(Topic: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Education)
The Ministry of Human Resource Development has constituted a High Powered Committee to examine the entire system of conducting Class X and Class XII examination conducted by the CBSE with a view to prevent leakages.
The terms of reference of the Committee are as under:
(Topic: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation)
Project by: Ministry of Women & Child Development
Implementation by: National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD), an autonomous body functioning under the aegis of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India.
Vision: Moving the country from “women development to women-led development”
Issue: Role of EWRs remained ineffective, despite their large presence in the directly elected local governance. The project is aimed to work on developing EWRs as “change agents”, while improving their leadership qualities and management skills for better implementation of various programmes of the Government.
The training of EWRs is being done through a two tier training programme –
General trainings being organized in the country for Elected Representatives do not focus on the gender component in details and also fall short on the needs of these women representatives to address the specific challenges faced by them at the grassroots level.
The Ministry has developed training modules regarding
This targeted approach to build capacities of these grassroots leaders has been envisaged to yield more desired development outcomes. It will help to empower the women members and heads of panchayats so that they can govern the villages more effectively.
(Topic: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation)
Aim: Alleviating rural poverty & fostering diversified livelihoods through sustainable community institutions of poor
It is a flagship programme of the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) that seeks to alleviate rural poverty through building sustainable community institutions of the poor. The centrally sponsored programme is implemented in partnership with the State governments.
Community Institution Building – Financial year 2017-18
Mahila Kisan Shashaktikaran Pariyojana and Value Chain Initiatives
Objective: In order to promote agro-ecological practices that increase women farmers’ income and reduce their input costs and risks, the Mission has been implementing the Mahila Kisan Shashaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP).
Community Livelihood Professionals
The community driven implementation strategy is the cornerstone of the Mission.
More than 1.72 lakh community members have been trained and deployed to provide support to the community institutions in a variety of themes, such as bookkeeping, training and capacity building, financial services etc. This also includes more than 22,000 Community Livelihoods Resource Persons (CLRPs) such as Krishi Sakhi and Pashu Sakhi who provide 24 X 7 door step extension services to the small and marginal farmers including dairy farmers.
Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme & Aajeevika Grameen Express Yojana
Aajeevika Grameen Express Yojana (AGEY), was launched in August 2017 to provide safe, affordable and community monitored rural transport services to connect remote rural villages. As of March 2018, proposals from 17 States have been approved and 288 vehicles are operating.
Deendayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDUGKY) aims at building placement linked skills of the rual youth and place them in relatively higher wage employment sectors of the economy.
Rural Self Employment Training Institutes: The Mission is in partnership with 31 Banks and State Governments, is supporting Rural Self Employment Institutes (RSETIs) for skilling of rural youth to take up gainful self-employment. In FY 2017-18, a total of 4.23 lakhs candidates have been trained and 3.34 lakhs candidates have been settled.
Independent Assessment of DAY-NRLM: Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), was entrusted to carry out the independent assessment of design, strategy and impacts of DAY-NRLM. As part of the study, survey of nearly 4500 households spanning across 746 villages was conducted during January – March 2017.
The results indicate that the households in the treatment areas:
Promotion of Farm Livelihoods: DAY-NRLM plans to
Promotion of Non-Farm Livelihoods: It is also expected that Start Up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) will support an additional 25000 entrepreneurs during the year 2018-19. In addition, it is expected that by March 2019, about 1500 vehicles will be operating across 17 States under Aajeevika Gram Express Yojana (AGEY).
Setting up of Rural Haats: Development of haats has emerged as one of the most important strategies to market SHG products and agricultural produce. To facilitate marketing of rural produce, it is proposed to set up haats at village and block levels in convergence with MGNREGS and the District and State level using DAY-NRLM resources. It is proposed to set up 4567 rural haats across the country during FY 2018-19
Enabling rural poor’s access to formal sources of finance: The Mission will continue to promote access of SHGs to bank credit and other financial services. In FY 18-19, it is planned to link 22 lakh SHGs to bank credit for total loan amount of Rs. 42500 crores, taking the SHG Bank loan outstanding to Rs. 75000 crore. The Mission will make efforts to expand Banking services to underserved regions through alternate channels in partnerships with various banks.
Deendayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana: More emphasis will be placed on long-term training for better placement outcomes. The Industries will be invited to partner as Project Implementing Agency (PIA) and/or own a training batch and will have proactive engagement with Industry heads through workshops & conferences. It is envisaged that the increased engagement of Institutions of MSME & other prestigious Government Institutions for taking up DDUGKY program will lead to high end training with better salaries & District-wise survey for skilled manpower requirement.
Rural Self Employment Training Institutes:
(Topic: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation)
There are 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) notified as on date in the country. The criteria followed for determination of PVTGs are as under:
Development of PVTGs:
(Topic: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation)
Launched by: IC, the official export certification body of Government of India
Aim: To keep pace with changing dynamics of the world.
Cabinet Approves:
Cooperation Arrangement between India and Afghanistan for cooperation in the field of food safety and related areas: The areas of cooperation include the following:
MoU between India and Iran on the establishment of an expert group on trade remedy measures: will promote cooperation between the two countries in area of trade remedies such as exchange of information, capacity building activities, cooperation in investigations related to anti-dumping and countervailing duty, etc.
MoU between India and Canada to foster cross-border partnerships focused on research excellence and industry-academic collaboration: The MoU enables Indian and Canadian researchers to undertake graduate level academic research mobility and cross-border industry-academic cooperation.
MoU between India and United Arab Emirates on Technical Cooperation in Rail Sector: The MoU will provide a platform to Indian Railways to interact and share the latest developments and knowledge in the railway sector. The MoU will facilitate exchange of information, expert meetings, seminars technical visits and implementation of jointly agreed cooperation projects.
Rightsizing the Competition Commission of India: The proposal is expected to result in reduction of three Posts of Members of the Commission in pursuance of the Governments objective of "Minimum Government - Maximum Governance".
Protection of Human Rights (Amendments) Bill, 2018: Salient Features:
(Topic: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation)
Objective: To proactively advance the roll-out of BS-VI fuel in Delhi from April 2018, instead of April 2020 after taking stock of the alarming pollution situation in Delhi in winters.
With the introduction of BSVI, India joins the small list of Asia - Pacific nations -Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines and China. China is using it only for heavy vehicles.
Prelims oriented News:
5th April: National Maritime Day
7th April: World Health Day
Dark Net: Was used for sale and purchase of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances
Utkal Divas – Odisha Formation Day (Konark Sun Temple is Odisha’s pride)
Commonwealth Games:
Swadhar Greh Scheme: Targets the women victims of difficult circumstances who are in need of institutional support for rehabilitation so that they could lead their life with dignity. The Scheme envisages providing shelter, food, clothing and health as well as economic and social security for these women.
Mahila Shakti Kendra: To empower rural women through community participation
The scheme is envisaged to work at various levels, and at the National level (domain based knowledge support) and State level (State Resource Centre for Women) technical support to the respective governments on issues related to women is provided.
POSHAN Abhiyaan (National Nutrition Mission): under Innovation component, envisages undertaking activities to be implemented intended to improve the service delivery system, capacity building of front line functionaries and community engagement for better nutritional outcomes.
PM Ujwala Yojana: To prevent pollution and facilitate the healthy atmosphere in the families of poor people – the objective of the central government to give gas connections to 5 crore families by 2019.
Indian Railways inducts New Machine 09-3x Dynamic Tamping Express: It is a latest high output integrated tamping machine having multiple functions, so far being carried out by different machines. These machines have been manufactured in India under MAKE IN INDIA initiative with imported components. 42 more such machines have been planned to be included in Indian Railway maintenance fleet over next three years.
This will further improve the safety, reliability and economy in maintenance of tracks over Indian Railways. This will also eliminate manual measurement of track quality after maintenance.
Mechanism for marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) through Minimum Support price (MSP) and development of Value chain for MFP: objective of providing fair price to MFP gatherers, enhance their income level and ensure sustainable harvesting of MFPs. The MSP scheme seeks to establish a framework to ensure fair prices for the produce collected by them, assurance of buying at a particular price, primary processing, storage, transportation etc., while ensuring sustainability of the resource base.
Establishment of the first multipurpose “Van Dhan Vikas Kendra” on pilot basis: in Bijapur District of Chhattisgarh State for providing skill upgradation and capacity building training and setting up of primary processing and value addition facility. This Kendra to start with will have processing facility for Tamarind brick making, Mahua flower storage facility and chironjee cleaning and packaging.
Satellites launched by ISRO in the last four years
Baobab sapling planted in the gardens of Rashtrapati Bhavan: It was gifted by the University of Madagascar as a gesture of goodwill in return for the Neem tree that the President planted at the University campus in Antananarivo during his State visit to Madagascar in March.
Trishul Special Olympics & Paralympic Games: For Special Children – a total 69 Children between ages 7 and 18 yrs, of Special Schools supported by the AFWWA (Air Force Wives Welfare Association) will be receiving training from Special Olympics Bharat, Resource Team on Athletics, Bocce, Powerlifting and Roller Skating
Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan (RAA):
Atal Innovation Mission is establishing Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATLs) in schools across India. The objective of this scheme is to foster curiosity, creativity and imagination in young minds; and inculcate skills such as design mindset, computational thinking, adaptive learning, physical computing etc.
Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching (PMMMNMTT) aims at addressing comprehensively all issues related to teachers, teaching, teacher preparation, professional development, curriculum design, and developing assessment & evaluation methodology, research in developing effective Pedagogy.
Government has taken up far-reaching education reforms to improve quality and access to education
Aimed at expanding access to quality education, new premier higher education institutions have been opened across the country, marking the highest ever such expansion in the history after Independence.
SWAYAM MOOCs portal ( (Study Webs of Active learning for Young Aspiring Minds) is an indigenous MOOCs portal that provides high quality education - anyone, anytime, anywhere at no cost- has been made operational. The portal has courses by the best teachers in the country and offers video lectures, e-reading material, discussion forum and assessment system - resulting in award of credits to the successful learners. Up to 20 % credit transfer into the academic record of students, is allowed now, for the courses taken on the SWAYAM portal.
The initiative of National Digital Library (NDL) is a virtual repository of learning resources with a single window search facility. It has already brought together 15 million digital books and journals and 31 lakh learners are using this facility. It supports all academic levels including researchers and life-long learners, all disciplines, all popular form of access devices and differently abled learners.
Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) is a new initiative to make use the knowledge base in the higher educational institutions for plugging technology gaps in the rural areas. In this year, 750 institutions are being selected on challenge mode. This is expected to enrich rural India by way of customising existing technology as per local needs and also by improving the implementation of existing government schemes.
Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Mission on Teachers and Teaching (PMMMNMTT) scheme has been launched to address the issues of supply of qualified teachers, attracting talent into teaching profession, raising the quality teaching in schools and colleges.
Constitution of a Committee to draft National Education Policy under the Chairmanship of eminent scientist Dr. K. Kasturirangan
Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat programme: To promote mutual understanding between States & UTs in India which have diverse cultures, traditions, languages etc., through a process of sustained mutual engagement between the people. All States and UTs are paired with each other for a period of one year, after which the pairing would change. The objective is to break the inhibitions arising from diversity in culture through participative appreciation and engagement by people so that a spirit of oneness is created in the process for the nation.
Under Swachh Bharat programme: To promote Swachhta in the form of an attitude of zero tolerance to anything unhygienic. It has initiated Swachhta Rankings of Higher Educational Institutions and Swachhta Action Plans have been prepared.
Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) is an initiative to garner best international knowledge and experience into the country’s higher education so as to enable Indian students & faculty to interact with best academic and industry experts from across the world.
IMPRINT India is an effort to direct research in the premier institutions into areas of social relevance. 10 such domains have been identified which could substantially impact the living standards of the rural areas
The Uchchtar Avishkar Yojana (UAY) has been launched to promote industry specific need-based research so as to keep up the competitiveness of Indian industry in the global market.
Prime Minister Research Fellows (PMRF) scheme is launched to support 1000 bright undergraduate students every year, for direct admission in the research programmes in the reputed institutions like IISc, IITs. The fellowship carries a lot of social recognition and it ranges from Rs 70,000 to 80,000 per month for 5 year period.
Smart India Hackathon initiative is to promote innovation in the students by encouraging out of the box solutions for common problems faced by the society at large.
National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) is the biggest ranking exercise launched in 2015, in which more than 3,500 institutions participated. It is one of the biggest efforts for bringing in accountability and transparency in the higher educational institutions. The ranks are released in the various categories of institutions namely Universities, Engineering, Management, Pharmacy etc..
Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA): for creation of a fund with government equity of Rs. 1000 crores, to give a big push for building up robust higher educational institutions. The HEFA would finance the academic and research infrastructure projects through a 10 year loan.
Rashtriya Uchchatar Siksha Abhiyan (RUSA): To provide more assistance for infrastructure to Universities and Colleges, creation of Model Degree colleges, Cluster universitites, Upgradation of autonomous colleges and Vocationalisation of higher education.
Vidyalaxmi portal provides one-window clearance for the Education Loans with Interest Subvention.
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) provides assistance to State Governments and UTs to ensure free and compulsory quality elementary education for all children in the age group of 6-14 years in accordance with the provisions of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory (RTE) Act, 2009.
Preference for opening of school is given to tribal areas, and areas with high concentration of Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and minority population. Under the SSA, the districts with high concentration of population of SCs, STs and Muslims have been identified as Special Focus Districts (SFDs). The criteria for identifying the SFDs in case of SCs and STs is a population of 25% and above, while for Muslims, it is 20% and above population.
Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs):
Note: The dropout rate of girls at primary level has been steadily decreasing in the last three years.
Six monuments / historical sites in North Eastern States identified for listing under World Heritage Site:
Person in News
Babu Jagjivan Ram
Quotes
The Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu
On Science & New India
Must Read: E-Way Bill + MNREGS