• A web portal designed by the government in consultation with insurance companies will provide instant information on road accidents with a few clicks and help accelerate accident compensation claims, bringing relief to victims' families.

• The Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has developed the portal named ‘e-DAR' (e-Detailed Accident Report).
• Digitalised Detailed Accident Reports (DAR) will be uploaded on the portal for easy access.
• The web portal will be linked to the Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD).
• From iRAD, applications to more than 90% of the datasets would be pushed directly to the e-DAR.
• Stakeholders like the police, road authorities, hospitals, etc., are required to enter very minimal information for the e-DAR forms. Thus, e-DAR would be an extension and e-version of iRAD.

Know! about iRAD

• The Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD) Project is an initiative of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Government of India and is funded by World Bank, with objective to improve road safety in the country.
• The main objective of the project is development of Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD), to enrich the accident databases from every parts of the country.
• The project would generate various types of insights by analyzing the collected road accident data across the country through implementation of data analytics technique.
• The proposed system would represent the analysis output through Monitoring & Reporting Dashboard & Analytics Dashboard for easy understanding and accordingly forecasting & Decision Making by Apex Authorities for formulation of new policies & strategies.
• The outcome of the project would be enhanced road safety i.e. ‘Safe Road for All' in India.
• The IRAD mobile application will enable police personnel to enter details about a road accident, along with photos and videos, following which a unique ID will be created for the incident.

• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated that the current government cannot bring down taxes (and, as a consequence, prices) because it has to pay for the oil bonds issued by the Congress-led UPA government.

• An oil bond is an IOU, or a promissory note issued by the government to the oil marketing companies (OMCs), in lieu of cash that the government would have given them so that these companies don't charge the public the full price of fuel.
• An oil bond says the government will pay the oil marketing company the sum of, say, Rs 1,000 crore in 10 years. And to compensate the OMC for not having this money straightaway, the government will pay it, say, 8% (or Rs 80 crore) each year until the bond matures.
• Thus, by issuing such oil bonds, the government of the day is able to protect/ subsidise the consumers without either ruining the profitability of the OMC or running a huge budget deficit itself.

Location in NEWS
Warship Moskva

What's the NEWS

• The sinking of the warship Moskva, the 600-foot, 12,500-tonne flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is a serious setback for Russia.

• Black Sea is bound by Ukraine to the north and northwest, Russia and Georgia to the east, Turkey to the south, and Bulgaria and Romania to the west.
• It links to the Sea of Marmara through the Bosphorus and then to the Aegean through the Dardanelles.
• Black sea has traditionally been Russia's warm water gateway to Europe.
• For Russia, the Black Sea is both a stepping stone to the Mediterranean as well as a strategic buffer between NATO and itself.
• Domination of the Black Sea region is a geostrategic imperative for Moscow, both to project Russian power in the Mediterranean and to secure the economic gateway to key markets in southern Europe.
• Although Crimea became part of Ukraine after the USSR collapsed, the Russian Navy continued to have its base in Sevastopol, the major port on the Crimean peninsula, as part of an agreement between the two countries. In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea.

Prelims Factoids
MALCOLM ADISESHIAH AWARD
What's the NEWS

• Renowned Indian economist and political commentator Prabhat Patnaik has been named the recipient of the Malcolm Adiseshiah Award this year.

• The award is annually given by the Malcolm and Elizabeth Adiseshiah Trust to an outstanding social scientist for Distinguished Contributions to Development Studies.
• Patnaik has taught at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, and has served as Vice-Chairman of the Kerala State Planning Board.
• Malcolm Sathiyanathan Adiseshiah (1910 - 1994), was an Indian development economist and educator. In 1976 he was awarded the Padma Bhushan.

Prelims Factoids/Location in NEWS
International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT), Vallarpadam
What's the NEWS

• The economic and political turmoil in Colombo coupled with the congestion at the Colombo port has come as a blessing for ports in South India, especially the International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) at Vallarpadam, Kochi.
• At ICTT, Vallarpadam, Kochi, cargo traffic has increased by over 62% in March with mother vessels calling at the Cochin port.
• There were also reports that ports such as Thoothukudi, Chennai, and Mundra have become beneficiaries with traffic being diverted from Colombo due to various reasons.

Prelims Factoids
South Asia Economic Focus Reshaping Norms

What's the NEWS

•  India is projected to grow at 8% over the current fiscal year (April 1- March 31), and 7.1% over the next (2023-24) fiscal year, the World Bank said in its bi-annual South Asia Economic Focus Reshaping Norms: A New Way Forward
• The country is estimated to have grown at 8.3% in the fiscal year that just passed, following a contraction of 6.6% in the previous year owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• For the South Asia region, growth is expected to be slower than projected, by 1 percentage point, at 6.6% in 2022 and 6.3% next calendar year.
• This is due to Russia's war on Ukraine, which has impacted the region, when it was already experiencing "fragile" growth, rising commodity prices, bottlenecks to supply and financial sector vulnerabilities.

Health/GSII
NATIONAL HEALTH AUTHORITY (NHA)
What's the NEWS

• National Health Authority (NHA), the implementing agency for Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) has extended an open invitation to all interested parties for sharing their Expression of Interest (EoI) for developing innovative solutions that shall help build a national digital health ecosystem for India.
• Some illustrative examples of the contribution for this cause are as follows:
• Unified Health Interface (UHI) - NHA intends to develop a digital platform (similar to Unified Payment Interface or UPI) for interoperability between various digital solutions to facilitate various stakeholders using disparate solutions to communicate.
• Health Claims Platform (HCP) - NHA is developing a Health Claims Platform as a public good. Health providers (e g: Hospitals, labs) can submit their e-claims on this platform which can be received by payers (e.g.: Insurers, TPAs) for processing.
• Software as a Service (SaaS) - Various digital health solutions can be used by healthcare providers. These may include solutions such as Hospital Information System (HIS), Hospital (or Health) Management Information System (HMIS) etc.

Prelims Factoids
DRIISHYA
What's the EWS

• A training institute for drone pilots will be set up in Haryana to support capacity development.

• The institute, to be set up under the aegis of the Drone Imaging and Information Service of Haryana Limited (DRIISHYA) is expected to cater to training needs of personnel of DRIISHYA and other organisations.
• Haryana is the first state to create a separate corporation to hasten unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-driven governance application.
• With the help of drones, illegal encroachments can also be controlled along with detecting of expansion of areas as earlier manual surveys were conducted at regular intervals which were time-consuming, costly and required more manpower.
• Besides the revenue department, the use of drones should also be ensured in urban local bodies, power, disaster management, mining, forest, traffic, town and country planning, agriculture, etc, as it would help in mapping, land records, disaster management and emergency services, development planning departments in the urban areas.

Prelims Factoids
POILA BOISHAKH
What's the NEWS

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has greeted people on Poila Boishakh.

• Poila Boisakh is the first day of the Bengali calendar which is also the official calendar of Bangladesh.
• This festival is celebrated on 14 April in Bangladesh and 15 April in the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, and Assam (Barak Valley) by Bengalis regardless of religious faith.
• The traditional greeting for Bengalis in the new year is "Shubho Noboborsho" which is literally "Happy New Year".
• The festive Mangal Shobhajatra is organized in Bangladesh. In 2016, the UNESCO declared this festivity organized by the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Dhaka as a cultural heritage of humanity.

Internal Security/GSIII
UNLAWFUL ACTIVITIES (PREVENTION) ACT
What's the NEWS

• The government has designated chief commander of terrorist outfit Al-Umar Mujahideen, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar as a terrorist under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
• The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2019 (UAPA 2019), amended the UAPA, 1967 and that has made it possible for the Union Government to designate individuals as terrorists without a due process of law.

Prelims Factoids
STREET CHILD CRICKET WORLD CUP
What's the NEWS

• India will host the Street Child Cricket World Cup in 2023. Organised by Street Child United and Save the Children India, the Street Child Cricket World Cup 2023 will welcome 22 teams from 16 countries to India next year.

• In 2019, this championship was held in London where eight teams competed, and Team India South lifted the cup after beating hosts England.
• This event will take place in September ahead of the ICC World Cup, and see street children and young people take part in a mixed-gender cricket tournament.

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