Social Issues
SAGE (Seniorcare Ageing Growth Engine) initiative and SAGE portal to support India's elderly launched

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about SAGE initiative and portal + Sacred Portal + Vayoshreshtha Samman-2021) + Mains ( GS II Social issues)
What's the NEWS

• The Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment launched the SAGE (Seniorcare Aging Growth Engine) initiative and SAGE portal for elderly persons

Know! about the SAGE Portal

• The SAGE portal will be a "one-stop access" of elderly care products and services by credible start-ups.
• SAGE programme and SAGE portal have been launched with a view to help such persons who are interested in entrepreneurship in the field of providing services for elderly care
• The start-ups will be selected on the basis of innovative products and services, which they should be able to provide across sectors such as health, housing, care centers, apart from technological access linked to finances, food and wealth management, and legal guidance.
• The Ministry has designed SAGE programme as per the suggestions of the Empowered Committee on start-ups for the elderly to solicit the involvement of youth and their innovative ideas for elderly care.
• Start-ups can apply for being a part of SAGE through a dedicated portal
• The start-ups will be selected by an independent screening committee of experts.
• The inter-ministerial committee for the Senior Citizen Welfare Fund (SCWF) has considered funding of about Rs 100 crore as equity support to the selected start-ups with a maximum of Rs one core per start-up
• A fund of uptoRs.1 crore as one-time equity will be granted to each selected start-up.
• The SAGE project aims to identify, evaluate, verify, aggregate, and deliver products, solutions and services directly to the stakeholders.
• The Ministry will act as a facilitator, enabling the elderly to access the products through these identified start-ups.

India's elderly population

• India's elderly population is on the rise, and as per surveys, the share of elders, as a percentage of the total population in the country, is expected to increase from around 7.5% in 2001 to almost 12.5% by 2026, and surpass 19.5% by 2050.

SACRED PORTAL

• Senior citizens seeking work opportunities will be able to register on a first-of-its-kind dedicated employment exchange from October 1.
• The portal developed by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is named Senior Able Citizens for Re-Employment in Dignity (SACRED).
• Citizens above 60 years of age can register on the portal and find jobs and work opportunities
• The SACRED job portal will serve as an enabler for people looking for work and not as a platform guaranteeing employment
• The Senior Able Citizens for Re-Employment in Dignity (SACRED) portal, which will link senior citizens with private-sector employment sources.

Elderly Line

• The Government of India along with the partnership of Tata Trust established this Elderly Line 14567, which will be functional for 12-hours a day to address the concerns of senior citizens throughout the nation.
• According to the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI) report-2020, over half of the older person population are active which is making it critical to give them meaningful job options in order to have a happy, healthy, empowered, and self-reliant living.

Vayoshreshtha Samman-2021

• The United Nations General Assembly had declared October 1, 1999, to be the International Day of Older Persons, and each year this day has been observed as the International Day of Older Persons across the globe.
• On the occasion of the International Day of Older Persons, the Ministry of Social Justice bestowed the Vayoshreshtha Samman-2021 award to distinguished senior individuals in honour of their contributions to the cause of the older citizens.
• This year, the International Day of Older Persons is celebrated with the theme 'Digital Equity for All Ages'.

Prelims Factoids
Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO), Hanle

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO)
What's the NEWS

• A team of world-renowned researchers, who studies the best Astronomical Observatories in the world, found that Indian Astronomical site IAO-Hanle was best after the Paranal Observatory, located in the high altitude desert in Chile,

Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO)

• The Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) located at Hanle near Leh in Ladakh is becoming one of the promising observatory sites globally with clear night skies round the year
• The IAO-Hanle observatory has the advantages of more clear nights, minimal light pollution, and background aerosol concentration.
• The extremely dry atmospheric condition and little interruption by Monsoon have made it a favorite among scientists
• Night observations at IAO-Hanle from 2m-Himalayan Chandra Telescope (HCT) are possible throughout the year without any interruption due to monsoons.
• Researchers from India and their collaborators carried out a detailed study of the night time cloud cover fraction over 8 high altitude observatories, including three in India.
• They analysed datasets for the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO) in Hanle and Merak (Ladakh), and Devasthal (Nainital) in India.

Government Schemes
Indian Labour Ministry, Microsoft India Launch Skill Training Programme, DigiSaksham

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about DigiSaksham) + Mains ( GS II government policies and initiatives)
What's the NEWS

• Union Minister for Labour and Employment launched DigiSaksham - a digital skills programme to enhance the employability of youth by imparting digital skills that are required in an increasingly technology driven era.
• It will provide free of cost training in digital skills as well as advanced computing

Know! about Digisaksham

• This joint initiative with Microsoft India is an extension of the Government's ongoing programs to support the youth from rural and semi-urban areas.
• Through DigiSaksham initiative, free of cost training in digital skills including basic skills as well as advance computing, will be provided to more than 3 lakh youths in the first year.
• The initiative gives priority to the job-seekers of semi urban areas belonging to disadvantaged communities, including those who have lost their jobs due to Covid-19 pandemic.
• There are three types of training under it which include Self-paced learning, VILT mode learning, and ILT mode learning.
• The ILT training is an in-person programme that will be conducted at the Model Career Centres and National Career Service Centres across the country.
• Through this initiative, nearly one crore active jobseekers registered on National Career Service (NCS) Portal will be able to access training in areas like Java Script, Data Visualisation, Advance Excel, Power Bi, HTML, Programming languages etc, equipping them with the skills required in a digital economy.
• DigiSaksham will be implemented in the field by Aga Khan Rural Support Programme India (AKRSP-I).
• The DigiSaksham initiative will equip more than 300,000 youth in technical skills in the first year.

Know about NCS Portal

• The Jobseekers can access the training through National Career Service (NCS) Portal.
• The Ministry of Labour and Employment is implementing the National Career Service (NCS) Project as a Mission Mode Project for transformation of the National Employment Service to provide a variety of employment related services like job matching, career counselling, vocational guidance, information on skill development courses, apprenticeship, internships etc.

Prelims Factoids
WETLANDS OF INDIA' PORTAL
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Wetlands of India Portal)
What's the NEWS

• Union Minister of Environment launched a web portal - ‘Wetlands of India Portal' (http://indianwetlands.in/), giving details on wetlands of the country.

Know! about the portal

• The portal is a single point access to all information relating to wetlands.
• The portal has been developed under a Technical Cooperation project "Wetlands Management for Biodiversity and Climate Protection" (Wetlands Project) of Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) in partnership with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.
• The project is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) under the International Climate Initiative (IKI).

Prelims Factoids
Mitra Shakti 21

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Mitra Shakti exercise)
What's the NEWS

• The 8^th Edition of India Sri Lanka bilateral joint Exercise Mitra Shakti will be conducted at Combat Training School, Ampara in Sri Lanka from 4 to 15 October 2021.
• An all arms contingent of 120 personnel of the Indian Army will participate in the exercise along with a battalion of the Sri Lankan Army.
• The aim of the exercise is to promote close relations between Armies of both countries and enhance inter-operability and sharing best practices in counter insurgency and counter terrorism operations.
• The 7^th Edition of Exercise Mitra Shakti was conducted at Foreign Training Node (FTN), Pune, Maharashtra (India) in 2019.

Government Initiatives
NITI Aayog, AWS, Intel collaborate to launch experience studio for startups

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about NITI Aayog Frontier Technologies Cloud Innovation Centre (CIC) and the role of new studio)
What's the NEWS

• NITI Aayog, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Intel have come together to establish a new experience studio that will be a hub for collaboration and experimentation.
• The studio has been set up at the NITI Aayog Frontier Technologies Cloud Innovation Centre (CIC) in NITI Aayog's premises
• NITI Aayog Frontier Technologies CIC was established in October 2020 as part of the AWS Cloud Innovation Centers Global Program.

Know! about the Cloud Innovation Centers

• The facility will be a hub for collaboration and experimentation to enable problem-solving and innovation between government stakeholders, startups, enterprises, and industry domain experts
• The Studio will help showcase the potential of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/ VR), blockchain, and robotics to accelerate their application in public sector use cases, it added.
• It will encourage open innovation and serve as a hub for government, healthcare, education, and non-profit startups from India to showcase their solutions.
• It will also provide startups with an option to access the necessary support to enhance and scale their solutions
• NITI Aayog will leverage the studio to demonstrate the application of geospatial, AR/VR, drone, and IoT solutions in verticals such as healthcare, agriculture, and smart infrastructure.
• Startups will be encouraged to participate actively in the studio through hackathons, grand challenges, and other capacity-building initiatives, in collaboration with the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and Atal Incubation Centres (AIC)

Prelims Factoids
Langa-Manganiyar heritage

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the Langa-Manganiy community)
What's the NEWS

• Considered the repository of the Thar region's rich history and traditional knowledge, the ballads, folklore and songs of the Langa-Manganiyar artistes are being preserved through an initiative for documentation and digitisation.

Know! about Langa and Manganiyar community

• The Langas and Manganiyars are hereditary communities of Muslim musicians residing mostly in western Rajasthan's Jaisalmer and Barmer districts and in Pakistan's Tharparkar and Sanghar districts in Sindh.
• The music of the two marginalised communities, who were supported by wealthy landlords and merchants before Independence, forms a vital part of Thar desert's cultural landscape.
• The iconic and internationally acclaimed folk artistes have, however, been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic that stopped their performances in India and abroad and poses a challenge to the very survival of the popular art form.
• The project is aimed at saving the rapidly disappearing narrative traditions of these communities.
• The Jodhpur-based Rupayan Sansthan has extended support to the initiative taken by the Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology at the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) in the research project.

Prelims Factoids
The State Nutrition Profiles

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the ‘State Nutrition Profiles' (SNPs)
What's the NEWS

• NITI Aayog, in a joint effort with International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Indian Institute of Population Sciences (IIPS), UNICEF and Institute of Economic Growth (IEG) launched ‘The State Nutrition Profiles" for 19 States and Union Territories

The ‘State Nutrition Profiles' (SNPs) - highlights

• SNPs insights on nutrition outcomes, immediate and underlying determinants and interventions based on NFHS-rounds 3, 4 and 5.
• The SNPs include a comprehensive compilation of crucial data that can positively affect policy decisions and facilitate research in the area.
• The trend analysis of key indicators such as wasting, stunting, anemia, underweight and overweight and NCDs (Diabetes and High blood pressure) showcase the variability of performance across districts.
• The reports highlight the best and worst performing districts, highest burden districts and top coverage districts of the country.
• The SNPs are based on the headcount-based analyses and use of data from NFHS-5 to provide evidence that helps identify priority districts and number of districts in the state with public health concern as per WHO guidelines.
• Each SNP has incorporated key takeaways for children, women and men and identifies areas where the state has the potential to improve further.

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