Daily Current Capsules
09 and 10 January 2023

M-Sand

 

What's the NEWS

• Northern Coalfields Limited (NCL), the Miniratna coal-producing company is all set to start production of ‘M-Sand'-the core material used in construction in civil works in its Amlohri Project.
• The initiative is based on promoting sustainable practices
• The company has set up a Sand manufacturing plant using its Over Burden (OB) as raw material.

What is Over Burden (OB) ?

• A whopping 410 Million Cubic Meters of Over Burden (OB) is required to be removed to extract the coal below.
• The material above the coal seam (layer) is known as Overburden (OB). This huge quantity is roughly 4 times the amount of coal to be extracted.
• NCL produces over 122 Million Tonnes of coal annually from its 10 open-pit mines.
• The huge quantity of Over Burden (OB) occupies large space and is a waste material.

Know! the benefits of M-sand (Over Burden to M-Sand making)

• This innovative Over Burden to M-Sand making unit of NCL will produce about 3 Lakh Cubic Meters of M-Sand annually and will be using 1429 Cubic Meters Over Burden each day to make 1000 Cubic Meters of sand per day.
• The ‘M-Sand' produced will be e-auctioned at a much cheaper base price and of superior or par quality compared to presently available sand in the market.

 

Know! about M-sand

 

• Manufactured sand or M-sand is a substitute of river sand, used in construction industry mainly for concrete production and mortar mix.
• This is mainly crushed fine aggregate produced from a source material with suitable strength, durability and shape characteristics
• M-Sand is artificial sand produced from crushing hard stones into small sand-sized angular shaped particles, washed and finely graded to be used as construction aggregate.
• It is an alternative to river sand for construction works.

 

Electronic Electoral Photo ID Card (e-EPIC)

 

What's the NEWS

 

• About 9.8 crore voters are currently eligible to download an E-EPIC, the ECI said in its RTI response, that is, 6.8% of voters who are eligible to download an e-EPIC as a PDF document have done so - this is equivalent to less than 1% of all registered voters in India.
• Along with e-PAN and e-Aadhaar, the e-EPIC is one of the few generally accepted identity documents that can be downloaded as a legally valid PDF file.

 

Know! about E-EPIC

 

• e-EPIC is a portable document format(PDF) version of the EPIC which can be downloaded on mobile or in a self-printable form on the computer.
• A voter can thus store the card on his/her mobile, upload it on Digi locker or print it and self-laminate it.
• It can be used as a valid proof of age and address to avail various government services and schemes. It is equally valid as a proof of document for voter participation.
• In the first phase, new electors who were registered during the Special Summary Revision 2021 and had a unique mobile number in the e-roll were eligible for the e-EPIC. In the second phase, all eligible voters who have a valid EPIC number were made eligible for the e-EPIC.

 

ChatGPT

 

 

What's the NEWS

 

• Microsoft plans to invest $10 billion in OpenAI, the startup behind popular artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT

 

Know! about ChatGPT

 

• ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot launched by OpenAI in November 2022. It is built on top of OpenAI's GPT-3 family of large language models.
• It is a type of artificial intelligence that can understand and generate natural language text.
• It is trained on large amounts of text data and uses an algorithm called a transformer to learn how to generate text that is similar to human conversation.
• The application is beneficial for presenting information and responding to queries in a way similar to what would occur in a normal conversation because it has been educated by artificial intelligence and machine learning.

 

GPT-3 (Generative Pretrained Transformer 3)

 

• It is a state-of-the-art language processing AI model developed by OpenAI.
• It is capable of generating human-like text and has a wide range of applications, including language translation, language modeling, and generating text for applications such as chatbots.
• It is one of the largest and most powerful language processing AI models to date, with 175 billion parameters.

 

 

Sakhalin-1 Oil and Gas Project

 

What's the NEWS

 

• Recently, ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), has re-taken a 20 per cent stake in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas fields in the far east region of Russia.

 

Know! about Sakhalin-1 oil and gas development project

 

• The project is located in the Okhotsk Sea, off the north-eastern coast of Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East.
• It comprises three offshore fields namely Chayvo, Odoptu, and Arkutun-Dagi.
• The Sakhalin-1 project is operated by Exxon Neftegas (ENL), a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil which holds a 30% participating interest. The other partners of the project are the Japanese consortium Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development Company (SODECO, 30%), India's state-owned ONGC Videsh (20%), and Russian oil company Rosneft (20%).
• The Sakhalin 1 project is estimated to hold approximately 2.3 billion barrels of oil and 17.1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) in recoverable reserves.

 

Know! about ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL)

 

• OVL is a Miniratna Schedule "A" Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE) of the Government of India and is the wholly owned subsidiary and overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC).
• OVL comes under the administrative control of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
• The primary business of ONGC Videsh is to prospect for oil and gas acreages outside India, including exploration, development and production of oil and gas.
• ONGC Videsh is the second largest petroleum company of India, next only to its parent ONGC.ONGC Videsh produced about 27.3% of oil and 19.4% of oil and natural gas of India's domestic production in 2021-22.

 

Know! also about Eastern Economic Forum

 

• It is an international forum held each year in Vladivostok, Russia, for the purpose of encouraging foreign investment in the Russian Far East.
• It is held each year since 2015 in September, at the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia.

 

World Hindi Day 2023

 

What's. the NEWS

 

• World Hindi Day is celebrated every year on January 10.

 

Know! about World Hindi Day 2023

 

• The theme this year for World Hindi Conference is "Hindi - Traditional Knowledge to Artificial Intelligence".
• Vishwa Hindi Diwas was started to mark the anniversary of the first time Hindi was spoken in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 1949.
• In the year 1975, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi inaugurated the first World Hindi Conference. Since then, conferences have been organised in different parts of the world.
• It was on this day in 1975 that the first World Hindi Conference was held in Nagpur.
• Since then, such conferences are organised in different parts of the world every year.
• It was on January 10, 2006 when the World Hindi Day was celebrated for the first time. This decision was announced by the then Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh.
• The day is commemorated every year with the objective to promote use of Hindi language abroad.
• While the World Hindi Day is celebrated on January 10 every year, Hindi Diwas is celebrated on September 14 annually. This day concentrates on promotion and global recognition of the Hindi Language around the world.
• On the other hand, Hindi Diwas, which is celebrated in India, focuses on recognition of the Hindi language in India.

 

 

 

e-Sanjeevani

 

What's the NEWS

 

• Union Government's free telemedicine service, e-Sanjeevani, has recently crossed another milestone by touching nine crore teleconsultations mark.

 

Know! about e-Sanjeevani

 

• It is a web-based comprehensive telemedicine solution, launched by the then Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India, in 2009.
• It is created by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) Mohali

 

Mdules of eSanjeevani

 

• eSanjeevani AB-HWC: The doctor-to-doctor telemedicine platform, being implemented at all the Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs) in the country under Ayushman Bharat (AB) Scheme of Government of India. It was rolled out in 2019.
• eSanjeevani OPD: It is the Patient-to-Doctor remote consultation services rolled out in 2020 amid the first lockdown imposed

 

 

Ozone Layer

 

What's the NEWS

 

• The successful phasing out of banned substances as envisioned by the Montreal Protocol has set the stage for a complete recovery of the ozone layer by the 2060s, a United Nations-backed panel of experts said at the American Meteorological Society's annual meeting

 

Know! about Ozone

 

• Ozone is a gas composed of three atoms of oxygen.
• It is both a natural and a man-made product that occurs in the Earth's upper atmosphere (Stratospheric ozone) and lower atmosphere (the troposphere).
• Stratospheric ozone is formed naturally through the interaction of solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation with molecular oxygen (O2).
• The "ozone layer," approximately 6 to 30 miles above the Earth's surface, reduces the amount of harmful UV radiation reaching the Earth's surface.

 

 

Young Professionals Scheme

 

What's the NEWS

 

• India and the United Kingdom signed and exchanged letters for Young Professionals Scheme in London.

 

Know! about Young Professionals Scheme

 

• It was conceived as part of an India-U.K. Migration and Mobility MoU signed in May 2021 and was announced in November at the G20 summit in Bali.
• It will permit up to 3,000 of their degree-holding citizens aged between 18 and 30 to live and work in each other's countries for two years.
• The programme will be reciprocal, also allowing UK professionals in the same position to participate in a professional exchange by living and working in India.
• This scheme makes India the first visa-national country to benefit from the scheme.

 

Digital television receivers

What's the NEWS

 

• The Bureau of Indian Standards BIS publishes standards for digital television receivers with built-in satellite tuners.
• The first standard is Indian Standard for digital television receivers with built-in satellite tuners.
• The technical Committee has published an Indian Standard IS 18112:2022 Specification for television with built-in satellite tuners.
• The TVs manufactured as per this Indian standard would enable reception of Free-To-Air TV and Radio channels just by connecting a dish antenna with LNB mounted on a suitable place, at the rooftop/side wall of the building.
• This would facilitate the transmission of knowledge about government initiatives, schemes, the educational content of Doordarshan and the repository of Indian cultural programs to reach and benefit a wide segment of the population in the country at large.
• In this television in which the signals are transmitted in digital form and decoded by the television receiver are known as Digital television receivers?

 

National Science Day 2023

What's the NEWS

 

• Union Minister of Science and Technology released the Theme of National Science Day 2023 at a function in New Delhi.
• The theme of National Science Day 2023 will be Global Science for Global Wellbeing.

 

Know! about National Science Day 2023

 

• The government of India designated 28 February as National Science Day (NSD) in 1986.
• On this day Sir C.V. Raman announced the discovery of the 'Raman Effect' for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1930.
• Raman Effect is a change in the wavelength of light that occurs when a light beam is deflected by molecules.
• When a beam of light traverses a dust-free, transparent sample of a chemical compound, a small fraction of the light emerges in directions other than that of the incident (incoming) beam.
• Most of this scattered light is of unchanged wavelength. A small part, however, has wavelengths different from that of the incident light; its presence is a result of the Raman Effect.

 

Bhitarkanika National Park

 

What's the NEWS

 

• The recent census report of birds released by the forest department in Odisha said that the number of migratory birds in Bhitarkanika National Park has risen to 1,39,959 this winter compared to last year's count of 1,38,107 birds.

 

Know! about Bhitarkanika National Park

 

• Bhitarkanika National Park is located in the Kendrapara district of Odisha.
• It is India's second-largest mangrove ecosystem after the Sunderbans.
• This National Park is a network of creeks and canals which are inundated with waters from rivers Brahmani, Baitarani, Dhamra and Patasala forming a unique ecosystem.
• It is home to the largest congregation of endangered Salt Water Crocodiles in the country.
• The Gahirmatha Beach which forms the boundary of the sanctuary in the east is the largest colony of the Olive Ridley Sea Turtles.
• Bhitarkanika is also home to eight varieties of Kingfisher birds which is also a rarity.

 

Pravasi Bharatiya Divas 2023

 

 

What's the NEWS

• Prime Minister inaugurated the 17 edition of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas convention
• The 17th edition of the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas (PBD), or the day for Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) that is commemorated annually on January 9, was marked by the Central government with events in Indore, Madhya Pradesh.
• The 17th PBD Convention holds significance as it is being organised as a physical event after a gap of four years and the first after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Theme of this year's PBD is ‘Diaspora: Reliable partners for India's progress in Amrit Kaal'.

 

Know! about PBD

 

• The Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas is observed on January 9 to strengthen the engagement of the Indian community overseas with the India government and reconnect them with their roots.
• January 9 was chosen as the day to celebrate PBD as it was on this day in 1915 that Mahatma Gandhi, had returned to India from South Africa.
• It also marks the contribution of the Indians living abroad in the development of the land of their ancestors.
• PBD conventions were being held every year since 2003.
• Since 2015, its format has been revised. PBD is now celebrated once in every two years.
• A High-Level Committee on Indian Diaspora, headed by LM Singhvi, had recommended in January 2002 that the government must renew and strengthen linkages of overseas Indians to their place of origin, and with each other.
• The decision to celebrate PBD was taken by the former Indian Prime Minister, late Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2003.

 

Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award

• It is the highest honour conferred on a Non-Resident Indian, Person of Indian Origin; or an organisation or institution established and run by Non-Resident Indians or Persons of Indian Origin.

 

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