June 2nd Current Affairs

1. India-Australia cooperation and collaboration in the field of Agriculture.

IN NEWS:

A virtual meeting between Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Mr. David Littleproud MP, Australian Minister for Agriculture, Drought & Emergency Management, was held on 1st June, 2021.

KEY POINTS:

• The India – Australia Grains Partnership was a significant inclusion aiming to use Australia’s expertise in post harvest management to strengthen rural grain storage and supply chains so as to reduce losses and wastage.
• National Institute of Agricultural Marketing will be the nodal organisation from India.
• Australia has recently given market access for export of Indian pomegranates.
• There would be a joint strategy for deeper access for Indian mangoes and pomegranates in Australian markets led by the Indian High Commission in Canberra also.
• The Australian Minister assured to fast track the Indian requests for market access for okra and pomegranate arils.

SOURCE:PIB

2. World Milk Day

IN NEWS:

• Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Shri Giriraj Singh chaired a virtual program organised on the occasion of World Milk Day.
• Every year,the first day of June is observed as World Milk Day.
• Minister announces the launch of a National Award, Gopal Ratna Award, for Dairy Sector
• Integration of e- Gopala app with UMANG platform also announced.

KEY POINTS:

Milk production has increased at an average annual growth rate of 6.3% per year in the last 6 years.

UMANG Platform

• Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG) Mobile App is a unified, secure, multi-channel, multi-platform, multi-lingual, multi-service mobile app launched under the Digital India initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in 2017.
• It is a unified application that can be used to avail a number of pan India e-government services such as: Filing income tax, Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) services, Aadhar, Pension, ePathshala, e- Land Records, Crop Insurance etc.

Gopal Ratna Awards:

They are National Awards for the Cattle and Dairy sector, the awards have been launched to promote the best herd of Indigenous Breed and practicing best management practices and it will be given in three categories:

1. Best Dairy farmer.
2. Best Artificial Insemination Technician (AIT).
3. Best Dairy Cooperative/ Milk producer Company/ Farmers Producer Organisation.

e-Gopala (Generation of wealth through Productive Livestock) App:

• It is a comprehensive breed improvement marketplace and information portal for direct use of farmers.
• It provides solutions on the aspects of:
• Managing livestock including buying and selling of disease-free germplasm in all forms (semen, embryos, etc.).
• Availability of quality breeding services (Artificial Insemination, veterinary first aid, vaccination, treatment, etc.).

Other Initiatives Related to the Dairy sector:

• National Action Plan on Dairy Development 2022: It seeks to increase milk production and double the income of dairy farmers.
• National Animal Disease Control Programme & National Artificial Insemination Programme: It was launched to control and eradicate the Foot & Mouth Disease (FMD) and Brucellosis amongst the livestock in the country,

Pashu-Aadhar: It is a unique ID on a digital platform for traceability for the animals.

Rashtriya Gokul Mission: It was launched in 2019 for setting up of 21 Gokul Grams as Integrated Cattle Development Centres.

SOURCE:PIB

3. Initiatives launched to provide major fillip to the SATAT initiative

IN NEWS:

Union Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas launched a number of initiatives to provide major fillip to the SATAT initiative in a virtual ceremony.

KEY POINTS:

• Aim of SATAT scheme: To set up Compressed Bio-Gas (CBG) production plants and make CBG available in the market for use as a green fuel.
• ‘SATAT’, launched on 1.10.2018, envisages to target production of 15 MMT of CBG from 5000 plants by 2023.
• It has the potential to boost availability of affordable transport fuels, better use of agricultural residue, cattle dung and municipal solid waste.
• It will also provide an investment of 1.75 lakh crore, an additional revenue source to farmers, and 75,000 direct job opportunities and lakhs of indirect jobs.

SOURCE:TH

4.RDSO becomes first Institution to be declared SDO

IN NEWS:

RDSO (Research Design & Standards Organization) of Indian Railways has become the FIRST Institution to be declared Standard Development Organisation (SDO) under “One Nation One Standard” mission of BIS ( Bureau of Indian Standards).

KEY POINTS:

• Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), which is the National Standards Body, has launched a scheme which provides for “Recognition of SDO” to attain “One Nation One Standard” vision of Government of India.
• Aim of the scheme: Aggregating and integrating the existing capabilities and dedicated domain specific expertise of various organizations in India which are engaged in standards development in their specific sectors.
• It will also enable convergence of all standard development activities resulting in “One National Standard for One Subject”.
• Research Designs & Standards Organization (RDSO), Lucknow, is the only Research & Development Wing of Ministry of Railways.

SOURCE:IE

5.Species in news: Litoria Mira

IN NEWS:

A species of frog lives in the rainforests of New Guinea that appears to be made from chocolate.

KEY POINTS:

• The cocoa-coloured frogs have turned out to be a new species.
• It is called Litoria Mira.
• It is an undescribed member of the Australian Litoria genus of tree frogs.
• Litoria mira can be distinguished from all other Litoria by its unique combination of moderately large size, webbing on hand, short limbs, and small violet patch of skin on the edge of its eyes.

Important Information:

• The reason that the chocolate frog from New Guinea and the Australian green tree frog are similar is that Australia and New Guinea used to be linked by land for much of the late Tertiary period (2.6 million years ago), and share many biotic elements.
• Today, the island of New Guinea is separated from the ‘horn’ of Queensland by the Torres Strait. New Guinea is dominated by rainforest, and northern Australia by the savannah.

SOURCE:TH

6. Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS)

IN NEWS:

• Revamped Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), Umbrella schemes of Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi (RAN) and Discretionary Grant (HMDG) on National Health Authority (NHA)’s IT platform were recently launched.
• Ministry: Ministry of Health
• Objective: For providing cashless, paperless and citizen-centric services.

KEY POINTS:

Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS):

• It is a comprehensive Health Scheme for Serving Employees, Pensioners, Members of Parliament, ex-MPs, etc., and their dependent family members.
• During the last 7 years it has expanded to 72 Cities.
• E-referral module developed by NIC has enabled CGHS dispensaries and wellness centres to issue online referral to empanelled hospitals.

Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi (RAN)

• Under RAN, financial assistance up to Rs 15 lakhs is provided to poor patients suffering from major life-threatening diseases for treatment at Government hospitals.
• The eligibility criteria to avail services under RAN had been based on State/UT-wise BPL threshold.

Health Minister’s Discretionary Grant (HMDG)

• Under HMDG a maximum amount of Rs.1.25 lakhs is provided to patients whose annual income is less than Rs.1.25 lakhs.
• Beneficiaries can apply for financial assistance under both schemes by providing their Ration card number

SOURCE:TH