“IFLOWS-Mumbai”, exotic live species in India, India Rankings 2020, Jal Jeevan Mission, Jeevan Pramaan for pensioners, KVIC, disposal machine, Nature Index 2020
1. "UNLEASHING COAL: NEW HOPES FOR ATMANIRBHAR BHARAT"
- Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will as chief guest in the launching Programme by The Government of India auction of coal mines for commercial mining with the theme “UNLEASHING COAL: NEW HOPES FOR ATMANIRBHAR BHARAT”
- This is a first-ever commercial coal auctions in country on 18th June 2020.
- The commercial coal mining auctions are completely different from earlier regime of restricted sectors, use and price.
- Now there are no such restrictions at all.
- The proposed auctions have terms and conditions which are very liberal allowing new companies to participate in the bidding process, reduced upfront amount, adjustment of upfront amount against royalty, liberal efficiency parameters to encourage flexibility to operationalise the coal mines, transparent bidding process, 100% FDI through automatic route allowed and reasonable financial terms and revenue sharing model based on National Coal Index.
- The successful bidders also will have flexibility in coal production unlike past and have provision for incentives for early production and coal gasification.
- The coal mines auction process will lay strong foundation for energy security in the country by producing additional coal providing large scale employment and huge opportunities for investment in coal sector.
- These efforts will supplement the 01 billion tonne coal production likely from Coal India in FY 23-24 and meet full requirement of domestic thermal coal.
2. FLOOD WARNING SYSTEM FOR MUMBAI "IFLOWS-Mumbai" to be launched
- The capital of the state of Maharashtra, Mumbai, a megapolis and the financial capital of India has been experiencing floods with increased periodicity and recent flood in 29 August 2017, brought the city to a standstill.
- The flood during 26th July 2005, is probably etched in the memory of every Mumbai citizen, when the city received a rainfall of 94cm, a 100 year high in a span of 24 hours paralyse the city completely.
- As a preparedness for floods before they occur, people to be warned so that they can be prepared in advance for flooding conditions.
- Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) initiated the development of IFLOWS-Mumbai in July 2019 using the in-house expertise available within the Ministry of Earth Sciences in close coordination with Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai.
- As in a bid to aid in the mitigation activities of the flood prone city, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, Govt of Maharashtra approached the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) to develop an Integrated Flood Warning System for Mumbai referred to as, IFLOWS-Mumbai.
- IFLOWS-Mumbai is developed as a state of art Integrated Flood Warning system for Mumbai to enhance the resilience of the city of Mumbai by providing early warning for flooding specially during high rainfall events and cyclones.
- IFLOWS is a monitoring and flood warning system that will be able to relay alerts of possible flood-prone areas anywhere between six to 72 hours in advance.
- I-FLOWS is built on a modular structure and comprises of seven modules, namely Data Assimilation, Flood, Inundation, Vulnerability, Risk, Dissemination Module and Decision Support System.
- The system incorporates weather models from National Centre for medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), India Meteorological Department (IMD), field data from the rain gauge network stations setup by Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM),Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) and IMD, thematic layers on land use, infrastructure etc provided by MCGM.
- Based on inputs from weather models, Hydrologic models are used to transform rainfall into runoff and provides inflow inputs into the river systems.
- Hydraulic models are used to solve equations of fluid motion to replicate the movement of water to assess flooding in the study area.
- Since, Mumbai is an island city with its connectivity to sea, hydrodynamic models and storm surge model are used to calculate the tide and storm surge impacts on the city.
- The system has provisions to capture the urban drainage within the city and predict the areas of flooding, which will be incorporated in the final system.
- The data on river bathymetry was collected in all rivers namely Mithi, Dahisar, Oshiwara, Poisar, Ulhas, lakes and creeks by NCCR in association with MCGM and IMD, Mumbai. The land topography, land use, infrastructure, population etc., was provided by MCGM and it was integrated into a Decision Support System to accurately estimate flood levels at ward level using thematic layers in GIS.
- A web GIS based decision supports system is build to calculate the vulnerability and risk of elements exposed to flood.
- The Flood Warning System will be formally launched today 12th June 2020 at Mumbai.
3. Advisory to streamline the process for import and possession of exotic live species in India.
- Exotic live species are animal or plant species moved from their original range (location) to a new one.
- These species are introduced to a new location most often by people.
- Many citizen of the country have kept CITES (Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species).
- Enlisted exotic animal species in their possession but there is no unified information system available of such stock of species at the State/Central level.
- Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has decided to collect stock information from the holders of such species through voluntary disclosure in next six months.
- The registration will be done for the stock of animals, new progeny, as well as for import and exchange. This will help in better management of the species and guide the holders about proper veterinary care, housing and other aspects of well-being of the species.
- The database of exotic animals will also help in control and management of zoonotic diseases on which guidance would be available from time to time to ensure safety of animals and humans.
- Considering the significance of import and export of exotic live species, this Ministry is issuing an advisory to streamline the process for import and possession of exotic live species in India.
The following are proposed:
- Developing an inventory of exotic live species in India through Voluntary Disclosure Scheme to streamline CITES compliance.
- Procedure for Import of exotic live species.
- Registration/Declaration of progenies of the imported exotic live species,
- The processes under this Advisory shall be dealt online through the Parivesh Portal.
4. NIRF "India Rankings 2020" of Institutions of Higher Education
- “India Rankings 2020” of Institutions of Higher Education in various categories on the basis of their performance on five broad categories of parameters.
- This is the fifth consecutive edition of India Rankings of the institutions of higher education in India.
- The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has topped the list of higher education institutes in the overall category, in the National Institutional Rankings Framework list 2020.
- The Ministry of HRD has taken this important initiative of creating a National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), which is being used for past five years for ranking of institutions of higher education in different categories and domains of knowledge and it is indeed a source of encouragement for all of us.
The ranking framework evaluates institutions on five broad generic groups of parameters:
a) Teaching, Learning and Resources (TLR),
b) Research and Professional Practice (RP),
c) Graduation Outcomes (GO),
d) Outreach and Inclusivity (OI)
e) Perception (PR).
- Ranks are assigned based on total sum of marks assigned for each of these five broad groups of parameters.
Full list are here:
Overall Category: IIT Madras, IISc Banglore, IIT Delhi
University category: IISc Bangalore, JNU New Delhi, BHU Varanasi
Engineering Category: IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay
Management Category: IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta
Pharmacy Discipline: Jamia Hamdard Universitt, Punjab University, National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research Mohali
Colleges category: Miranda house DU, LSR for women DU and Hindu college DU.
Medical Discipline: AIIMS, New Delhi, PGIMER Chandigarh, Christian Medical College, Bangalore
Law Discipline: National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, NLU New Delhi, Nalsar University of Law, Hyderabad
Architecture Discipline: IIT Kharagpur, IIT Roorkee, NIT Calicut
Dental College: Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Science, Manipal College of Dental Science, Dr DY Patil Vidyapith Pune
About NIRF:
- The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) was approved by the MHRD and launched by Honourable Minister of Human Resource Development on 29th September 2015.
- This framework outlines a methodology to rank institutions across the country.
- The methodology draws from the overall recommendations broad understanding arrived at by a Core Committee set up by MHRD, to identify the broad parameters for ranking various universities and institutions.
- The parameters broadly cover “Teaching, Learning and Resources,” “Research and Professional Practices,” “Graduation Outcomes,” “Outreach and Inclusivity,” and “Perception”.
- if the submitted data is not visible on the Institute’s own website prominently (NIRF will do a limited checking on a random basis), its registration for ranking is likely to be cancelled after an initial Notice. In case this fact comes to the notice of the NIRF after the rankings have been announced, the Institution will be taken out of the ranking list, with an appropriate noting.
- Data for ranked institutions were painstakingly verified, inconsistencies, contradictions and outliers were screened and identified, which requires a lot of diligence, patience and tactful handling of institutions.
A noticeable increase in institutional participation in the rankings exercise this year indicating its recognition amongst institutions of higher education in India as a fair and transparent ranking exercise. Number of unique applicants to India Rankings have increased from 3127 in 2019 to 3771 in 2020 whereas total number of applications for ranking in various categories have increased from 4873 in 2019, to 5805 in 2020 i.e. total increase of 644 unique institutions and 932 total applicants.
NTA recently launched National Test Abhyas app for JEE and NEET students and around 65 lakhs students have already downloaded the app for practicing online test.
Note:
- IIT Madras retains 1st Position in Overall Ranking as well as in Engineering,
- Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru tops the University list
- IIM Ahmedabad tops in Management Category and AIIMS occupies the top slot in Medical category for third consecutive year.
- Miranda College retains 1st position amongst colleges for third consecutive year
- Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Sciences, Delhi secures 1st position in “Dental” category, dental institutions included for first time in India Rankings 2020
Rankings help universities to improve their performance on various ranking parameters and identify gaps in research and areas of improvement- Union Minister of Human Resource Development Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ Said.
5. Jal Jeevan Mission in Maharashtra in 2020-21
- Maharashtra State has planned to provide 100% tap connections to all the households in the State by 2023-24.
- Out of 1.42 Crore rural households in Maharashtra, 53.11 lakh households have already got tap connections. The State is planning to provide tap connections to 31.30 lakh households in 2020-21.
- State has planned for retrofitting and augmentation of existing 8,268 piped water supply schemes, thereby making provision of 22.35 lakh household tap connections during this year and the remaining 9 lakhs from new schemes.
- State has been advised to take up all these works in ‘campaign mode’, so that the remaining households belonging to poor and marginalised sections of the society get tap connections immediately.
- The State has made plan to cover 100% of its quality-affected habitations by 31st December, 2020.
- While planning for universal coverage of households, priority is given to water scarce areas, quality-affected areas, SC/ ST dominated habitations/ villages, aspirational districts, Sansad Adarsh Gramin Yojana villages, particularly vulnerable tribal groups.
- Jal Jeevan Mission, a flagship programme launched by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi last year, aims to provide all rural households with tap water supply in adequate quantity and of prescribed quality on regular and long-term basis.
- States are implementing this ambitious programme to accomplish the task by 2024 so as to bring improvements in the lives of rural people by reducing the drudgery of rural women, especially girls.
- Government of India has approved ₹1,828.92 Crore for implementation of JJM in the State during 2020-21.
- Further, 15th Finance Commission has allocated tied grants of ₹5,827 Crore to the State be spent mandatorily on
(a) supply of drinking water, rainwater harvesting and water recycling and
(b) sanitation and maintenance of ODF status.
- Following the spirit of 73rd Amendment of the Constitution, under JJM, local village community/ Gram Panchayats and/or user groups are being involved in planning, implementation, management, operation and maintenance of water supply systems in villages to ensure long-term sustainability to achieve drinking water security.
- In all villages, IEC campaign along with community mobilisation is to be taken up to make Jal Jeevan Mission truly a people’s movement. Voluntary organisations and self-help groups will play a vital role in community mobilisation.
- Under Jal Jeevan Mission, emphasis is being given on water quality surveillance through active participation of frontline functionaries as well as involving the community i.e. in every village, 5 persons especially women are being trained.
- School and college students are being encouraged to use the Field Test Kits to test the quality of water being provided in the rural areas.
- Every source needs to be tested once every year for physical and chemical parameters and twice for bacteriological contamination.
- Village Water & Sanitation Committee or Paani Samitis are being constituted for planning at village level. Based on Village Action Plans of villages, the Annual Action Plan for the State has been finalized. State is ensuring convergence of funds from various sources like MGNREGS, 15th Finance Commission Grants to rural local bodies, SBM, CAMPA, District Mineral Development Fund, Local Area Development Fund, etc. for taking up works related to strengthening of water resources, aquifer recharge, grey water management, etc.
- It’s the endeavour of the Government to provide tap connections in rural households on priority basis during prevailing CoVid-19 pandemic situation, so that rural people don’t have to go through the hardship of fetching water from public stand-posts and standing in long queue.
- Government intends that the poor and marginalised sections of the society get water through tap connections inside their house premises and avoid going to stand-posts and ensuring social distancing, thereby keeping the rural communities safe from being infected.
- Jal Jeevan Mission, well implemented by the State, is a door to happiness for rural women by providing water in household premises and creating opportunities for economic activities by saving their precious time as well as improving the general health of rural community.
6. Jeevan Pramaan for pensioners
- Jeevan Pramaan is a biometric enabled digital service for pensioners. Pensioners of Central Government, State Government or any other Government organisation can take benefit of this facility.
- More than One Crore families in India can be classified as pensioner families, where the pension disbursed by the various government bodies forms the basis for their income and sustainability.
- There are about Fifty Lakh pensioners of the Central Government and a similar number of the various State and UT Governments and various other government agencies.
- This includes pensioners from the various public sector enterprises. In addition to this Army and Defence Personnel drawing pension exceeds Twenty-five lakhs.
- Digital Life Certificate for Pensioners Scheme of the Government of India known as Jeevan Pramaan seeks to address this very problem by digitising the whole process of securing the life certificate.
- It aims to streamline the process of getting this certificate and making it hassle free and much easier for the pensioners.
- With this initiative the pensioners requirement to physically present himself/herself in front of the disbursing agency or the certification authority will become a thing of the past benefiting the pensioners in a huge way and cutting down on unnecessary logistical hurdles.
- EPS pensioners are required to submit Jeevan Pramaan /Life certificate each year to continue to draw pension.
- A multi agency model adopted by EPFO empowers EPS pensioners with choice and autonomy to select the service delivery agency as per their convenience.
- A key policy change has been to allow EPS pensioners to submit Digital Jeevan Pramaan at any time during the year as per their convenience.
- The life certificate will remain valid for one year from date of submission.
- Earlier, the pensioners were required to submit the Jeevan Pramaan in the month of November.
- This resulted in difficulties faced by pensioners and generated large number of grievances on account of stoppage of pension.
- Also, in case of belated submission of Life Certificate it remained valid only for a few months up to November.
- This pro pensioner step has been taken to provide hassle free social security cover to EPS pensioners.
- EPFO is committed to facilitate financial independence of its 65 lakh EPS pensioners by ensuring timely disbursement of pension especially during the times of crisis.
7. Agarbatti and Bamboo Industries in India: KVIC
- “Agarbatti making industry is a part of the Village Industry, which requires a very small capital and less technical skill.
- This industry employs mostly women workers.
- In the post Covid scenario, this industry will prove to be a boon for the migrant workers.
- The Agarbatti industry can realize the Prime Minister’s dream of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’
- India produces 14.6 million tons of bamboo every year with nearly 70,000 farmers engaged in bamboo plantation.
- While 136 varieties of bamboo are found in India; the Bambusa Tulda variety, which is used for making agarbatti sticks, is found in abundance in the North eastern region.
- The KVIC has also launched a bamboo plantation drive to make India self-sufficient to meet the growing demand of bamboo in the next 3-4 years.
- The Central Government’s decision to increase import duty on bamboo sticks from 10% to 25% will open up new avenues of self-employment in the country.
- The decision assumes great significance as heavy import of bamboo sticks from China and Vietnam caused huge employment loss in India.
- This decision will pave the way for setting up of new agarbatti stick manufacturing units to meet the ever-growing demand of Agarbatti in India.
- At present, consumption of incense sticks in India is pegged at a whopping 1490 tons per day but only 760 tons per day is locally produced.
- Hence, the huge gap between the demand and supply resulted in heavy import of raw agarbatti.
- Consequently, the import of raw agarbatti increased from just 2% in 2009 to 80% in 2019.
- In monetary terms, the import of raw agarbatti in India increased exponentially from Rs 31 crore in 2009 to Rs 546 crore in 2019 due to reduction of import duty in 2011 from 30 % to 10 %.
- KVIC stated, “This hit the Indian agarbatti manufacturers hard and resulted in closure of nearly 25% of the total units”.
- However, on request of Khadi and Village industries Commission (KVIC), the Ministry of Commerce on August 31, 2019, placed the import of raw agarbatti under “Restricted” category. But while the restriction on import revived hundreds of agarbatti units in states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and several North Eastern states, it also prompted the local traders to import round bamboo sticks for manufacturing of raw Agarbatti.
- This resulted in increase in import of Bamboo sticks from Rs 210 crore in 2018-19 to Rs 370 crore in the year 2019-20.
- “India is the 2nd largest producer of bamboo in the world but ironically, it is also the 2nd largest importer of bamboo and its products.
- This is expecting now India will become “atamnirbhar” in Agarbatti production soon which will create thousands of new jobs.
8. Automated mask disposal machine
- VST Mobility Solutions, a Startup headquartered at Cochin, has launched an automated mask disposal machine as part of efforts to develop products helping to combat the Covid-19.
- The disposal device, named BIN-19, developed Chitra UV based face mask disposal bin technology from the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), Trivandrum an institute of national importance under Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, was formally launched by Ernakulam District Collector S. Suhas by installing a unit at his office, the administrative headquarters of the district.
- The IoT-based BIN-19 (Internet of Things) is used for collecting and disinfecting Used Face-Mask.
- The device has been subjected to a series of successful microbiological tests by Sree Chitra Lab.
- Sree Chitra is one of the testing agency for UV based devices in the country as per the guidelines of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
- Launching the BIN-19 and UV SPOT district collector S Suhas said this is the first time such a facility is available in Kerala.
- “These products will be assets for beating the COVID19 in the state. The products would also help in preventing environmental damages”.
- Explaining the functioning of BIN-19, Mr. Alvin George, CEO of VST Mobility Solutions, said that the used masks dropped inside a container of the bin will be first disinfected by a process.
- The disinfected masks will be transferred to another container inside the Bin.
- The person dropping the mask can sanitize her hands with the help of the automatic sanitizer dispenser attached to the Bin-19.
- There is no need to touch or operate any switches in the Bin to do all these.
- All functions are automated in the hands-free equipment for the safety of users and health workers.
- The IoT Features of BIN-19 are Auto Sanitizer Dispenser ( remotely alerts if it’s empty), Mobile Application to navigate/find Bin-19, Web Portal for Status Alerts, Power ON/OFF alerts, Box open alerts.
- VSL Mobility Solutions has also launched, UV SPOT, a UV light-based multipurpose disinfector, another product in its Covid-19 combat portfolio.
- It is a multipurpose disinfector device with ultraviolet disinfection lamps. VST Mobility Solutions said that with internal reflective surfaces and UVC Lamp, the device disinfects a board range of microorganisms.
- The device is mainly used for disposing of the contaminated or used face-mask and for reusing the UVC stable metallic products.
- This device is proven under a microbiological test conducted by Sree Chitra Lab.
9. Top 30 Indian Institutions in Nature Index 2020
- Three of the autonomous institutions of the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India have found their place among top 30 Indian Institutions including universities, IITs, IISERs, and Research Institutions and Labs as per Nature Index 2020 ratings based on the research published in the top journals, a measure of research quality.
- These are the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata at 7th position, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bangalore at 14th position and S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata at 30th position.
- Keeping out CSIR, which is a cluster of institutions, IACS is among the top three institutions in quality Chemistry Research in India.
- JNCASR ranks 4th among academic institutions in life sciences, 10th in Chemistry and Physical Sciences, 10th among Indian academic institutions, and 469th in global ranking.
- “It is extremely heartening that the DST’s hot spots of knowledge are consistently rated in the top institutions of the country in the quality of research as judged by the papers published in the selected top-quality journals.
- While the research carried out in the academia and research labs has shown good quantitative enhancement, the need for a greater emphasis on quality, relevance, and translational aspects is now being understood as acted upon.
Globally the top-rated Indian institutions in this list are Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), a group of 39 institutions at the 160th position and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore at the 184th position.
About Nature Index:
- The Nature Index is a database of author affiliation information collated from research articles published in an independently selected group of 82 high-quality science journals.
- The database is compiled by Nature Research.
- The Nature Index provides a close to real-time proxy of high-quality research output and collaboration at the institutional, national and regional level.
- The Nature Index is updated monthly, and a 12-month rolling window (1 April 2019 – 31 March 2020.
- The Nature Index also provides institutions with an easy means to identify and highlight some of their best scientific research.
- The Nature Index provides a perspective on high-quality research on the basis of published articles.
- It is intended to provide one of a number of ways to assess research excellence and institutional performance.
