April 13th Current Affairs

1.Traditional New Year Festivals.

In News:

The President of India has greeted the people on the eve of Chaitra Shukla Pratipada, Ugadi, Gudi Padava, Cheti Chand, Navreh and Sajibu Cheiraoba.

These festivals of the spring season mark the beginning of the traditional new year in India.

Important information:

Chaitra Shukla Pratipada.

• It marks the beginning of the new year of the Vikram Samvat also known as the Vedic [Hindu] calendar.
• Vikram Samvat is based on the day when the emperor Vikramaditya defeated Sakas, invaded Ujjain and called for a new era.
• Under his supervision, astronomers formed a new calendar based on the luni-solar system that is still followed in the northern regions of India.
• It is the first day during the waxing phase (in which the visible side of moon is getting bigger every night) of the moon in the Chaitra (first month of Hindu calendar).

Gudi Padwa and Ugadi

• These festivals are celebrated by the people in the Deccan region including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.
• The common practice in the celebrations of both the festivals is the festive food that is prepared with a mix of sweet and bitter.
• A famous concoction served is jaggery (sweet) and neem (bitter), called bevu-bella in the South, signifying that life brings both happiness and sorrows.
• Gudi is a doll prepared in Maharashtrian homes.
• A bamboo stick is adorned with green or red brocade to make the gudi. This gudi is placed prominently in the house or outside a window/ door for all to see.
• For Ugadi, doors in homes are adorned with mango leaf decorations called toranalu or Torana in Kannada.

Cheti Chand

• Sindhis celebrate the new year as Cheti Chand. Chaitra month is called ‘Chet’ in Sindhi.
• The day commemorates the birth anniversary of Uderolal/Jhulelal, the patron saint of Sindhis.

Navreh

• It is the lunar new year that is celebrated in Kashmir.
• It is the Sanskrit word ‘Nav-Varsha’ from where the word ‘Navreh’ has been derived.
• It falls on the first day of the Chaitra Navratri.
• On this day, Kashmiri pandits look at a bowl of rice which is considered as a symbol of riches and fertility.

Sajibu Cheiraoba

• It is a ritual festival of Meiteis which is observed on the first day of Manipur lunar month Shajibu, which falls in March/April every year.
• On the day of the festival, people arrange a joint family feast in which traditional cuisines are offered to local deities at the entrance gates of the houses.

SOURCE:PIB

2. DGFT Trade Facilitation App launched

In News:

• The Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Shri Piyush Goyal recently launched the DGFT Trade Facilitation Mobile Application.  
• DGFT is Directorate General of Foreign Trade.

Key Features:

• The DGFT Trade Facilitation application provides the following features :
• Real-time trade policy updates and event notifications.
• It provides options to explore Export-Import policies and statistics
• Virtual Assistance to trade related queries
• It provides access to all the services provided by DGFT.
• Raise and track help requests in real time.
• The application will be available on both iOS and Android platforms.

DGFT

• DGFT is the government body that implements the foreign trade policy of India.
• It promotes exports of India.
• It operates under Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• It is headed by the Director-General. He or she is the head of Indian Trade Services.
• DGFT was known as the Chief Controller of Imports and Exports till 1991.
• DGFT was formed as a part of Economic Reforms in 1991 when the Liberalisation, Globalisation and Privatisation policies began in India.
• It provides licenses to the import and export businesses in India.
• It holds complete data about the importers and exporters in the country.
• It provides EIC number. EIC is Exporter Importer Code. It is a ten-digit number that is needed for all people conducting import or export business in the country.
• It regulates and permits the transit of goods between India and its neighbours according to the bilateral agreements.
• It controls the DEPB rates. DEPB is Duty Entitlement Pass Book. It is an export incentive scheme of Government of India.

SOURCE:PIB

3. Launch of India Energy Dashboards (Version 2.0) by NITI Aayog

In News:

The India Energy Dashboards Version 2.0 was launched by Dr Rajiv Kumar (Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog), Dr V K Saraswat (Member, NITI Aayog), Shri Amitabh Kant (CEO, NITI Aayog) and Dr Rakesh Sarwal (Additional Secretary, NITI Aayog).

Key features:

• India Energy Dashboards (IED) is an endeavour to provide single-window access to the energy data for the country.
• Energy data published/provided by Central Electricity Authority, Coal.
• The new version of the India Energy Dashboard provides data between the financial years 2005-06 and 2019-20.
• It will provide enhanced data download. It allows data download in convenient spreadsheet formats.
• Also, the new India Energy Dashboard provides data in sub-yearly frequencies. It includes monthly data from portals maintained by Government agencies. The monthly data in India is regularly published for petroleum, electricity, and natural gas sectors.
• It will provide technical and financial data of electricity utilities.
• The India Energy Dashboard will also provide data from schemes such as Saubhagya, PRAAPTI, UJALA and Vidyut PRAVAH.

Important information:

UJALA

• UJALA is Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All. The scheme was launched by PM Modi in 2015. It replaced the Bachat Lamp Yojana.
• UJALA is also called as DELP. DELP is Domestic Efficient Lighting Programme.
• It aims to promote the efficient usage of energy for all.
• Under the scheme, the LED bulbs were distributed to the Electricity Distribution Companies at subsidised rates.
• The scheme also aimed to reduce the green house gas emission by 79 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

PRAAPTI

• PRAAPTI is a web portal launched by the Ministry of Power in 2018.
• PRAAPTI is Payment Ratification and Analysis in Power procurement for bringing transparency in invoicing of generators.
• Under the portal, the power distribution companies will clear the invoices and reply to the claims raised by the generators in the portal.

SOURCE:PIB

4.DOOMSDAY GLACIER.

In News:

The melting of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier – also called the “Doomsday Glacier”– has long been a cause of concern because of its high potential of speeding up the global sea level rise happening due to climate change.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Thwaites Glacier

• The Thwaites Glacier or the Doomsday Glacier is 120 km wide at its broadest.
• It is spread over 1.9 lakh square kilometres.
• It is fast moving and has been melting in the recent years.
• The glacier has high potential to raise the world sea level by more than a metre.
• According to researchers, the amount of ice flowing out of the glacier has doubled in the past thirty years.

Previous Studies about Doomsday Glacier

• According to a 2019 study, a fast-growing cavity was discovered in the glacier that sized two-third of the area of Manhattan.
• The cavity is growing mainly due to the warm water detected below the glacier.
• This warm water has been found at two degrees above freezing point at the Grounding Zone or Grounding line of the Doomsday Glacier.

Grounding point or Grounding Zone of Glaciers

• The Grounding line of a glacier is the place below the glacier where the ice transits between resting fully on bedrock and floating on ocean as an ice shelf.
• The Grounding line retreats when the glaciers melt and lose weight.
• This in turn exposes more of the underside of the glacier to the seawater.
• As the exposed surface area increases, the melting of the glacier increases.

Key Findings of the new study

• The recent findings made by the Sweden researchers are the first measurements performed beneath the glacier.
• The submarine sent to go under the glacier was called “Ran”.
• It measured temperature, strength, salinity, and oxygen content of the ocean currents that go under the glacier.
• With this data, the researchers have mapped the ocean currents beneath the glacier.
• There are three inflows of warm water beneath the glacier.
• Among them the damaging effects of one of the currents had been underestimated in the past.
• The main concern according to the study is that warm water is approaching the pinning points of the glacier from all sides.

SOURCE:IE

5. Sputnik V recommended for emergency use

IN NEWS:

Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine — Sputnik V — has been recommended for emergency use authorisation in India following a meeting of the Subject Expert Committee (SEC).

Key takeaways

• If approved by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), Sputnik V would be the third vaccine to be made available in India after the Serum Institute of India’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.
• Sputnik V is developed by Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology
• It claims to be one of the three vaccines in the world with efficacy of over 90%.
• The vaccine supplies for the global market will be produced by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) international partners in India, Brazil, China, South Korea and other countries.

SOURCE:MINT