PERIYAR IAS CURRENT AFFAIRS 27-APRIL-2018
Topic: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of
the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes;
mechanisms, laws, institutions and bodies constituted for the protection and
betterment of these vulnerable sections.
TRIFED
Context: Due to the massive drive of scaling up
the retail marketing activities by TRIFED, the value of Sales has increased
from Rs. 11.37 crores in 2016-17 to Rs.20.08 Crores during 2017-18, a record
increase of 77% and a record sale in the history of TRIFED.
About TRIFED:
TRIFED is an apex organisation at National
Level and functioning under the administrative control of Ministry of Tribal
Affairs.
What it does?
TRIFED is serving the interests of Tribals,
who are engaged in collection of NTFP and making of Tribal Art & Handicraft
Products for their livelihood so as to ensure better remunerative price for
their products as well as for the socio-economic betterment through Self Help
Groups, Empanelled NGOs, State level Tribal Development Corporations, Forest
Development Corporations for undertaking marketing development of the tribal
products.
It also organizes exhibitions like National
Tribal Craft Expo called “Aadi Mahotsav” etc. in which it promotes and markets
tribal products.
What’s important?
§ For Prelims: TRIFED.
§ For Mains: Tribal development- challenges,
need and solutions.
Sources: pib.
Topic: Important International institutions,
agencies and fora, their structure, mandate.
World Immunization Week
Context: World Immunization Week is celebrated
from 24th- 30th of April by the World Health Organization (WHO) in order to
increase awareness about vaccination.
Aim: It aims to highlight the collective
action needed to ensure that every person is protected from vaccine-
preventable diseases.
Theme: “Protected together, #VaccinesWork”.
Background:
Immunization saves millions of lives and is
widely recognized as one of the world’s most successful and cost-effective
health interventions. Yet, there are more than 19 million unvaccinated or
under-vaccinated children in the world, putting them at serious risk of these
potentially fatal diseases. Of these children, 1 out of 10 never receive any
vaccinations, and most likely have never been seen by the health system.
Why immunization matters now more than
ever?
Expanding access to immunization is crucial
to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Routine immunization is a
building block of strong primary health care and universal health coverage—it
provides a point of contact for health care at the beginning of life and offers
every child the chance at a healthy life from the start.
Immunization is also a fundamental strategy
in achieving other health priorities, from controlling viral hepatitis, to
curbing antimicrobial resistance, to providing a platform for adolescent health
and improving antenatal and newborn care.
Global efforts:
The Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) – endorsed by 194 Member States of the
World Health Assembly in May 2012 – aims to prevent millions of deaths from
vaccine-preventable diseases by 2020 through universal access to immunization.
Despite improvements in individual countries and a strong global rate of new
vaccine introduction, all of the GVAP targets for disease elimination—including
measles, rubella, and maternal and neonatal tetanus—are behind schedule.
Way ahead:
In order for everyone, everywhere to survive
and thrive, countries must make more concerted efforts to reach GVAP goals by
2020. Additionally, those countries that have achieved or made forward progress
towards achieving the goals must work to sustain those efforts over time – so
that no person goes without life-saving vaccines.
What’s important?
§ For Prelims: GVAP.
§ For Mains: Immunization- ned, challenges and
significance.
Sources: the hindu.
Topic: Important International institutions,
agencies and fora, their structure, mandate.
World Press Freedom Index
Context: World Press Freedom Index for the year
2018 has been released.
What is it?
Published every year since 2002 by Reporters
Without Borders (RSF), the World Press Freedom Index is an important advocacy
tool based on the principle of emulation between states.
What does it measure?
The Index ranks 180 countries according to
the level of freedom available to journalists. It is a snapshot of the media
freedom situation based on an evaluation of pluralism, independence of the
media, quality of legislative framework and safety of journalists in each
country. It does not rank public policies even if governments obviously have a
major impact on their country’s ranking. Nor is it an indicator of the quality
of journalism in each country.
Indicators:
Along with the Index, RSF calculates a global
indicator and regional indicators that evaluate the overall performance of
countries (in the world and in each region) as regards media freedom. It is an
absolute measure that complements the Index’s comparative rankings. The global
indicator is the average of the regional indicators, each of which is obtained
by averaging the scores of all the countries in the region, weighted according
to their population as given by the World Bank.
Press freedom map:
The press freedom map, which is distributed
in print and digital versions, offers a visual overview of the sitution in each
country in the Index. The colour categories are assigned as follows: good
(white), fairly good (yellow), problematic (yellow), bad (red) and very bad
(black).
Press Freedom Index 2018- Highlights:
§ In this year’s index, Norway is first for the
second year running, followed — as it was last year — by Sweden.
§ India has dropped from rank 136 last year to
rank 138 this year. India fared poorly on indicators such as hate speeches,
attacks on journalists on social media, trolling them and targeting their
reputation.
§ SAARC nations: Afghanistan (118), Bhutan
(94), Nepal (106), the Maldives (120), and Sri Lanka (131), all performed
better than India; with Pakistan (139) and Bangladesh (146) performing worse.
§ North Korea continues to rank last.
Sources: the hindu.
Paper 3:
Topic: IPR related issues.
Bureau of Indian Standards
Context: Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)
granted First Licence to M/s Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd for Liquid
Chlorine on All India basis. This is the First Licence granted on All India
basis. License for Liquid Chlorine will facilitate industry to get a quality
product with Standard Mark under BIS Certification Marks scheme.
About Liquid Chlorine:
The product is in liquid form and stored in
metal containers. It is usually used as a gas obtained by evaporating the
liquid from the metal container. It is used mainly in paper, pulp, textile
bleaching, water sterilization and manufacture of chemicals.
About BIS:
§ The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the
National Standards Body of India is a statutory organization under the Bureau
of Indian Standards Act, 1986. The organisation was formerly the Indian
Standards Institution (ISI), set up under a Resolution.
§ It works under the aegis of Ministry of
Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Government of India.
§ The Minister in charge of the Ministry or
Department having administrative control of the BIS is the ex-officio President
of the BIS.
§ As a corporate body, it has 25 members drawn
from Central or State Governments, industry, scientific and research institutions,
and consumer organisations.
What’s important?
For Prelims: BIS, liquid chlorine.
Sources: pib.
Topic: Awareness in space.
Indian National Centre for Ocean
Information Service (INCOIS)
Context: In Kerala, the Indian National Centre
for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) is planning to provide real-time
information on the market price of fishes and allied news through the
GPS-enabled GEO Augmented Navigation (GAGAN).
About GAGAN:
§ GAGAN was develped by the Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) at a
cost of Rs. 774 crore, over 15 years.
§ GAGAN will provide augmentation service for
the GPS over the country, the Bay of Bengal, South East Asia and Middle East
and up to Africa.
§ Some of its benefits are improved efficiency,
direct routes, increased fuel savings, approach with vertical guidance at
runways, significant cost savings because of the withdrawal of ground aids and
reduced workload of flight crew and air traffic controllers.
§ Gagan works by augmenting and relaying data
from GPS satellites with the help of two augmentation satellites and 15
earth-based reference stations.
§ The system utilises the satellite-based wide
area augmentation system (SBAS) technology which has been developed by
Raytheon.
Significance:
§ India is the fourth country to offer
space-based satellite navigation services to the aviation sector.
§ The system bridges the gap in the coverage
areas of the European Union’s European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service
(EGNOS) and Japan’s Multi-functional Satellite Augmentation System (MSAS).
§ The system would be available for the member
states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
§ It is intended to serve as a low-cost
substitute for instrument landing system (ILS) and provide very accurate route
guidance for the aircraft to save time and fuel.
§ The guided approach landing with the help of
GAGAN would immediately benefit nearly 50 airports in India.
About INCOIS:
§ Indian National Center for Ocean Information
Services (INCOIS) is an autonomous organization of the Government of India,
under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
§ INCOIS is mandated to provide the best
possible ocean information and advisory services to society, industry,
government agencies and the scientific community through sustained ocean
observations and constant improvements through systematic and focussed
research.
What’s important?
For Prelims and Mains: INCOIS, GAGAN- their
significance.
Sources: the hindu.
Topic: Awareness in space.
ESA’s space observatory Gaia
Context: ESA’s Gaia mission has produced the
richest star catalogue to date, including high-precision measurements of nearly
1.7 billion stars and revealing previously unseen details of our home Galaxy.
Preliminary analysis of this phenomenal data
reveals fine details about the make-up of the Milky Way’s stellar population
and about how stars move, essential information for investigating the formation
and evolution of our Galaxy.
About GAIA:
§ Gaia is an ambitious mission to chart a
three-dimensional map of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, in the process revealing
the composition, formation and evolution of the Galaxy.
§ The mission relies on a huge human
collaboration to make sense of a large volume of highly complex data. It
demonstrates the need for long-term projects to guarantee progress in space
science and technology and to implement even more daring scientific missions of
the coming decades.
§ Launched on December 19, 2013, the Gaia
satellite both rotates and orbits around the Earth, while surveying the sky
with its two telescopes.
§ Gaia will provide unprecedented positional
and radial velocity measurements with the accuracies needed to produce a
stereoscopic and kinematic census of about one billion stars in our Galaxy and
throughout the Local Group. This amounts to about 1 per cent of the Galactic
stellar population.
Sources: et.
Facts for Prelims:
National Intellectual Property (IP)
Award 2018:
Context: The Council of Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR) is awarded the National Intellectual Property (IP) Award
2018 in the category “Top R&D Institution / Organization for Patents and
Commercialization”.
About the award: The Indian Intellectual
Property Office confers National Intellectual Property (IP) Award on
outstanding innovators, organizations and companies in the fields of patents,
designs, trademarks and geographical indications on the occasion of World IP
Day every year.
Fejervarya goemchi:
Context: In the Western Ghats parts of Goa,
scientists have identified a new species of frog called Fejervarya goemchi.
Key facts:
§ The new species is named after the historical
name of the state of Goa.
§ Although most of these frogs are terrestrial,
they need water bodies to continue for survival.
First Woman Lawyer to be Appointed As
Supreme Court Judge:
Key facts:
Of the top court’s 24 judges, only one is a
woman, Justice R Banumathi. She was elevated to the top court in August 2014.
Justice Banumathi was the sixth woman to become a Supreme Court judge. Justice
Fathima Beevi was the first in 1989.
Comments
Post a Comment