What is NAP?The scheme titled National Afforestation Programme (NAP) has been formulated by merger of four 9th Plan centrally sponsored afforestation schemes of the Ministry of Environment & Forests. The Scheme will be operated by the National Afforestation and Eco-Development Board, Ministry of Environment and Forests as a 100% Centrally Sponsored Scheme.The overall objective of the National Afforestation Programme (NAP) scheme is ecological restoration of degraded forests and to develop the forest resources with peoples’ participation, with focus on improvement in livelih... Read More...
What is this issue about?The spyware, named Pegasus, was used to hack into any phone simply through a missed video call, predominantly via WhatsApp, giving the attackers unfettered access to the device, including location data, emails, passwords and even the ability to turn on its microphone and camera. It means hacker can know, to whom targeted people were meeting and what kind of discussion they are having. According to security firm Kaspersky, Pegasus is a tool of total surveillance.Pegasus is meant to infiltrate smartphones silently and work on three things: &nb... Read More...
What do you understand by Institution of Eminence (IoE)? Discuss with examples.Institutes of Eminence (IoE) is a recognition scheme for higher education institutes in India, set by the University Grants Commission in 2017. The plan encompasses twenty institutions, 16 of which have already been declared Institutes of Eminence as of August 2019. 10 institutions in public sector and 10 institutions in private sector have to be declared as IoE.Recognized institutes are g... Read More...
The Supreme Court has asked the government to treat a writ petition for setting up expert panels to boost India’s prospects in the Rule of Law Index.What is the Rule of Law Index?The Rule of Law Index is a quantitative assessment tool by the World Justice Project (WJP) designed to offer a detailed and comprehensive picture of the extent to which countries adhere to the rule of law in practice.The RLI covers 128 c... Read More...
Discuss the main points of Cabinet approval for additional capital and equity support to IIFCL.The Union Cabinet has approved additional capital infusion and equity support to government- owned India Infrastructure Finance Company Limited (IIFCL). IIFCL is a non-banking financial company which provides long-term finance to viable infrastructure projects. The additional equity support for the financial years 2019-20 and 2020-21 would be Rs 5,300 crore and Rs 10,000 crore respectively. Read More...
Indo- Russian RelationsIndia and Russia agreed to form specific working groups for aftersales support of key defence platforms and intensify efforts to finalise a cooperation programme for 2021-2030.The Agreement on Reciprocal Logistics Support (ARLS): India and Russia are finalising a defence agreement that will simplify interoperability and enable military platforms to receive support and supplies across bases in both nations- Agreement on Reciprocal Logistics Support (ARLS).... Read More...
What is the news?The National Tiger Conservation Authority in collaboration with the Wildlife Institute of India has published a document titled “Connecting Tiger Populations for Long-term Conservation”, which has mapped out 32 major corridors across the country, management interventions for which are operationalized through a Tiger Conservation Plan, mandated under section 38V of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.What are these Tiger corridors?A tiger corridor is a stretch of land linking tiger habitats, allowing move... Read More...
What is AFRS software and its purpose?AFRS is a software that recognizes, records and matches face against various government databases from photos and videos taken from public and private sources. Its purpose is to find missing children, who may be recorded on CCTV; track criminals across a country; Currently, the leading face recognition software are:Amazon RekognitionMicrosoft Face API Read More...
What is 'Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP)' finalised and released by HRD Ministry? Mention it’s main focus areas.In accordance with the decision of the Prime Minister for finalizing a five-year vision plan for each Ministry, the Department of Higher Education of HRD Ministry has finalized and released a five-year vision plan named Education Quality Upgradation and Inclusion Programme (EQUIP). EQUIP is a vision plan aiming at ushering transformation in India’s higher education system by implementing strategic interventions in the se... Read More...
What are forex reserves?Forex reserves are external assets in the form of gold, SDRs (special drawing rights of the IMF) and foreign currency assets (capital inflows to the capital markets, FDI and external commercial borrowings) accumulated by India and controlled by the Reserve Bank of India. Why are forex reserves rising despite the slowdown in the economy?The major... Read More...
Why is Toll Operate Transfer (TOT) model for monetising highways amended?The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways approved certain changes in the Toll-Operate-Transfer (TOT) model for monetising National Highways. In August 2016, the Union Cabinet had authorised the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to monetise certain public funded National Highway projects. The revenue generated from this monetisation would be utilised by the central government for the future development, operation, an... Read More...
What is Hong Kong International Convention, 2009? Discuss the merits of India's decision of accession to the Hong Kong International Convention in 2019? The Hong Kong International Convention, 2009 is for the safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships. It has not yet entered into force. The convention has been designed to try to improve the health and safety of current ship breaking practices. The Hong Kong Convention recognised that ship recycling is the most environmentally sound way to dispose of a ship at the end of its life, as most of the ship’s materials can be reused. The Union Cabinet ha... Read More...
What is this report?Earlier the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had assessed impact of climate change on land-based ecosystems, it has now assessed the impact that climate change is having on the world’s oceans and frozen areas (known as the cryosphere). The report portrays very murky picture of ocean and frozen areas.What is significance of ocean and cryosphere?Almost three-quarters of Earth’s surface is covered by ocean, and another 10% is covered by ice sheets and glaciers. These ecosystems are c... Read More...
Discuss the status of Acute Malnutrition in India. Malnutrition is a multi- faceted problem. The important determinants are inadequate food, level of poverty leading to low purchasing power, poor socio- economic status of women, female illiteracy, high rate of population growth and low access of population to health education, safe drinking water, environmental, sanitation, hygiene and other social services. As per the report of Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) conducted by UNICEF during 2016-18, prevalence of severe acute malnutrition among chi... Read More...
Why in news?The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill 2019 has been passed by the Parliament. It was passed by the Rajya Sabha on 26th November, 2019 and already passed by the 17thLok Sabha on 5th August, 2019. What are the provisions of the bill?The Bill defines a transgender person as one whose gender does not match the gender assigned at birth. It includes trans-men and trans-women, persons with intersex variations, gender-queers, and persons with socio-... Read More...
Background of Plan?Israel and Palestine are at loggerhead since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. The conflict is referred as “ mother of all problems” in Arab. Today Israel and Palestine are fighting over : Mutual recognition of each other , borders recognition , security, water rights, control of Jerusalem Read More...
Examine the reasons of recent Cabinet approval on organisational restructuring of Indian Railways.Currently, Railway Board consists of a Chairman and 8 members along the departmental lines. This promotes departmentalism in the railways which is a barrier to its growth.As per the decision, there would be reorganisation of Railway Board: The Railway Board will be reorganised on the basis of functional lines of Railways. Various Group A services of Indian Railways to be unified: The eight group A services of Indian Railways,... Read More...
What is the magnitude of current global refuge crisis?According to the UN, by the end of 2018, there were around 70.8 million people around the world who had left their home countries because of conflict and persecution. Of these 70.8 million, roughly 30 million are refugees. Globally, more two-thirds of all refugees come from five countries: Syria (6.7 million), Afghanistan (2.7 million), South Sudan (2.3 million), Myanmar (1.1 million), and Somalia (0.9 million).According to the UN’s Global Trends report released in June 2019 this year, there are 37,000 new displacements ... Read More...
Landslides Risk Reduction and Resilience Conference 2019. Why?Need is for developing technology to anticipate disasters like landslides and develop infrastructure to quickly respond to minimise the damage.Landslides have attracted global attention as they may cause huge havoc on communities, livestock, environment leading to huge loss of lives.On the one hand landslides effect loss of i... Read More...
What is Scheme for Transformational and Advanced Research in Sciences (STARS)?National Science Day 2019 celebrated on February 28 in memory of Indian scientists and Nobel laureate Sir CV Raman saw yet another scheme launched by the Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry called STARS’ or Scheme for Translational and Advanced Research in Science. It is a Rs 250 crore scheme to fund science projects.STARS is taken up for promoting translational, I... Read More...