Daily Current Capsules 21^st January 2021

NITI Aayog
NITI Aayog Releases Second Edition of India Innovation Index

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about India Innovation Index - highlights + Institute for Competitiveness + Mains ( GS II Centre- State relations + good governance)
What's the NEWS

• NITI Aayog, along with the Institute for Competitiveness, released the second edition of the India Innovation Index in a virtual event.
• The report examines the innovation capabilities and performance of the states and union territories. The first edition of the index was launched in October 2019.

Know! about the Index

• The states and union territories have been divided into 17 ‘Major States', 10 ‘North-East and Hill States', and 9 ‘City States and Union Territories', for effectively comparing their performance.
• The states and union territories have been ranked on two broad categories: outcome and governance.
• Overall, the framework of India Innovation Index 2020 consists of 36 indicators, which include hard data (32 indicators) and four composite indicators.
• India Innovation Index 2020 builds on the previous year's methodology by introducing more metrics and providing a holistic outlook of the Indian innovation ecosystem.
• The framework has been updated to include globally considered parameters for measuring innovation (such as the percentage of gross domestic product spent on research and development), while also retaining the parameters specific to the Indian economy.
• The index captures the trends and provides detailed analyses of the various factors that drive innovation at the country, state, and district levels.
• It is believed that these analyses would enable policymakers in identifying catalysts and inhibitors of innovation at the national and sub-national levels.
• The states and union territories have been divided into 17 ‘Major States', 10 ‘North-East and Hill States', and 9 ‘City States and Union Territories', for effectively comparing their performance.
• The states and union territories have been ranked on two broad categories: outcome and governance.
• Overall, the framework of India Innovation Index 2020 consists of 36 indicators, which include hard data (32 indicators) and four composite indicators.
• 

India Innovation Index (Highlights)

• In the second edition too, the index found that the level of competitiveness among the states and union territories was high, which is essential for them to continually improve on their enabling factors as well as innovation performance, year by year.
• In the ‘Major States' category, Karnataka continued to occupy the top position, while Maharashtra moved past Tamil Nadu to reach the second place.
• Telangana, Kerala, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab completed the top ten in that order.
• Karnataka's rank is attributable to its substantive number of venture capital deals, registered geographical indicators and information and communications technology exports.
• Karnataka's high Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow has also enhanced the innovation capabilities of the state. Four southern states-Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Kerala-occupied the top five spots under the ‘Major States' category this year.
• Overall, Delhi retained its first rank, while Chandigarh made a big leap since 2019 and landed in the second place this year.
• Under the ‘North-Eastern/Hill States' category, Himachal Pradesh moved up from the second position to emerge as the top ranker this year, while 2019's top performer (in this category), Sikkim, slipped down to the fourth position.
• The innovation inputs were measured through five enabler parameters, and the output through two performance parameters.
• While ‘Human Capital', ‘Investment', ‘Knowledge Workers', ‘Business Environment', ‘Safety and Legal Environment' were identified as enabler parameters, ‘Knowledge Output' and ‘Knowledge Diffusion' were chosen as the performance parameters.

Know! the benefits of India Innovation Index

• The India Innovation Index will create synergies between different stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem, thus enabling India to shift to competitive good governance.'
• The index is a great beginning to improve the innovation environment in the country. It is the right step towards making India the innovation leader of the world.
• The index could be of vital significance to the states in identifying their innovation performance and initiating necessary policy interventions to leverage their unique strengths
• NITI Aayog, with its mandate of promoting ‘competitive federalism' among all states and union territories, is committed to utilize the India Innovation Index in catalysing the innovation outcome of the nation.

Institute for Competitiveness

• Institute for Competitiveness, India is the Indian knot in the global network of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School.
• Institute for Competitiveness, India is an international initiative centered in India, dedicated to enlarging and purposeful disseminating of the body of research and knowledge on competition and strategy
• Institute for Competitiveness, India conducts & supports indigenous research; offers academic & executive courses; provides advisory services to the Corporate & the Governments and organises events.
• The institute studies competition and its implications for company strategy; the competitiveness of nations, regions & cities and thus generate guidelines for businesses and those in governance; and suggests & provides solutions for socio-economic problems.

NITI Aayog
NITI Aayog Releases Report on Faecal Sludge and Septage Management in Urban Areas: Service and Business Models

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the book on faecal sludge and septage management in urban areas + Mains ( GS II Social issues + governance + government policies and interventions
What's the NEWS

• NITI Aayog released a book on faecal sludge and septage management in urban areas.
• Jointly developed with National Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (NFSSM) Alliance, the book presents 27 case studies across 10 states and various service and business models adopted by Indian cities while implementing faecal sludge and septage management (FSSM) initiatives.
• The book was released jointly by NITI Aayog and MoHUA in a virtual event.

Know! the report highlights ( about the book)

• This book provides a timely repository of FSSM best practices that can be adapted and replicated appropriately across the country
• Considering the importance of FSSM solutions, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs came up with the national policy on FSSM in 2017.
• The policy has been rigorously pursued across the country-more than 24 states have adopted it and 12 of them have come up with their own policies.'
• Universal access to toilets was achieved in urban India with the construction of 66 lakh household toilets and more than 6 lakh community and public toilets.
• After achieving the target of ‘Open-Defecation-Free' (ODF), India has now moved towards becoming ODF+ and ODF++.
• These targets go beyond the concept of access to sanitation and aim for safely managed sanitation systems, with adequate treatment and safe disposal of toilet waste.
• The report mentions that about 60% of urban households rely on onsite sanitation systems, which require dedicated planning for management of waste collected in these systems' containment structures.
• Accordingly, FSSM planning prioritizes human excreta management, a waste stream with a high potential for spreading diseases.
• The planning strategies entail emptying, transportation, treatment, and safe disposal of waste and possible reuse of output products post-treatment. It is a low-cost and easily scalable sanitation solution.
• Many Indian cities have come up with exemplary FSSM planning models, with optimal private-sector participation and greater mechanization of operations.
• The book aims to provide a comprehensive resource to Indian cities as they plan sustainable and inclusive sanitation.
• This book will help municipal functionaries, policy planners and private-sector players and entrepreneurs to take up FSSM as a major economic activity.'

National Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (NFSSM) Alliance

• NFSSM Alliance has worked with state governments on various innovative models, policies and guidelines across the sanitation value chain to ensure our cities' waste is effectively managed.
• Safe sanitation is a strong contributor to both public health and environmental sustainability, and needs focused attention, especially the safe and complete treatment of all human waste.
• The models captured in this report will help other states and cities replicate and scale them up to achieve 100% effective management of India's faecal sludge and septage in the next five years,'

National Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (NFSSM) Alliance

• The National Faecal Sludge and Septage Management(NFSSM) Alliance was established with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2016 to support safe sanitation at the national, state and city level.
• The Alliance is recognized as the collaborative body that drives the discourse of faecal sludge and septage management (FSSM) forward in India.
• The NFSSM Alliance in collaboration with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DWS) has been instrumental in the passage of India's first national policy on FSSM in 2017.

Science and Technology
Quantum Computing Applications Lab, Powered by AWS established

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Quantum Computing Applications Lab and about Quantum Computing) + Mains ( GS III awareness in the field of science and technology)
What's the NEWS

• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in India will establish a Quantum Computing Applications Lab in the country, in collaboration with AWS, to accelerate quantum computing-led research and development and enable new scientific discoveries.

Quantum Computing Applications Lab

• The MeitY Quantum Computing Applications Lab will provide quantum computing as a service to government ministries and departments, researchers, scientists, academia, and developers, to enable advances in areas such as manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and aerospace engineering.
• AWS will provide hosting with technical and programmatic support for the Lab. This MeitY initiative will provide scientific, academic, and developer communities access to a quantum computing development environment aligned with the government's science and technology priorities.
• The MeitY Quantum Computing Applications Lab, established with the support of AWS, is the first of its kind initiative in the world, and aims to enable India's talented researchers to explore the unchartered applications of quantum computing, and pave the way for new discoveries and disruptions

Quantum computing

• Quantum computing is an emerging field that harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics to build powerful tools to process information
• It has the potential to solve computational problems that are beyond the reach of classical computers, and lead to new breakthroughs that can transform chemical engineering, material science, drug discovery, financial portfolio optimization, machine learning, and much more.

How it will work?

• The MeitY Quantum Computing Applications Lab will identify quantum computing problem statements for experimentation from among Central and State Governments, Research Institutions, and Academia.
• It will work with subject matter experts from the government sector to define the problem statements, and make them public, inviting applications from researchers, academia, and organizations to address them.
• The Lab will then provide select applicants with access to quantum computing hardware, simulators, and programming tools, on-demand and at no cost, via Amazon Braket, that enables scientists and developers to build algorithms, conduct advanced simulations, and run experiments.
• Amazon Braket provides a development environment to enable users to explore and design quantum algorithms, test and troubleshoot them on simulated quantum computers, and run them on different quantum hardware technologies.
• The MeitY Quantum Computing Applications Lab will help government bodies and the scientific community to identify problems and opportunities rapidly, and test real-world challenges through experiments and prototypes in a low risk environment.
• Outcomes from these experiments will help researchers evolve the problem statements, proof-of-concepts, and prototypes that will lead to the development of new applications, models, and frameworks in quantum computing.

Defence
DRDO inks framework MoU with MoRTH for Geo-hazard Management

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the MoU + about geohazard management + about DGRE) + Mains ( GS III awareness in the field of science and technology)
What's the NEWS

• Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has entered into a framework memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) to strengthen collaboration in the field of technical exchange and co-operation on sustainable geohazard management.

Know! how the geohazard management will ensure safety against landslides

• As per the agreement, DRDO and MoRTH will co-operate in various mutually beneficial areas related to geohazard management.
• The initiative will ensure safety against the adverse effects of landslides and other natural calamities on national highways in the country.
• DRDO's Defence Geo-Informatics Research Establishment (DGRE) is working for the development of critical technologies for enhancing combat effectiveness in various kinds of terrains and avalanches.
• The expertise of DGRE in mapping, forecasting, control and mitigation of landslides and avalanches in Himalayan terrain will be utilized for designing national highways including tunnels.
• Terrain and modelling simulation is an important asset with DGRE, which will play an important role in planning and building robust road infrastructure in difficult terrains.
• MoRTH is responsible for development & maintenance of National Highways across the country.
• It has been agreed that the expertise of DRDO will be utilized in providing sustainable mitigation measures to damages caused by landslides, avalanche and other natural factors on various National Highways in the Country.
• Some of the areas identified for collaboration include detailed investigation of the critical avalanches/geo hazards, planning, designing and formulation of sustainable mitigation measures for geo-hazards on national highways including tunnels, monitoring and supervision of mitigation measures etc.

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