Centre signs peace accord with tribal outfits, Shah says important day for Assam

• The agreement was signed to end decade old crisis of tribal groups and tea garden workers in Assam.
• The tribal groups which have signed the agreement include, Birsa Commando Force, Adivasi People''s Army, All Adivasi National Liberation Army, Adivasi Cobra Military of Assam and Santhal Tiger Force.
• The agreement will prove to be another milestone in the direction of making North East region extremism free by 2025.
• Shah said, several agreements have been signed to ensure peace and development in the North Eastern region in the last three years. He said, NLFT agreement in 2019, BRU-REANG and Bodo accord in 2020, Karbi Anglong agreement in 2021 and Assam-Meghalaya inter-state boundary agreement this year has resolved around 65 per cent of border disputes.

Govt constitutes expert committee to examine and suggest appropriate measures to address regulatory and other issues

• The government has constituted an expert committee to examine and suggest appropriate measures to address regulatory and other issues to enable scaling up investments by venture capital and private equity investment.:
• Finance Ministry said the six-member panel will be headed by former SEBI chairman M Damodaran. The committee will suggest measures to further accelerates investment into start-ups and sunrise sectors.
• In her Budget speech 2022-23, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed to set up an expert committee to examine and suggest appropriate measures to scale venture capital and private equity investments in India.

BSF''s first female camel riding squad is ready to be deployed along the India-Pakistan border

• The squad will participate for the first time in the BSF Raising Day Parade on 1ST December. This Squad will be the first of its kind in the world.
• The Border Security Force (BSF) is India''s border guarding organisation on its border with Pakistan and Bangladesh.
• It is one of the seven Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) of India, and was raised in the wake of the 1965 war on 1 December 1965.
• It comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Delay in PM Modi government’s flagship rural housing scheme to invite penalty

• Pulling up the States for the delay in completion of the NDA government’s flagship rural household scheme — Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin) — the Union Ministry of Rural Development has come up with a set of penalties that the State governments will have to bear for any further delay.
• Opposition-ruled West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, along with BJP-ruled Assam, are the leading four States who are far behind their targets.
• This is the first time, since the scheme started in April 2016 with a target of constructing 2.95 crore houses, that the Union Government has introduced a penalty clause.
• The initial deadline for the scheme was March 2022, which owing to the COVID-19 pandemic was extended by another two years till March 2024.
• Under the scheme, the government has set itself a target of 2.95 crore houses. This number was deduced from the Socio-Economic Caste Survey, 2011. As per the statistics available with the Union Ministry of Rural Development, till August 2022, 2.02 crore houses have been constructed.

Centre cites law to deny seats to Ukraine-returnees

• The Government of India told the Supreme Court that the law does not allow undergraduate medical students, who fled the “war-like situation” in Ukraine, to be accommodated in Indian medical colleges.
• The affidavit from the Health Ministry was in response to petitions filed by students, in their first to fourth year of undergraduate medical studies in Ukraine, seeking transfer to colleges in India to continue their semesters here.
• So far as such students are concerned, there are no provisions either under the Indian Medical Council Act of 1956 or the National Medical Commission Act 2019 as well as the Regulations to accommodate or transfer medical students from any foreign medical institutes/colleges to Indian medical colleges.
• Till now, no permission has been given by the National Medical Commission to transfer or accommodate any foreign medical students in any Indian medical institute/university, the Health Ministry said.

''Triple dip'' La Nina and its impact on India''s monsoon

• The Australian Bureau of Meteorology on September 13 confirmed the occurrence of La Niña phenomenon for the third consecutive year in the Pacific Ocean.
• The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) on August 31 had stated that the oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon would last until at least the end of the year, and for the first time this century, span three consecutive northern hemisphere winters to become a ‘triple dip’ La Nina.
• El Nino and La Nina, which mean ‘the boy’ and ‘the girl’ in Spanish, are mutually opposite phenomena, during which an abnormal warming or cooling of sea surface temperatures is observed in the Pacific Ocean along the equator, off the coast of South America.
• Together they constitute what is known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation system, or ENSO for short.
• ENSO conditions can alter both temperatures and rainfall globally, due to their strong interference on global atmospheric circulations.
• It is a recurring phenomenon and the change in temperature is accompanied by changes in the patterns of upper and lower level winds, sea level pressure, and tropical rainfall across the Pacific Basin.
• Normally, El Nino and La Nina occur every four to five years. El Nino is more frequent than La Nina.

Tamil Nadu’s new breakfast scheme in schools

• The scheme covers around 1.14 lakh students in 1,545 schools which include 417 municipal corporation schools, 163 municipality schools and 728 taluk and village panchayat-level schools.
• A sum of ₹33.56 crore has been set apart for the scheme. The inauguration of the scheme marks an important milestone in the State’s history of providing free meals to school students.
• Anaemia is a major health problem in Tamil Nadu, especially among women and children, says the 2019-21 National Family Health Survey-5’s report.
• Those in charge of the meal programme can enhance the component of nutrition to those children having specific problems. The latest Breakfast Scheme is a step in this direction.

Pratap Pawar elected Audit Bureau of Circulations chairman

• Pawar, a Padma Shri awardee, is former president of The Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture, Pune and he is on the Board of several organisations.
• The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) of India is a non-profit circulation-auditing organisation.
• It certifies and audits the circulations of major publications, including newspapers and magazines in India.
• ABC is a voluntary organisation initiated in 1948.
• It is headquartered in Mumbai.