Daily Current Capsules - 11th August 2020
Infrastructure Development
Connectivity to Andaman & Nicobar Islands (CANI)


Relevance IN - Prelims (about CANI + about optical fibre cable project + about Island Development Agency + Mains ( GS III infrastructure development + GS II government policies and interventions)
What's the NEWS

• Prime Minister inaugurated the first ever undersea optical fibre cable project for Andaman and Nicobar Islands
• It will provide high speed broadband connections in the union territory at par with services in the mainland.

• The Prime Minister had laid the foundation for 2,312-kilometer Chennai - Andaman and Nicobar Islands (CANI) connecting submarine optical fibre cable project on December 30, 2018.
• The service had begun on a major chunk of the islands from Chennai to Port Blair, Port Blair to Little Andaman and Port Blair to Swaraj Island.
  
  
  
• The Submarine Cable will help A&N in getting cheaper & better connectivity and all the benefits of Digital India, especially in improving online education, tele-medicine, banking system, online trading and in boosting tourism.
• Besides, Port Blair, it will connect other islands namely Swaraj Dweep (Havlock), Long Island, Rangat, Little Andaman, Kamorta, Car Nicobar, and Greater Nicobar.
• All telecom operators in the country will be able to provide their mobile and broadband services using the CANI optical fibre link.
• Internet with speed of 400 gigabyte (GB) per second will be provided at Port Blair and for other islands it will be 200 GB per second.
• Work of laying undersea cable has been executed by BSNL in a record time of less than 24 months.
• This project will give a boost to 4G mobile services and digital services like tele-education, tele-health, e-governance services, and tourism on the islands.

Additional info
Know! about Island Development Agency

• The Island Development Agency was formed 3 years ago (2017) for the holistic development of islands. It is chaired by the Union Home Minister

• Other IDA Members
• Cabinet secretary
• Home secretary
• Secretary (environment, forests and climate change)
• Secretary (tourism)
• Secretary (tribal welfare)
• The Island Development Agency analysed the developments taken place in favour of the programme "Holistic development of islands".
• 10 islands namely Smith, Ross, Aves, Long and Little Andaman in Andaman & Nicobar and Minicoy, Bangaram, Suheli, Cherium and Tinnakara in Lakshadweep have been identified for holistic development in the first phase.
• Development Plans with focus on creation of jobs for the islanders through tourism promotion as well as export of seafood and coconut-based products made in the Islands have been prepared and are being implemented in four islands of Andaman & Nicobar and five islands of Lakshadweep.
• In the second phase, suitable sites in 12 more islands of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and 5 islands in Lakshadweep have been covered.

High Impact Projects & Better Land, Air and Water Ways

• High Impact Projects are being expanded in 12 islands of Andaman and Nicobar.
• Apart from providing for better internet & mobile connectivity,the effort is to further improve physical connectivity through road, air and water.
• The work on two major bridges and the NH-4 in order to improve the road connectivity of North and Middle Andaman.
• The Port Blair Airport is being enhanced to handle a Capacity of 1200 passengers.Along with this the airports are ready for operations in Diglipur, Car Nicobar and Campbell - Bay.
• The Passenger Terminal in Swaraj Dweep, Shaheed Dweep and Long Island along with Water Aerodrom Infrastructure like Floating Jetty will be ready in the coming months.

• Andaman & Nicobar will be developed as an hub of Port Led Development as it is at a Competitive Distance from many ports of the World.
• Islands (Swaraj Dweep, Shaheed Dweep, Hutbay, and Long) in Andaman and Nicobar, and three islands (Kavaratti, Agatti, and Minicoy) in Lakshadweep have been identified for seaplane operations.

Science & Technology
India-Canada IC-IMPACTS Annual Research Conference



Relevance IN - Prelims (about India-Canada IC-IMPACTS + Mains ( GS II Bilateral relations + GS III awareness in the field of science and technology)
What's the NEWS

• India-Canada IC-IMPACTS Annual Research Conference discussed ways of taking the cooperation between the countries to the next

Know! about the conference

• The Conference was organised virtually by the India-Canada Centre for Innovative Multidisciplinary Partnership to Accelerate Community Transformation and Sustainability (IC-IMPACTS) on 6 August 2020.

• IC-IMPACT has resulted in 1,129 publications, 63 bilateral research projects, 24 technology deployments, 352 partnerships, and 29 patents and technology disclosures.

• Approximately 200 highly qualified Indian students and a large number of Canadian students, most of whom are masters, Ph.D., and post-doctoral fellows were trained under the IC-IMPACT.
• DST has been working with IC-IMPACTS for research partnerships since 2013. This partnership is aimed towards working hand-in-hand with communities in the two countries to develop community-based solutions for the most urgent needs.
• The major focus areas of research cooperation under the IC-IMPACT are green buildings and smart cities; occupants survivability in buildings during fires; integrated water management & safe and sustainable infrastructure; and health problems arising from water-borne and infectious diseases.

Know! more about IC-IMPACTS

• IC-IMPACTS (the India-Canada Centre for Innovative Multidisciplinary Partnerships to Accelerate Community Transformation and Sustainability) is the first, and only, Canada-India Research Centre of Excellence established through the Canadian Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) as a new Centre dedicated to the development of research collaborations between Canada and India.
• Built upon the vision of three of Canada's leading research universities -- IC-IMPACTS is a pan-Canadian Centre bringing together researchers, industry innovators, community leaders, government agencies, and community organizations from across India and Canada, to work hand-in-hand to find solutions to the key challenges that affect the quality of life of millions of people in Indian and Canadian communities.

Environment
World Elephant Day


Relevance IN - Prelims (about booklet on "Best practices of Human-Elephant Conflict Management in India + Surakhsya portal)
What's the NEWS

• The Minister releases a booklet on "Best practices of Human-Elephant Conflict Management in India
• The booklet is a pictorial guide of a variety of management inventions successfully adopted by the elephant range states and serves as a reference manual for adoption of the best possible site specific mitigation measures that can be adopted to reduce human - elephant conflict.
• Ministry also launched beta version of a portal on Human-Elephants Conflict.
• The National Portal on human elephant conflict called "Surakhsya" for collection of real time information & also for managing the conflicts on a real time basis will help to set the data collection protocols, data transmission pipelines and data visualization tools to enable policy-makers to leverage HEC data for policy formulation and for preparation of Action Plans for mitigation of conflicts.
• At present the beta version of the portal is being launched for data testing before the pan India roll out for adoption by the states, which is likely to be done before year end.

Know! about World Elephant Day

• World Elephant Day celebrated on August 12 is an international annual event, dedicated to the preservation and protection of the world's elephants.
• The goal of World Elephant Day is to create awareness on elephant conservation, and to share knowledge and positive solutions for the better protection and management of wild and captive elephants.
• Asian elephants are listed as "Endangered" on the IUCN Red List of threatened species.
• This has been done most of the range states except India, have lost their viable elephant populations due to loss of habitats & poaching etc.

• The current population estimates indicate that there are about 50,000 -60000 Asian elephants in the world. More than 60 % of the population is held in India.
• Indian Elephant has also been listed in the Appendix I of the Convention of the Migratory species in the recently concluded Conference of Parties of CMS 13 at Gandhi Nagar, Gujarat in February 2020.
• Elephant is the Natural Heritage Animal of India and India also celebrates this day to spread awareness towards conservation of the species.

Prelims Factoids
BEEG (Bio -compost Enriched Eco-friendly Globule)
Relevance IN - Prelims (about BEEG)
What's the NEWS

• IIT Kanpur has developed indigenous seed balls named BEEG (Bio -compost Enriched Eco-friendly Globule) which will help people and farmers in plantation with safety in Corona times and will also provide employment to people.

Know! about BEEG

• The BEEG is developed in collaboration with Agnys Waste Management Private Limited (start-up at IIT Kanpur).
• The Seed Balls are comprised of indigenous variety of seeds, compost, and clay.
• There is no need for digging pits for planting saplings .
• These seed walls are to be thrown at aimed places and they will germinate when come into contact with water.
• BEEG is enriched with the right ingredients and seeds to germinate early, and are the best way to utilise Monsoon and plant as many trees as possible without risking lives by social gathering during Covid 19.

International Organisations
KavKaz 2020
Relevance IN - Prelims (about KavKaz 2020 +SCO+ RATS).
What's the NEWS

• India gets ready to participate in the Russian Kavkaz 2020 strategic command-post exercise.
• China and Pakistan are also invited to participate in KavKaz 2020 as both countries are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Know! about Kavkaz 2020

• A tri-service contingent with 150 Army personnel and from Air Force and Navy will be heading to Astrakhan in Southern Russia for the exercise.
• The exercise is scheduled for September 15-26 and there will be participation from atleast 18 countries in KavKaz 2020 including countries from Central Asian Republics who are part of SCO as well as China, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey.

About SCO and India's participation in these drills

• SCO is a eight-member economic and security bloc and India and Pakistan were admitted as full members back in 2017.
• It is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation founded in 2001 with its secretariat based in Beijing, China.
• The founding members of this grouping include China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
• The grouping has been having multilateral drills and has developed Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS).

• It is a permanent organ of the SCO and regarded as very important in the counterterrorism operations by the member countries and has its headquarters based in Tashkent.
• Security officials of all the eight countries sit at the RATS Headquarters in Tashkent.
• In fight against terrorism, extremism and separatism, RATS plays a very critical role, as it gives a chance to all to test their intelligence gathering and exchange; technology complement mechanisms between the members states of SCO.

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