Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh inaugurated India’s ‘First Lavender Festival'' in Bhaderwah.

• He described Bhaderwah as the birthplace of India''s Purple Revolution and said that Bhaderwah is the potential destination of Agri-tech StartUps of the country.
• India’s first National Institute of High Altitude Medicine is also being built in Bhaderwah.
• Bhaderwah (also Bhadarwah Valley) is a town, tehsil and sub-division in the district Doda of Jammu.
• Lavandula (common name lavender) is a genus of 47 known species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae.
• The flowers may be blue, violet or lilac in the wild species, occasionally blackish purple or yellowish. Lavender has been used over centuries in traditional medicine and cosmetics.
• CSIR-AROMA Mission, under the Ministry of Science & Technology aims to develop and disseminate the aroma-related science and technology to reach the end user/clients of CSIR: Farmers, industry and society.

Delhi Customs launches Project ''NIGAH'' at ICD Gurugram

• Project NIGAH is an initiative to track container by using ICTM (ICD Container Tracking Module) which will help in better visibility of the container movement inside the ICD.
• It will help Customs to expedite long standing containers and monitor timely clearances, thereby enhancing Ease of Doing Business along with ensuring lead preventive checks.

India to be the leader of green hydrogen: Puri in Davos

• The ‘green’ depends on how the electricity is generated to obtain the hydrogen, which does not emit greenhouse gas when burned.
• Green hydrogen is produced through electrolysis using renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind or hydel power.
• In Apr Oil India Limited (OIL) commissioned India’s first 99.99% pure green hydrogen plant in eastern Assam’s Jorhat.
• India has just begun to generate green hydrogen with the objective of raising non-fossil energy capacity to 500 gigawatts by 2030.
• The National Hydrogen Mission was launched on August 15, 2021, with a view to cutting down carbon emissions and increasing the use of renewable sources of energy.
• Grey hydrogen is generated through fossil fuels such as coal and gas and currently accounts for 95% of the total production in South Asia.
• Blue hydrogen, too, is produced using electricity generated by burning fossil fuels but with technologies to prevent the carbon released in the process from entering the atmosphere.

Import of paper brought under compulsory registration

• The import policy of major paper products has been amended from ‘Free’ to ‘Free subject to compulsory registration under Paper Import Monitoring System’. A notification to this effect has been issued by DGFT.
• This order shall be applicable on a range of paper products, such as newsprint, handmade paper, wallpaper base, duplicating paper, coated paper, uncoated paper, Litho and offset paper, tissue paper, parchment paper, carbon paper, wall paper, envelops, toilet paper, cartons, account books, labels, bobbins, etc.
• All imports arriving on or after 1.10.2022 shall be governed by this policy.
• Paper products like currency paper, bank bond and cheque paper, security printing paper, etc. have been excluded from this policy change.
• Domestic paper industry has been raising issues of dumping of paper products in the domestic market by way of under-invoicing, entry of prohibited goods by mis-declaration, re-routing goods through other countries in lieu of trade agreements.

Road accidents parameters register a significant decline in 2020

• Road accidents parameters registered a significant decline in 2020 compared to 2019.
• Total accidents decreased on an average by 18.46 per cent, the number of persons killed decreased by 12.84 per cent and the number of injures decreased by 22.84 per cent over previous year’s average.
• A total of 3,66,138 road accidents have been reported by States and Union Territories (UTs) during the calendar year 2020, which claimed 1,31,714 lives and caused 3, 48,279 injuries.
• The number of road accidents has been on decline since 2016 except for a marginal increase of 0.46 per cent in 2018. For the second consecutive year, the total number of road accidents fatalities has declined in 2020.
• Similarly, the number of persons injured has been on the decline since 2015.
• For the third consecutive year in 2020, the fatal road accident victims largely constitute young people in the productive age groups.
• Young adults in the age group of 18 - 45 years accounted for 69 per cent of victims during 2020.
• People in the working age group of 18 – 60 years share 87.4 per cent of total road accident fatalities.

DRI seizes 52 kgs of Cocaine under ''Operation Namkeen''

• Operation Namkeen was launched by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI).
• The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) is an Indian intelligence agency. It is India''s apex anti-smuggling intelligence, investigations and operations agency.
• The Directorate is run by officers from the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).
• The DRI came into existence in 1957.

GRSE launches Indian Navy survey vessel ''INS Nirdeshak''

• The ship has taken its name from erstwhile Nirdeshak which was also an Indian Naval Survey ship and was decommissioned after 32 years of glorious service in Dec 2014.
• Part construction of three out of four ships of SVL is being undertaken at L&T, Kattupalli as part of collaborative approach between GRSE and L&T shipbuilding.
• The contract for building four SVL ships was signed between MoD and Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers (GRSE), Kolkata on 30 Oct 2018. The first of class ship ‘Sandhayak’ was launched on 05 Dec 2021 at GRSE, Kolkata.
• The SVL ships will replace the existing Sandhayak Class survey ships with new generation hydrographic equipment to collect oceanographic data.

Aarohan 4.0: Two days meet of senior functionaries of Postal Department and India Post payments Bank (IPPB) begins today

• The agenda of the meeting is to deliberate ways to further deepen Financial Inclusion drive in the country.
• India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) has been established under the Department of Posts, Ministry of Communication with 100% equity owned by Government of India.
• IPPB was launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on September 1, 2018.
• The fundamental mandate of IPPB is to remove barriers for the unbanked and under-banked and reach the last mile leveraging a network comprising 160,000 post offices (145,000 in rural areas) and 400,000 postal employees.

App-based attendance hits rural jobs scheme workers

• The Rural Development Ministry had started the exercise on a pilot basis in May 2021.
• Initially, the utilisation of application was to be voluntary, but from May 16, 2022, it has been made mandatory.
• The Ministry’s directive claims that the app, which requires two time-stamped and geotagged photographs of the workers in a day, encourages transparency and increases citizen oversight.
• The decision comes despite many problems, including patchy Internet connectivity in rural areas and little or no technical support. In a majority of cases, the employees’ families are averse to giving phones to women, especially smartphones. Hence, many women have dropped out.