Status of centres of excellence scheme ‘AYURSWASTHYA Yojana’

• It is a Central Sector Scheme.
• It is having two components
  • AYUSH and Public Health (PHI) and
  • Centre of Excellence (CoE) from the Financial Year 2021-22 by merging two erstwhile schemes of this Ministry namely
    • Central Sector Scheme of Grant-in-Aid for Promotion of AYUSH Intervention in Public Health Initiatives (PHI) and
    • Central Sector Scheme for assistance to AYUSH organizations (Government / Non-Government Non-Profit) engaged in AYUSH Education/ Drug Development & Research / Clinical Research etc. for upgradation to Centre of Excellence (CoE).
  • Under the Centre of Excellence component of AYURSWASTHYA Yojana, financial assistance is provided to eligible individual organizations/institutes for establishing and upgrading their functions & facilities and/or for research & development activities in AYUSH.
  • The objectives of the Centre of Excellence component of AYURSWASTHYA Yojana are:
    • To support establishment of advanced/ specialized AYUSH medical health unit in reputed AYUSH and Allopathic institutions both in Government and Non-Government sector.
    • To support creative and innovative proposals for establishment and upgradation of both functions and facilities of reputed institutions to strengthen competencies of AYUSH professionals in education technology, research & innovation and such other fields necessary for promotion of AYUSH at national as well as international level.
    • To support creative and innovative proposals for prestigious organizations which have well-established buildings and infrastructure, and wish to work for AYUSH systems to the level of Centre of Excellence.
  • The maximum admissible financial assistance under the Centre of Excellence component of AYURSWASTHYA Yojana, to an organization/institute is 10.00 crores for maximum period of three years.

IICA launches ESG Impact Leader Programme

• ESG (Environmental, social, and corporate governance) is a term that has been coined to refer to specific data designed to be used by investors for evaluating the material risk that the organization is taking on based on the externalities it is generating.
• Broadly the ESG can be categorised as:
  • Environmental aspect: Data is reported on climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, deforestation, pollution, energy efficiency and water management.
  • Social aspect: Data is reported on employee safety and health, working conditions, diversity, equity, and inclusion, conflicts and humanitarian crises and is relevant in risk and return assessments directly through results in enhancing (or destroying) customer satisfaction and employee engagement.
  • Governance aspect: Data is reported on corporate governance such as preventing bribery, corruption, diversity of Board of Directors, executive compensation, cybersecurity and privacy practices, management structure, executive pay, diversity in leadership, manner in which the leadership responds to and interacts with shareholders, audits, internal controls, and shareholder rights.

ESG in India:

• ESG reporting in India commenced in 2009 with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) issuing the Voluntary Guidelines on Corporate Social Responsibility.
• With effect from the financial year 2022-2023, filing of Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) has been made mandatory for the top 1000 listed companies (by market capitalization) and has replaced the existing Business Responsibility Reporting ("BRR").

In a first, ten captive-bred critically endangered Asian Giant Tortoise to be rewilded in Nagaland

• The soft release of Asian Giant Tortoise is an attempt to boost conservation and repopulating the species. The soft release is a process of gradually releasing captive-raised species into the wild.
• Distribution: They are found in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia and other places.
• Diet: Bamboo shoots, tubers and other juicy vegetation and some invertebrates and frogs.
• Threats: Hunting for consumption, habitat loss, anthropogenic activities like construction and slash and burn.
• Conservation Status
  • IUCN :Critically Endangered
  • CITES :Appendix II
  • Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972 : Schedule IV

Intanki National Park:

• It is also known as the Ntangki National Park, which was established by British administrators in the year 1923.
• Flora: it has thick rain forests which creates natural habitat for many animals.
• Fauna: Wild buffaloes, Hoolok gibbo ,Tigers, Sloth bear, Wild dogs and flying squirrels.

Scientists freeze Great Barrier Reef coral in world-first trial

• Scientists used the cryomesh to freeze coral larvae at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences (AIMS).
• The Great Barrier reef coral has suffered four bleaching events in the last seven years including the first ever bleach during a La Nina phenomenon

Cryomesh

• Cryomesh is a specially fabricated mesh used as substrate in cryopreservation. This is lightweight and can be manufactured cheaply. It better preserves coral and has the properties of cryoplates.
• The mesh technology will help store coral larvae at 196°C (-320.8°F).

Coral Cryopreservation

• Cryogenically frozen coral can be stored and later reintroduced to the wild. This could eventually help to rewild reefs threatened by climate change.
• It can build a bigger, more diverse bank of frozen living corals, preserving biodiversity.

corals

• Corals are animals which live in a symbiotic relationship with microscopic algae called zooxanthellae (which live within the coral tissue).
• The zooxanthellae convert sunlight into food, providing corals with up to 90 per cent of their energy needs. They also give corals much of their colour.

Six Indian places added to tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites; know about them

• Three heritage sites were added to the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage sites namely**; the Sun Temple at Modhera and Vadnagar town from Gujarat and rock-cut relief sculptures of Unakoti of Tripura.**
• According to UNESCO, A Tentative List is an inventory of those properties which each nation intends to consider for nomination.

Sun Temple of Modhera

• The Sun Temple, Modhera dedicated to Surya dev (The Sun God), is one of the remarkable gems of temple architecture in India.
• It is an exemplary model of the Maru-gurjara architecture style of the 11th century of western India under the patronage of the Solanki dynasty. The age of the temple may be inferred from its style belonging to the reign of Bhimadeva I (1022-1063 CE).
• It consists of the main temple shrine (garbhagriha), a hall (gadhamandapa), an assembly hall (Sabhamandapa or rangamandapa) and a sacred pool (Kunda) which is now called Ramakunda.
• This east-facing temple is built of bright yellow sandstone.
• Other sun temples in India are 8th century CE Martand Sun Temple in Kashmir and the 13th century CE Sun temple at Konark.

Rock-cut relief sculptures of Unakoti

• The site of Unakoti Rock-cut relief sculptures is located in the north-eastern part of Tripura, which was built during 8th to 12th CE.
• The vertical surface of the Unakoti hills was used by the ancient people to carve various mythological scenes such as the different iconographic forms of Siva, Ganesha, Uma-Maheshwara.
• The images found at Unakoti can be classified into two categories:
• Majestic rock-cut images on the vertical surface of the hill and fallen boulders.
• Loose sculptures of smaller and medium sizes scattered on the hill.
• The influence of Buddhism is also seen in the sculptures of the region. There are various depictions of Boddhisattavas, Buddha and Buddhist motifs also found here.
• Many images found in this area also suggest the presence of religious sects such as Sakta, Tantric, Bajrayanis and Nathayogis.

Vadnagar

• Vadnagar was situated at a strategic location where two major ancient trade routes crossed each other. One of them joined central India with the Sindh and further northwest regions while another connected the port towns on the Gujarat coast to northern India.
• Vadnagar town is a multi-layered and multi-cultural mercantile settlement with its history stretching back to nearly 8thCentury BCE.

Navy launches indigenously-built ship ‘Arnala’ in Chennai

• The ARNALA ship is built under ASW SWC Project.
• Arnala class of ships will replace the Abhay class ASW Ships of the Indian Navy and are designed to undertake anti-submarine operations in coastal waters and Low-Intensity Maritime Operations (LIMO) including subsurface surveillance in littoral waters.
• The ship has been named Arnala to signify the strategic maritime importance accorded to the island of Arnala by the great Maratha warrior, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

ASW SWC Project

• It is the Anti-Submarine Warfare Shallow Water Craft project under which many ships are being built for the Indian Navy
• The ASW SWC ships will be capable of detecting and neutralizing various underwater threats.
• ASW SWC ships have a displacement of 900 tons with a maximum speed of 25 knots and an endurance of 1800 NM.
• These ships will have over 80% indigenous content, ensuring that large-scale defense production is executed by Indian manufacturing units thereby generating employment and capability build up within the country.

The Smart Cities Mission won the Platinum Icon in the Digital India Awards 2022 for their initiative “Data Smart Cities: Empowering Cities through Data”.

• The Smart Cities Mission won the award under the ‘Data Sharing and Use for Socio-Economic Development’ category.
  • This category ‘emphasizes on sharing of Government Data by Ministries/Departments/Organizations, States, Cities and ULBs to create a vibrant data for analysis, decision-making, innovation etc.
• The initiative is a key step in creating a robust data ecosystem that enables evidence-based decision-making in cities.
• The Digital India Awards (DIA) is a prestigious National competition that seeks to encourage and honour innovative digital solutions by government entities in realising the Digital India vision.
• These are conducted by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY).

Data smart Cities Initiative

• Aim: To harness the power of data for better governance in India’s 100 Smart Cities.
• It is based on a ‘People, Platform, Process’ strategy, which is helping in the convergence of the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs'' efforts for performance management, empowerment of communities, and research, co-creation & open innovation.
• The program has institutionalized a Data Ecosystem in cities through 100 City Data Offices and more than 50 Data Policies.

First Joint Finance and Health Task Force Meeting under India G20 Presidency held

• The meeting was co-chaired by Italy and Indonesia.
• The Bali Leaders’ Declaration 2022 extended the mandate of the Task Force to continue the collaborations between Finance and Health Ministries for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response.
• The 1st JFHTF enabled discussions on the mandates specified by the Bali Leaders’ Declaration.
• The Task Force Secretariat worked with the Indian Presidency and Co-Chairs Italy and Indonesia to draft the work plan for next year and beyond, which was designed around Indian Presidency’s Global Health Priorities for 2023.
• The Task Force will also promote the exchange of experiences and best practices, developing coordination arrangements between Finance and Health Ministries, promoting collective action and encouraging effective stewardship of resources to address the existing financing gaps in pandemic preparedness and response.

Centre asks States, UTs to increase genome sequencing of positive samples amid rise in Covid cases in China, Japan, US, Korea and Brazil

• A genome is an organism’s complete set of DNA, including all of its genes.
• Each genome contains all of the information needed to build and maintain that organism.
• In humans, a copy of the entire genome—more than 3 billion DNA base pairs—is contained in all cells that have a nucleus.

Genome Sequencing:

• Genome sequencing is figuring out the order of DNA nucleotides, or bases, in a genome—the order of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts that make up an organism''s DNA.
• The human genome is made up of over 3 billion of these genetic letters.
• In more simple terms, Sequencing a gene is like reading a book one letter at a time to look for any spelling mistakes.
• Whole genome sequencing (WGS) is the equivalent of running spellcheck on every volume in a library.

Applications:

• Tackling Human Disease
• Uncovering the secrets of our past
• Learning about the science behind ancient medicine
• Conserving our wildlife

Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) to issue technical norms for new security technology to screen cabin bags in airports.

BCAS:

• The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) was initially set up as a Cell in the Directorate General of Civil Aviation in January 1978 on the recommendation of the Pande Committee.
• The BCAS was reorganized into an independent department under the Ministry of Civil Aviation on 1st April, 1987.
• The main responsibilities of BCAS include laying down standards and measures with respect to security of civil flights at international and domestic airports in India.
• It has got four Regional Offices located at International airports i.e. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

Functions:

• Laying down Aviation Security Standards in accordance with Annex 17 to Chicago Convention of ICAO for airport operators, airlines operators, and their security agencies responsible for implementing AVSEC measures.
• Monitoring the implementation of security rules and regulations and carrying out survey of security needs.
• Ensure that the persons implementing security controls are appropriately trained and possess all competencies required to perform their duties.
• Planning and coordination of Aviation security matters.
• Surprise/Dummy checks to test professional efficiency and alertness of security staff.
• Mock exercise to test efficacy of Contingency Plans and operational preparedness of the various agencies.