June 9th Current Affairs

1.Sixteen varieties of mangoes exported to Bahrain

IN NEWS:

Sixteen varieties of mangoes including three GI certified varieties exported to Bahrain from West Bengal & Bihar.

KEY POINTS:

• Mango in India is also referred as ‘king of fruits’ and referred as Kalpavriksha (wish granting tree) in ancient scriptures. While most of the states in India have mango plantations, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka have major share in total production of the fruit.
• Alphonso, Kesar, Totapuri and Banganpalli are leading export varieties from India. Mango exports primarily take place in three forms: fresh mango, mango pulp, and mango slice.
• In a major boost to mango exports potential from eastern region, sixteen varieties of mangoes including three GI certified Khirsapati & Lakshmanbhog (West Bengal), Zardalu (Bihar) are being exported to Bahrain.
• The fruits have been sourced from farmers in Bengal and Bihar by APEDA registered exporter, DM enterprises, Kolkata and imported by Al Jazeera group, Bahrain.
• APEDA has been initiating measures to boost mango exports from the non-traditional regions and states.
• APEDA has been conducting virtual buyer seller meet and festival to promote mango exports.
• Recently in a bid to increase mangoes exports to South Korea, APEDA in collaboration with Indian embassy, Seoul and Indian Chamber of Commerce in Korea, organised a Virtual Buyer Seller Meet. APEDA has recently organised mango festival in Berlin, Germany.
• For the first time in this season, India has shipped a consignment of 2.5 Metric Tonne (MTs) of Geographical Indication (GI) certified Banganapalli & other variety Survarnarekha mangoes sourced from farmers in Krishna & Chittor districts of Andhra Pradesh
• The mangoes exported to South Korea, were treated, cleaned & shipped from the APEDA assisted and registered packhouse & vapor heat treatment facility at Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh and exported by IFFCO Kisan SEZ (IKSEZ).
• This was the first export consignment sent by IKSEZ, which is a subsidiary of IFFCO, a multi-state cooperative with a membership of 36,000 societies.
• There is possibility of more exports of mangoes to South Korea this season. IFFCO Kisan SEZ has an agreement with Meejaim, South Korea for supplying 66 MTs of mango this season.

SOURCE:PIB

2. Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana extended till Deepawali

IN NEWS:

• Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi yesterday in his address to the nation conveyed the decision ofextension of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana (PMGKAY-III) till the Deepawali.
• This means that till November 2021, more than 80 crore people will continue to get decided amount of free food grain every month.

KEY POINTS:

• FCI supplies 69 LMT free food grains to all States/ UTs under PMGKAY
• All 36 States/ UTs lift 100% free food grains for May 2021 under PMGKAY
• North-Eastern States, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland & Tripura lift full allocation for May-June 2021.
• The Government of India will bear the entire cost on account of such distribution including food subsidy, intra-state transportation and dealer’s margin/ additional dealers margin, without any sharing by States/ UTs.
• The Government of India has sensitized all the States/ UT Governments to complete the distribution of free food grains under PMGKAY in time bound manner.
• The Government of India announced Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) to ameliorate the hardship faced by the poor due to economic disruption caused by Corona virus. Under the scheme, free food grains @ 5 kg per person per month is being distributed to beneficiaries covered under NFSA.

Important Information:

Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan

• PMGKY is a part of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) to help the poor fight the battle against Covid-19.
• Its nodal Ministry is the Ministry of Finance.
• It was initially announced for a three month period (April, May and June 2020), covering 80 crore ration cardholders. Later it was extended till November 2020.
• However in April 2021, the government had announced its decision to restart the PMGKAY.

SOURCE:PIB

3. CAR-T cell therapy

IN NEWS:

• Department of Biotechnology supported First CAR-T cell therapy conducted at ACTREC, Tata Hospital in Mumbai.
• DBT/BIRAC-NBM Supported Phase I/II Clinical Trials.

KEY POINTS:

• The Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy has emerged as a breakthrough in cancer treatment.
• Clinical trials conducted globally have shown promising results in end stage patients, especially in patients suffering from Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia.
• Though this technology has a remarkable therapeutic potential for cancer patients, at present this technology is not available in India.
• Each patient’s CAR-T cell therapy costs 3-4 crore (INR).
• The challenge therefore is to develop this technology in cost-effective manner and make it available for the patients.
• The manufacturing complexity is a major reason for the therapy cost.
• In order to promote and support development of CAR-T cell technology against cancer and other diseases, BIRAC and DBT have taken initiatives and launched specialized calls to invite proposals in the last 2 years.
• This work is partly supported by BIRAC-PACE scheme. The TMC-IIT Bombay team are further supported to extend this project for conducting Phase I/II trial of their CAR-T product by DBT/BIRAC, through National Biopharma Mission.
• This is a “first in India” gene therapy in early phase pilot clinical trial and the dedicated efforts and excellent collaboration between IIT Bombay and Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai.

Important Information:

About DBT

The Department of Biotechnology (DBT), under the Ministry of Science & Technology, promotes and accelerates the development of biotechnology in India, including growth and application of biotechnology in the areas of agriculture, healthcare, animal sciences, environment and industry.

About BIRAC 

Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) is a not-for-profit Section 8, Schedule B, Public Sector Enterprise, set up by Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India as an Interface Agency to strengthen and empower the emerging Biotech enterprise to undertake strategic research and innovation, addressing nationally relevant product development needs.

SOURCE:PIB

4. Saral Jeevan Bima.

IN NEWS:

Saral Jeevan Bima, launched by IRDAI (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India) in 2020, has become a popular term life insurance product among masses.

KEY POINTS:

• IRDAI in October 2020 had mandated all life insurers to launch the Saral Jeevan Bima plans from 1st January 2021.
• Saral Jeevan Bima is a regulator-mandated standard term life insurance plan offering basic protection to people who are self-employed or belong to a lower income category.
• It is a pure term life insurance product that can be purchased by people in the age group of 18 to 65 years and will have a policy term of 5 to 40 years.
• The sum assured for the term life insurance policy ranges from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 25 lakh (in multiples of Rs 50,000).
• However, the insurer will have the option of providing a sum assured beyond Rs 25 lakh.
• It provides for payment of sum assured in lump sum to the nominee in case of the life assured’s unfortunate death during the policy term.
• There are no exclusions, other than suicides.

SOURCE:IE

5. JAL SHAKTI MISSION

IN NEWS:

It has been decided that in the 5 North-Western States and UTsi.e.,Punjab,Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission will be expedited.

KEY POINTS:

• In these 5 states, every rural household will be provided with tap water connections by 2022, instead of by 2024.
• To enable these States/ UTs to achieve this goal by 2022, Union Minister of Jal Shakti has approved Central allocation of Rs. 8,216.25 Crore in 2021-22. This is more than 4 times of the allocation to these States/ UTs in 2020-21.
• With this massive increase in allocation, and speed of implementation, these 5 States/UTs are set to achieve ‘Har Ghar Jal’ status by 2022.

Important Information :

• On 15th August, 2019, Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi announced Jal Jeevan Mission(JJM) to provide safe piped drinking water to every rural household in the country by 2024.
• In this period, Goa, Telangana, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry has become ‘Har Ghar Jal’ i.e. every rural household in these States/ UTs is having tap water supply.

SOURCE:IE