Agriculture ministry, NAFED sign MoU to boost international year of millets 2023

• The U.N. General Assembly recently adopted a resolution, sponsored by India and supported by more than 70 countries, declaring 2023 as the International Year of Millets.
• The resolution is intended to increase public awareness on the health benefits of millets and their suitability for cultivation under tough conditions marked by climate change.
• Millet is a cereal that belongs to the grass family.
• Majorly cultivated in the semiarid tropical regions of Africa and Asia, around 97 percent of world’s overall millet production happens in these regions.
• Types of millets: Jowar (Sorghum), Ragi, Bajra (Pearl millet).

President launches ‘herSTART’ platform for women entrepreneurs

• herSTART'' is the initiative of Gujarat University Startup and Entrepreneurship Council aims at supporting women-led startups.
• The platform has been launched with the aim that it will not only boost innovation and start-up efforts of women entrepreneurs but also help them connect with government as well as private enterprises.
• Through this platform, free resources and training modules free will be provided to aspiring women entrepreneurs. It will build a digital community and also a digital publication to spread their success stories.

PM Modi talks to Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; conveys India''s readiness to contribute to any peace efforts

• Both the leaders discussed the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Mr Modi reiterated his call for an early cessation of hostilities and the need to pursue the path of dialogue and diplomacy.
• The Prime Minister expressed his firm conviction that there can be no military solution to the conflict and conveyed India’s readiness to contribute to any peace efforts.
• He emphasized the importance India attaches to the safety and security of nuclear installations, including in Ukraine. Mr Modi underlined that endangerment of nuclear facilities could have far-reaching and catastrophic consequences on public health and the environment.
• India was one of the first countries to recognize Ukraine. Government of India recognized the Republic of Ukraine as a sovereign country in December 1991 and established diplomatic relations in January 1992.
• The Embassy of India in Kyiv was opened in May 1992. Ukraine opened its Mission in Delhi in February 1993 – its first in Asia.

Online Building Plan Approval System (OBPAS) extended to five more Cantonment Boards

• Government has approved the extension of Online Building Plan Approval System (OBPAS) under eChhawani portal to five more Cantonment Boards, namely Agra, Ranikhet, Babina, Jammu and Cannanore.
• eChhawani is a citizen-centric project of the Directorate General of Defence Estates, Ministry of Defence.
• Under this initiative, Cantonment Boards provide online citizen services to more than 20 lakh residents across 62 Cantonments in the country.
• The unified portal provides access to civic services along with all relevant information in a simple, easy to understand and effective manner.
• As a step towards facilitating ease of living, over 2.18 lakh property taxpayers living in cantonment areas would be able to apply online for mutation in the property tax register under the eChhawani portal 

PM Narendra Modi Expresses Happiness On Garba Attaining Popularity Among National Games Participants

• Garba is a dance form native to the Indian state of Gujarat, performed in October to honour the Hindu Deity of Divinity, Goddess Durga
• It is a joyful style of dance, based on a circular pattern and characterized by a sweeping action from side to side.
• Garba performances often include singing and a musical accompaniment traditionally provided by dhol (double-headed drum) and the similar but smaller dholak; hand clapping; and assorted metallic idiophones, such as cymbals.
• Garba dances celebrate fertility, honour womanhood, and pay respect to any of an array of mother goddesses.
• In Gujarat the dances customarily mark a girl’s first menstrual cycle and, later, her imminent marriage. Garba dancing also takes place during the nine-day Navratri festival.

Home Ministry designates 10 individuals as terrorists

• A total of 10 members of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and other proscribed outfits have been designated as terrorists by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
• The UAPA was enacted in 1967. It lays down the definitions and rules for designating an organisation as an "unlawful association" if it is engaged in certain types of activities.
• The government can then issue a notification designating such an organisation as a terrorist organisation, if it believes that the organisation is part of "terrorist activities.
  • Under the Act, ''unlawful activity'' is not limited to terror activities relating to causing direct violence or attacks, it also includes any activities that disrupt the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, disrupts the economic stability of the country or causes disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different reli­gious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communi­ties in the country
• In 2004, the Preamble to the UAPA was amended and ''terrorist activities'' were brought within its fold, under which 34 outfits, including the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad, were banned.
• The 2019 Amendment gave the Home Ministry the power to designate individuals as terrorists.

HM Amit Shah announces Scheduled Tribe status for Pahari community in J&K ; to address rally in Baramulla

• He said that Justice GD Sharma Commission has recommended reservation for Paharis, Gujjars and Bakerwals and after completion of the administrative process, these communities will get reservation benefits.
• The Pahari community is a linguistic group mainly residing in the Pir Panjal valley. They constitute of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs and make up around 10-11 per cent of the population in Jammu and Kashmir.
• Their mother tongue, Pahari, is an offshoot of Pothwari language with varying dialects and their own unique culture. They usually reside in rural areas and are majorly involved in agricultural and cattle activities.
• The criteria presently followed for specification of a community as a Scheduled Tribe are : (i) indications of primitive traits, (ii) distinctive culture, (iii) geographical isolation, (iv) shyness of contact with the community at large, and (v) backwardness. However, these criteria are not spelt out in the Constitution.

Article 342

Article 342 prescribes the procedure to be followed in the matter of specification of Scheduled Tribes.

• Under Clause (1) of Article 342, the President may, with respect to any State or Union Territory, and where it is a State, after consultation with the Governor thereof, notify tribes or tribal communities or parts of these as Scheduled Tribes. This confers on the tribe, or part of it, a Constitutional status invoking the safeguards provided for in the Constitution, to these communities in their respective states/UTs.
• Clause (2) of the Article 342 empowers the Parliament to pass a law to include in or exclude from the List of Scheduled Tribes, any tribe or tribal community or parts of these.
• The List of Scheduled Tribes is State/UT specific and a community declared as a Scheduled Tribe in a state need not be so in another state/UT.

Explorers of Quantum Entanglement Win 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics

• Two of the laureates—John Clauser and Alain Aspect—worked on firming up the concept of quantum entanglement and developing more complex experiments that demonstrated this phenomenon, especially creating, processing and measuring what are called Bell pairs. The third laureate, Anton Zeilinger, has been chosen for his innovative use of entanglement and Bell pairs both in research and application such as quantum cryptography.
• Quantum information science has a broad range of potential implications in areas such as secure information transfer, quantum computing and sensing technology.
• One of the most mature applications of quantum technology is quantum cryptography, which takes advantage of the fact that changes made to one particle in an entangled system affect the other.
• It is a phenomenon by which a pair of particles, say photons, are allowed to exist in a shared state where they have complementary properties, such that by measuring the properties of one particle, you automatically know the properties of the other particle. This is true regardless of how far apart the two particles are transported.