Health
AYUSH Export Promotion Council

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

• The Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Ministry of AYUSH have decided to work together to set up an Export Promotion Council to boost AYUSH exports.
• It was also decided in the review that the entire AYUSH sector will work together to achieve price and quality competitiveness to boost AYUSH exports.

Know! the action points that emerged from the meeting:

• Ministry of AYUSH and Ministry of Commerce and Industry will work together for establishing an AYUSH Export Promotion Council (AEPC). The proposed AEPC can be housed at Ministry of AYUSH.
• Standardisation of HS code for AYUSH will be expedited.
• Ministry of AYUSH will work in collaboration with Bureau of Indian standards to develop international standards for AYUSH products as well as services.
• Ministry of AYUSH and AYUSH industry will identify best practices/ success stories and promote them amongst the public.
• AYUSH industry will work on ensuring quality and standards of AYUSH products as well as to become price-competitive.
• AYUSH will figure in the Brand India activities.

Know! about HS code

• The Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System, also known as the Harmonized System (HS) of tariff nomenclature is an internationally standardized system of names and numbers to classify traded products.
• It came into effect in 1988 and has since been developed and maintained by the World Customs Organization (WCO) (formerly the Customs Co-operation Council), an independent intergovernmental organization based in Brussels, Belgium, with over 200 member countries.
• The HS is organized logically by economic activity or component material.

Miscellaneous
Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about ASCI and its new guidelines)
What's the NEWS

• The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has issued an advisory asking all private television broadcasters to follow guidelines issued by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) for advertisements relating to online gaming, fantasy sports etc.
• The Ministry has advised that the advertisements should not promote any activity prohibited by statute or law.
• A large number of advertisements on Online Gaming, Fantasy Sports, etc have been appearing on the television.
• Such advertisements appear to be misleading and are not in strict conformity with the Advertising Code laid down under Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and the Consumer Protection Act, 2019

ASCI guidelines

• ASCI guidelines require that every such gaming advertisement must carry the following disclaimer: 'This game involves an element of financial risk and may be addictive. Please play responsibly and at your own risk".
• Such a disclaimer should occupy at least 20% of the advertisement space.
• The guidelines also state that gaming advertisements cannot depict users under the age of 18 years as engaged in playing a game of "online gaming for real money winnings" or suggest that such users can play these games.
• The advertisements should neither suggest that online gaming presents an income generating opportunity as an alternative to employment nor depict a person playing such games is more successful than others.

Advertising Standards Council of India

• The Advertising Standards Council of India, established in 1985, is a Mumbai based self-regulatory voluntary organization of the advertising industry in India.
• It seeks to ensure that advertisements conform to its Code for Self-Regulation.
• Under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 it is mandatory for television networks to follow the advertising code laid down by ASCI.

Environment Conservation
Bihar plans migratory bird festival to raise awareness about them
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the bird festival and about Vikramshila Dolphin Sanctuary - location)
What's the NEWS

• Bihar is holding a bird festival for the first time as part of its initiative to save migratory birds that arrive in the state in large numbers every year.

Know! about the fest

• The three-day festival is being organised in eastern Bihar's Bhagalpur district and will tentatively start from December 11, 2020.
• The festival is being jointly organised by the Bhagalpur forest division, non-profit Bombay Natural History Society and the local Mandar Nature Club.
• This was because the 60-kilometre-long stretch of the Vikramshila Dolphin Sanctuary between Sultanganj and Kahalgaon had long been a hub of migratory birds.
• Migratory birds normally come during November and stay till March, finding the region favourable for spending the winter, according to environmentalists.
• A large number of migratory birds arrive in Bhagalpur every year the prime objective behind holding the bird festival is to create awareness among people about the importance of migratory birds
• Ornithologists have found Bhagalpur to be a ‘bird paradise' with a number of migratory birds reaching there every year.
• Some prominent migratory birds arriving in Bhagalpur include bar-headed goose, steppe eagle, Ferruginous duck, Eurasian curlew, white wagtail, great crested grebe, common greenshank and Eurasian coot.
• The main attractions for migratory birds in the eastern part of the country were plenty of water bodies, such as Vikramshila Dolphin Sanctuary on the Ganga river, Jagatpur lake and Kanwar lake,

Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary (VGDS)

• The Bihar government is setting up India's first observatory for the mammals in Bhagalpur district.
• Construction at the Vikramshila Gangetic Dolphin Sanctuary (VGDS) in the state's Bhagalpur district is scheduled to be completed by early next year.
• The endangered Gangetic dolphin, India's national aquatic animal, has reportedly become more visible in the VGDS due to minimum human activity on the Ganga during the ongoing novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) lockdown.
• The last survey of Bihar's dolphin population was conducted in 2018. It was found that there were 1,363 dolphins in the rivers in the state.
• Going by this number, Bihar is home to around half of the estimated 2,500-3,000 Gangetic dolphins in India.
• The state government should build another dolphin observatory at the confluence of the Ganga and Punpun rivers near Fatuha in Patna

Ganges river dolphin (IUCN - Endangered)

• The Ganges river dolphin was officially discovered in 1801. Ganges river dolphins once lived in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna and Karnaphuli-Sangu river systems of Nepal, India, and Bangladesh. But the species is extinct from most of its early distribution ranges.
• The Ganges river dolphin can only live in freshwater and is essentially blind.
• They hunt by emitting ultrasonic sounds, which bounces off of fish and other prey, enabling them to "see" an image in their mind.
• They are frequently found alone or in small groups, and generally a mother and calf travel together.
• Calves are chocolate brown at birth and then have grey-brown smooth, hairless skin as adults.
• Females are larger than males and give birth once every two to three years to only one calf.
• The Ganges river dolphin has been recognized by the government of India as its National Aquatic Animal

Environment
Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Alaska's Arctic Wildlife Refuge)
What's the NEWS

• The Trump administration announced that it will auction off drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in just over a month, setting up a final showdown with opponents before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
• The sale, which is now set for Jan. 6, could cap a bitter, decades-long battle over whether to drill in the coastal plain, a 19-million-acre expanse that's home to Native tribes as well as caribou, polar bears and other wildlife.

Alaska's Arctic Wildlife Refuge.

• Arctic National Wildlife Range was established in 1960 to preserve unique wildlife, wilderness and recreational values.
• In 1980, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) re-designated the Range as part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and provided four purposes that guide management of the entire Refuge: to conserve animals and plants in their natural diversity, ensure a place for hunting and gathering activities, protect water quality and quantity, and fulfill international wildlife treaty obligations.
• The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge covers approximately 19.64 million acres of land and water in northeastern Alaska.
• It is administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System.
• Arctic Refuge contains the largest area of designated Wilderness within the National Wildlife Refuge System. "Where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man." [The Wilderness Act, 1964]

Space Awareness
Japan retrieves asteroid samples in hunt for origins of planets

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Hayabusa2 space mission) + Mains ( GS III awareness in the field of space)
What's the NEWS

• A Japanese capsule carrying the world's first asteroid subsurface samples landed successfully in the remote Australian Outback, completing a mission to provide clues to the origin of the solar system and life on Earth.

Know! all about the mission

• The spacecraft Hayabusa2 released the small capsule and sent it toward Earth to deliver samples from a distant asteroid. Capsule collection at the landing site was completed
• JAXA hopes to find clues to how the materials are distributed in the solar system and are related to life on Earth.
• Scientists say they believe the samples, especially ones taken from under the asteroid's surface, contain valuable data unaffected by space radiation and other environmental factors. They are particularly interested in analyzing organic materials in the samples.
• JAXA hopes to find clues to how the materials are distributed in the solar system and are related to life on Earth.

Know! about Hayabusa2

• For Hayabusa2, it's not the end of the mission it started in 2014. It is now heading to a small asteroid called 1998KY26 on a journey slated to take 10 years one way, for possible research including finding ways to prevent meteorites from hitting Earth.
• So far, its mission has been fully successful. It touched down twice on Ryugu despite the asteroid's extremely rocky surface, and successfully collected data and samples during the 1½ years it spent near Ryugu after arriving there in June 2018.
• In its first touchdown in February 2019, it collected surface dust samples. In a more challenging mission in July that year, it collected underground samples from the asteroid for the first time in space history after landing in a crater that it created earlier by blasting the asteroid's surface.
• Asteroids, which orbit the sun but are much smaller than planets, are among the oldest objects in the solar system and therefore may help explain how Earth evolved.

Recent Space events

• The success of the mission and the science it produces will raise Japan's status as a central player in deep space exploration, together with NASA, the European Space Agency and Russia. JAXA currently has a spacecraft in orbit around Venus studying that planet's hellish climate and is collaborating with the Europeans on a mission that is on its way to Mercury.
• In the coming years, Japan plans to bring back rocks from Phobos, a moon of Mars, and contribute to NASA's Artemis program to send astronauts to Earth's moon.
• The capsule's return came weeks after NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made a successful touch-and-go grab of surface samples from the asteroid Bennu.
• China, meanwhile, announced last week that its lunar lander collected underground samples and sealed them within the spacecraft for return to Earth, as space developing nations compete in their missions.

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