Recently, the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has distributed 6 innovative cycle-mounted Tea/Coffee Selling units under Project DigniTEA in New Delhi in order to celebrate Sewa Diwas.

About DigniTEA Project

• It is an innovative project of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC).

• Under the project, the cycle-mounted tea/coffee selling units have been distributed to 6 unemployed local youths.

  • The units will enable tea-sellers to earn a respectable livelihood while selling the beverages hygienically.

• The cycle-mounted Tea/Coffee Selling unit is an innovative and cost-effective way of creating sustainable self-employment.

Source: PIB

2.National Hispanic Heritage Month

Recently, the National Hispanic Heritage Month began in the United States of America (USA).

About National Hispanic Heritage Month

• It is an annual event which honours the history, culture and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors hailed from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America.

• It is marked every year from September 15 to October 15.

• The observation was started by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week.

  • It was extended to an entire month by President Ronald Reagan in 1988.

Significance of National Hispanic Heritage Month

• The Hispanic Heritage Month pays tribute to the generations of Hispanic Americans who have positively influenced and enriched our nation and society.

• The September 15 holds the significance in Latin American history, as being the Independence Day of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

  • The five Central American nations declared their independence from Spain together on September 15, 1821.

• Hispanic Americans are currently the largest minority group in the US, making up a fifth of the total US population.

• The community is referred to as Hispanic, Latino or Latinx; the terms that refer to a person’s origin or culture, without considering their race.

Source: The Indian Express

3. Leptarma Biju

Recently, the researchers from the National University of Singapore and the Department of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries, University of Kerala, have reported a new species called Leptarma Biju.

About Leptarma Biju

• It is a new species of tree-spider crab from a mangrove forest in Kasaragod, Kerala.

• The new species is named Leptarma Biju after A. Biju Kumar who is the head of Department of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries, University of Kerala.

• It the first report of the genus Leptarma from India.

• Its characteristic features are its long ambulatory legs and short and hook-like dactylus that have adapted the crustacean for tree-climbing.

Source: The Hindu

4.Human Capital Index

Recently, the Human Capital Index 2020 was released by World Bank.

Key Highlights of Human Capital Index 2020

• The 2020 Human Capital Index update includes health and education data for 174 countries, covering 98 percent of the world’s population.

• India has been ranked at the 116th position (115th in 2018) with the score increasing from 0.44 in 2018 to 0.49 in 2020.

• The analysis shows that pre-pandemic, most countries had made steady progress in building human capital of children, with the biggest strides made in low-income countries.

• The report provided that a child born in a typical country could expect to achieve just 56 percent of their potential human capital, relative to a benchmark of complete education and full health.

• Globally, the average HCI for girls is slightly higher (0.59) than that for boys (0.56).

About Human Capital Index

• It is an international metric that benchmarks key components of human capital across countries.

• It is a collaboration between the Human Development Practice Group and the Development Economics Group of the World Bank.

• Measuring the human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by her 18th birthday, the HCI highlights how current health and education outcomes shape the productivity of the next generation of workers.

• The HCI was launched in 2018 as part of the Human Capital Project (HCP), a global effort to accelerate progress towards a world where all children can achieve their full potential.

Source: The Hindu

5.DNA Analysis of Viking remains

Recently, the world’s largest DNA sequencing of Viking skeletons was conducted by researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen.

Key Highlights of the Study

• The researchers claimed to debunk the modern image of Vikings as having blonde hair and reveal that not all of them were from Scandinavia.

• The researchers carried out DNA sequencing on more than 400 Viking skeletons of men, women, children and babies from archaeological sites spread across Europe and Greenland to understand the global influence of their expansion.

• The study reveals that skeletons from famous Viking burial sites in Scotland were local people who could have taken on Viking identities and were buried as them.

• It was found that Viking identity was not limited to Scandinavian genetic ancestry and that Scandinavia’s genetic history itself was influenced by foreign genes from Asia and Southern Europe.

• The study also confirms the large-scale movement of the Vikings outside Scandinavia.

  • The movement of Vikings from present-day Denmark to England, from Sweden to the Baltic countries and from Norway to Ireland, Scotland, Iceland and Greenland.

About Vikings Age

• The word Viking comes from the Scandinavian term “Vikingr”, which means pirate.

  • The name Viking came from the Scandinavians themselves, from the Old Norse word "vik" (bay or creek) which formed the root of "vikingr" (pirate).

• The Vikage Age refers to the period between AD 800 until the 1050s.

• The Vikings played an important role in changing the political and genetic course of Europe.

• The Vikings also exported ideas, technologies, language, beliefs and practices to other places.

• The genetic legacy of the Viking Age lives on today with six percent of people of the UK population predicted to have Viking DNA in their genes compared to 10 percent in Sweden.

Source: The Indian Express

JaiHind!

Join our Telegram Channel : Click Here

Follow us on Instagram Page : Click Here