Human Resource Development

HRD Minister launches Operation Digital Board

Relevance IN – Prelims( about ODB) + Mains ( GS II issues relating to welfare and management of social sector/services relating to education)

What’s the NEWS

·         The Minister of Human Resource Development, Shri Prakash Javadekar launched Operation Digital Board to leverage technology in order to boost quality education in the country.

Know! about operation digital board (ODB)

·         Operation Digital Board is a revolutionary step which will make the learning as well as the teaching process interactive and popularize flipped learning as a pedagogical approach 

·         The digital board will be introduced all over the country in government and government aided schools from class 9^th onwards as well as in higher education institutions. The process will begin from the coming session of 2019 itself

·         ODB aims at converting a class room into a digital class room and in addition to availability of e-resources at any time and at any place to students, it will also help in provisioning of personalised adaptive learning as well as Intelligent Tutoring by exploiting emerging technologies like Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence & Data Analytics.

More initiatives by the HRD in recent time

·         The launching of e-Pathshala, DIKSHA, NROER,NPTEL, e-pgpathshala SWAYAM and SWAYAM-Prabha DTH Channels etc. by MHRD have provided adequate content of high quality which can be taken to every classroom, and thereby facilitating blended learning and flip class learning.

Implementation in Higher Education Institutions(HEIs)

·         UGC will be the implementing agency for ODB in HEIs. 

·         UGC in its Commission meeting held on 29th Jan 2019, has passed a resolution for extending digital education to every classroom in the country by 2022.

·         It is estimated that there would be 5 lakh classrooms in the institutions which are aided by Centre or State Governments. 

·         Out of this, based on the readiness, UGC proposed to take up 300 universities and about 10,000 colleges in the first phase covering 2 lakh classrooms.

Implementation in Schools

·         Digital / SMART board will be provided in all Government and Government – aided schools having Secondary and Sr. Secondary classes.

·         Nearly 1.5 lakh Secondary / Sr. Secondary schools will be covered under the scheme in collaboration with the State and UTs

  

Social Justice

Department of Justice Launches Tele-Law: Mobile Application & Dashboard and Nyaya Bandhu(Pro Bono Legal Services)Mobile Application

Relevance IN – Prelims( about the launched mobile applications) + Mains ( GS II social justice)

HIGHLIGHTS

·         The  pro bono legal service was developed to let advocates register and connect with the registered eligible beneficiaries

·         The mobile application is integrated with a dashboard to confirm and register the pre-registered cases

 

What’s the NEWS

·         Union Minister for Law and Justice and IT Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad has launched  mobile application and dashboard and Nyaya Bandhu mobile application. 

·         Government  has  directed that Common service centres (CSC) be  permitted to  extend its services  for  tele-law throughout the country.

·         A pilot project in this regard has proved useful and more than 50,000 affected people have already availed this service in the States of UP, Bihar and J&K.

·         To encouraging social service among law fraternity, the collegium should consider introducing provision for getting preference in appointment as judge if  the  advocate has  substantive  credit of providing  pro-bono service.

 

Know! more about the new programmes

·         Benefit from towards fulfilling the Constitutional commitment under Article 39A for providing Access to Justice to all

 

Department of Justice (DoJ) has successfully endeavored to spearhead its two key programmes namely

·         Tele –Law:  Mainstreaming Legal Aid through Common Service Centers and

·         Nyaya Bandhu (Pro Bono Legal Services), through leveraging with different technology based channels to boost legal advice and aid in the country. 

·         In order to promote the expansion and penetration of Tele-Law online legal advice and consultation in the far flung and remote corners in the entire country, a mobile application has been developed for Para Legal Volunteers (PLVs).

·         To accelerate and facilitate the practicing advocates to register and connect  with the registered eligible beneficiaries Nyaya Bandhu ( Pro Bono Legal Service) mobile application is developed to solidify the pro bono culture in the country

·         The application will benefit 73,000 PLVs of National Legal Service Authority and State Legal Services Authorities (SLSA) in the country who will be associated under the tele-law service

 

·         The mobile application is integrated with a dashboard to confirm and register the pre-registered cases, to enable online interface between the beneficiary and the panel lawyer through video conferencing and telephone facility.

 

Know! about PLVs

·         PLVs are the first point of contact for inmates in need of legal aid or advice.

·         They make all efforts to identify inmates in need of legal aid, visit police stations on a regular basis to ensure no person remains unrepresented and maintain records.

·         They also are available at all times to render basic legal counseling and advice to inmates.

·         They provide information on all such cases to the community PLVs on their visit.

·         The PLVs, trained in counseling, are deployed to ensure that citizens from mostly weaker sections of society are assisted legally at police stations whether one is a complainant or victim or an accused. 

·         The aim, enshrined in the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, is to offer legal aid free of cost at police stations in cases where one may not be able to access a private advocate or financially hire one’s service.

·         The scheme is implemented specifically to ensure women, children, marginalized or backward sections of society get free legal aid at police stations. DLSA has provided such facilities at the courts as well.

 

Electronics & IT

Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad to Inaugurate VIVID 2019

Relevance IN – Prelims( about VIVID) + Mains ( GS III awareness in the field of IT)

What’s the NEWS

·         “VIVID-Vision Insight and Voices as India goes Digital”- the District Informatics Officer (DIO) meet, is being organised by National Informatics Centre (NIC) on 21^st and 22^ndFebruary, 2019.

·         The meet is held as an initiative to interact with the DIO’s and to share their experiences as well as contribution, as digital change-makers at the grass-root level in the States. 

 

Know! more about VIVID

·         VIVID started in 2017, as an annual event, with the objective to empower NIC officials in the field of technology. Continuing its tradition from previous years, VIVID 2019 will be a landmark event for NIC. 

·         VIVID this year would once again provide a cohesive and extensive platform for interaction and knowledge sharing,

·         The National meet will cover a wide range of relevant topics in various technical sessions sessions including Emerging Technologies (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning & Big Data Analytics), Cyber Threats & Counter Measures (Changing Digitisation Paradigm & its impact on Security), Enterprise Level Applications, and many other relevant topics.

Digidhan Mitra Chatbot

·         Designed and developed by NIC, the AI based Digidhan Mitra enables a text & voice based conversation with the user, mining the Digidhan Portal, to give customized information in graphical, tabular and textual format.

·         It provides bank wise transactions details as well as growth pattern of various modes of transactions like BHIM, IMPS, Cards etc. in tabular as well as graphical form.

Technology Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs (TIDE 2.0) Scheme

·         The Scheme has been devised to promote the momentum into the tech entrepreneurship landscape. 

·         The Scheme provides financial and technical support to incubators engaged in supporting ICT startups using emerging technologies such as IoT, AI, Block-chain, Robotics etc. in seven pre-identified areas of societal relevance.

 

Economic Developments

DPIIT launches second edition of States’ ranking on Startup initiatives

Relevance IN – Prelims( about the Startup ranking) + Mains ( GS III economic developments )

What’s the NEWS

·         After the successful first edition of States’ Startup Ranking in 2018, where 27 States and 3 Union Territories participated, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) released second edition of Startup Ranking for 2019.

Know! more about the ranking

·         The Startup Ranking framework aims to rank the States/UTs for establishing a robust ecosystem for supporting Startups.

·         The framework also encourages States and UTs to identify, learn and replicate good practices from each other. 

·         The Ranking Framework 2019 comprises of 7 pillars and 30 action points.

·         The pillars will assess States’/UTs efforts across institutional support, simplifying regulations, easing public procurement, incubation support, seed funding support, venture funding support and awareness and outreach related activities. 

·         The ranking exercise aims to evaluate measures taken by States/UTs during the assessment period from May 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019.

International Organisations

4^th  India-Asean Expo Summit

Relevance IN – Prelims( about the summit) + Mains ( GS II international organisations)

What’s the NEWS

·         The 4^th India-ASEAN Expo and Summit will be held on 21-23 February, 2019 in New Delhi.

·         This is a flagship event of Department of Commerce, being organised with FICCI to carry forward the momentum and to further strengthen India-ASEAN relations under the Act-East Policy. 

Know! more about the scheme

·         The 4th India-ASEAN Expo and Summit, 2019 will build upon the success of the previous edition of ASEAN-India Business and Investment Meet and Expo which was held in 2018 as a precursor to India-ASEAN Commemorative Summit.

·         The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) comprises of Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Lao PDR, Indonesia, Cambodia and Brunei. 

·         India's relationship with ASEAN is a key pillar of our foreign policy and the foundation of our Act-East Policy.

·         India-ASEAN trade and investment relations have been growing steadily, with ASEAN being the second largest trading partner of India,after China,with a total bilateral merchandise trade of USD 81.33 billion.

·         The 4^th India ASEAN Expo and Summit will bring Indian and ASEAN businesses together to work jointly towards integrating them into regional value chains, thereby promoting mutual trade and investment.  

 

Agriculture & Farmers Welfare

The Agricultural Science Congress

Relevance IN – Prelims ( about agriculture science congress) + Mains ( GS III farmer welfare + GSII government policies and interventions

 

What’s the NEWS

·         The Agricultural Science Congress marks the confluence of researchers, intellectuals, creativity and the custodians of global food security.

Know! more about the conference

·         The NAAS in collaboration with the ICAR and Indian Agricultural Research Institute will be organizing XIV Agricultural Science Congress at New Delhi from February 20-23, 2019 on the theme "Innovations for Agricultural Transformation". 

·         The four-day event will include technical sessions, plenary sessions, public lectures, farmers sessions, poster presentations, inter-university student elocution contest, panel discussions and number of satellite meetings. Moreover, ASC-AgriTech-2019 exhibition will be a major event in this Congress.

·         A large number of participants cutting across the disciplines of researchers, faculty, policy makers, farmers, entrepreneurs, development departments, corporate and private sector leaders, NGOs and students shall be attending this biennial Congress of the Academy.

    

Infrastructure Development

First ever diesel-to-electric converted locomotive

Relevance IN – Prelims ( about the converted locomotive ) + Mains ( GS III infrastructure development + environment conservation + indigenisation of technology

What’s the NEWS

·         Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the first ever diesel-to-electric converted locomotive at the Diesel Locomotive Works (DLW) at Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. 

Know! all about Diesel-to-Electric Converted Locomotive

·         The 10,000HP freight locomotive was converted from two units of old diesel locomotives of 2600 HP each with indigenous technology. 

·         The conversion was achieved in record time with the help of engineers from Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO), Chittaranjan Locomotive Works(CLW), and BHEL.

·         The conversion has proved to be cost effective as it requires half of the rehabilitation cost of old locos and it is also environment-friendly with enhanced traction power to double the average speed of goods train. 

·         DLW has developed a new prototype electric locomotive converted from diesel locomotive as part of the Indian Railways Mission 100 per cent electrification and de-carbonization agenda.

 

Government Schemes

KUSUM, Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan scheme

Relevance IN – Prelims( about KUSUM) + Mains (GS III farmer’s welfare + infrastructure development + environment conservation) 

What’s the NEWS

·         The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved the launch of KUSUM, Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan scheme. 

Know! all about the scheme

·         The scheme aims to provide financial and water security to farmers through harnessing solar energy capacities of 25.75 gigawatts (GW) by 2022. 

The scheme consists of three components:

 

1.       Setting up 10 GW grid-connected renewable power plants, each of 500KW to 2MW in rural areas 

2.       Installation of 1.75 million standalone off-grid solar water pumps to fulfill irrigation needs of farmers not connected to the grid; and

3.        Solarisation of existing 1 million grid-connected agriculture pumps to make farmers independent of the grid supply and also sell surplus power to distribution companies and get extra income.

·         With all three, the scheme aims to add solar capacity of 25,750 MW by 2022.

 

KUSUM 

·         KUSUM was announced in the Union Budget 2018

·         This scheme would help farmers save on fuel and augment their income.

·         Through this solar farming scheme farmers can now earn money from farming and at the same time earn by selling the extra solar power generated at their farms

 

Prelims Practise Question

Consider the following statements 

1.       Operation Digital Board is a revolutionary step which will make the learning as well as the teaching process interactive and popularize flipped learning as a pedagogical approach

2.       The digital board will be introduced all over the country in government and government aided schools from class 6^th  onwards as well as in higher education institutions.

3.       e-Pathshala, DIKSHA, NROER,NPTEL, e-pgpathshala SWAYAM and SWAYAM-Prabha DTH Channels are some of the initiatives launched  by MHRD in recent years 

Find the correct statement from the option given below

a.       1 and 3

b.       2 and 3

c.        1 and 2

d.       None

 

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