Daily Current Capsules - 13th July 2020
Government Schemes
NITI Aayog's Atal Innovation Mission launches app development module for school students

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about ATL App Development Module'+ programs launched by NITI Aayog) + Mains ( GS III Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology)
What's the NEWS

• The Atal Innovation Mission of Centre's think-tank, NITI Aayog, has launched a free online app development course for school students across the country.
• Under the Atal Tinkering Lab initiative, AIM, NITI Aayog launched the ATL App Development module for India's young minds

Know! about ATL App Development Module

• Named, ‘ATL App Development Module', the online course intends to make mobile application-developers of school students under Atal Tinkering Lab initiative of AIM.
• Through six project-based learning modules and online mentoring sessions, young innovators can learn to build mobile apps in various Indian languages and showcase their talent.
• The course has been jointly developed by NITI Aayog's AIM and Indian startup, Plezmo.
• This would be one of the largest App learning and development initiatives at a school level in any country.
• To foster learning and creativity within young minds, as part of the ATL #TinkerfromHome campaign, AIM, NITI Aayog has created a growing state of the art platform for the students and teachers across the country to learn and apply the latest of technologies from the comfort and safety of their homes
• The launch of Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge has been inspiring to the young students uniformly at school, university and industry level.
• NITI Aayog is now bringing the skills of app development to the young tinkerers of Atal Tinkering Labs across the country so that they can integrate their Tinkering Lab innovations with mobile apps enhancing the usability and reach of their innovations.

Additional info.(flagship schemes/initiatives of NITI Aayog)
Atal Tinkering Lab

• In ATLs, students of class 6th to 12th acquire a problem-solving attitude, develop innovative solutions leveraging technologies like 3D printers, robotics, miniaturised electronics, IOT and programming and DIY kits, with support from teachers and mentors.

Atal Innovative Mission

• AIM is the Government of India's flagship initiative to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the country.
• AIM's objective is to develop new programmes and policies for fostering innovation in different sectors of the economy, provide platform and collaboration opportunities for different stakeholders, create awareness and create an umbrella structure to oversee innovation ecosystem of the country.

Six major initiatives of AIM:

• Atal Tinkering Labs-Creating problem-solving mindset across schools in India.
• Atal Incubation Centers-Fostering world class start-ups and adding a new dimension to the incubator model.
• Atal New India Challenges-Fostering product innovations and aligning them to the needs of various sectors/ministries.
• Mentor India Campaign- A national Mentor network in collaboration with public sector, corporates and institutions, to support all the initiatives of the mission.
• Atal Community Innovation Centre- To stimulate community centric innovation and ideas in the unserved /underserved regions of the country including Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
• ARISE-To stimulate innovation and research in the MSME industry.

Generation Unlimited:

• Generation Unlimited is a new UNICEF-led global partnership that aims to ensure that every young person age 10-24 is in some form of school, learning, training, self-employment, or age-appropriate employment by 2030.
• It aims to co-create and scale up proven solutions related to secondary age-education, skills for learning, employability and decent work, and empowerment, with a focus on girls.

Environment Conservation
India's tiger census creates Guinness record

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about tiger census 2018 highlights) + Mains ( GS III Environment Conservation)
What's the NEWS

• India's 2018 Tiger Census has made it to the Guinness Book of World Records for being the world's largest camera trapping wildlife survey.

Know! more about it

• The fourth cycle of the All India Tiger Estimation 2018 estimated 2,967 tigers or 75 per cent of the global tiger population in the nation. Its results were declared to the nation on Global Tiger Day last year by Prime Minister

Know! about the world's largest camera trap wildlife survey.

• For the survey, camera traps were placed at 26,838 locations across 141 different sites.
• From these photographs (from camera traps), 2,461 individual tigers (excluding cubs) were identified using stripe-pattern-recognition software
• The 2018 All India Tiger estimation had found 2967 tigers in the country, compared to 2,226 in 2014.
• The fourth iteration of the survey - conducted in 2018-19 - was the most comprehensive to date, in terms of both resource and data amassed.
• A population estimation of tigers is created by combining the two types of data - the tigers photographed and identified and the non-photographed ones whose numbers are estimated using software.

Know! the highlights of Tiger Census 2018

• On International Tiger Day 2019, July 29, PM Narendra Modi released the tiger estimation figures in India
• The country had achieved its target of doubling its number of tigers an incredible four years earlier than the given deadline.
• India has 2,967 tigers - a reported growth of 33% in the fourth cycle of the Tiger Census which has been conducted every four years since 2006.
• In 2006, the census showed that the number of tigers in India was only 1,411. In the next cycle of 2010, the numbers grew to 1,706, and in 2014, the tiger numbers grew to 2,226.
• As per the Tiger Census of 2018, the state of Madhya Pradesh has the highest number of tigers at 526. It is followed by Karnataka with 524 tigers and Uttarakhand at 442 tigers.
• The states of Chhattisgarh and Mizoram saw a decline in tiger numbers while Odisha maintained its population.undertaken using the best available science, technology and analytical tools.
• The M-STrIPES app, CaTRAT software and the Extract Compare programs made this tiger census the most accurate in history.
• The 2018 tiger census was quite a big upgrade from the previous three cycles as it was

Know! about Tigers

• Tigers are scattered among Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russian Federation, Thailand and Vietnam.
• India's five tiger landscapes are: Shivalik Hills and Gangetic Plains, Central Indian Landscape and Eastern Ghats, Western Ghats, North-East Hills and Brahmaputra Plains, and the Sundarbans.

Global Tiger Day

• World Tiger Day is celebrated on July 29 every year to raise awareness about a gradual decline in tiger population leaving them on the brink of extinction, and to encourage tiger conservation.
• International Tiger Day was established in 2010 at Saint Petersburg Tiger Summit in Russia. At the summit, governments of tiger-populated countries vowed to double tiger population by 2020.
• Around 3,900 tigers remain in the wild across the globe, according to World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
• Since the beginning of the 20th century, over 95 per cent of the world's tiger population has been lost.
• There are different species of tigers - Siberian tigers, Bengal tigers, Indochinese tigers, Malayan tigers and South China tigers.
• The Bengal tiger is found primarily in India, with smaller a population of them in Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, China and Myanmar as well.

Know! about Project Tiger

• The Government of India has taken a pioneering initiative for conserving its national animal, the tiger, by launching the ‘Project Tiger' in 1973.
• The tiger reserves are constituted on a core/buffer strategy. The core areas have the legal status of a national park or a sanctuary, whereas the buffer or peripheral areas are a mix of forest and non-forest land, managed as a multiple use area.
• The Project Tiger aims to foster an exclusive tiger agenda in the core areas of tiger reserves, with an inclusive people oriented agenda in the buffer.

Know! about NTCA

• The National Tiger Conservation Authority is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change constituted under enabling provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972,
• ‘Project Tiger' is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the Environment, Forests and Climate Change, providing funding support to tiger range States, for in-situ conservation of tigers in designated tiger reserves, and has put the endangered tiger on an assured path of recovery by saving it from extinction, as revealed by the recent findings of the All India tiger estimation using the refined methodology.

Prelims Factoids
Itolizumab

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Itolizumab)
What's the NEWS

• Itolizumab has received Drugs Controller General of India's (DCGI) approval for its use in moderate to severe COVID-19 patients.

Know! all about Itolizumab

• DCGI has approved to market Itolizumab (ALZUMAb) injection 25mg and 5mL solution for emergency use in India for the treatment of cytokine release syndrome (CRS) in moderate to severe ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) patients due to COVID-19
• Itolizumab is the first novel biologic therapy to be approved anywhere in the world for treating patients with moderate to severe COVID-19 complications.
• Itolizumab is an anti-CD6 monoclonal antibody injection that is being used in India for the treatment of Psoriasis (Skin Disorder in which Skin Cells multiply 10 times faster than normal).
• Itolizumab is now approved for the treatment of CRS in patients with moderate to severe ARDS due to COVID-19.
• Itolizumab is a monoclonal antibody approved for the treatment of severe chronic plaque psoriasis.
• Itolizumab got approval from the DCGI for the treatment of Psoriasis back in January 2013
• Monoclonal antibodies are lab-made proteins that act like human antibodies in the immune system and fight against foreign molecules.

Rural Development
Start-up Village scheme has generated 1.33 lakh jobs in 2 years
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about SVEP ) + 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

• Over 64,000 rural enterprises formed under the Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) have generated an estimated 1,33,302 lakh employment opportunities across States in two years.

Know! all about SVEP

• The SVEP is a sub-scheme under the Centre's Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission to help the rural poor, including members of women self help groups (SHGs) and their families, set up enterprises at the village level in non-agricultural sectors.
• The long term vision of the SVEP is to provide support for start-up to 1 crore village enterprises and provide direct employment to 2 crore people.
• The SVEP shall help the rural poor come out of poverty by helping them set up enterprises and provide support till the enterprises stabilize.
• The programmatic intervention will address all three missing ecosystems - Knowledge, advisory and finance ecosystems.

Prelims Factoids
CII-ITC Sustainability Awards 2019

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about CII-ITC Sustainability Awards)
What's the NEWS

• NTPC Ltd, a central PSU under Ministry of Power and India's largest power generation company, has won the prestigious CII-ITC Sustainability Award 2019, under Outstanding Accomplishment in Corporate Excellence Category.

Initiatives taken by NTPC

• NTPC always strives for sustainable development of its communities around the power stations. Its flagship CSR program GEM (Girl Empowerment Mission), a 4 weeks residential program for benefit of school going girls from underprivileged background to support in their overall development.
• NTPC has also initiated Contractors' Labour Information Management System (CLIMS) through which payment to contract labourers is paid on the last day of the month at project sites.
• NTPC Group has 70 Power stations comprising of 24 Coal, 7 combined cycle Gas/Liquid Fuel, 1 Hydro, 13 Renewables along with 25 Subsidiary & JV Power Stations.

Know! about CII-ITC Sustainability Awards

• Instituted in 2006, the CII-ITC Sustainability Awards recognise and reward excellence in businesses that are seeking ways to be more sustainable and inclusive in their activities. Winners of the Awards are role models that inspire others to follow suit.
• It recognize and reward excellence in sustainability practices. It is considered to be the most credible platform for sustainability recognition in the country.
• The Awards are a part of the continued efforts of CESD to create awareness on sustainability practices and to create capacities in business.
• CII-ITC Sustainability Awards define the science of sustainability performance.

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