Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 4th October 2021

What is in news : Karnataka agriculture department has proposed about 26 potential areas for investors and come out with fresh guidelines to regulate tourist activities on farms as interest surges.

What is Agri Tourism : Agritourism or agrotourism involves any agriculturally based operation or activity that brings visitors to a farm

Details :

• Areas of interest - Experiencing the slow-pace of a rural setting, living on a village farm, orchard or plantation
• The target crowd for this would be the urban population who want to experience rural life
• What are the activities proposed -The director said that tourists would get to experience activities such as milk production, sericulture, bee-keeping, hands-on farming, including picking fruits and vegetables, rides and games and many others.
• Activities would be spread throughout the state, ranging from silk farms of Ramanagara to paddy farms in Mandya and Ballari, areca plantations of central Karnataka to coffee plantations of Malnad.
• The initiative could be owned by an individual farmer or a group of farmers or society. Alongside their farm activities, this will act as an income multiplier for farmers while providing exposure to the urban crowd about rural conditions, said officials.
• Completely different from the current home-stay tour concept.
• A minimum farm area of five acres is a must to offer the agri-tourism activities, with guided tours on farming practices, interaction with farmers and agricultural labourers.

What is in news : To ensure that quality healthcare is accessible to all citizens, the existing Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and referral hospitals under BBMP will be converted to ‘Smart Clinics’.

Details :

• Have several digital interventions, including online consultations, three-way counselling/consultations between specialists, PHC doctors and patients, and creating a digital database with complete data of the patients visiting the PHCs.
• Being executed by the Bengaluru Smart City Ltd. (BSCL)
• Earlier, the Smart Clinics tender was restricted to only the six referral hospitals. We received recommendations and suggestions to integrate all existing health infrastructure facilities of the BBMP. Hence, the tender was cancelled
• Bringing BBMP’s PHCs, referral, and maternity hospitals under the same platform is being worked out
• According to rough estimates, around 17 lakh citizens, especially those belonging to lower socio-economic groups, visit the 141 PHCs, six referral and around 30 maternity hospitals in the city. With the lack of specialists, many patients are forced to visit private hospitals
• The Integrated Command Centre had been established for COVID-19 management. The same would be used to integrate all the existing health infrastructure in the BBMP.
• Whenever a patient comes to the PHC, the system can immediately generate the patient’s medical history that is stored digitally. The same can be shared with the specialists who will be sitting in the centralised health centre, which will help in medical counselling

What is in news : The Council Of Scientific And Industrial Research -National Geophysical Research Institute (CSIR-NGRI) has launched an ‘Environmental Seismology’ group to develop a ‘Landslide and Flood Early Warning System’ for the Himalayan region based on real-time monitoring with dense seismological networks, coupled with satellite data, numerical modelling and geomorphic analysis.

Details :

• This would enable a crucial warning several hours prior, which will save human lives and property
• The need for such an early warning system was necessitated following February’s rockslide flood disaster in Chamoli (Uttarakhand), where a steep glacier on the Nandadevi peak in Garhwal Himalaya got detached, causing a major avalanche and inducing flash floods in the Rishi Ganga and Alaknanda rivers. It killed several persons downstream and caused severe damage to two power plants.
• Scientists at the NGRI in collaboration with German scientists at GFZ, Potsdam, used Spectrogram analysis techniques to identify and separate out various phases, including that of the rockslides, debris flow and flooding of the event. The broadband seismic network enabled a complete spatio-temporal tracking of the entire disaster sequence using polarisation and back-tracing approaches
• Since climate change was a major player in accelerating ice loss through glacier melt and flash floods caused by glacier retreat, major efforts were needed to maintain the fragile ecosystem in the multi-hazard prone Himalayan region. This also had important implications for the planning of infrastructural development of dams, power plants and other projects by governments, which were of great strategic and societal importance to the country, said the Director.
• Teleseismic signals from the beginning of this event were recorded at different stations on a regional seismic network up to 100 km from the disaster and demonstrated the potential for these far-away monitoring stations to be useful for early warning
• While a seismic network designed for earthquake detection may not be ideal for the monitoring of geomorphic events, an evaluation of the expected anthropogenic (man-made) and environmental noise levels should be carried out before locating stations for geomorphic event detection.

HISTORY – ART - CULTURE

What is in news : First ever retreat ceremony to be held at Suchetgarh

About : Suchetgarh is a village in Sultanpur Lodhi tehsil in Kapurthala district of Punjab, India. The village is administrated by a Sarpanch who is an elected representative of village as per the constitution of India and Panchayati raj (India). It was the place where the two military delegations delineated the Line of Control until the point NJ9842.

Why this move : It will boost tourism potential of the area

MAHITI FOR PRELIMS

Suchetgarh Agreement

• Signed in 1972
• Delineated the ‘line of control’ in Jammu and Kashmir
• Resulted from the ceasefire of December 1971 thereby renaming the CFL as the LoC.
• Indian negotiators not only changed the nomenclature of the India-Pakistan dividing line in Kashmir and the physical alignment of the border in Jammu and Kashmir, but also made the UNMOGIP presence in Kashmir irrelevant.
• UN force was mandated to ensure a ceasefire on the CFL, but there was no CFL after 1972, and, more so, the UN was not even a party to the Simla Agreement unlike the Karachi Agreement.

What is in news : A British-era bungalow on a hillock that used to be the 17th century military office of the Ahom rulers has been converted into a heritage centre depicting life along the Brahmaputra. It has been named Mahabahu Brahmaputra River Heritage Centre

Details :

• Located on Guwahati’s Barphukanar Tila, meaning Barphukan’s Hillock
• It is a Scottish-type wooden bungalow standing since 1850
• Renovated and converted into the heritage centre
• Barpukhan was a post equivalent to Governor General created by Ahom king Pratap Simha or Susengpha (1603-1641)
• The hillock by the Brahmaputra, mentioned in ancient scriptures as Mandrachal, was from where Ahom General Lachit Barpukhan launched the Battle of Saraighat in March 1671 to inflict the most crushing defeat on the Mughals.
• Saraighat is regarded as the “greatest naval battle ever fought in a river”.
• Captain Archibald Bogle, posted as the Assistant Commissioner and Collector of Kamrup district in the 1850s, had the bungalow built. Post-Independence, it continued to be the Deputy Commissioner’s Bungalow until 2011.

Significance :

• The centre has on display the history of the Battle of Saraighat, the heritage of Assamese war boats, an amphitheatre, an exhibition space, a cafeteria and two viewing decks.
• The other attractions include a collection of traditional fishing equipment, photographs and artefacts related to the history of Guwahati and river transport, installations depicting the textile designs, ethnic motifs and indigenous musical instruments of communities inhabiting the banks of the Brahmaputra.

SNIPPETS

• Chief Minister of Karnataka who also holds charge of Bengaluru Development, announced a special package of ₹6,000 crore under the new Amruta Nagarothana Scheme for the city.
• Vadakara Municipality in Kozhikode district is the first zero-waste local body in Kerala.
• The 8th Edition of India Sri Lanka bilateral joint Exercise Mitra Shakti will be conducted at Combat Training School, Ampara in Sri Lanka from 4 to 15 October 2021.
• Pride and patriotism, the collective spirit of Indian-ness and the heritage artisanal craft of Khadi, brought the nation together in saluting the world’s largest National Flag, made of Khadi cotton fabric today at Leh. Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has prepared the Monumental Khadi National Flag to pay the highest respects to Mahatma Gandhi, who gifted Khadi, the most eco-friendly fabric to the world.