Daily Currentaffairs: 23 Oct 2020

Tables of contents

1.Anemia Mukt Bharat (AMB)

2.'Meri Saheli' Initiative

3.National Super Computing Mission (NSM)

4.Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY)

5.INS Kavaratti

6.Azad Hind Government

7.Committee to Examine Issues concerning Expenditure Limits

1.Anemia Mukt Bharat (AMB)

Recently, the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has released the Anemia Mukt Bharat (AMB) Index.

Key Highlights of Anemia Mukt Bharat (AMB) Index

• Haryana was ranked at the top slot with an AMB Index of 46.7 among the 29 states.

• Haryana is one of 11 states in the country that have achieved National Health Policy targets well before 2020.

• The institutional deliveries have increased to 93.7 percent and it was possible due to 24-hours delivery facilities in the state.

About Anemia Mukt Bharat (AMB)

• It is an initiative of UNICEF and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

• It has been launched to reduce the prevalence of anemia all over the country.

• Anemia is caused due to iron deficiency which impacts the capacity of an individual’s blood cells to carry oxygen.

• The scheme aims at providing bi-weekly iron Folic acid supplementation to the children under age five through Asha workers.

• It also provided biannual deworming for adolescents and children.

Source: All India Radio

2.'Meri Saheli' Initiative

Recently, the staff of Railway Protection Force in Vijayawada Division has launched the 'Meri Saheli' initiative.

About 'Meri Saheli' Initiative

• The main motto of the 'Meri Saheli' initiative is to provide a safe and secure environment to lady passengers travelling in trains throughout their journey.

• The initiative will be carried out by an all-women team headed by one RPF lady Sub-Inspector and few Constables.

• The initiative was launched by RPF to continuously monitor the safety of lady passengers from the originating station to the destination.

Source: All India Radio

3.National Super Computing Mission (NSM)

Recently, the Department of Science and Technology has announced that the third phase of the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) will kick start in January 2021, taking computing speed to around 45 petaflops.

About National Super Computing Mission (NSM)

• It is steered jointly by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) and Department of Science and Technology (DST).

• It is implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.

• The target of the mission was set to establish a network of supercomputers ranging from a few Tera Flops (TF) to Hundreds of Tera Flops (TF) and three systems with greater than or equal to 3 Peta Flops (PF) in academic and research institutions of National importance across the country by 2022.

• The objectives of the NSM are:

  • To make India one of the world leaders in Supercomputing and to enhance India’s capability in solving grand challenge problems of national and global relevance

  • To empower our scientists and researchers with state-of-the-art supercomputing facilities and enable them to carry out cutting-edge research in their respective domains

  • To minimize redundancies and duplication of efforts, and optimize investments in supercomputing

  • To attain global competitiveness and ensure self-reliance in the strategic area of supercomputing technology

• The first supercomputer assembled indigenously, called Param Shivay, was installed in IIT (BHU).

  • The similar systems Param Shakti and Param Brahma were installed at IIT-Kharagpur and IISER, Pune.

Source: The Economic Times

4.Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY)

Recently, the Union Minister of State for Jal Shakti has launched a Mobile application for Geo tagging of the components of projects under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana- Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Programme(PMKSY-AIBP).

Key Highlights

• The Ministry of Jal Shakti with the help of Bhaskaracharya National Institute of Space Applications & Geo-informatics (BISAG-N) has developed and launched the mobile application.

• The Mobile Application can be used by monitoring team/ project authorities to capture the image of project component along with other details such as location, type of canal/ structure, completion status, etc.

About Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY)

• It has the vision of assured irrigation access i.e. “Har Khet Ko Pani” and improving on farm water use efficiency i.e. “More Crop Per Drop” in a focused manner with an “Integrated Value Chain” approach.

• It has been conceived by amalgamating ongoing schemes viz:

  • Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP) of the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation (MoWR,RD&GR),

  • Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) of Department of Land Resources (DoLR) and

  • On-Farm Water Management (OFWM) of Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (DAC).

• The major objective of PMKSY is to:

  • achieve convergence of investments in irrigation at the field level;

  • expand cultivable area under assured irrigation;

  • improve on-farm water use efficiency to reduce wastage of water;

  • enhance the adoption of precision-irrigation and other water saving technologies (More crop per drop);

  • enhance recharge of aquifers and introduce sustainable water conservation practices by exploring the feasibility of reusing treated municipal waste water for peri-urban agriculture; and

  • attract greater private investment in precision irrigation system.

• The programme will be supervised and monitored by an Inter-Ministerial National Steering Committee (NSC) will be constituted under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister with Union Ministers from concerned Ministries.

Source: PIB

5.INS Kavaratti

Recently, the Ministry of Defence announced the commission of INS Kavaratti into the Indian Navy.

About INS Kavaratti

• It is the last of the four Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) stealth corvettes under Project 28 (Kamorta class).

• The other three warships under this project are INS Kamorta (commissioned in 2014), INS Kadmatt (2016) and INS Kiltan (2017).

• It is indigenously designed by the Indian Navy’s in-house organisation, Directorate of Naval Design (DND) and built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE), Kolkata.

• It portrays the growing capability of the Indian Navy and GRSE and the nation in becoming self-reliant through indigenisation.

• The ship has up to 90 per cent indigenous content and the use of carbon composites for the superstructure is a commendable feat achieved in Indian ship-building.

• It has a state-of-the-art weapons and sensor suite capable of detecting and prosecuting submarines.

• It will be commissioned into the Indian Navy as a combat-ready platform as the ship has completed sea trials of all the systems fitted onboard.

• INS Kavaratti takes its name from erstwhile INS Kavaratti which was an Arnala class missile corvette and the older Kavaratti distinguished itself by operating in support of Bangladesh’s liberation in 1971.

Source: The Indian Express

6.Azad Hind Government

Recently, the Union Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (IC) has attended the Commemoration of '77th Year of Formation of Azad Hind Government'.

About Azad Hind Government

• Azad Hind Fauj or the Indian National Army was formed by Indian nationalists in 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II to secure Indian independence from British rule.

  • The Azad Hind Fauj was first established by Captain General Mohan Singh in Singapore in 1942 but was later disbanded.

• In 1943, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose announced the formation of the Provisional Government of Free India (PGFI), Arzi Hakumat-e-Azad Hind, or Azad Hind Government, an Indian government-in-exile.

  • It started functioning from Singapore with 11 ministers and eight representatives from the INA.

• The PGFI was a culmination of the political movement originating in the early 1940s outside India with the purpose to liberate her from the British rule.

• The government of Azad Hind had its own currency, court, civil code and national anthem ‘Subh Sukh Chain’.

• The PGFI was recognised by nine Axis-aligned countries i.e. Japan, Germany, Italy, Croatia, Burma, Thailand, Philippines, Manchukuo (Manchuria), and the Republic of China (Wang Jingwei regime).

Source: PIB

7.Committee to Examine Issues concerning Expenditure Limits

Recently, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has constituted a committee to examine the issues concerning expenditure limit for a candidate in view of increase in number of electors and rise in Cost Inflation Index and other factors.

Key Highlights of the Committee

• The poll panel has set up the committee under its Director General Umesh Sinha and ex Indian Revenue Service officer Harish Kumar.

• The expenditure limit is the amount an election candidate can legally spend for his election campaign and has to account for, was last revised in 2014 while the same was done for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in 2018, following the bifurcation.

• The limits range from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 28 lakh for assembly elections and from Rs 54 lakh to Rs 70 lakh for Lok Sabha elections.

• The committee has been tasked with assessing the change in number of electors across states/UTs and its bearing on expenditure and the change in Cost Inflation Index and its bearing on expenditure pattern of candidates in recent elections.

• The committee will have following terms of reference:

  • To assess the change in number of electors across the States/Union Territories and its bearing on expenditure.

  • To assess the change in Cost Inflation Index and its bearing on the pattern of expenditure incurred by the candidates in recent elections.

  • To seek views/inputs of the political parties and other stakeholders.

  • To examine other factors which may have bearings on expenditure.

Cost Inflation Index (CII)

 

It is calculated to match the prices to the inflation rate i.e. an increase in the inflation rate over time will lead to a rise in the prices.

 

It is used to estimate the increase in the prices of goods and assets year-by-year due to inflation.

 

It is 75% of the average rise in the Consumer Price Index (urban) for the immediately preceding year.

Source: The Economic Times

Jai Hind!

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