Education
NCERT textbooks to be available in Indian sign language

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the MoU - highlights + about ISLRTC and NCERT) + Mains ( GS II - Social Issues and welfare measures for vulnerable section ) + GS III inclusive development)
What's the NEWS

• A historic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between Indian Sign Language Research and Training Center-ISLRTC (a National Institute of DEPwD, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment) and NCERT (a National Institute of Ministry of Education) to make education materials accessible for Deaf children in their preferred format of communication viz Indian Sign Language.

Know! all about the MoU (highlights)

• After this MoU, NCERT educational books and materials will be available in Indian Sign Language which is same all over India
• Educational print materials such as NCERT Textbooks, Teachers Handbook and other Supplementary materials and resources of Class I-XII of all subjects of both Hindi and English Medium will be converted into Indian Sign Language in Digital format.
• Signing of this MoU is based on the UNICEF's initiative "Accessible Digital Textbooks for All" and it is a landmark decision.
• Through this MoU, India is moving towards realizing the provisions mentioned in the Right to Education (RTE) 2009, and the Rights of Persons with Disability Act (RPWD) 2016 and the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, such as the use of appropriate and alternative means of communication, in which Sign Language has an important place

Know! about ISLRTC and NCERT

• Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre (ISLRTC) is an autonomous national institute of DEPwD, MSJE which is dedicated to the task of developing man-power for popularizing the use of Indian Sign Language, teaching and conducting research in Indian Sign Language.
• NCERT is an autonomous organization under MHRD which is responsible for ensuring qualitative improvement in school education by undertaking and promoting research in areas related to school education; prepare and publish model textbooks, and act as a nodal agency for achieving the goals of Universalization of Elementary Education.

Know! about Sign Language

• Sign Language is a naturally evolved language like other oral languages. It is used by persons with deafness for day to day life communication.
• It is considered as a mother tongue of persons with deafness.
• Like other languages it is also an independent language with complex grammar. It involves naturally evolved visual-manual signs

Miscellaneous
Declaration of Results of National Startup Awards 2020

Relevance IN - Prelims ( all about National Startup Awards + launch of other initiatives) + GS II (Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
What's the NEWS

• The Results of the National Startup Awards 2020 were released by Minister of Commerce & Industry

National Startup Awards

• The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has conceived the National Startup Awards to recognize and reward outstanding Startups and ecosystem enablers
• The first edition of the Awards invited applications across 12 sectors, which were further sub-classified into a total of 35 categories.
• These 12 sectors are Agriculture, Education, Enterprise Technology, Energy, Finance, Food, Health, Industry 4.0, Space, Security, Tourism and Urban Services.
• Apart from these, startups are to be selected from those which create impact in rural areas, are women-led and founded in academic campuses.
• A total of 1641 applications were received from startups spread across 23 States and 4 Union Territories.
• These applicants included 654 Women-led, 165 academic institution based and 331 startups working in rural areas.
• All applicants were evaluated against six broad parameters namely Innovation, Scalability, Economic Impact, Social Impact, Environmental Impact, and Inclusiveness and Diversity.

The Startup India Showcase

• It is a part of the Startup India portal, is intended to be an online discovery platform for the most promising startups of the country.
• The startups showcased here shall be handpicked by experts and will span across different sectors like FinTech, EdTech, Social Impact among others.
• The showcase will help industry, investors and public authorities find and connect with startups for potential partnerships, investments and public procurement respectively.
• This showcase will help the ecosystem connect with them better while also serving as an inspiration.

Blockchain-based Certificate Verification

• The ‘Blockchain-based Certificate Verification System' will enable instant verification and access to certificates of recognitions issued by DPIIT.
• This feature introduces an added layer of security to the startup certificates.
• It can be accessed by Government Departments, procurement entities, investors, and other third parties to verify status of recognized startups for accessing different opportunities.

Science & Technology
A new study by ARIES of DST suggests new formula to help estimate the mass of Black Hole

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the new formula to probe black hole) + Mains ( GS III awareness in the field of science and technology)
What's the NEWS

• A new study has suggested a formula that can help probe black holes.
• Black holes (BH) cannot be observed directly, but their presence can be detected by the huge amount of energy that is liberated through temporary accumulation of matter outside the BH, before it dives into the BH, a process called accretion.

Two-temperature modeling of accretion flows.

• Scientists have found the formula that can assess the spectrum emitted from the accretion discs around black holes.
• Spectra of accretion discs can help estimate the mass of the black hole.
• Accretion flow around BH is composed of ionised plasma, which is a soup of bare electrons and protons. Since electrons are more prone to radiative losses than the protons, it is expected that around a BH, electrons and protons would settle down into two separate temperature distributions.
• Therefore, the two-temperature equations are generally solved to obtain the emitted spectrum from the electron temperature distribution. This is known as two-temperature modeling of accretion flows.

Chattopadhyay form of entropy formula

• Scientists have developed a new formula called the Sarkar & Chattopadhyay form of entropy formula that can only be applied near the horizon where gravity overpowers any other interactions like energy exchange terms between ions and electrons.
• This novel approach helped in selecting a unique solution out of the multiple solutions of accretion disc spectrum emission around a BH.
• Using this formula, they found that with the increase of the mass supply to the central BH, the accretion disc becomes brighter and more high energy photons are emitted.

Science & Technology
Global climate events over last 3200 years may have caused variations in Indian Summer Monsoon
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the study done by WIHG - terminologies + about WIHG)
What's the NEWS

• Global climatic events like the Roman Warm Period, Medieval Climate Anomaly, and the Little Ice Age may have had significant impacts on India's landscape, vegetation, and socio-economic growth, with abrupt shifts in the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) coinciding with these climatic events.

Know! about the study highlights

• A new study by the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India, shows wet monsoon conditions in the North-Western Himalaya between 1200 and 550 BCE.
• The study carried out with lake sediments from Rewalsar Lake, a freshwater lake from Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh
• Sediments from this lake preserve signature that can be used as proxies to understand monsoon variability in the past.
• The chronology of Rewalsar Lake sediment was established based on the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (a form of mass spectrometry to separate a rare isotope from an abundant neighbouring mass) (AMS)

Science & Technology
Scientists uncover clue of how first extreme-UV light appeared

Relevance IN - Prelims ( facts about the first extreme-UV light appearance + about Project CEFIPRA + AstroSat + AUDFs01
What's the NEWS

• Scientists have uncovered an important clue on how the dark ages of the Universe ended and how the first extreme-UV light appeared.
• India's first multi-wavelength satellite, AstroSat, has detected extreme-UV (EUV) light from a galaxy, called AUDFs01, 9.3 billion light-years away from Earth.

Extreme-UV (EUV) light

• The EUV photons emitted by galaxies like AUDFs01 could play a crucial role in reionizing the early universe soon after the Cosmic Dark Age and emitting the first light.
• Such EUV radiation has enough energy to ionize a hydrogen atom by liberating its electron from the nucleus's influence

Project CEFIPRA

• A collaboration of researchers from different countries under the project CEFIPRA funded by Indo-French Centre for the Promotion of Advanced Research (CEFIPRA) a bilateral organization set up by the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India and the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Government of France delved into how galaxies like AUDFs01 grow their stellar mass when the first stars and galaxies became visible.
• CEFIPRA estimated the recent star-formation rate and mass of the gas reservoir in the galaxy.
• Star formation rate provides a quantitative measure of the stellar mass growth in galaxies.
• The typical star formation rate (or gas consumption rate) in those first galaxies is not known.
• By studying galaxies like AUDFs01 and many more, we could get an idea of how star formation rate, gas consumption rate, and growth of stellar mass in those primitive galaxies.

AstroSat

• The multi-wavelength satellite AstroSat, which was launched on September 28, 2015, by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has five unique X-ray and ultraviolet telescopes working in tandem and has onboard the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT).

AUDFs01

• AUDFs01 is the first example of a leaking galaxy with clumpy morphology. This galaxy has four clumps and, perhaps, typical of star-forming galaxies in this redshift range.
• The current version of the AUDF-south (AUDFs) can be used to detect a number of such EUV galaxies from redshift 1 and 2, when the cosmic star-formation rate had its peak, and thus, AstroSat may allow further to refine the scenario of cosmic reionization.

Government Schemes
Jal Jeevan Mission to provide potable piped water supply in Schools & Anganwadi Centres

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the 100 days campaign and its objective + about JJM)
What's the NEWS

• The Prime Minister released the ‘Margdarshika' for Gram Panchayats and Paani Samitis for implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) to have assured water supply to every rural home
• Prime Minister also launched ‘100 days campaign' to ensure piped safe water in schools and anganwadi centres across the country.
• Provisions have been made under Jal Jeevan Mission for ensuring safe water through tap water connection in schools, anganwadi centres, health care centres, etc.

100 days campaign

• During this 100 days campaign, Gram Sabhas will be convened coinciding with Gandhi Jayanti, on 2nd October, 2020 and in coming days to pass a resolution for providing safe water in all schools, anganwadi centres and other public institutions in the village in the next 100 days.
• These facilities will be operated and maintained by the Gram Panchayat and/ or its sub-committee i.e. Village Water & Sanitation Committee or Paani Samiti.
• As ‘nodal department', Public Health Engineering Department of States will spearhead the campaign by involving Gram Panchayats and/ or its sub-committees, along with other line departments namely Education, Women & Child Welfare, Panchayati Raj & Rural Development, Tribal Welfare, etc.

Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM)

• Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) aims at the universal coverage of provision of tap water connection to every rural home by 2024.
• Jal Jeevan Mission is under implementation in partnership with States with the aim to provide drinking water to every rural household of the country by 2024.
• In the past one year, more than 2.30 Crore households have already been provided tap water connections across the country.

KEEP Learning KEEP Evolving
TEAM CL IAS