Prelims Factoids
5^th Edition of Women Transforming India Awards

What's the NEWS

• NITI Aayog's Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) is organizing the fifth edition of the Women Transforming India Awards (WTI) on 21 March 2022.
• The WTI Awards will be conferred on 75 women achievers to celebrate their contribution towards a ‘Sashakt Aur Samarth Bharat'.

Know! about Women Transforming India Awards

• The Women Transforming India Awards is NITI Aayog's annual initiative to highlight the commendable and ground-breaking endeavours of India's women leaders and change-makers.

Applications for the WTI Awards '21 were invited from 1 October 2021 to 21 February 2022, under one or more than one of the following seven categories:

1. Public and Community Service
2. Manufacturing Sector
3. Non-manufacturing Sector
4. Financial Products enabling Economic Growth
5. Climate Action
6. Promote Art, Culture and Handicrafts
7. Digital Innovation

• The 75 awardees represent different regions and sectors and have been selected through an elaborate process spanning several months.
• The awardees have been selected on the basis of nominations received on WEP and through shortlisting by a search-and-select committee.

Know! about Women Entrepreneurship Platform:

• Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) is an aggregator portal that aims to catalyse the entrepreneurial ecosystem for women and address information asymmetry.
• To build a vibrant ecosystem for women-led enterprises, the platform works to strengthen industry linkages and increase awareness of existing programmes and services.
• To date, more than 900 women entrepreneurs have been benefitted through 77 programmes and events hosted on the platform.

Defence and Security/GSIII
Land Ports Authority of India (LPAI)

What's the NEWS

• Union Home and Cooperation Minister addressed the 10th Foundation Day celebrations of the Land Ports Authority of India (LPAI)
• On this occasion LPAI's magazine Bhoomi Port and Border Economy were released
• LPAI is the youngest among all the undertakings of the Ministry of Home Affairs

Know! about the Land Ports Authority of India or LPAI

• It has been stablished as a statutory body (created through the Land Ports Authority of India Act, 2010) under the Department of Border Management, Ministry of Home Affairs
• It is entrusted with the task of building land ports on India‘s borders and provide state of the art infrastructure facilities to facilitate seamless and efficient movement of cargo and passengers
• Objective - reducing dwell time and trade transaction costs, promote regional trade and people-to-people contact and imbibe the best international practices.
• It is responsible for creating, upgrading, maintaining and managing border infrastructure in India.
• It manages several Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) all across Borders of India.
• LPAI was setup by Land Ports Authority of India Act, 2010 of Parliament of India on 1 March 2012.
• The Committee of Secretaries in 2003 recommended setting up of Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) that would house all regulatory agencies in a single sanitized complex
• ICPs provide complete state of the art infrastructure facilities such as warehouses, examination sheds, parking bays, weighbridges etc. for cross border movement of passengers and goods at designated locations along India's international border.
• There are currently nine ICPs operational in India at Attari, Agartala, Petrapole, Raxaul, Jogbani, Moreh, Sutarkandi, Srimantapur and PTB at Dera Baba Nanak.
• In 2020-21, ICPs in India facilitated trade worth Rs 95,488 crores and passenger movement of 2,62,396 persons.

Prelims Factoids/Bilateral Relations/GSII
Mujib - The Making of a Nation

What's the NEWS

• Renowned director Shyam Benegal has released the poster of the film Mujib - The Making of a Nation, a biopic on Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the nation of Bangladesh.

Know! about the film

• The film on ‘Bangabandhu' is being made under an Audio Visual Co-Production Agreement between the Republic of India and the People's Republic of Bangladesh.
• India and Bangladesh had announced a biopic on Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, during the commemoration of the birth centenary of Bangabandhu.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman - Father of the nation of Bangladesh

• Mujib, provided the political leadership for the independence of Bangladesh in 1971.
• Mujib was born in a prestigious Muslim family and grew up in a religious and harmonious atmosphere.
• He struggled against the disparity and deprivation between West Pakistan and East Pakistan and against the Pakistani Military rule.
• He was imprisoned for about 11 years in the period 1947 to 1971.
• He strived and achieved the formation of an independent and sovereign state "Bangladesh".
• That's why Mujib is known as the Father of the Nation of Bangladesh, as ‘Bangabandhu'.

Know! about National Film Development Corporation (NFDC)

• Incorporated in the year 1975, National Film Development Corporation Ltd was set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India with the primary objective of promoting the good cinema movement in India.
• NFDC is instrumental in creating an ecosystem to support the financing, distribution and development of independent films across the country in various Indian languages.

Know! about Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (BFDC)

• The organization was founded in 1959 as the East Pakistan Film Development Corporation which was changed to Bangladesh Film Development Corporation after Bangladesh achieved independence in 1971.

Disaster Management/GSIII
Disaster Management Plan of Ministry of Panchayati Raj released

What's the NEWS

• Union Minister of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj released the Disaster Management Plan of Ministry of Panchayati Raj
• The Ministry of Panchayati Raj has developed the Disaster Management Plan with an aim to develop disaster resilience at the grassroots level among the Panchayats and establish a framework to align the disaster management measures in rural areas to that of the National Disaster Management Authority'.
• Objective - To formulate Panchayat-level and village-level Disaster Management Plans to mitigate the challenges in the event of disaster.

Managing disasters comprehensively - preparedness strategy

• People's participation in preparedness for disaster management
• Mitigation activities at grassroots level.
• Active participation of the community is vital to carry out the activities relating to disaster management in rural areas.
• Community-based disaster management
• Convergence and collective action with programs and schemes of different Ministries / Departments.

Disaster Management Plan of Ministry of Panchayati Raj (DMP-MoPR) - Highlights

• The Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) has prepared this Disaster Management Plan (DMP) so that all Panchayati Raj Institutions along with communities can be prepared for any disaster.
• DMP-MoPR incorporates many innovations in addition to being in compliance with Disaster Management Act 2005, National Disaster Management Policy 2009, and guidelines issued by National Disaster Management Authority.
• DMP-MoPR would contribute to the efforts of the Government in bringing convergence in disaster management and planning in rural areas.
• DMP-MoPR has been prepared with larger perspective of community-based planning starting from Village to District Panchayat level.
• Under the Plan, every Indian village would have "Village Disaster Management Plan" and every Panchayat would have their Disaster Management Plan.
• All stakeholders including PRIs, elected representatives and functionaries of Panchayats etc. would participate in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the plan.
• This plan would be extremely useful for ensuring a participatory planning process for DMPs which is integrated with GPDP for addressing disasters across the country

Infrastructure Development/Indigenisation of Technology/GSIII
Construction of First Beagle Series 12 Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger

What's the NEWS

• Dredging Corporation of India has signed a historic Ship Building Agreement for the First Make in India Project for Construction of First Beagle Series 12 Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger of 12000 Cubic Meter capacity at Cochin Shipyard Limited

Know! more about the agreement

• The dredger - to be christened DCI Dredge Brahmaputra - will be constructed with technology and design support from Royal IHC.
• This TSHD is going to be the first dredger to be built by Cochin Shipyard at its yard in Cochin following a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with Royal IHC in November 2020 for collaboration on technology and design for high capacity, complex dredgers.
• Dredging is key to ensure that the coastal and inland shipping volumes of India grow.
• This will be the largest, most sophisticated and technologically improved dredger ever built in India.
• Also, this is a significant development since all dredgers in the country have been completely imported units till now.
• This Ship Building Agreement would also benefit from the Shipbuilding Financial Assistance Policy (SFAP) (2016) of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways for Indian Shipyards for shipbuilding contracts

Know! about DCIL

• Dredging Corporation of India Limited (DCIL), Visakhapatnam is a listed dredging company in India with majority of its shares held by the consortium of four (4) major ports Authorities viz a viz, Visakhapatnam Port, Paradip Port, Jawaharlal Nehru Port and Deendayal Port.
• DCI is a premier dredging organization of India catering to the dredging and allied services to Major Ports, Minor Ports, Indian Navy, Fishing Harbours and other maritime organizations.

Royal IHC

• Previously IHC Holland, IHC Holland Merwede and IHC Merwede is a Dutch shipbuilding company with headquarters in Kinderdijk.
• It focuses on the development, design and construction of ships for the dredging and offshore industries

Miscellaneous/Prelims Factoids
Hackathon "Sprint03: InsureTech" under I-Sprint'21

What's the NEWS

• International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), in its endeavour to support a World Class FinTech Hub at GIFT IFSC, had launched I-Sprint'21, the global FinTech Hackathon as part of InFinity Forum 2021

InFinity Forum

• InFinity Forum is IFSCA's flagship financial technology event, uniting the world's leading minds in policy, business, and technology to explore and advance the biggest ideas in FinTech, and to develop those ideas into global solutions and opportunities.

Sprint03:InsureTech

• "Sprint03:InsureTech" under the banner of I-Sprint'21 was launched with a focus on Insurance Sector and was hosted by IFSCA and GIFT city in collaboration with FICCI.
• The Partners to the Hackathon were ICICI Lombard, Max Life, iCreate, India Insure-Tech Association and Invest-India.
• This Hackathon was open to all eligible FinTechs from across the globe and was one of its kind being backed by a financial sector Regulator.
• After multiple rounds of assessment, 6 (six) applicants (4 domestic and 2 overseas) are declared winners of the InsureTechs Hackathon
• These winners of the Hackathon will be allowed direct entry into the applicable IFSCA Regulatory/Innovation Sandbox.
• They will receive Regulatory guidance and handholding.
• After successful exit from the respective Sandbox, they shall get an opportunity to set up business at GIFT IFSC.

Defence/Location in NEWS
Zoji La Pass
What's the NEWS

• Border Roads Organisation (BRO) opened the gateway between Union Territories of Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir - the Zoji La Pass - for traffic on Srinagar-Kargil-Leh road at 11,650 feet on March 19, 2022, setting up an all-time record of the pass being opened after just 73 days of its closure this year.
• Since February 15, 2022, the snow clearance operations were undertaken from both sides of the pass by Project Beacon and Vijayak, located in J&K and Ladakh respectively.

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