What's the NEWS

• 100 per cent digital/online Haj process in India has fulfilled the dream of "Ease of Doing Haj" for the Indian Muslims.

Know! the steps taken by the Ministry for the ease of doing Haj

• The entire Haj process has been made digital and transparent and this has removed the middlemen ensuring Haj pilgrimage become affordable in comparison to last several decades.
• Even after removal of Haj subsidy, no additional financial burden has been put on the pilgrims
• India has become the first country in the entire world which has made the entire Haj 2020 process 100 per cent digital.
• Online application, E-Visa, Haj mobile app, "E-MASIHA" health facility, "E-luggage pre-tagging" providing all information in India itself regarding accommodation/transportation in Makkah-Madinah have been provided to Indian Muslims going for Haj.

E-MASIHA (E-Medical Assistance System for Indian Pilgrims Abroad)

• An online system to create and maintain the complete health database of Indian pilgrims along with doctors' prescriptions, medical treatment as well as medicine disbursals, has been developed to deal any emergency in Makkah-Madinah

Haj Group Organisers (HGOs)

• Haj Group Organisers (HGOs) have also been connected with 100 per cent digital system which has ensured transparency in their functioning and it has also ensured better facilities to Indian Haj pilgrims.
• For the first time, a portal of HGOs - http://haj.nic.in/pto/ (Portal for Haj Group Organisers) has been developed which contains all the details of HGOs, their packages etc.
• In 2020, a total of 2 lakh Indian Muslims will perform Haj that too without any subsidy and about 1 lakh 23,000 Indians Muslims will go through Haj Committee of India and remaining through Haj Group Organisers.
• This year more than 2100 Muslim women will go to Haj without "Mehram" (male companion)

International Organisations/Conventions
3^rd High Level Global Conference on Road Safety

Relevance IN - Prelims (about the 3rd high level global conference on road safety + about Brasilia Declaration) + Mains (GS II Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation)
What's the NEWS

• Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari reached Stockholm to represent India at the 3rd High Level Global Conference on Road Safety for Achieving Global Goals 2030.

Know! more about the Conference

• The objective of the two-day conference is to bring road safety on the global agenda and renew the world community's commitment to safer roads.
• Leaders from participating countries will draw up a road-map for reaching the United Nation's goal set under the UN Decade of Action of reducing road crashes by 2030.
• The conference is being organised in active collaboration with World Bank, World Health Organisation and other agencies

Know! about Brasilia Declaration

• The 2nd Global High-Level Conference on Road Safety Hosted by the Government of Brazil on 18-19 November 2015 in Brasilia, Brazil, and co-sponsored by WHO, adopted the "Brasilia Declaration on Road Safety" and declared Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020.
• They agreed ways to halve road traffic deaths by the end of this decade - a key milestone within the new Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 3.6.
• The Brasilia Declaration is a call to rethink transport policies in order to favour more sustainable modes of transport such as walking, cycling and using public transport.
• India had signed the Brasilia Declaration at the 2^nd High Level Global Conference on Traffic Safety Brazil in 2015 which committed the world community to reducing the number of deaths in road accidents.

Miscellaneous
Government unveils plan for research on ‘indigenous' cows
Relevance IN - Prelims (about SUTRA PIC and about SVAROP)
What's the NEWS

• The government has unveiled a programme to research on ‘indigenous' cows.
• To be funded by multiple scientific ministries, the initiative, SUTRA PIC, is led by the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
• It has the Department of Biotechnology, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Ministry for AYUSH (Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Homoeopathy) among others and the Indian Council of Medical Research as partners.
• The Science for Equity, Empowerment and Development (SEED), is the department in charge of the programme.

Know! more about SUTRA PIC
SUTRA PIC or Scientific Utilisation Through Research Augmentation-Prime Products from Indigenous Cows, has five themes:
1. Uniqueness of Indigenous Cows
2. Prime-products from Indigenous Cows for Medicine and Health
3. Prime-products from Indigenous Cows for Agricultural Applications
4. Prime-products from Indigenous Cows for Food and Nutrition
5. Prime-products from indigenous cows-based utility items
Objectives of the programme.

• scientific research on complete characterisation of milk and milk products derived from Indian indigenous cows
• scientific research on nutritional and therapeutic properties of curd and ghee prepared from indigenous breeds of cows by traditional methods
• development of standards for traditionally processed dairy products of Indian-origin cow

Earlier Researches

• In 2017, SEED constituted a National Steering Committee (NSC) for ‘Scientific Validation and Research on Panchgavya (SVAROP)'.
• Panchagavya is an Ayurvedic panacea and is a mixture of five (pancha) products of the cow (gavya) - milk, curd, ghee, dung and urine. Its proponents believe it can cure, or treat a wide range of ailments.

Science and Technology
17^th Edition of BioAsia 2020

Relevance IN - Prelims (about BioAsia 2020 and its objective) + Mains (GS III Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology)
What's the NEWS

• Telangana is all set to host the three-day Bio Asia 2020, Asia's largest Biotechnology and Life Sciences Forum with the theme of ‘Today for Tomorrow' from February 17 in Hyderabad.

Know! more about BioAsia 2020

• About 2,000 delegates from 37 countries will be attending the annual flagship event of Government of Telangana
• BioAsia has been playing a key role in bringing together the global industry leaders, researchers, policymakers, innovators, and investors together on one platform discussing the new opportunities and developing strategies to succeed.
• Genome Valley, India's first and only systematically developed R&D and clean manufacturing ecosystem, has become the largest innovation and life sciences cluster in Asia.
• Switzerland will be the partner Country this year as part of the annual tradition.
• BioAsia 2020 is being organized in partnership with Government of India, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of MSME, Department of Biotechnology, Department of Pharmaceuticals and it has state partners include Assam, Kerala, Odisha and Gujarat.

Genome Valley Excellence Award 2020

• Genome Valley Excellence Award was constituted in 2004 to recognize and honour eminent individuals and organizations for their exceptional contribution to the Life Sciences research and public health.
• The Government of Telangana presents this special award to eminent leaders every year after a careful examination and technical consideration by the reputed jury committee appointed by it.

e-Governance
National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment (NeSDA) 2019

Relevance IN - Prelims (about National Conference on e-Governance and NeSDA) + Mains ( GS II Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential; citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and other measures.
What's the NEWS

• 23^rd edition of National Conference on e-Governance 2020 based on the theme "India 2020: Digital Transformation" with 6-sub themes

The six sub-themes of the conference include:
(i) Digital Platforms and Digital Economy
(ii) Improving Service Delivery
(iii) Building Digital Trust - Transparency, Security and Privacy
(iv) Digital Payments and Fintech
(v) National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment (NeSDA)/ Digital Service Standard (DSS)
(vi) Skilling and Capacity Building
Know! about NeSDA

• NeSDA was a key initiative announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2018 to push the government machinery towards his promise of ‘minimum government, maximum governance'.
• It is also aimed at pushing up India's overall performance on the global e-governance index, an important parameter to attract investment.
• India was ranked 96 among 193 countries in the United Nations E- Government Survey of 2018.
• While this was an improvement over the 118 rank in 2014 and the 107 position in 2016, more effort is clearly needed.
• The NeSDAframework is a step in that direction to nudge states and government interfaces to become more people -friendly.

Know! more about the assessment

• The assessment was aimed at improving the overall e-Government development by evaluating the efficiency of service delivery mechanism from a citizen's perspective.
• The assessment is done broadly for four categories - Union territories, remaining states, union territories and central government ministries websites

Know! more about the conference

• The conference, is being jointly organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Government of Maharashtra and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
• The index has been prepared by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances(DARPG) with NASSCOM as the designated knowledge partner.

The NeSDA framework

• The NeSDA framework primarily assessed all the service portals (state/UT and central ministry service portals) on seven key parameters, namely accessibility, content availability, ease of use, information security & privacy, end service delivery, integrated service delivery and status & request tracking.
• The framework covers six sectors, namely finance, labour & employment, education, local government & utilities, social welfare (including agriculture & health) and environment (including fire) sectors.

Know! the Ranking

• Kerala has topped the index followed by Goa at the second spot and Haryana at the third spot.
• Delhi and Chandigarh are the leading UTs with their service portals
• Among the north-east and hill states, Nagaland has got the first rank
• The website of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) under the finance ministry is the winner under
• The index, which also assesses central ministries, has given the top spot to the ministry of health & family welfare, while the second position has been secured by the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) for its SWAYAM education platform and the National Scholarship Portal.
• The CBDT portal has been ranked first under the assessment of central ministry service portals, according to the report.
• The list of Union Territories is topped by Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• 

Other Awards

• 
• The Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB) has cliched a national award for e-Governance 2019-20 for the Board's Real-Time Pollution-Monitoring System (RTPMS) project.
• Odisha Govt's GO SWIFT Portal won the National e-Governance Silver award for the year 2019-20 under the Category-1 ‘Excellence in Government Process Re-engineering for Digital Transformation'.
• The Election Commission of India has been awarded ‘Silver' for Excellence in Government Process re-engineering for digital transformation for the year 2019-20.
• Antyodaya Saral of Department of IT, Haryana was awarded Gold for Excellence in providing citizen-centric delivery.
• IIT(Indian Institute of Technology) Roorkee's (Uttarakhand) Satellite-based Agriculture Information System: An Efficient Application of ICT received the Gold Award for Outstanding Research on Citizen-Centric Services.

Know! about ERONet

• ERONet, a web portal launched by the Election Commission of India through which citizens can now not only register for their voter-ID cards online but also choose to change the state in which they want to enrol as a voter without going through unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles. Persons can apply online throughout the entire year at any time through this portal.
• The system strives to make an applicant's entry in e-roll unambiguous and error free without much of hassle.
• For poll officials, meanwhile, this portal will help them deal with inaccuracies in voter-related information, besides preventing the proliferation of duplicate cards.
• The software will allow officials to discern whether the person they are enrolling in the voters' list is a first-timer or someone who has registered multiple times across India.
• ERONet system will ensure that everything related to a voter is stored in a computer and the process is digitized
  
  

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