PERIYAR IAS CURRENT AFFAIRS 28-FEBRUARY-2018
Paper 1:
Topic: Indian culture will cover the
salient aspects of Art Forms, Literature and Architecture from ancient to
modern times.
World Cities Culture Forum
Context: Mumbai is set to be the newest member and the
first Indian city on the World Cities Culture Forum (WCCF), a platform for cities to
share their culture.
How will the forum help
Mumbai?
§ The WCCF enables the policy
makers of member cities to share research and intelligence, while exploring the
vital role of culture in prosperity. Forum members collaborate via a program of
events including themed symposia, regional summits and workshops.
§ Mumbai, like members of the
Forum, will be able to share its culture as part of a comparative research to
understand its role and impact. The municipal corporation will be able to
maintain a relationship with the other member cities and Mumbai will be
represented on the Forum at all events.
§ Through its leadership exchange
program, the city’s policy makers will be able to share ideas, technology,
challenges and access cultures and arts.
About WCCF:
§ The World Cities Culture Forum
(WCCF), which BOP convenes, provides a way for policy makers to share research
and intelligence, and explore the vital role of culture in their future
prosperity.
§ The forum, which began in 2012
with eight members, is a network of 32 key cities today, including London, Hong
Kong, Amsterdam, Cape Town, Dakar, Edinburgh, Lisbon, San Francisco, Shanghai,
Singapore, Toronto and many others.
Need for urban planning:
Rapid urbanisation means that,
by 2030, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities. The very
speed of change is unprecedented and governments are facing increasingly
complex challenges. Many of the great policy issues of our age, from tackling
climate change to promoting social equality, are being led at city, rather than
national, level.
As urban populations grow, so
does the pressure on leaders to maintain their city’s distinctiveness, attract
business and skilled jobs, and stay resilient and adaptable in the face of
change.
What’s important?
§ For Prelims: WCCF- cities
covered and first Indian city to be included.
§ For Mains: Need for urban
planning- issues, challenges and solutions.
Sources: the hindu.
Paper 2:
Topic: e-governance- applications,
models, successes, limitations, and potential.
National e-Governance
Awards
Context: National e-governance
Awards were presented on the occasion of 21st National Conference on
e-Governance. The National e-Governance Awards recognise and promote excellence in
implementation of e-Governance initiatives taken by various government
departments and also initiatives of public sector units and Non- Government
Institutions.
About the conference:
The Department of
Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Government of India,
along with the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government
of India in association with Government of Telangana have organized the
21stNational Conference on e-Governance in Hyderabad, Telangana.
The Conference serves as a
forum in which the Secretaries, Administrative Reforms and Secretaries,
Information Technology of State Governments, IT Managers of the Central
Governments, Software Solution providers, industry, etc. participate and
interact, exchange opinions, views, discuss issues, problems and also analyze
various solution frameworks.
Theme: Technology for
Accelerating Development.
Sub themes:
§ Building User experience.
§ Universalization and Replication.
§ Governing e – Governance.
§ Emerging technologies.
§ e-Governance good/best
practices.
What is e governance?
e-Governance is generally
understood as the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at all
the level of the Government in order to provide services to the citizens,
interaction with business enterprises and communication and exchange of
information between different agencies of the Government in a speedy,
convenient efficient and transparent manner.
What’s important?
§ For Prelims: National e-
§ For Mains: Significance of e
governance.
Sources: pib.
Topic: Issues relating to
development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health,
Education, Human Resources.
Aviation Multi Skill
Development Centre (MSDC)
Context: A first-of-its-kind
Aviation Multi Skill Development Centre (MSDC), a CSR initiative of Airports
Authority of India (AAI) was inaugurated in Chandigarh.
About aviation MSDC:
§ The Centre has been set up in
collaboration with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and is
supported by the Aerospace and Aviation Sector Skill Council (AASSC) of India.
§ The course curriculum and
assessments of the training have been designed by AASSC in accordance with the
National Skill Qualification Framework. The Centre will train about 2,400 youth
and women in 8 aviation job roles over the next 3 years.
Background:
Demand for aviation skilled
personnel has been rising commensurately with the boom in the civil aviation
sector witnessed in the last 3-4 years. More than 900 new aircraft are expected
to be inducted by Indian scheduled airlines in the coming few years. Air
connectivity for both passenger transport and air freight is increasing, with
new air routes and operationalisation of unserved or underserved airports
through the UDAN Regional Connectivity Scheme. MRO and ground-handling demands
for skilled personnel are also rising in tandem.
About NSDC:
The National Skill Development
Corporation (NSDC) is a one-of-its-kind, Public Private Partnership (PPP) model
in India, under the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship
(MSDE). It aims to promote skill development by catalyzing creation of large,
quality and for-profit vocational institutions.
Functions:
§ NSDC provides funding to build
scalable and profitable vocational training initiatives. Its mandate is also to
enable support system which focuses on quality assurance, information systems
and train the trainer academies either directly or through partnerships.
§ NSDC acts as a catalyst in
skill development by providing funding to enterprises, companies and
organisations that provide skill training.
§ It will also develop
appropriate models to enhance, support and coordinate private sector
initiatives.
What’s important?
§ For Prelims: Aviation MSDC,
NSDC.
§ For Mains: Need for skill
development.
Sources: pib.
Topic: Important International
institutions, agencies and fora, their structure, mandate.
Arctic Seed Vault
Context: Norway has announced it
will spend 100 million Norwegian crowns, or $13 million, to make improvements
to a special seed vault in the Arctic. The vault received its one-millionth
seed sample on February 26, its 10th anniversary. It has the ability to hold
about 2.5 billion seeds in total.
About Arctic Seed Vault:
What is it? The Norwegian government
built the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in 2008 to store seed samples of the
world’s crops and plants. The vault serves as a natural deep freeze, and is
meant to protect important genetic material in case of a major man-made or
natural disaster.
Need: The loss of crop
diversity and the vulnerability of existing seed collections in various
seed/gene banks gave birth to the idea in of establishing a back-up seed
facility in Svalbard.
Who owns seeds?
Depositors retain ownership
rights over the seeds sent to the facility. The boxes with seeds are sealed by
the depositors and are not distributed to or given access to by anyone other
than the depositors.
Why Svalbard?
Svalbard was chosen for several
reasons. Its cold climate and permafrost make the area a perfect location for
underground cold storage. The surrounding sandstone is stable for building and
is low in radiation. In terms of security, Svalbard scores high marks compared
to the locations of many other genebanks in the world. The vault is located an
extraordinary 120 meters (393.7 feet) into the rock, ensuring that the vault
rooms will remain naturally frozen even in the event of failure of the
mechanical cooling system and rising external air temperatures due to climate
change.
Concerns:
Svalbard was chosen as the site
of the seed bank, in part, because of the area’s permafrost – a thick layer of
soil that stays frozen throughout the year. It makes for excellent underground
cold storage. But in late 2016, the permafrost began to unexpectedly melt. This
caused water to flow into the entrance of the vault tunnel. The event raised
concerns about the need to better protect the samples. However, Norway
government has initiated improvement works.
Where is India’s seed
vault?
At Chang La in the Himalayas,
at a height of 17,300 feet, there is a storage facility with over 5,000 seed
accessions. One accession consists of a set of seeds of one species collected
from different locations or different populations.
The vault is a joint venture of
the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (which comes under the Indian
Council of Agricultural Research) and the Defence Institute of High Altitude
Research (under Defence Research and Development Organisation).
Significance of seed vault
for developing countries:
Food security is a challenge in
many developing countries. Crop diversity is the resource to which plant
breeders must turn to develop varieties that can withstand pests, diseases, and
remain productive in the face of changing climates. It will therefore underpin
the world food supply. Also, the Seed Vault ensures that unique diversity held
in gene banks in developing countries is not lost forever if an accident
occurs. A backup copy will exist in Svalbard.
Sources: the hindu.
Topic: Important International
institutions, agencies and fora, their structure, mandate.
Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank (AIIB)
Context: The Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank (AIIB) has approved $1.5 billion in loans to India for
infrastructure projects in 2018. The funds are meant for investment in energy,
roads and urban development projects. Of the loans committed by the multilateral
bank, around $200 million will be invested under the National Investment and
Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) framework.
About AIIB:
What is it? The AIIB was established
as a new multilateral financial institution aimed at providing “financial
support for infrastructure development and regional connectivity in Asia.” It
was founded in October, 2014, and has its headquarters in Beijing. Its goals
are also to boost economic development in the region, create wealth, prove
infrastructure, and promote regional cooperation and partnership.
Funding: The value of AIIB’s
authorized capital amounts to $100 billion, with almost $30 billion invested by
China. India is not only one of the founding members of AIIB but is also the
2nd largest shareholder in AIIB.
What’s important?
§ For Prelims: AIIB- structure,
voting and share of countries.
§ For Mains: AIIB- significance,
need for infrastructure funding.
Sources: the hindu.
Paper 3:
Topic: Science and Technology-
developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievements
of Indians in science & technology.
National Science Day 2018
Context: National Science Day is
celebrated on 28th of February every year in order to commemorate the invention
of the Raman Effect in India by the Indian physicist, Sir Chandrasekhara
Venkata Raman on the same day in the year 1928. For his great success in the
field of science in India, Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was awarded and honored
with the Nobel Prize in the Physics in the year 1930.
Theme: “Science and Technology
for a Sustainable Future”.
What is Raman effect?
The Raman Effect is a change in
the wavelength of light that occurs when a light beam is deflected by
molecules. When a beam of light traverses a dust-free, transparent sample of a
chemical compound, a small fraction of the light emerges in directions other
than that of the incident (incoming) beam. Most of this scattered light is of
unchanged wavelength. A small part, however, has wavelengths different from
that of the incident light; its presence is a result of the Raman effect.
Raman’s experiment:
The violet light of the solar
spectrum is isolated with a violet filter and passed through the liquid sample.
Most of the light emerging from the liquid sample is the same color as the
incident violet beam: the so-called Rayleigh scattered light (the scattering of
light by particles in a medium, without change in wavelength. It accounts, for
example, for the blue colour of the sky, since blue light is scattered slightly
more efficiently than red).
However, Raman, along with K S
Krishnan was able to show that some of the scattered light was a different
color, which they could isolate by using a green filter placed between the
observer and the sample.
What’s important?
§ For Prelims: National science
day, Raman effect.
§ For Mains: Achievements of
Indians in the field of science and technology.
Sources: pib.
Topic: conservation.
Swajal Yojana
Context: Swajal pilot project has
been launched at Village Bhikampura, Karauli, Rajasthan.
About Swajal:
§ Swajal is a community owned
drinking water programme for sustained drinking water supply.
§ Under the scheme, 90% of the
project cost will be taken care by the Government and the remaining 10% of the
project cost will be contributed by the community. The Operations and
management of the project will be taken care by the local villagers.
§ Besides ensuring the
availability of clean drinking water to every household round the year, the
project would also generate employment.
Way ahead:
India is not a water scarce
country. Along with having major rivers, we receive an average annual rainfall
of 1170 millimeters. But lack of sensitisation with regard to both conservation
of water and pollution of water sources has resulted in a large part of the
population for whom water has become more of a curse than a boon.
Infrastructure for storage of water must be developed properly to ensure that
people have access to safe water across the country.
What’s important?
§ For Prelims: Swajal.
§ For Mains: Need for groundwater
conservation.
Sources: pib.
Facts for Prelims:
4G network on moon in
2019:
Vodafone is planning to create
the first 4G network on the moon by 2019. The company has appointed Nokia as
its technology partner for the 4G network. This will be the first
privately-funded moon landing mission.
Maldives rejects India’s
Milan naval exercise invite:
Maldives has declined New
Delhi’s invitation to participate in the biennial naval exercise Milan.
Milan: The biennial naval
exercise, Milan, is being organised at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The aim
of the exercise is to expand regional cooperation and combat unlawful
activities in critical sea lanes.
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