Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Renewable Energy capacity and steps taken by the government to achieve the clean energy target) + Mains ( GS III Infrastructure development - energy)
What's the NEWS

• Government of India has set a target for installing 175 GW of Renewable Energy capacity (excluding large hydro) by the end of 2021-22 which includes 100 GW from solar, 60 GW from wind, 10 GW from Biomass and 5 GW from Small Hydro.

In order to become self-reliant in power generation and achieving energy transition towards clean energy, Government has inter-alia taken following measures:

1. The renewable energy capacity to go up to 450 GW.
2. Phase-wise retirement of old polluting coal based power plants.
3. Setting up of Ultra Mega Renewable Energy Parks to provide land and transmission to RE developers on a plug and play basis.
4. Schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Surakshaevam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM), Solar Rooftop Phase II, 12000 MW CPSU Scheme Phase II, etc.
5. Laying of new transmission lines and creating new sub-station capacity under the Green Energy Corridor Scheme for evacuation of renewable power.
6. Notifying Bidding Guidelines for tariff based competitive bidding process for procurement of Power from Grid Connected Solar PV and Wind Projects.
7. Declaring Large Hydro Power (LHPs) (>25 MW projects) as Renewable Energy source.
8. Hydro Purchase Obligation (HPO) as a separate entity within Non-solar Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO).

Prelims Factoids
Kurnool Airport inaugurated

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Kurnool Airport -location + about UDAN)
What's the MEWS

• Civil Aviation Minister virtually joined Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh at the inauguration of the Kurnool Airport, Orvakal, Andhra Pradesh

Know! more about it

• Kurnool is the 6th airport in Andhra Pradesh to become functional after Kadapa, Visakhapatnam, Tirupati, Rajahmundry & Vijayawada.
• The flight operations at Kurnool airport will commence on 28th March 2021 under the Regional Connectivity Scheme - Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik (RCS-UDAN).
• These routes were approved by the MoCA under the UDAN 4 bid process last year.
• The Government of India and the Government of Andhra Pradesh will jointly share the VGF towards the operations on an 80:20 basis.
• Till date, 56 unserved and underserved airports (including 5 heliports+ 2 water aerodrome) with 325 routes have been operationalised under UDAN across the length and breadth of India.
• Kurnool is the judicial capital of Andhra Pradesh and a historical hub of the country.
• The place is famous for its mighty caves and temples.
• The city of Kurnool lies on the banks of the Tungabhadra River and, Nallamalas mountain hill range runs parallel.

UDAN-RCS

• UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) is a regional airport development and "Regional Connectivity Scheme" (RCS) of Government of India, with the objective of "letting the common citizen of the country fly", aimed at making air travel affordable and widespread, to boost inclusive national economic development, job growth and air transport infrastructure development of all regions and states of India.
• The scheme has two components. The first component is to develop new airports and enhance the existing regional airports to increase the number of operational airports for scheduled civilian flights
• The second component is to add several hundred financially viable, capped-airfare, new regional flight routes to connect more than 100 underserved and unserved airports in smaller towns with each other as well as with well served airports in bigger cities by using "Viability Gap Funding" (VGF) where needed.
• Union government share of "Viability Gap Funding" is from the cess applied to flights to popular routes to main cities and respective state governments have also offered additional benefits to the flight operators to make UDAN-RCS viable.
• UDAN-RCS is both enabler and beneficiary of other key Government of India schemes, such as Bharatmala, Sagarmala, Dedicated Freight Corridors, Industrial corridor, BharatNet, Digital India and Make in India, National e-Governance Plan, Startup India and Standup India.

Governance
Central Scrutiny Centre and IEPFA's Mobile App to leverage digital solutions launched
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Central Scrutiny Centre (CSC) and Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority's (IEPFA)Mobile App
What's the NEWS

• Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs virtually launched Central Scrutiny Centre (CSC) and Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority's (IEPFA)Mobile App - two tech-enabled initiatives by Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
• These initiatives leverage to strengthen the ‘Digitally empowered India'.
• "Digital India is a campaign launched by the Government of India in order to ensure that the Government's services are made available to citizens electronically by making the country digitally empowered in the field of technology.
• These two initiatives would create a new corporate and investor friendly ecosystem.

Central Scrutiny Centre

• The Central Scrutiny Centre will scrutinize certain Straight Through Process (STP) Forms filed by the corporates on the MCA21 registry and flag the companies for more in-depth scrutiny.
• The Ministry of Corporate affairs has established a Central Scrutiny Centre, which will primarily scrutinise the filings made by the users under straight through processes, identify the data quality issues and irregularities, communicate the same to the concerned Registrar of Companies so that corrective steps can be taken to restore authenticity and correctness of data and it can be seamless shared with other regulators

IEPFA Mobile App

• The Finance Minister also launched the IEPFA Mobile App.
• The Mobile App aims at achieving the goal of financial literacy, spreading investors' awareness, education, and protection among investors. Our prime goal here is to push Ease of Living."
• The Mobile App has been developed for citizen engagement and information dissemination to promote awareness among investors.
• With this App, the Authority aims to achieve the goal of financial literacy, spreading investors' awareness, education, and protection among investors both in rural and urban areas.
• The IEPFA App will have the facility of tracking the status and progress of the IEPF claim refund process.
• Moreover, it also provides a mechanism for investors and common citizens to report on the suspected fraudulent schemes.

Prelims Factoids
Developmental activities in Garo hills

Relevance IN - Prelims ( Know! about Garo hills and steps taken by the government for the development of North eastern states)
What's the NEWS

• The Government is committed to overall development of the North Eastern Region (NER) including Garo hills region in the State of Meghalaya.
• Out of total 11 districts in Meghalaya, 5 districts fall under Garo hills region. In Garo hills regions, 13 projects are under implementation for construction/widening/reconstruction of roads/bridges for 133.8 km length.

Know! the initiative taken by the government for the development of Garo Hills

• Two flagship schemes of Government namely Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) and Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana-Saubhagya are being implemented across the country for various rural electrification works and electrification of the remaining un-electrified households in rural and urban areas, including NER and State of Meghalaya.
• All the inhabited census villages and households of Garo hills have been electrified.
• Under North Eastern Region Power System Improvement Project (NERPSIP) scheme, 14 power projects are under implementation in Garo hills.
• Garo hills is the only region in Meghalaya which comes under the railway map by way of Mendipathar - Dudhnoi railway line.
• Under Comprehensive Telecom Development Plan, 389 towers covering 534 uncovered villages have been approved in three districts of Garo Hills for provision of 4G mobile services.
• Under Prime Minister Kaushal Vikas Yojana, so far 20,151 persons have been given training for employment.
• Jal Jeevan Mission- Har Ghar Jal (JJM) is being implemented which aims at providing water through tap water connection to every rural household by 2024.
• Under JJM, 31% of the households in Garo Hills region have been provided with functional household tap connection till January, 2021.
• Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region is getting a district-wise Sustainable Development Goal Index prepared for all the districts of NER through NITI Aayog in technical collaboration with UNDP.

Education
100+ Curriculum based Comic books launched by Union Education Minister

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about Curriculum based Comic books + about DIKSHA web portal) +Mains ( GS II Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health,Education, Human Resources)
What's the NEWS

• Union Minister of Education launched 100+ comic books created by teachers and students of CBSE schools and curated by NCERT

Know! about the comic books

• These comics can be accessed online on DIKSHA web portal (diksha.gov.in) or via the DIKSHA app on any android Smartphone.
• The comics can also be accessed through a new WhatsApp powered Chatbot.
• The chatbot presents a unique opportunity to expand the scope of digital learning.
• The Department of School Education and Literacy, in its endeavour to provide holistic learning to students and to usher in vision envisaged in New Education Policy 2020 has launched comic books aligned to chapters of NCERT textbooks across grades 3-12.
• This innovative initiative will help in increasing the cultural and social sensitivity in our children while imparting knowledge.
• The National Education Policy 2020 envisions a shift from textbook learning to understanding concepts and making connections with real world/day-to-day activities.
• It also gives further impetus to all creative and out of the box thinking than rote learning.
• Hence, in this context, comic books aligned to chapters of NCERT textbooks across grades 3-12 have been developed as innovative pedagogical resources.
• The comic books have been developed by the faculties of Scholastic (language), Fine Art, Performing Arts and Information Technology across 12 States/UTs - Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Jammu, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Uttarakhand.
• The comics are aligned with topics of NCERT textbooks and have specific story line and characters which students and teachers can relate to.

DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing)

• It is a national platform for school education, an initiative of National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT), Ministry of Education.
• DIKSHA was developed based on the core principles of open architecture, open access, open licensing diversity, choice and autonomy as outlined in the Strategy and Approach Paper for the National Teacher Platform
• It has been adopted by 35 states/UT's across as well as CBSE and NCERT and by crores of learners and teachers.

• DIKSHA is built on open source technology, made in India and made for India, which incorporates internet scale technologies and enables several use-cases and solutions for teaching and learning.
• DIKSHA is built using MIT licensed open source technology called Sunbird, which is a digital infrastructure for learning and is designed to support multiple languages and solutions and offers over a 100 micro services as building blocks for the development of platforms and solutions.
• DIKSHA is available for the use of all states and UTs of India. Each state/UT leverages the DIKSHA platform in its own way, as it has the freedom and choice to use the varied capabilities and solutions of the platform to design and run programs for their teachers and learners.
  DIKSHA policies and tools make it possible for the education ecosystem (educationist, experts, organisations, institutions - government, autonomous institutions, non-govt and private organisations) to participate, contribute and leverage a common platform to achieve learning goals at scale for the country.
• DIKSHA can be accessed by learners and teachers across the country and currently supports 18+ languages and the various curricula of NCERT, CBSE and SCERTs across India.

• The platform is being leveraged and developed for school education, foundational learning programs and to support inclusive learning for underserved and differently-abled communities of learners and teachers.
• DIKSHA will serve as National Digital Infrastructure for Teachers. All teachers across nation will be equipped with advanced digital technology.
• Diksha portal will enable, accelerate and amplify solutions in realm of teacher education.
• It will aid teachers to learn and train themselves for which assessment resources will be available.
• It will help teachers to create training content, profile, in-class resources, assessment aids, news and announcement and connect with teacher community.
• In the context of COVID-19 related disruption of schooling, DIKSHA makes it possible for all states/UT's to enable learning/education at home through innovative state programs; hence leapfrogging the use of technology for the benefit of teachers and learners across India.

Prelims Factoids
Launch of MICE Roadshow
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about MICE Roadshow + about Khajuraho)
What's the NEWS

• The Ministry of Tourism and Culture will inaugurate the ‘Chhatrasal Convention Centre at Khajuraho developed under Swadesh Darshan Scheme of Ministry of Tourism.
• They will also launch "MICE Roadshow Meet in India" Brand and Roadmap for the Promotion of India as MICE Destination in Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh

MICE Destination (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions)

• In order to promote India as MICE Destination (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions), Ministry of Tourism, Government of India in association with Madhya Pradesh Tourism and India Convention Promotion Bureau are organizing this ‘MICE Roadshow - Meet in India' at the heart of Incredible India from 25-27 March 2021 at Chhatrasal Convention Centre, Khajuraho.
• This event will be an effort under Aatmanirbhar Bharat, realizing India's MICE potential.
• The roadshow will be an opportunity to focus on the Government's initiatives in developing India as a MICE destination with infrastructure and an eco-system pan-India that will favourably place India amongst the global competitors.
• On this occasion, the Ministry of Tourism plans to launch its campaign "Meet in India" from Khajuraho, which is one of the identified iconic tourist destinations of the country. Recognizing India's huge potential as a MICE destination, ‘Meet in India' will be the distinct sub-brand under ‘Incredible India' to promote the country as a MICE destination.
• The event will also deliberate the draft Master Plan being prepared by the Ministry of Tourism to develop Khajuraho as an Iconic Destination.
• The Ministry of Tourism has framed ‘Development of Iconic Tourist Destinations Scheme' a Central Sector Scheme for development of nineteen identified iconic destinations in the country following a holistic approach.
• The identified tourist sites to be developed as iconic destinations under the scheme are Taj Mahal & Fatehpur Sikri (Uttar Pradesh), Ajanta Caves & Ellora Caves(Maharashtra), Humayun's Tomb, Red Fort & QutubMinar (Delhi), Colva Beach (Goa), Amer Fort (Rajasthan), Somnath , Dholavira & Statue of Unity(Gujarat), Khajuraho (MP), Hampi(Karnataka), Mahabalipuram (TamilNadu), Kaziranga (Assam), Kumarakom (Kerala), Konark(Odisha) and Mahabodhi Temple (Bihar).

Know! about Khajuraho

• The Khajuraho is a city of Group of Monuments is a group of Hindu temples and Jain temples in Chhatarpur district, Madhya Pradesh
• They are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The temples are famous for their nagara-style architectural symbolism and their erotic sculptures.
• Most Khajuraho temples were built between 885 AD and 1050 AD by the Chandela dynasty.
• Historical records note that the Khajuraho temple site had 85 temples by the 12th century, spread over 20 square kilometers
• Of these, only about 25 temples have survived, spread over six square kilometers.
• The Khajuraho group of temples were built together but were dedicated to two religions, Hinduism and Jainism, suggesting a tradition of acceptance and respect for diverse religious views among Hindus and Jains in the region.

KEEP Learning KEEP Evolving
TEAM CL IAS