Daily Current Affairs 16 November 2019

Current Affairs of Today are

1) 11th BRICS Summit 2019 key highlight

The theme of this summit - "Economic growth for an innovative future” holding at Brasilia, Brazil 

BRICS Business Council

• The BRICS Business Council created a roadmap to achieve the $ 500 billion Intra-BRICS trade target by the next summit and identification of economic complementarities among BRICS countries would be important in this effort. The partnership agreement between the New Development Bank and BRICS Business Council would be useful for both the institutions.
• PM called for paying special attention to mutual trade and investment, as Intra-BRICS trade accounts for just 15% of world trade, while the combined population is more than 40% of the world's population.

Countering Terrorism

• The first Seminar on BRICS Strategies for Countering Terrorism was organized and hoped that such efforts and activities of the five working groups will increase strong BRICS Security Cooperation against terrorism and other organized crimes.
• Terrorism has caused a loss of $1 trillion to the world economy and the atmosphere it created has indirectly and deeply harmed trade and business

Meeting of Prime Minister with Mr. Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation

• The two leaders noted with satisfaction that the USD 25 billion targets of bilateral trade by 2025 has already been achieved. The two leaders decided that the 1st Bilateral Regional Forum at the level of Russian Provinces and the Indian States be held next year to dismantle the barriers of trade at the regional level.
• The two leaders also reviewed the progress made in the field of Infrastructure particularly railways in the context of raising the speed of the Nagpur-Secunderabad sector railway line. The leaders also noted with satisfaction the cooperation in the Defence sector and in the field of Civil Nuclear Energy.
• The two leaders noted the stability and progress made in imports of oil and natural gas. President Putin highlighted the potential of the Arctic region in natural gas and invited India to invest in the region. The United States Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic contains approximately 13 percent of the world's undiscovered conventional oil resources and about 30 percent of its undiscovered conventional natural gas resources.

2)  9th Edition of the IDF Diabetes Atlas

• On International Diabetes Day, the International Diabetes Foundation (IDF) Diabetes Atlas makes it clear that India needs to pause and re­evaluate its strategy to combat diabetes.
• One in six people with diabetes in the world is from India. The numbers place the country among the top 10 countries for people with the disease, coming in at number two with an estimated 77 million diabetics.
• The numbers are staggering just over 134 million Indians will be diabetics in the next 25 years.
• China leads the list with over 116 million diabetics. 
• India is at the top among a clutch of countries in Southeast Asia — Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Mauritius. Bangladesh, which is second on the list of top five countries (20­79 years), however, has only 8.4 million diabetics.

How to tackle?

India needs a more effective national diabetes prevention program which will require cooperation from several quarters, including medical education, health awareness in schools, and urban planning

3) Sisseri River bridge connecting Dibang Valley and Siang

• The Sisseri River bridge at Lower Dibang Valley in Arunachal Pradesh. The 200-meter long bridge between Jonai-Pasighat-Ranaghat-Roing road will provide connectivity between Dibang Valley and Siang to meet the long-pending demand of the people of Arunachal Pradesh as it would cut down the travel time from Pasighat to Roing by about five hours.
• The Government has adopted the Border Area Development Programme (BADP) in its plan keeping in view the security of the people residing in the border areas.
• The Sisseri River bridge provides connectivity to Tinsukia via the Dhola-Sadia bridge. It was constructed by Project Brahmank of Border Roads Organisation (BRO). This bridge is also strategically important from the military viewpoint and will be a part of Trans Arunachal Highway.
• the bridge will play an important role in the overall development adding that it would open more avenues in the fields of employment, trade & tourism.

4) The Union Environment Ministry withdrew a draft amendment that proposed updates to the Indian Forest Act, 1927.

• The Government of India (GoI) has cleared misgivings over the zero draft which sought techno-legal suggestions in the Indian Forest Act, 1927.
• The Union Environment Ministry withdrew a draft amendment that proposed updates to the Indian Forest Act, 1927.
• The government of India not only helped with finances and more welfare schemes but have also ensured Minimum Support price for their forest produce and have also allotted various hectares of land during these 5 years by giving them titles of ownership to tribal communities.
• The legislation also proposed a forest development cess of up to 10% of the assessed value of mining products removed from forests and water used for irrigation or in industries. This amount would be deposited in a special fund and used “exclusively for reforestation; forest protection; and other ancillary purposes connected with tree planting, forest development, and conservation,” the draft document noted

5) Women and Child Development (WCD) Ministry to announce Bharatiya Poshan Krishi Kosh

• The Union Minister of Women and Child Development (WCD) and Textiles, Smriti Zubin Irani, will announce Bharatiya Poshan Krishi Kosh (BPKK) on Monday, 18th November 2019 in New Delhi. The BPKK will be a repository of diverse crops across 128 agro-climatic zones in India for better nutritional outcomes.
• The first-ever database that links relevant agro-food system data at the district, intending to map the diversity of native crop varieties that will be more cost-effective and sustainable over the long run.
• At the request of the Ministry of WCD, the Harvard Chan School of Public Health through its India Research Center and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will document and evaluate promising regional dietary practices and the messaging around them and develop a food atlas on regional agro-food systems. Both efforts are aimed at mobilizing the diverse sectors of society.

6) India to host the 8th International Conference on Agricultural Statistics

• The 8th International Conference on Agricultural Statistics (ICAS-VIII) will be organized by the Ministry of Agriculture in New Delhi from 18th to 21st November 2019.
• The conference will be organized in collaboration with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, ISI-CAS, FAO, the USDA, ADB, World Bank, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Eurostat, AfDB and various other organizations. The theme of this year’s ICAS is ‘Statistics for the Transformation of Agriculture to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)’.
• It is for the first time that such an important conference in the field of agriculture statistics is happening in the country and this will be a learning opportunity for the statisticians, young scientists and decision-makers in India to adopt modern practices in agriculture such as Big Data analysis, AI, precision farming, etc. He added that the conference is held to address various challenges faced in producing data to report on the SDGs and various leading research and also to deliberate and finalize the best practices in the field of agriculture statistics.

7) UNESCO MGIEP Digital Learning draft Guidelines

• On the occasion of the 40th UNESCO General Conference, Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal‘Nishank’, Union Minister, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, launched the first of its kind ‘Industry Guidelines on Digital Learning (discussion draft)’ at the Ministerial Roundtable on ‘Media and Information Literacy and Games in the Digital World’.
• The Roundtable was jointly organized by the Government of Finland and the Government of India, in partnership with UNESCO Headquarters and UNESCO’s category 1 institute, Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP).
• The Draft Guidelines were developed by UNESCO MGIEP, based in New Delhi, responding to the Vizag Declaration on Digital Learning adopted at TECH 2018, an international conference co-organized by UNESCO MGIEP and the State Government of Andhra Pradesh.

The objective of ‘Media and Information Literacy and Games in the Digital World’.

 The main objective is to encourage the development of critical thinking in the field of media, information, and literacy. The objectives also include promoting better understanding, dialogue, and peace among the youth by taking advantage of the unique potential of gaming based learning methods. Shri Pokhriyal said that this joint effort will not only achieve its objective but will also initiate a new chapter with its excellence in this select field.

MyDream project

Under the MyDream project, UNESCO MGIEP and Samsung are conducting a two-year research study at JawaharNavodayaVidyalaya (JNV) schools across India. This study is designed to understand how project-based learning and SEL (Social and Emotional Learning) can be used to drive the learning outcomes of students as defined by their Mathematics and Science scores measured by JawaharNavodayaVidyalaya and also to reduce their stress levels.