specifically under the Tibeto-Burman and Tai group of languages, such as Lolo-Burmish, Bodhic, Sal, Tani, Mishmi, Hruissh and Tai.

Aircraft carriers to get Indian jets by 2032

What is in news?

The Navy is expected to get the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL)-built twin-engine carrier aircraft being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) by 2032. It will replace the MiG-29Ks in service which are scheduled to start going out by 2034.

About:

• The Navy currently operates Russian-origin carrier INS Vikramaditya and expects to have the first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC-I) Vikrant operational by 2022. With a second carrier to come in, the Navy is already evaluating a global tender for 57 carrier-based twin-engine fighter aircraft.

• Last January, the naval Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) successfully completed arrested landing and take-off on board Vikramaditya and has since undertaken several trials.

• Based on the experience of the carrier landing, the DRDO has offered to develop a twin-engine deck-based fighter for the Navy. With the successful deck-landing, they decided to drop the naval LCA Mk2 and move on to the twin-engine jet.

• The new jet being developed by DRDO should be ready by 2026.