comprehensive current affairs 21 Jan. 2021

 

 

Gucchi Mushroom.

Recently, a geographical indication (GI) tag has been sought for Gucchi (Morel).

It is one of the costliest mushrooms (priced at over ₹20,000 a kg) in the world growing in Jammu and Kashmir’s Doda district.

It grows wild and is collected manually by local farmers and tribals.

It is said to have medicinal and anti-inflammatory properties and is found in the temperate forests of the Doda district.

They are also considered a rich source of protein, carbohydrates and Vitamin B.

Other J&K’s GI tags are Kashmir Paper Machie, Kashmir Walnut Wood Carving, Khatamband, Kashmiri Hand Knotted Carpet, Kashmir Saffron, Kani Shawl etc.

DICCI plans business facilitation centres in all States.

The Dalit Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI) is planning to set up business facilitation centres in all State headquarters.

According to DICCI, at present the industry body has seven business facilitation centres.

DICCI has 30 chapters all over the country including Jammu and Kashmir and North East with 10,000 member entrepreneurs.

With a tag line of ‘Be Job Givers’, DICCI wants to motivate SC, ST youth to enter the business and industry sector as entrepreneurs and carve their own niche.

Demand for Autonomy in Assam.

Recently, there has been a demand for implementation of Article 244A for the creation of an autonomous State within Assam.

Highlights:

• The areas inhabited by the socially and educationally backward ‘Aboriginals’ are called Scheduled Areas.

• There are two schedules (5th and 6th) of the Indian Constitution which entail the details about the control and management of the Scheduled and Tribal Areas.

• The provisions regarding the administration and control of Scheduled and Tribal Areas of any state except the four states (Assam, Meghalaya,Tripura, Mizoram) are mentioned under this schedule.

• At present, 10 States namely Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh,

Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan and Telangana have Fifth

Schedule Areas.

Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution

• This schedule deals with the administration and control of the scheduled and tribal areas of the four states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram.

• Scheduled and Tribal Areas are dealt with two articles:

Article 244:

• This article deals with the administration of the Scheduled and Tribal Areas.

• It defines Scheduled Areas as the areas defined so by the President of India and are mentioned in the fifth schedule of the Constitution.

Article 244A:

• Formation of an autonomous state comprising certain tribal areas in Assam and creation of local legislature or Council of Ministers or both therefore.

 

U.K. invites PM Modi for G7 summit.

The United Kingdom has invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the G7 summit that is scheduled to be held in June.

Apart from India, Australia and South Korea are also invited to participate in the proceedings of the summit as guest countries.

About:

Group of Seven (G-7) is an intergovernmental organisation that was formed in 1975 by the top economies of the time as aninformal forum to discuss pressing world issues such as global economic governance, international security,and energy policy.

G-7 countries consist of U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Japan.

G-7 was formerly referred to asG-8 until Russia was suspended from the group in 2014 after illegally annexing Crimea.

International Migration 2020 Highlights.

The Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs has launched a new report International Migration 2020 Highlights.

It presenting the main results from the 2020 revision of estimates of the international migrant stock.

Key highlights:

Globally, 54 per cent of the 111 Governments that responded to a recent survey reported having policies to facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration.

In 2020, international migrants comprised nearly 15 per cent of the total population in high-income countries, compared to less than 2 per cent in middle- and low-income countries.

73 per cent of international migrants worldwide were between the ages of 20 and 64 years, compared to 57 per cent for the total population in 2020. International migrants thus often make up a larger proportion of working-age persons compared to the national population.

India topped the list of countries with the largest diasporas in 2020, with 18 million persons from India living outside of their country of birth. Other countries with a large transnational community included Mexico and the Russian Federation (11 million each), China (10 million) and Syria (8 million).

Bank Investment Company.

The RBI raising concerns over the issuance of zero-coupon bonds for recapitalisation of public sector banks (PSBs).

The Finance Ministry is examining other avenues for affordable capital infusion, including setting up of a Bank Investment Company (BIC).

To setting up a BIC as a holding company or a core investment company was suggested by the P.J. Nayak Committee in its report on ‘Governance of Boards of Banks in India’.

The report recommended transferring shares of the government in the banks to the BIC which would become the parent holding company of all these banks; as a result of this, all the PSBs would become ‘limited’ banks.

Heat-tolerant wheat varieties resulting in improved grain yield.

Recently, INSPIRE Faculty fellow’s engineering is exploring to produce heat-tolerant wheat varieties resulting inimproved grain yield.

Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research(INSPIRE) is an innovative programme sponsored and managed by the Department of Science & Technology forattraction of talent to Science.

It aims to communicate to the youth creative pursuit of science attract talent to the study of science at an early age etc.

INSPIRE has three components:

Scheme for Early Attraction of Talent (SEATS).

Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE).

Assured Opportunity for Research Careers (AORC).

Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of the Ecosystem Services (NCAVES).

Recently, Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of the Ecosystem Services (NCAVES)

India Forum-2021 is being organised by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme

Implementation (MoSPI) in virtual format.

• The MoSPI has taken up several initiatives under the project “Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services (NCAVES)” which aims to advance the theory and Practice of Ecosystem Accounting in India.

Highlights:

• It is funded by the European Union, has been jointly implemented by the United Nations

Statistics Division (UNSD), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the

Secretariat of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD).

• India is one of the five countries taking part in this project - the other countries being Brazil, China, South Africa and Mexico.

• It is being implemented by the MoSPI in close collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) under the Department of Space.

About Natural Capital Accounting (NCA):

• It is an umbrella term covering efforts to make use of an accounting framework to provide a systematic way to measure and report on stocks and flows of natural capital.

• Natural capital is another term for the stock of renewable and non-renewable resources that combine to yield a flow of benefits to people.

• NCA covers accounting for individual environmental assets or resources, both biotic and abiotic (such as water, minerals, energy, timber, fish), as well as accounting for ecosystem assets (e.g. forests; wetlands), biodiversity and ecosystem services, in both physical and monetary terms.

• Just like the compilation of national accounts of a country is guided by the System of National Accounts (SNA), for natural capital accounting, the System of Environmental- Economic Accounting (SEEA) is taken.

• The System of Environmental -Economic Accounting (SEEA) provides a framework for measuring the link between the environment and the economy.

• SEEA-Central Framework was adopted in February 2012 as an international statistical standard by the UN Statistical Commission.

• The SEEA accounts bring into direct focus the relationship between the environment and economy not revealed through traditional measures of economic activity, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP).