• Union Tribal Affairs Minister e-launched the tertiary processing centres of "Trifood Project" of TRIFED in Raigad, Maharashtra and in Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh

• Being implemented by TRIFED, Ministry of Tribal Affairs in association with Ministry of Food Processing (MoFPI), TRIFOOD aims to enhance the income of tribals through better utilization of and value addition to the MFPs collected by the tribal forest gatherers.
• To achieve this, as a start, two Minor Forest Produce (MFP) processing units will be set up.
• TRIFOOD project in Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra is an attempt to offer a comprehensive development package for tribals by promoting, employment, incomes and entrepreneurship.
• Implemented by TRIFED in association with State Government Agencies across 21 states of the country, the scheme has injected more than Rs 3000 crores directly in the tribal economy so far.
• This scheme draws its strength from The Forest Rights Act of 2005,aims to provide remunerative and fair prices to tribal gatherers of forest produces.
• The scheme ensures that the proceeds from the sales of these value-added products go to the tribals directly.

• The TRIFOOD project aims to converge both the components in its desired merits.
• In association with MoFPI, the units that will be set up under the Scheme for Creation of Backward and Forward Linkages under the Pradhan Mantri KisanSampada Yojana, will procure the raw material from the Van DhanKendras in the state.
• The fully processed products will be sold across the country in Tribes India outlets, and franchisee stores.

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about PMEGP + role of KVIC) + Mains ( GS II Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes + Governance)
What's the NEWS

• The flagship Prime Minister Employment Generation Program (PMEGP) implemented by Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) progressed at a much rapid pace.
• Due to the introduction of a new&faster mechanism in approving the PMEGP projects the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), has approved and forwarded 1.03 lakh project applications to the financing banks as compared to 71,556 projects during the corresponding period last year and thus registering a jump of 44%.

Know! about PMEGP and the recent amendment

• PMEGP is the flagship employment generation program of the Central government and KVIC is the nodal agency for implementing the scheme.
• The Ministry on April 28, this year amended the guidelines to do away with the role of the District Level Task Force Committee (DLTFC) in approving the PMEGP projects.
• The role of DLTFC, headed by the District Collectors, was time consuming.
• As per the amended guidelines, KVIC, the nodal agency for implementing PMEGP scheme, was entrusted the task of clearing the applications from prospective entrepreneurs and forward it to the Banks for taking credit decisions.

NITI Aayog
Atal Innovation Mission partners with India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre to expand Start-up ecosystem

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about India Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre and AIM) + Mains ( GS III awareness in the field of science and technology)
What's the NEWS

• Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog and Business Sweden on behalf of India Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre are collaborating to promote the disruptive potential of Indian entrepreneurs, and, boost the vibrant start-up ecosystem across the country.

India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre

• India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre is a collaboration between AIIMS Delhi, AIIMS Jodhpur and Business Sweden.
• The Innovation Centre aims to create an ecosystem of open innovation and is built under strategic guidance from Government of India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Government of Sweden's Ministry of Health and Social Affairs and Embassy of Sweden in India.
• It also has a strong network of ecosystem partners - Invest India, AGNII, Startup India, and knowledge partners - AstraZeneca, NASSCOM and VINNOVA.
• The Innovation centre has recently launched its first healthcare innovation challenge to collaborate with partners on the Innovation Centre platform to help solve some of the problems in the healthcare delivery landscape of India.
• Through this collaboration with Atal Innovation Mission, the India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation centre ecosystem will be further strengthened to provide all the required support to the innovators for faster scale-up of their solutions.
• The India Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre has agreed to support the goals of AIM by enabling synergies towards creating a sustainable ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship between the two countries.

Know! the role of AIM

• Under AIM, various programmes or initiatives are being run such as Atal New India Challenge (ANIC), Atal Incubation Centre (AIC), Atal Community Innovation Centers (ACIC), Atal Tinkering Lab (ATL) and Atal Research & Innovation for Small Enterprises (ARISE).
• Through this collaboration, these initiatives are set to receive support by the means of conducting programs, awareness campaigns, various activities and events that would promote the overall innovation grid of both the countries through these programmes.

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.

Know! about Business Sweden

• It is an organisation jointly owned by the Government of Sweden and representatives from the Swedish business community, through the Swedish Foreign Trade Association
• Business Sweden's purpose is to help Swedish companies to grow their global sales and international companies to invest and expand in Sweden.
• It was formed in January, 2013 as a result of a merger between the government agency Invest Sweden and the organization Swedish Trade Council.

Miscellaneous
Millennium Alliance Round 6 & COVID19 Innovation Challenge-Awards

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

• The Millennium Alliance Round 6 & COVID19 Innovation Challenge-Award Ceremony, which recognized 49 innovative solutions in 5 focus sectors of India
• DST currently supports 150 technology business incubators with over 4000 technology startups within these incubators across the country, bringing in lots of bright ideas and plans to scale up these numbers.
• Millennium Alliance, along with the other partners-- organisations like USAID, FICCI, DFID have been strong partners in that journey

Know! about the award ceremony

• A total of 49 innovative solutions were awarded with a sum totaling Rs 26 crores for their innovations in 5 focus sectors in India namely Education, Health, Clean Energy, Water & Sanitation, Agriculture and sectors having global focus with pilot projects being run in South Asian and African countries like Nepal, Rwanda, Uganda, Bangladesh, Kenya.
• Also, 16 innovators were awarded in the category COVID 19 Innovation Challenge.

Know! about Millennium Alliance

• The Millennium Alliance is an innovation-driven and impact-focused initiative leveraging collaborative resources to identify test and scale Indian innovations that address global development solutions.
• It is a consortium of partners (Public-Private Partnership) including the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), UK Government's Department for International Development (DFID), Facebook and Marico Innovation Foundation.
• The program is currently running in its sixth year and has played a catalytic role in providing funding, capacity building, and business development support to Indian social enterprises.

Miscellaneous
Swachh Survekshan Results 2020


Relevance IN - Prelims ( about fifth edition of the annual cleanliness urban survey - key takeaways + about Swachh Survekshan + about Swachh Survekshan 2021 - new additions)
What's the NEWS

• This is the fifth edition of the survey that was introduced by Prime Minister in January 2016.
• In the first edition of the survey, Mysuru had won the award for the cleanest city of India.
• The fifth edition of the annual cleanliness urban survey conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Government of India

• Indore won the coveted title of the Cleanest City of India, Surat and Navi Mumbai won the second and third position respectively (in the > 1 lakh population category).
• Chhattisgarh won the prestigious title of the Cleanest State of India in the > 100 ULB category while Jharkhand was adjudged the Cleanest State of India in the <100 ULB category.

Know! about the annual cleanliness urban survey - Swachh Survekshan

• MoHUA had conducted Swachh Survekshan 2016 survey for the rating of 73 cities in January 2016, followed by Swachh Survekshan 2017 conducted in January-February 2017 ranking 434 cities.
• Swachh Survekshan 2018, which became the world's largest cleanliness survey, ranked 4203 cities followed by SS 2019 which not only covered 4237 cities but was also the first of its kind completely digital survey completed in a record time of 28 days.
• Swachh Survekshan 2020 continued the momentum and surveyed a total of 4242 cities, 62 Cantonment Boards and 97 Ganga Towns and saw an unprecedented participation of 1.87 crore citizens.
• Going a step forward, to ensure sustainability of on-ground performance of cities, the Ministry had also introduced Swachh Survekshan League last year, a quarterly cleanliness assessment of cities and towns done in three quarters with 25% weightage integrated into the final Swachh Survekshan results for this year.

Some of the key highlights of Swachh Survekshan 2020 are as follows:

• 1.87 crore citizen feedback received
• 1.7 crore citizens registered on Swachhata App
• Over 11 crore impressions on social media
• Over 5.5 lakh sanitary workers linked to social welfare schemes and over 84,000 informal waste pickers integrated into the mainstream
• Over 4 lakh contractual employees employed by Urban Local Bodies
• Over 21,000 Garbage Vulnerable Points identified and transformed

Swachh Survekshan partner organizations

• The United Nations Agency for International Development (USAID/ India), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Microsoft India, Google,

Know! about Swachh Survekshan 2021.

• MoHUA launched the sixth edition of the survey, Swachh Survekshan 2021.
• The Swachh Survekshan 2021 indicators focus on parameters pertaining to wastewater treatment and reuse along with faecal sludge.
• The crucial issues of legacy of waste management and remediation of landfills have been brought to the fore in the sixth edition of the Survekshan.

Swachh Survekshan 2021 saw the introduction of a new performance category, the Prerak DAUUR Samman which has a total of five additional sub- categories

• Divya (Platinum), Anupam (Gold), Ujjwal (Silver), Udit (Bronze), Aarohi (Aspiring).

• In addition to the present criteria of evaluating cities on ‘population category', this new category will categorize cities on the basis of six select indicator wise performance criteria.

Role of digital platform

• The launch of the integrated MIS portal by the Ministry recently which brings the numerous digital initiatives on a single platform thus ensuring a unified and hassle-free experience for States and cities and leading the way towards the creation of not just a Swachh but a truly digital India.
• Benefits - better monitoring of outcomes along with increased citizen engagement.

Other highlights

• Since its launch in 2014, Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) has made significant progress in the area of both sanitation and solid waste management.
• 4,324 Urban ULBs have been declared ODF, 1,319 cities certified ODF+ and 489 cities certified ODF++ as per MoHUA's sanitation protocols.
• A total of 6 cities (Indore, Ambikapur, Navi Mumbai, Surat, Rajkot and Mysuru) have been rated as 5-star cities, 86 cities as 3-Star and 64 cities as 1-Star, as per MoHUA's Star Rating Protocol for Garbage Free Cities.

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