Social Issues
NITI AAYOG -TRIFED join hands for successful implementation of Van DhanYojana in Tribal Clusters of Aspirational Districts of India

Relevance IN- Prelims ( about Van DhanYojana + Aspirational Districts.) + Mains ( GS II welfare schemes for the welfare of vulnerable section of population)
What's the NEWS

• TRIFED is collaborating with NITI Aayog to implement the Van DhanYojana in the districts that have been identified as aspirational districts by NITI Aayog.

Know! about the programme

• TRIFED's Van DhanYojana is in different stages of implementation in the 124 districts which have been declared as Aspirational Districts.
• In these districts the classification has been done based on the percentage of tribal population as well as the economic feasibility of formation of VDVKCs in the district.
• Under the program the processing and value-addition to MFP will be done in a well-equipped common facility centres which are to be called Van DhanVikas Kendra.
• The collaboration and partnership with NITI Aayog along with the support of the collectors and other district officials is aimed at a complete transformation of the tribal ecosystem across the country.

The Van Dhan Scheme

• It is an initiative of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and TRIFED.
• It was launched on 14^th April, 2018
• It seeks to improve tribal incomes through value addition of tribal products.
• The scheme will be implemented through Ministry of Tribal Affairs as Nodal Department at the Central Level and TRIFED as Nodal Agency at the National Level.
• At State level, the State Nodal Agency for MFPs and the District collectors are envisaged to play a pivot role in scheme implementation at grassroot level.
• Locally the Kendras are proposed to be managed by a Managing Committee (an SHG) consisting of representatives of Van Dhan SHGs in the cluster.
• A cluster of ten such SHGs within the same village shall form a Van Dhan Vikas Kendra.
• Under Van Dhan, 10 Self Help Groups of 30 Tribal gatherers is constituted.
• The establishment of "Van Dhan Vikas Kendra" is for providing skill upgradation and capacity building training and setting up of primary processing and value addition facility.

Initiatives of TRIFED generating employment and income for the tribal population.

• The Van Dhan tribal start-ups
• Mechanism for Marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) Through Minimum Support Price (MSP)
• Development of Value Chain for MFP' Scheme that provides MSP to gatherers of forest produces
• Value addition and marketing through tribal groups and clusters
• Tribals have been made legal owners of MFP in their areas.
• Minimum Support Price (MSP) has been announced for several MFPs.

TRIFED

• The Ministry of Tribal Affairs launched the Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India (TRIFED) in 1987.

TRIFED has two significant functions:

• Retail Marketing of Tribal Products
• Development of MFP (Minor Forest Produce)

Objectives

• Promoting and encouraging Socio-Economic development of the tribal community by improving and developing the market of the tribal commodities.
• TRIFED acts as a medium and a facilitator that helps the tribes sell their products.

Know! about Aspirational Districts

• Launched in January 2018, the ‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts' initiative aims to remove this heterogeneity through a mass movement to quickly and effectively transform these districts.

The broad contours of the programme are

•  Convergence (of Central & State Schemes)
•  Collaboration (of Central, State level ‘Prabhari' Officers & District Collectors), and
•  Competition among districts driven by a spirit of mass Movement.
  

• With States as the main drivers, this program will focus on the strength of each district, identify low-hanging fruits for immediate improvement, measure progress, and rank districts.

Selection of districts

• The 115 districts were identified from each state in a transparent manner by a committee of Senior Officers to the Government of India, in consultation with State Officials using a composite index of key data sets that included deprivation enumerated under the Socio-Economic Caste Census, key health and education sector performance and state of basic infrastructure.

Institutional framework

• NITI Aayog anchors the programme with support from Central Ministries and the State Governments.
• While NITI Aayog is steering the initiative in 30 districts, various central ministries oversee 50 districts besides the Ministry of Home Affairs, which focuses on 35 Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected districts.
• Officers at the level of Joint Secretary / Additional Secretary have been nominated to become the ‘Central Prabhari Officers' of each district.
• States have appointed state-nodal and Prabhari officers.
• An Empowered Committee under the Convenorship of the CEO, NITI Aayog will help in the convergence of various government schemes and streamlining of efforts.

Government Schemes
Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Padhati (BPKP)

Relevance IN- Prelims ( about BPKP)
What's the NEWS

• Government is implementing Bhartiya Prakritik Krishi Padhati (BPKP) as a sub scheme of Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) since 2020-21 for the promotion of traditional indigenous practices.

Know! about BPKP

• It is a Centrally sponsored scheme
• The scheme mainly emphasizes on exclusion of all synthetic chemical inputs
• It promotes on-farm biomass recycling with major stress on biomass mulching; use of cow dung-urine formulations; plant-based preparations and time to time working of soil for aeration.
• Under BPKP, financial assistance of Rs 12200/ha for 3 years is provided for cluster formation, capacity building and continuous handholding by trained personnel, certification and residue analysis.
• This scheme aims to promote Natural Farming and traditional indigenous practices.

Education
National Research Foundation to strengthen the research ecosystem in the country

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about NRF) + Mains ( GS II Education)
What's the NEWS

• The Government proposes to set up a National Research Foundation (NRF) to strengthen the research ecosystem in the country.

Know! about NRF

• NRF is being envisaged as an umbrella structure that will improve linkages between R&D, academia and industry.
• The total proposed outlay of National Research Foundation is Rs 50,000 crore over a period of five years.
• One of the main objectives of NRF is to seed, grow and facilitate research at academic institutions, particularly at universities and colleges, where research capacity is currently in a nascent stage.
• It will also fund and support high-impact, large-scale, multi-investigator, multi-institution and, in some cases, interdisciplinary or multi-nation projects in collaboration with relevant Ministries, Departments, and other Governmental and non-Governmental entities, especially industry.

National Education Policy, 2020 (NEP) - Promoting regional languages

• The Government announced the National Education Policy, 2020 (NEP) on 29-07-2020, after a gap of 34 years.
• The policy envisages transformational changes in the education sector.
• One of the major recommendations in this regard is to promote more and more use of regional languages in education.

In this regard, the Government has taken a number of steps including:

• NEET exam for medical entrance will now be conducted in 13 languages.
• JEE (Main) will now be conducted in 13 languages.
• Technical education in 8 Regional languages in certain AICTE approved institutions from the academic session 2021-2022 on pilot basis.
• Translation of reference materials for courses of engineering in regional languages under SWAYAM platform, which has been offering online courses in disciplines such as Science, Engineering & Technology, Humanities & Social Sciences, Law, Management etc.
• "AICTE Translation Automation Artificial Intelligence Tool" to translate English language online courses into eleven different languages
• Student Induction Program (SIP) , now a mandatory part of curriculum for students of first year in engineering, being delivered in regional language

Prelims Factoids
Gross Environment Product' (GEP)
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about GEP)
What's the NEWS

• Uttarakhand is set to become the first state in the country to assign monetary value to four of its critical natural resources -- air, water, forest and soil.
• The quality and quantity of these natural resources would determine the Gross Environment Product (GEP) of the state which would be used in evaluating the state's Gross Domestic Product GDP).
• It will initiate valuation of its natural resources in the form of ‘Gross Environment Product' (GEP)
• GEP is the measure of ecosystem services of any area.
• It reflects the aggregated annual value of goods and services provided by ecosystems (forests, water bodies, oceans, etc.) to people in a given region, such as at district levels, state, and country.

Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP)

• It aims to specific indicators to measure the total economic value of all ecosystem products and services.
• GEP is the total value of final ecosystem goods and services supplied to human well-being in a region annually, and can be measured in terms of biophysical value and monetary value.
• Ecosystems that can be measured include natural ecosystems such as forests, grassland, wetland, desert, freshwater and ocean, and artificial systems that are based on natural processes like farmland, pastures, aquaculture farms and urban green land, etc.
• GEP provides powerful scientific support and future indicators for ecological civilization construction.

Objectives:

• To quantify the linkages between ecosystems and human well-being so as to assist in the development of sustainable management and governance of ecosystems.

Expected Outputs:

• Provide GEP standards and guidelines for government, private sectors and scientific organizations, etc.
• Assist the related decision-making and international negotiation process
• Mainstream ecosystem values into policy decisions

Ecosystem services

• It represent the benefits humans get: Forests, lakes, and grasslands; timber and dyed; carbon sequestration and nutrient cycling; soil formation and productivity; and tourism.

Benefits

• GEP can be applied as a scientific basis for Eco-Compensation and public financial transfers.
• For example, Finance Commission's revenue-sharing formula between the Union and the states including forest cover as a determining factor in a state's share.
• GEP can be applied to measure the status of ecosystem services, which is an important indicator of sustainable development.
• It is also a critical indicator for measuring the progress of Eco-civilization.
• Its implementation can help assess the impact of anthropological pressure on our ecosystem and natural resources- air, water, soil, forests.

Polity
Right to be forgotten (RTBF).
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about RTBF + about Personal Data Protection Bill
What's the NEWS

• A Delhi based actor has approached the Delhi High Court with a plea saying that his videos, photographs and articles etc. be removed from the internet citing his "Right to be Forgotten".
• In the plea, he also maintains that the "Right to be Forgotten" goes in sync with the "Right to Privacy", which is an integral part of Article 21 of the Constitution, which concerns the right to life.

Know! about Right to be Forgotten

• The Right to be Forgotten falls under the purview of an individual's right to privacy, which is governed by the Personal Data Protection Bill that is yet to be passed by Parliament.
• In 2017, the Right to Privacy was declared a fundamental right by the Supreme Court in its landmark verdict.
• The court said at the time that, "the right to privacy is protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and as a part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution".

Provision under Personal Data Protection Bill

• The Personal Data Protection Bill aims to set out provisions meant for the protection of the personal data of individuals.
• Clause 20 under Chapter V of this draft bill titled "Rights of Data Principal" mentions the "Right to be Forgotten."
• It states that the "data principal (the person to whom the data is related) shall have the right to restrict or prevent the continuing disclosure of his personal data by a data fiduciary".
• Under the Right to be forgotten, users can de-link, limit, delete or correct the disclosure of their personal information held by data fiduciaries.
• A data fiduciary means any person, including the State, a company, any juristic entity or any individual who alone or in conjunction with others determines the purpose and means of processing of personal data.

The role of Data Protection Authority (DPA).

• The sensitivity of the personal data and information cannot be determined independently by the person concerned, but will be overseen by the Data Protection Authority (DPA).
• The draft bill gives some provisions under which a data principal can seek that his data be removed, but his or her rights are subject to authorisation by the Adjudicating Officer who works for the DPA.

The "right to be forgotten" in other country

• In the European Union (EU), the right to be forgotten empowers individuals to ask organisations to delete their personal data.
• It is provided by the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a law passed by the 28-member bloc in 2018.
• In its landmark ruling, the EU's highest court ruled in 2019 that the ‘right to be forgotten' under European law would not apply beyond the borders of EU member states.
• This ruling was considered an important victory for Google, and laid down that the online privacy law cannot be used to regulate the internet in countries such as India, which are outside the EU.

Government Schemes
PLI Scheme for Specialty Steel

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for specialty steel. + Mains( GS II government policies and interventions)
What's the NEWS

• Union Cabinet, approved the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for specialty steel.
• The duration of the scheme will be five years, from 2023-24 to 2027-28.
• The scheme is expected to bring in investment of approximately Rs.40,000 crores and capacity addition of 25 MT for speciality steel.
• The scheme will give employment to about 5,25,000 people of which 68,000 will be direct employment.

Why Speciality steel chosen under PLI

• Speciality steel has been chosen as the target segment because out of the production of 102 million tonnes steel in India in 2020-21, only18 million tonnes value added steel/speciality steel was produced in the country.
• Apart from this out of 6.7 million tonnes of imports in the same year, approx. 4 million tonnes import was of specialty steel alone resulting in FOREX outgo of Approx. Rs. 30,000 crores.
• By becoming Aatmanirbhar in producing speciality steel, India will move up the steel value chain and come at par with advanced steel making countries like Korea and Japan.

Know! about Specialty steel

• It is value added steel wherein normal finished steel is worked upon by way of coating, plating, heat treatment, etc to convert it into high value added steel which can be used in various strategic applications like Defence, Space, Power, apart from automobile sector, specialized capital goods etc.

The five categories of specialty steel which have been chosen in the PLI Scheme are:
A. Coated/Plated Steel Products
B. High Strength/Wear resistant Steel
C. Specialty Rails
D. Alloy Steel Products and Steel wires
E. Electrical Steel


Know! about PLI Scheme:

• In order to boost domestic manufacturing and cut down on import bills, the central government in March 2020 introduced a PLI scheme that aims to give companies incentives on incremental sales from products manufactured in domestic units.
• The scheme invites foreign companies to set units in India
• It also aims to encourage local companies to set up or expand existing manufacturing units.
• The Scheme has also been approved for sectors such as automobiles, pharmaceuticals, IT hardware including laptops, mobile phones & telecom equipment, white goods, chemical cells, food processing and textiles, etc.

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