Prelims Factoids
Rani Velu Nachiyar

What's the NEWS

• The Prime Minister has paid tributes to Rani Velu Nachiyar on her birth anniversary.

• Born on January 3, 1730, Rani Velu Nachiyar was the queen of the Sivaganga estate and was also the first Queen to wage a war against East India Company rule in India.
• She was not just trained in various methods of combat but was also a scholar in many languages and proficient in English, French, Urdu, and other languages.
• It was after her marriage that she decided to stand against British rule when her husband the king of Sivaganga was killed in a battle with British soldiers.
• During this while, she formed an alliance with Hyder Ali and launched a campaign against the Britishers.
• She also inherited the kingdom of her husband which was taken over by the British and later ruled over it for around 10 years after which the throne was taken over by her daughter.

• Union Education Minister launched NEAT 3.0, a single platform to provide the best-developed ed-tech solutions and courses to students of the country.
• The Minister also launched AICTE prescribed technical books in regional languages.

• It is an initiative to provide the use of best-developed technological solutions in the education sector to enhance the employability of the youth on a single platform for learners' convenience.
• These solutions use Artificial Intelligence for a personalized and customized learning experience for better learning outcomes and skill development in the niche areas.
• AICTE, MoE is acting as the facilitator in the process while ensuring that the solutions are freely available to a large number of socially and economically backward students.
• NEAT has 58 Education Technology Companies with 100 products that help to develop employable skills, capacity building, and bridge learning gaps.

• The e-content & resources and Digital frameworks like NEAT are a step in the right direction in minimising learning loss.
• NEAT will be a game-changer in bridging the digital divide, especially among the economically disadvantaged students and also in fulfilling the knowledge-based requirement of India and the world.
• 58 global and Indian start-up ed-tech companies are onboard NEAT and are offering 100 courses & e-resources for bettering learning outcomes, developing employable skills and overcoming learning loss.
• Today, more than 12 lakh socially and economically disadvantaged students have received free ed-tech course coupons worth over ₹253 crore under NEAT 3.0.

• Learning in regional languages will further develop the critical thinking capacity & enable our youth to become global citizens.

• The Union Home Secretary released three Manuals and a Newsletter of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Cyber and Information Security Division (CIS) of the Ministry of Home Affairs

• The manuals are part of a focussed awareness campaign for prevention of cyber crimes and to inculcate cyber hygiene in rural areas, industrial bodies, and the general public.
• The Quarterly Newsletter - "CyberPravah", covers introduction to I4C, various activities of I4C, cyber crime trends/patterns, statistics, facilities created by I4C, platforms for reporting and addressing cyber crimes to make all the stakeholders aware and to provide assistance in the area of cyber crime prevention, detection and investigation.
• It also aims to create awareness about recent developments in the field of cyber crimes and cyber crime terminology.

• The I4C was set up under the CIS Division in 2018, as an Agency for coordinating at the Central level and to support States/UTs by providing a common framework in their fight against cybercrimes.
• I4C is spreading mass awareness through various social media handles in the name of ‘CyberDost' by providing cyber safety tips at frequent intervals for the public.

• Sri Lanka's Energy Minister announced that the Indian Oil Subsidiary Lanka IOC would be given 49% stake in the joint development of the Trincomalee Oil Tank farm, with Ceylon Petroleum Corporation keeping 51%.

• If it goes according to plan India and Sri Lanka would have finally achieved the implementation of an agreement - contained in an exchange of letters between then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J R Jayewarndene as part of the annexure to the India-Sri Lanka Accord of July 29, 1987 - that the tank farm would be developed jointly.

• The CPC has formed a special purpose company, Trinco Petroleum Terminals Ltd, and it is expected to get Cabinet approval this week.
• While the two sides will jointly refurbish 61 of the 99 tanks at the farm, 24 will be developed by CPC and 14 by LIOC.
• This arrangement is for the next 50 years. The next step is three formal agreements: two between CPC and LIOC - one for the joint development and the other for the 24 tanks to CPC - and the third between the Sri Lankan government and LIOC.

• Initially reluctant about investing too much in Trinco, India began pushing for the project only after China swung Hambantota in 2010.
• The pre-WWII era oil storage facility has a capacity of nearly 1 million tonnes, which far outstrips the demand in Sri Lanka.
• Located inland from China Bay, the facility was meant to be serviced by the natural harbour at Trincomalee.
• In 2010-2011, LIOC officials had pitched for refurbishing the tank farm as an extension of Indian Oil storage on the Indian east coast, or for developing it as a refuelling facility to small ships.
• Trincomalee is the nearest port to Chennai.
• At this time though, India's interest is to prevent a third country from entering the 850-acre facility.
• Even though CPC is the majority stakeholder, it is understood that India will put up the money for the development .

• Raksha Mantri inaugurated Kalpana Chawla Centre for Research in Space Science & Technology (KCCRSST) at Chandigarh University
• It is established with the objective of training students in space science, satellite development and meet future challenges in space research.

• KCCRSST would be the Ground Control Station for the Chandigarh University's Student Satellite (CUSat), an in-house developed nano-satellite being designed by the students of the university and a Geo-Spatial Centre for research, besides other projects.
• The CUSat will be among the 75 student-built satellites to be launched into space on the eve of the 75^th Independence Day in 2022.
• The Chandigarh University has joined the list of 13 institutes like Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, IIT Bombay and became the first university in North India to design and develop its own satellite.
• With the launch of CUSat, Punjab will become the first border state in India to have its own satellite in space.
• The launch of the university's nanosatellite - CUSat will prove to be an important step for the country, as it will collect data related to border intrusion detection, agriculture, weather forecasting, natural disaster forecasting, which will be helpful in research and study of various problems in these areas.

Prelims Factoids
GitHub

What's the NEWS

• The open-source software repository service GitHub is in the news after it was used to create and share an offensively named app that sexually harassed Muslim women in India.
• The app used pictures of the women stolen from their social media handles and invited "users" to bid for them.
• GitHub has blocked the user, and the Indian Computer Emergency Response System (Cert-In), the nodal agency for monitoring cyber security incidents, has been asked to form "a high-level committee" to investigate.

• GitHub is the world's largest open-source developer community platform where users upload their projects and code for others to view, edit, and tweak.
• In GitHub any developer can upload whatever software code or app code or software idea they have on the platform, and have others collaborate with them to help improve it, find errors, and fix problems.
• The platform uses the software Git, which was created in 2005 by Linus Trovalds, the developer of the open-source operating system Linux, to track changes in a set of files and for coordination in software development.

KEEP Learning KEEP Evolving
TEAM CL IAS