Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 25th April 2022

NEWS

Second edition of Khelo India University Games recently begun at Sree Kanteerava Indoor Stadium in Bengaluru

DETAILS

• It is 2021 , postponed due to covid
• First ever Khelo India University Games took place in Odisha in 2020
• Largest such multi-discipline event taking place in the state of Karnataka
• 20 sport disciplines which include archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, boxing, fencing, football, field hockey, judo, kabaddi, shooting, swimming, tennis, table tennis, volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling and karate along with Yogasana and Malkhamba (included for the first time).
• The Khelo India University Games 2021 will serve as a qualifier for World University Games scheduled to be held in Chengdu, China, in June

KHELO INDIA

• Launched in 2020
• Developed in line with "Khel Mahakumbh" which happens in Gujarat
• Formed by merging three schemes namely Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan (RGKA), Urban Sports Infrastructure Scheme (USIS), and National Sports Talent Search Scheme (NSTSS)

Objectives

• Develop and find local level talent by giving them a national-level platform to participate
• Promote "Sports for All" and "Sports for Excellence"
• Aims at creating an active nation with healthy citizens
• Targets to create a bunch of highly talented and competitive sportspersons who can compete to win on the world stage

Features

• 1000 most talented young sportspersons will be given scholarships each year across the selected sports disciplines
• Every athlete who is selected under this scheme will get a scholarship worth Rs. 5.00 lakh annually for straight 8 years
• 20 universities in India are promoted as hubs of sporting excellence in which talented sportspersons can pursue the path in education and sports.

NEWS

Panchayati Raj Day is celebrated on every 24th day of April wherein Panchayati Raj system was accorded the constitutional status

DETAILS

• The first National Panchayati Raj Day also called Panchayati Raj Diwas was celebrated in 2010
• The annual celebration is done to commemorate the day on which the 73rd Constitutional Amendment was passed in 1992
• The 73rd Amendment Act came into effect on April 24, 1993
• Panchayati Raj Institution was constitutionalized through the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, to build democracy at the grass roots level and was entrusted with the task of rural development in the country.

2022 CELEBRATIONS HIGHLIGHTS

• Celebrated in Jammu & Kashmir
• Property cards under the SVAMITVA scheme were distributed among the beneficiaries that intended to empower the rural masses and make them self-reliant

NATIONAL PANCHAYATI RAJ DAY 2022: AWARDS

• The National Panchayat Awards 2022 were conferred under the following categories:
• Child friendly Gram Panchayat Award – to Gram Panchayats, Village Councils in states/UTs
• Gram Panchayat Development Plan Award – to Gram Panchayats, Village Councils in states/UTs
• Nanaji Deshmukh Rashtriya Gaurav Gram Sabha Puraskar
• Deendayal Upadhyay Panchayat Sashaktikaran Puraskar – To district Panchayats, block panchayats, Gram Panchayats, Village Councils in states/UTs.
• The e-Panchayat Puraskar was conferred to the states which have ensured maximum use of information technology for monitoring works of Panchayats.

 WHAT

Agritech startups or Agricultural technology involves environmentally sound and sustainable farming methods, implemented widely in agriculture industry in order to attain profitability and efficiency, both. Argtech is a value innovation as Agriculture and India has a unique bond

ROLE IN AGRICULTURE

• Help farmers are supplement their income with farm diversification
• Empowering farmers to integrate livestock rearing and aquaculture into their existing operations with micro-farm installation requiring minimum space and labour
• Non-crop diversification is helping farmers increase and earn round-the-year income, improve productivity and profitability and adopt sustainable farming systems
• Increasing awareness among the farming communities and connecting them to a network of traders, retailers and exporters willing to buy their produce at higher prices
• Results in the supply of high-quality live input materials to farmers engaged in livestock rearing and aquaculture
• With the emergence of Fintech and AgriTech startups, the lending landscape of the country is changing
• Previously underserved small and marginal farmers can now secure loans from formal institutions at low-interest rates
• A plethora of easy financing options and government initiatives have alleviated the burden of interest on farmers

INITIATIVES LAUNCHED FOR AGRI-STARTUPS

• In 2020, the Reserve Bank of India directed banks to treat loans up to ₹50 crore to agri-startups under priority sector lending.
• In the Budget 2022, the Finance Minister of India also announced a fund for agri-startups and rural enterprises. The exclusive fund will be launched through NABARD in order to give a fillip to the farm produce value chain.
• The International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has called for applications from agritech start-ups under the NIDHI-Seed Support Scheme (NIDHI-SSS).
• The selected start-ups will receive funding up to ₹50 lakh. The seed fund will enable them to accelerate their commercialisation activities.

ISSUES

• Less share of initial public offerings (IPO) by agri-startups
• Skewed in favour of services — Big Data, Edtech, fintech, logistics and supply chain activities
• Duehigh to less attractive growth potential and their ability to make quick profits, agri-startups have been lagging in attracting funds.
• Lack scale due to the very high costs of serving smallholding farmers and building their own distribution system.
• While start-ups have good expertise in emerging technologies, they often lack the application-level domain expertise.

WAY FORWARD

• Seed capital from the banks and hand-holding of agri-startups by institutions such as NABARD
• Government should ensure ‘ease of funding’ for agri- entrepreneurs to attain the intended objectives.
• A dedicated exchange for agri-startups may be established
• Collaboration with Field Experts
• Agri-entrepreneurs should be imparted with financial literacy and education as the startup world is full of domain professionals and engineers, who hardly know anything about finance and investors

NEWS

US conducted an open-air study of genetically engineered mosquitoes which shows promising results

GM MOSQUITOES

• Mosquitoes produced in a laboratory
• Carry
  • A self-limiting gene that prevents female mosquito offspring from surviving to adulthood.
  • A fluorescent marker gene that glows under a special red light. This allows researchers to identify GM mosquitoes in the wild.
• GM mosquito eggs that carry the self-limiting gene are released into an area. Once they have hatched and develop through to the adult stage, they are available to mate with wild females. The genes are passed on to offspring.
• The male mosquitoes have a protein (the tTAV-OX5034 protein) that prevents female offspring from surviving when male OX5034 mosquitoes mate with wild female mosquitoes.
• The female offspring die before they become adults. The expected result is that the number of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the area decreases.

NEWS

Chief Ministers of Arunachal Pradesh and his Assam have decided to form district-level committees for settling their inter-state boundary disputes

DETAILS

THE DISPUTE

• Assam has had boundary disputes with all the north-eastern States that were carved out of it
• While Nagaland became a State in 1963, Meghalaya first became an Autonomous State in 1970 and a full-fledged State in 1972
• Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram were separated from Assam as Union Territories in 1972 and as States in 1987
• None of the new States accepted the “constitutional boundary” that they said was dictated by the partisan administration of undivided Assam without consulting the tribal stakeholders. They also claimed that the disputed areas were traditionally under the control of tribal chieftains before Assam, post-India's independence, inherited the “imaginary boundaries” drawn during British rule
• The issue with Arunachal Pradesh has more to do with a 1951 report prepared by a sub-committee headed by Assam’s first Chief Minister, Gopinath Bordoloi.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi received the first Lata Deenanath Mangeshkar Award. The award was conferred to mark the 80th death anniversary of Master Deenanath Mangeshkar, the Nightingale of Bollywood's father. The Master Deenanath Mangeshkar Awards aim to recognize and honour the extraordinary individuals from the field of music, drama, art, medical and social work.
• Environmentalists and activists are criticizing the Telangana government for withdrawing an over 25-year-old government order (GO) 111 protecting the historic Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar reservoirs in Hyderabad, which they say will destroy the fragile surrounding ecosystem.
• Strontium, also known as Fancy Bear, Tsar Team, Pawn Storm, Sofacy, Sednit or Advanced Persistent Threat 28 (APT28) group, is a highly active and prolific cyber-espionage group. It is one of the most active APT groups and has been operating since at least the mid-2000s, making it one of the world’s oldest cyber-spy groups.
• Emmanuel Macron re-elected as President of France.