What: Report
By : NITI Aayog and Master-card today
Why :
THE REPORT
Identifies challenges in accelerating digital financial inclusion in India
Provides recommendations for making digital services accessible to its 1.3 billion citizens
Other details :
Based on five roundtable discussions held in October and November 2020, the report highlights key issues and opportunities, with inferences and recommendations on policy and capacity building across agriculture, small business (MSMEs), urban mobility and cyber security.
NITI Aayog was a knowledge partner in this endeavour. The series of workshops and the outcome report were curated by business advisory firm FTI Consulting. The report reflects the discussions held during the roundtables.
Between October and November, experts discussed ways to accelerate digital financial inclusion, enable global opportunities for MSMEs, inspire trust and security in digital commerce, prepare India’s agri-enterprises for connected commerce, and build robust transit systems for smart cities.
Key issues addressed during the knowledge series were:
Acceleration of digital financial inclusion for underserved sections of Indian society.
Enabling SMEs to ‘get paid, get capital and get digital’ and access customers, and ensure their continued resilience.
Policy and technological interventions to foster trust and increase cyber resilience.
Unlocking the promise of digitization in India’s agriculture sector.
Key recommendations in the report include:
Strengthening the payment infrastructure to promote a level playing field for NBFCs and banks.
Digitizing registration and compliance processes and diversifying credit sources to enable growth opportunities for MSMEs.
Building information sharing systems, including a ‘fraud repository’, and ensuring that online digital commerce platforms carry warnings to alert consumers to the risk of frauds.
Enabling agricultural NBFCs to access low-cost capital and deploy a ‘phygital’ (physical + digital) model for achieving better long-term digital outcomes. Digitizing land records will also provide a major boost to the sector.
To make city transit seamlessly accessible to all with minimal crowding and queues, leveraging existing smartphones and contactless cards, and aim for an inclusive, interoperable, and fully open system such as that of the London ‘Tube’.
What : It is a centrally sponsored scheme
Why : Support horticulture crops which include Vegetables, fruits, roots and tuber crops, aromatic plants, flowers, spices, bamboo, coconut, cashew and cocoa
How it works :
The scheme envisages the aggregation of farmers into farmers’ groups like FIGs/FPOs and FPCs to:
Achieve economies of scale
Augment horticulture production
Enhance farmers’ incomes
Boost nutritional security
Improve productivity by way of quality germ-plasm, planting material and water use efficiency through micro-irrigation
Support skill development
Generate employment for rural youth in horticulture, post-harvest management and also in the cold chain sector.
The scheme also envisages the capacity building of farmers in adopting improved technology through existing institutions such as Krishi Vigyan Kendras, state agriculture universities and Institutes with the Department of Horticulture in the States.
Recent news: Horticulture production has surpassed the agriculture production in the country for the year 2019 20
What : Mutated covid virud strain
From : India
Additional information:
The “double mutant” virus that scientists had flagged as having a bearing on the spread of the pandemic in India, has a formal scientific classification: B.1.617.
The variant is common in India and has a couple of defining mutations, E484Q and L425R, that enable it to become more infectious and evade antibodies.
Though these mutations have individually been found in several other coronavirus variants, the presence of both mutations together were first found in some coronavirus genomes from India.
Certain variants of the coronavirus, for instance, B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 — have been termed the “United Kingdom” and “South Africa” variant, respectively, because they have mutations associated with large spikes in these countries or reduce the efficacy of vaccines and are termed “variants of concern (VOC)”.
So far, only three global VOCs have been identified: the U.K. variant, the South African and the Brazilian (P.1) lineage.
Recent news : This strain has been classified as being “of concern”, the World Health Organization.
When : May 11
Why: Ministry of Science and Technology
By:
The National Technology Day is celebrated in India for two reasons namely:
To mark the anniversary of Pokhran Nuclear tests that were conducted in 1998
To highlight the importance of technological advancements for the country
What is Pokhran Nuclear Tests? The Pokhran Nuclear tests were a series of nuclear bomb test explosions that were held in the Pokhran Test Range of Indian Army. This was the second nuclear test conducted by India. The first one was called Smiling Buddha and was conducted in 1974.
What: Report by IUCN
Objective: Bring nature conservation into the mainstream of economic and political decision making
Key Findings of the report
The major threats posed by conflicts in the world are disruption of conservation efforts, direct killing of wildlife, degradation of ecosystems.
The armed conflicts are prevalent in major biodiverse regions in the world. For instance, India-Pakistan and India-China border conflicts are being fought in the Himalayan Biodiversity hotspots.
Military Exercises and Civil unrest pose a risk to two hundred threatened species. This includes the iconic species such as the Critically Endangered Eastern Gorilla.
Countries are more prone to wars if less land is available for agriculture or if the agricultural productivity of the land was low. The wars were also frequent when increased number of droughts occur.
Recommendations
The following recommendations were made the report:
The Natural resource governance should be strengthened through improved transparency and accountability, inclusive decision making, and by recognising the rights of indigenous people and women.
The conservationists, protected area staff and environmental defenders should be provided with explicit protections against those committing environmental crimes.
What: The Co-WIN platform handles the COVID-19 immunisation of the country. This includes registering beneficiaries, sending them text messages, allocating vaccination centres and also live monitoring of vials in cold storage.
Additional info:
This platform was earlier used for conducting Pulse Polio Programme.
It is owned by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Also, it is supported by the National Informatics Centre.
The Co-WIN application helps in monitoring and tracking the inoculation drive.
The app also helps in tracking the listed beneficiaries on a real time basis.
Recent news: The Ministry of Health recently announced that a new security feature is being added to the Co-WIN software. Co-WIN is COVID-19 Vaccine Intelligence Network.
By: Laureus Sport for Good Foundation(Since 1999)
To: Honour individuals and teams who have achieved in sports throughout the year
Laureus World Sports Awards 2021
Naomi Osaka (tennis, Japan) won the Sportswoman of the Year
Rafael Nadal (tennis, Spain) won the Sportsman of the Year
Billie Jean King (tennis, USA) won the Lifetime Achievement
FC Bayern (football, Germany) won the Team of the Year
Patrick Mahomes (American Football, USA) won the Breakthrough of the Year
Max Parrot (Snowboarding, Canada) won the World Comeback of the Year
Kickformore by Kickfair (football, German) won the Sport for Good
Mo Salah (football, Liverpool & Egypt) won the Sporting Inspiration Award
Lewis Hamilton (Formula One, Mercedes & UK) won the Athlete Advocate of the Year
NOTE:
This year the Laureus World sports Award for Action Sports person of the year was not awarded.
In 2020, Sachin Tendulkar won Laureus World Sports Award for Laureus Sporting Moment 2000-2020.
Roger Federer, a Swiss Tennis player holds the record for the most of the awards. He has won six “Sportsman of the Year” award and one comeback of the year award.
The award is supported by Mitsubishi, Mercedes Benz.
What :
UNFCCC-United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Is an international environmental treaty adopted on 9 May 1992 and opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992, entered into force on 21 March 1994.
Objective :To stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.
Other Details:
Currently, there are 197 Parties (196 States and European Union) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the supreme body of the UNFCCC, consisting of the representatives of the Parties to the Convention.
COP holds its sessions every year and takes decisions which are necessary to ensure the effective implementation of the provisions of the Convention and regularly reviews the implementation of these provisions.
Addition information : On April 1, 2020, the United Nations announced that the Conference of Parties (COP 26) that was to be held in Glasgow in November 2020 has been pushed to 2021. This is being done over the threat of COVID-19 virus and its impact on the world.
COP 26: Conference of the Parties (COP 26) to the UNFCCC is scheduled to take place from 1st-12th November 2021, in Glasgow, UK.
Recent news : Sir David Attenborough, world-renowned broadcaster and natural historian, has been named COP26 People’s Advocate for the U.K.’s Presidency of the UN climate change summit
SNIPPETS
Puducherry has become ‘Har Ghar Jal’ UT by ensuring that every rural home in the Union Territory getsa household tap connection. With this, the UT becomes the fourth State/UT after Goa, Telangana and Andaman & Nicobar Islands to provide assured tap water supply to every rural home under Union Government’s flagship programme,Jal JeevanMission.
The World Health Organisation recently approved the Emergency Use of Sinpharm vaccine developed by China.
Victory Day is celebrated in Russia to mark the surrender of Germans in the second world war. On May 9, 2021, Russia marked the 76th anniversary of victory in World War II.