Daily Current Capsules 05th April 2022

Personalities in NEWS/Prelims Factoids
Prahladji Patel

What's the NEWS

• The Prime Minister addressed the 115th Janam Jayanti and release of biography event of Shri Prahladji Patel at Becharaji, Gujarat
• The Prime Minister noted Shri Prahladji Patel's generosity in social service and his sacrifice.
• The freedom fighter joined the freedom struggle on the call of Mahatma Gandhi and underwent imprisonment in Sabarmati and Yerawada .
• Prahlad Patel helped Sardar Patel in merging the princely states in India after independence
• The Prime Minister lamented that many such great freedom fighters do not find any mention in the history books.

 

Information given by the Minister in Parliament
Krishi Udan Scheme 

Scheme related updates

• Krishi Udan Scheme was launched in August, 2020 on international and national routes to assist farmers in transporting agricultural products so that it improves their value realization.
• Krishi Udan 2.0 was announced in October, 2021 enhancing the existing provisions, mainly focusing on transporting perishable food products from the hilly areas, North-Eastern States and tribal areas.
• Primarily the scheme was focusing on 25 airports of North-Eastern Region, Hilly and Tribal region
• Krishi Udan is a convergence scheme where eight Ministries/Departments namely Ministry of Civil Aviation, Department of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare, Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Department of Commerce, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) would leverage their existing schemes to strengthen the logistics for transportation of Agri-produce.
• There is no budgetary allocation for the Scheme.
• Under the Scheme, facilitating and incentivizing movement of Agri-produce by air transportation by full waiver of Landing, Parking, Terminal Navigational Landing Charges (TNLC), and Route Navigation Facility Charges (RNFC)

 

The Indian Culture Portal

Know! about the portal

• The Government has implemented a National Virtual Library of India (NVLI) through the Indian Culture Portal, www.indianculture.gov.in in collaboration with IIT Bombay, Mumbai.
• The objective of NVLI is to provide a platform for the digital preservation of diverse cultural artefacts and to create awareness and a sense of collective ownership among citizens about their shared heritage.
• This project has progressed very well. The main output of this project is the Indian Culture Portal, www.indianculture.gov.in.
• The NVLI project has been implemented satisfactorily.
• The Indian Culture Portal developed under the NVLI has a total of about 2.98 lakh digital artefacts, with metadata and more than 34 lakh bibliographic entries.
• The content is presented in 28 categories such as Rare Books, E- Books, Archives, Paintings, Stories, Snippets, Historical Cities and Forts etc.
• The portal is currently available in English & Hindi and can be accessed through an App called Indian Culture, available on both Android phones and iPhone.

Common Test in Central Universities for UG and PG Courses

 

Know! about the common test

• In pursuance of the National Education Policy, 2020, it has been decided to conduct common entrance test for admission in central universities from the academic year 2022-23 to reduce the burden on students, universities and the entire education system.
• The Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for undergraduate programme is to assess the students of different boards at the same level, giving them equal opportunity.
• Students may apply to more than one universities as per their choice with one application form thereby reducing financial burden and increasing access.
• They can appear in the test in 13 languages over hundreds of examination centres for admission.
• The syllabus for undergraduate level is based on the understanding of subject at class XII level, irrespective of affiliations to any board like CBSE, making a desirable change for the students of low socio- economic background.
• The CUET is concerned with Undergraduate (UG) and Post Graduate (PG) programmes only.

DIKSHA Website

• DIKSHA is the platform for providing quality e-content for school education in States/UTs and QR coded Energized Textbooks for all grades (one nation, one digital platform).
• DIKSHA complies with World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 level AA.
• This enables people with visual impairments to access the website using assistive technologies, such as screen readers.
• Special e-content for visually and hearing impaired developed on Digitally Accessible Information System (DAISY) and in sign language on NIOS website/ YouTube.
• DAISY is the emerging world standard for digital talking books for people who are visually impaired or have a print disability.
• DAISY books have "embedded navigation" that enables readers to instantly jump to any part of a work- the same way a sighted person can turn to any page.

Steps to control desertification

• The Government is implementing several schemes/programmes to combat desertification, which include, inter -alia:

 

National Afforestation and Eco-Development Board (NAEB)

• NAEB is implementing National Afforestation Programme (NAP) for ecological restoration of degraded forests and adjoining areas through people's participation.
• The scheme is implemented through 3 tier institutional set up of State Forest Development Agency (SFDA) at State level, Forest Development agency (FDA) at Forest Division Level and Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMCs) at village level.
• National Mission for Green India (GIM)
• GIM aims at protecting, restoring and enhancing India's forest cover by means of plantation activities in forest and non-forest areas.
• GIM activities were started in the FY 2015-16.
• A sum of Rs. 594.28 Crores have been released to fifteen States for creation of plantation over an area of 117503 hectares.

National Mission on Himalayan Studies (NMHS).

• Demand driven action oriented research work is carried out through projects under National Mission on Himalayan Studies (NMHS).
• Certain projects include the development of models for land reclamation, soil conservation and watershed management, etc.

Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP)

• It is implemented under Watershed Development Component of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojna, with objective to develop rainfed and degraded lands.
• The activities undertaken include , inter-alia, ridge area treatment, drainage line treatment, soil and moisture conservation, rainwater harvesting, nursery raising, pasture development, livelihoods, etc through interventions to ensure sustainable development and improved natural resource management with better resilience to climate change.

Governance/GSII

Broadcast Seva Portal

 

What's the NEWS

• Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, launched the Broadcast Seva Portal

Know! about the portal

• Broadcast Seva Portal is an online portal solution for speedy filing and processing of applications of broadcasters for various kinds of licenses, permissions, registrations, etc.
• This portal will provide its services under the wider umbrella efforts of Digital India to all stakeholders to private satellite TV channels, teleport operators, MSOs, community and private radio channels etc
• The Broadcast Seva Portal will reduce the turnaround time of applications and at the same time will help applicants track the progress.
• This portal will reduce the human interface that was required earlier and thus add to capacity building of the Ministry and will be a major step towards Ease of Doing Business.
• This simple and user-friendly web portal provides a broadcaster an end-to-end solution with just a click of a mouse.
• It will boost the business environment and empower the entire broadcast sector by directly benefiting more than 900 Satellite TV Channels, 70 Teleport operators, 1700 Multi-service operators, 350 Community Radio Stations (CRS), 380 Private FM Channels and others.

 

Location in NEWS/International Relations/GSII
President Ram Nath Kovind to visit Turkmenistan, Netherlands from April 1

 

•  What's the NEWS
• President Ram Nath Kovind will pay a week-long State visit to Turkmenistan and the Netherlands
• President Kovind arrived in Ashgabat on the first part of his two-nation visit.
• This is the first-ever visit of the President of India to independent Turkmenistan and comes just after the inauguration of new Turkmen President Berdimuhamedov.
• Turkmenistan is celebrating 30 years of its independence
• India-Turkmenistan commemorative Postal stamp, celebrating the 30th anniversary of establishment of Diplomatic Relations was released.
• The visit to Turkmenistan will be followed by a State Visit of the President to the Netherlands.
• The visit is significant as during 2022, India and the Netherlands are celebrating 75 years of the establishment of diplomatic relations.

 

Turkmenistan visit highlights

 

• In Turkmenistan, Kovind pushes for TAPI gas pipeline project

List of MoUs signed/exchanged

 

 

• MoU between Financial Monitoring Service at both the countries
• MoU on Cooperation in the field of Disaster Management
• Programme of Cooperation in the fields of Culture and Arts for the period 2022-2025
• MoU on Cooperation in Youth Matters

 

 

Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project

 

 

 

• The project was originally conceived in the 1990s and an inter-governmental agreement was signed in 2010 by the heads of four member nations.
• The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Natural Gas Pipeline (TAPI) Project is a proposed 1,814km trans-country natural gas pipeline running across four countries.
• These countries are - Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
• The project aims to export up to 33 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas per year.
• Of this, 5 billion cubic metres will be provided to Afghanistan and 14 billion cubic metres to each Pakistan and India.
• The pipeline will transport natural gas from the Galkynysh Gas Field in Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and then to India.
• The pipeline will enter India through the Indian town of Fazilka (near the Indo-Pak border).
• The TAPI project is being funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which is also acting as transaction adviser for the development.

Concerns

 

 

• The concerns over the safety and security around the project have grown manifold with the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
• New Delhi doesn't officially recognise the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which is one of the stakeholders of the project.
• This will make it difficult for India to move ahead with this project.

 

Social Issues/GSII
Denotified and Nomadic Tribes

What's the NEWS

• A parliamentary standing committee has expressed dismay at the government's delay in categorising denotified and nomadic tribes as Dalits or tribals or backwards, which will enable them to avail of reservation and other affirmative action benefits meant for underprivileged communities.
• It has asked government to fix a deadline for the process and inform it of the progress.
• An ethnographic survey is under way to study the social details of 269 denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes (DNTs) by the ministry of social justice and empowerment
• The DNTs, considered among the most depressed of communities, are yet not eligible for central quotas, though many states have extended welfare and quota benefits.
• The proposed welfare work for the DNTs is based on the recommendations of Idate Commission
• Idate Commssion was constituted in 2014 to look into the conditions and the measures required, for upliftment of DNTs that are said to comprise around 10% of national population.
• Idate commission gave its report in 2017 while the board for welfare and development of DNTs was formed in 2019.

Know! about Denotified Nomadic Tribes (DNTs)

• DNTs are the tribes which were notified as criminal tribes under Criminal Tribes Act, 1871, by the British colonial government.
• Under this Act, millions of nomadic and semi-nomadic communities were declared criminals and put under continuous surveillance.
• After decades of facing horrors of this racial Act, they were denotified by the Government of independent India on August 31, 1952.
• Every year this day is celebrated as Vimukti Diwas or Liberation Day by DNTs across the country.
• After denotification in 1952, some of these communities were included in Scheduled Tribe (ST), Scheduled Caste (SC) and Other Backward Caste lists because they come from diverse social backgrounds.
• The DNTs are a heterogenous group engaged in various occupations such as transport, key-making, salt trading, entertaining - acrobats, dancers, snake charmers, jugglers - and pastoralists.

 

Difference between Nomadic, Semi-nomadic and DNTs

 

• The nomadic tribes maintain constant geographical mobility while semi-nomads are those who are on the move but return to fixed habitations once a year, mainly for occupational reasons.
• All nomadic tribes are not DNTs, but all DNTs are nomadic tribes.
• There are nearly 1,500 nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes and 198 denotified tribes, comprising 15 crore Indians, according to the Renke Commission (2008).
• These tribes remain socially and economically marginalised even now, depriving many of them of basic human rights.

 

Challenges faced by these Communities:

 

• The absence of any uniform classification across the country is among the biggest dilemmas regarding DNTs.
• They are not enumerated separately in the Census, making it difficult to ascertain concrete figures.
• The DNT community members are scattered across the country
• Also, these communities are spread across SC, ST and OBC communities in different states.
• Their biggest hurdle is access to schemes and, as a first step, access to the caste certificates.

 

Renke Commission & Idate Commission:

 

• The Government constituted these two commissions for DNTs in 2005 and 2015 to identify these communities and prepare state-wise lists of different castes of DNTs.

 

Renke Commission

 

• The Renke Commission, which submitted its report in 2008, highlighted that 50 per cent of DNTs lacked any kind of documents and 98 per cent were landless.
• The report brought to light various challenges that the communities faced, especially with regard to access to caste certificates, health care and school enrolment.

 

Idate Commission, 2018

 

• As with the Renke Commission, the report of this commission revealed that nothing changed in a decade - with most DNT communities still deeply impoverished.

 

Schemes for DNTs

Dr Ambedkar Pre-Matric and Post-Matric Scholarship for DNTs:

• It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme, launched in 2014-15 for the welfare of those DNT students who are not covered under SC, ST or OBC.
• The income ceiling for eligibility is Rs. 2 lakh per annum.

 

Nanaji Deshmukh Scheme of Construction of Hostels for DNT Boys and Girls

 

• It is also a Centrally Sponsored Scheme, launched in 2014-15 to provide hostel facilities to those DNT students who are not covered under SC, ST or OBC to enable them to pursue higher education.

 

Development & Welfare Board

 

• The Central Government set up a Development and Welfare Board under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
• It implements development and welfare programmes for the DNTs, under the aegis of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

 

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