India’s Tiger Census, Jal Jeevan Mission over digital, Atal Innovation Mission launches ATL App Development Module
1. India’s Tiger Census sets a New Guinness Record
- The fourth cycle of the All India Tiger Estimation 2018, results of which were declared to the nation on Global Tiger Day last year by Prime Minister,Shri Narendra Modi has entered the Guinness World Record for being the world’s largest camera trap wildlife survey.
- India has fulfilled its resolve to double the tiger numbers four years before the target.
- The country now has an estimated 2967 tigers as per the latest census. With this number, India is home to nearly 75% of the global tiger population and has already fulfilled its resolve of doubling tiger numbers, made at St. Petersburg in 2010, much before the target year of 2022.
- The citation at the Guinness World Record website reads- “The fourth iteration of the survey – conducted in 2018-19 – was the most comprehensive to date, in terms of both resource and data amassed.
- Camera traps (outdoor photographic devices fitted with motion sensors that start recording when an animal passes by) were placed in 26,838 locations across 141 different sites and surveyed an effective area of 121,337 square kilometres (46,848 square miles). In total, the camera traps captured 34,858,623 photographs of wildlife (76,651 of which were tigers and 51,777 were leopards, the remainder were other native fauna).
- From these photographs, 2,461 individual tigers (excluding cubs) were identified using stripe-pattern-recognition software.
- As well as unprecedented camera trap usage, the 2018 “Status of Tigers in India” assessment also conducted extensive foot surveys that covered 522,996 km (324,975 mi) of trails and sampled 317,958 habitat plots for vegetation and prey dung.
- It’s estimated that the total area of forest studied was 381,200 km2 (147,181 sq mi) and cumulatively the collection and review of data equated to some 620,795 labour-days.
- The All India Tiger Estimation done quadrennially is steered by the National Tiger Conservation Authority with technical backstopping from the Wildlife Institute of India and implemented by State Forest Departments and partners.
- The latest results of 2018 had shown that India now has an estimated 2967 tigers out of which 2461 individual tigers have been photo captured, a whopping 83 % of the tiger population, highlighting the comprehensive nature of the survey.
- There is hardly any parallel of such a focused species oriented program like Project Tiger across the world, which started with 9 Tiger Reserves, with 50 tiger reserves currently.
- India has now firmly established a leadership role in tiger conservation, with its bench marking practices being looked at as a gold standard across the world.
2. Jal Jeevan Mission over digital
- The Ministry of Jal Shakti is implementing Jal Jeevan Mission in partnership with States since August 2019 with an aim to provide 100% functional household tap connections (FHTC) to every rural household of the country by 2024 to improve their lives and ensure ‘ease of living’ as commitment of the Government is to ensure ‘equity and inclusiveness’, so that none is deprived of basic amenities.
- Having successfully delivered assured facilities like rural housing, cooking gas, toilet, financial inclusion, basic healthcare, etc., Government is now focused upon providing safe drinking water to every household in our villages.
- With focus on empowering the rural community as enshrined in 73rd Constitutional Amendment, Jal Jeevan Mission mandates to involve the local community in planning, managing, implementing, operation and maintaining the water supply schemes meant for them, which will not only instil ‘sense of ownership and responsibility’, but will help in long-term sustainability.
- In this decentralized, demand driven, community-managed programme, local village community/ Gram Panchayats (GPs) and/ or its sub-committee/ user groups will play a key role in planning, implementation, management, operation and maintenance of in-village water supply systems in villages to ensure long-term sustainability to achieve drinking water security.
- Gram Panchayat or its sub-committee i.e. Village Water & Sanitation Committee (VWSC) or Paani Samiti will have of 10–15 members comprising elected members of Panchayat up to 25% of the composition, 50% women members; and remaining 25% may consist of representatives of weaker sections of the village proportional to their population.
- For the mission, Gram Panchayat or sub-committee needs to develop the Village Action Plans (VAP) with the support of communities.
- The Plan is to be prepared for each village by mobilisation and participation of local community with focus on strengthening of drinking water sources, in-village water supply infrastructure, grey water treatment and reuse and operation & maintenance of water supply systems so as every family gets assured supply of potable water.
- The online training for village action plan preparation exercise was for 100 Gram Panchayats of Osmanabad. Osmanabad is one of the ‘Aspirational Districts’ from the State.
- The workshop was conducted to enhance understanding and capacities of stakeholders involved in the rural water supply including line departments and Gram Panchayat functionaries (Sarpanch, Gram sevak and Jalsurakshaks).
- It was a challenging task to set the framework for training of 100 Gram Panchayats in times of pandemic situation.
- However, the planning was made possible through digital medium.
- For that, around 100 Gram Panchayats were identified and a comprehensive list of officials at district level to be trained as Master trainers was also prepared.
- A group was formed on to keep the participants updated on the details of the workshop.
- Necessary data support and technological support were provided by the experts and district staff involved in the programme.
- The Gram Panchayats were given online classes on the overview of Jal Jeevan Mission, importance of Village Action Plan and the process. Besides, the Gram Panchayats were also trained to use the digital platform efficiently, to move ahead with times.
- Each session was conducted by using audio-visuals and reference material developed by the resource organisations.
- The presentations and videos were developed keeping the ethos of JJM guidelines and the Covid-19 protocols.
- The resource material including presentations and videos were shared with all the participants at the end of the training.
- The district has selected 100 GPs from three blocks namely Kalamb (30 GPs), Osmanabad (35 GPs) and Tuljapur (35 GPs).
- Around 287 Participants including 86 Gramsevaks and 100 Sarpanches & Jalsurakshaks participated in this workshop.
- Under Jal Jeevan Mission, Gram Panchayat or its sub-committee is being empowered as a ‘responsible and responsive’ local level ‘public utility’ with focus on ‘service delivery’ i.e. supply of potable water in adequate quantity and of prescribed quality on regular and long-term basis.
3. NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission launches ATL App Development Module
- The ATL App Development modules have been launched in collaboration with Indian homegrown startup Plezmo with an aim to hone the skills of school students and transforming them from App users to App makers in the times to come under AIM’s flagship Atal Tinkering Labs initiative.
- It is crucial for the young Indians to learn skills at a young age and to enable them to become the next generation of technology leaders.
- And under the Atal Tinkering Lab initiative, AIM, NITI Aayog is proud to launch the ATL App Development module for our India’s young minds – our dear children.
- The ATL App Development module is an online course is completely Free.
- Through 6 project-based learning modules and online mentoring sessions, young innovators can learn to build mobile Apps in various Indian languages and showcase their talent.
- Additionally, to build capacities and acumen for App Development within school teachers, periodic Teacher Training sessions will be conducted on the AIM App Development course.
- Speaking on the virtual launch of the module, Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog R Ramanan said “we need world class technology solutions and apps from India leveraging the tremendous demographic dividend of our country.
- The launch of AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge has been inspiring to the young students uniformly at school, university and industry level.
- AIM, NITI Aayog is now bringing the skills of App Development to the young tinkerers of Atal Tinkering Labs across the country so that they can integrate their Tinkering Lab innovations with mobile apps enhancing the usability and reach of their innovations.
- This would be one of the largest App learning and development initiatives at a school level in any country.
- To foster learning and creativity within young minds, as part of the ATL Tinker from Home campaign, AIM, NITI Aayog has created a growing state of the art platform for the students and teachers across the country to learn and apply the latest of technologies including Artificial Intelligence, Game Design and Development, 3D Design, Astronomy, Digital Creativity Skills, etc. from the comfort and safety of their homes.
- After agricultural and industrial revolutions, global economies are being shaped by a Technology revolution.
- Plezmo’s mission is to enable everyone to learn 21st Century technology skills like coding, computational thinking, design thinking and problem solving.
- This initiative will empower our young generation in making India a global technology superpower and contribute to the vision of AatmaNirbharBharat.
- Till date, more than 5100 ATLs are established in more than 660 districts across the country by Atal Innovation Mission with more than 2 million students having access to the Tinkering Labs.
- The vision is to foster creativity and innovation nationwide through its various integrated initiatives including incubators, Startups, community innovation Centers and Atal New India challenges for product and service innovations enabling socio economic growth of the country .
