Daily Current Affairs 8 January 2022

 Current Affairs Of Today Are

1) Sustainable organic farming model

• A sustainable natural farming system adopted in southern Rajasthan’s Banswara district, which has created new livelihood sources and brought food security to indigenous tribal communities
• The model is being considered for replication elsewhere in the State.
• A 20­member team of Chief Minister’s Economic Transformation Advisory Council visited Banswara
• district’s Amlipara village to study the techniques and innovations which have enabled the farmers to meet their daily food necessities by growing fruits and vegetables at a low cost. The integrated system has also reduced the tribals’ dependence on the market and improved the nutritional status of the local population.
• The team members, drawn mostly from the State government’s Agriculture and Horticulture Departments, interacted with the farmers to understand their vision as well as the issues being faced by them. They especially evinced interest in the functioning of the community­managed seed system, which has facilitated diversification of crops.
• The model entails the adoption of organic farming, manure, medicines, and pesticides and the establishment of vermicompost units at agricultural fields. The locally prepared organic manure is used for growing maize, wheat, urad, and other crops.

Source: The Hindu

2) India to be Asia’s 2nd largest economy by 2030

• India is likely to overtake Japan as Asia’s second­largest economy by 2030 when its GDP is also projected to surpass that of Germany and the U.K. to rank as the world’s No.3, IHS Markit said in a report
• Currently, India is the sixth­-largest economy, behind the U.S., China, Japan, Germany, and the U.K
• India’s nominal GDP is forecast to rise from $2.7 trillion in 2021 to $8.4 trillion by 2030
• This rapid pace of economic expansion would result in the size of Indian GDP exceeding Japanese GDP by 2030, making India the second­largest economy in the Asia-­Pacific region
• By 2030, the Indian economy would also be larger in size than the largest Western European economies of Germany, France, and the U.K.
• The long­term outlook for the Indian economy is supported by a number of key growth drivers.
• An important positive factor for India is its large and fast­growing middle class, which is helping to drive consumer spending
•  forecasting India's consumption expenditure will double from $1.5 trillion in 2020 to $3 trillion by 2030.
• For the full fiscal year 2021­-22, India’s real GDP growth rate is projected to be 8.2%, rebounding from the severe contraction of 7.3% year­on­year in 2020-­21
• The Indian economy is forecast to continue growing strongly in the 2022­-23 fiscal year, at a pace of 6.7%.
• The rapidly growing consumer market as well as its large industrial sector have made India an increasingly important investment destination for multinationals in many sectors, including manufacturing, infrastructure, and services.

Source: The Hindu

3) Varanasi Agri – Export Hub (VAEH)

• Working in close collaboration with the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) has taken several initiatives in making the landlocked Purvanchal region a new destination of agri-export activities through the development of Varanasi Agri – Export Hub (VAEH).
• APEDA has identified potential districts of Uttar Pradesh to be covered under the VAEH. The Purvanchal division covers districts of Varanasi, Mirzapur, Azamgarh, Prayagraj, Gorakhpur, Basti, Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Chandauli, and Sant Ravidas Nagar.
• The Varanasi region, where there are negligible agri-exports used to take place because of lack of basic infrastructure, is now abuzz with activities that have given a boost to exports. After the intervention of APEDA, the Varanasi region has recorded exemplary changes in the export scenario and registered many first-of-its-kind achievements in a very short span of time.
• With the active intervention of APEDA, about 20,000 Metric Tonne (MT) of agri- produce have been exported from the Purvanchal region in the last six months. Out of these shipments, about 5,000 MT of fresh fruits and vegetables and 15,000 MT of cereals have been exported to Vietnam, Gulf nations, Nepal, and Bangladesh by all modes of transportation.
• Varanasi and nearby areas witnessed an export of around 12 MT, 22 MT, and 45 MT in the months of October, November, December respectively in the year 2021. Also, around 125 MT have been exported from Varanasi and nearby areas.
• As Varanasi is a territory based in the plains of the river Ganges, it has a rich nutritional composition of soil with ample amount of fertility which leads to the production of good quality agri-produce. Varanasi region also has reputed institutions of central and international level such as the Indian Institute of Vegetable Research (IIVR), International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Banaras Hindu University (BHU).
• Currently, the Varanasi region has a number of exporters, and exports of agricultural products are being undertaken through air route due to the establishment of robust quarantine as well as customs clearance facilitation center at Lal Bahadur Shastri International (LBSI) Airport. APEDA has organized more than 30 capacity-building programs in the entire Varanasi region followed by eight international buyer-seller meets, which has provided a platform for the exporters to market their food products in the global marketplace.
• To monitor the product and production, a project of AI tech is also being considered for approval. APEDA is also planning to take member Farmer Producer Organization to different successful territories for unveiling the agri-supply chain and market linkage.
• The government is also considering replicating the Varanasi model in the Gorakhpur region of Purvanchal as the geography, demography and a few other parameters are common in both places. The newly established international airport in Kushinagar may play a vital role in triggering the export. The DDU Gorakhpur University, Indian Institute of Seed Science, Mau are the institutions actively working towards the promotion of agri- activities in the region.
• APEDA has also approved three projects for comprehensive grain and nutritional quality profiling of non-Basmati Rice, value-added products from Rice, and rice-based food systems. An APEDA-funded project for integrated IT solutions to enhance Agri Export in Varanasi Region is under process.

Source: PIB

4) Mobile Honey Processing Van

• KVIC launched the country’s first Mobile Honey Processing Van at Village Sirora in Ghaziabad, UP
• The Mobile Van has been designed in-house by KVIC at its Multi-disciplinary Training Centre, Panjokehra, at a cost of Rs 15 lakh. This mobile honey processing unit can process up to 300 KG of honey in 8 hours. The van is also equipped with a testing laboratory, that would instantly examine the quality of honey.
• The Mobile Honey Processing Van comes as a major development under KVIC’s Honey Mission which aims at training beekeepers, distributing Bee Boxes to farmers and helping rural, educated as well as unemployed youth to earn extra income through beekeeping activities.
• In line with “Sweet Kranti” (Sweet Revolution) though honey production, the KVIC has come up with this unique innovation to enable beekeepers and farmers to get fair price of their honey produce. KVIC has designed the innovative Mobile Honey Processing Van that will process beekeepers’ honey at their doorsteps and thus save them the hassle and the cost of taking the honey to processing plants in far off cities for processing. While this will make beekeeping a more profitable business for small beekeepers; this will also maintain purity and highest quality standards of honey.
• The Honey Mission aims at increasing the honey production in the country and adding to the income of farmers and beekeepers.
• This innovative Mobile Honey Processing Van will serve multiple objectives. Besides reducing the honey extraction and processing cost to the beekeepers, it will also eliminate any scope for adulteration of honey as the processing will be done at the doorsteps of the beekeepers and farmers. This honey processing unit will prove to be a boon for small beekeepers and farmers who are incurring extra cost for bringing their honey to other cities for processing and packaging. More such mobile honey processing units, particularly in the North Easters states, will be rolled out.
• It is noteworthy that the transportation of honey to processing plants is an expensive affair for small farmers and beekeepers. To avoid high transportation and processing cost, a majority of beekeepers would sell their raw honey to the agents at their farms itself at a very low price. As a result, these beekeepers were not able to fetch the actual monetary benefits of beekeeping. This Mobile Honey Processing Van is likely to benefit the beekeepers in rural areas of states like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab and Rajasthan.
• The honey processing unit also comprises a laboratory technician and a technical assistant to look after the honey testing
• It may be noted that under Honey Mission, KVIC has so far distributed nearly 1.60 lakh bee boxes across the country and created over 40,000 employment. In the Western Uttar Pradesh region alone, which has an abundance of flora, KVIC has distributed nearly 8000 bee boxes to farmers and beekeepers which has multiplied their income and increased the crop yield through cross-pollination.

Source: PIB

5) A star with a heartbeat & without a magnetic field discovered

• A group of Indian and international scientists has spotted a peculiar binary star that shows heartbeat but no pulsations contrary to the norm of binary stars sporting both heartbeats as well as pulsations. This star is called HD73619 in Praesepe (M44), located in the Cancer constellation, one of the closest open star clusters to the Earth.
• A total of about 180 heartbeat stars are known to date. The name 'Heartbeat' stems from the resemblance of the path of the star to an electrocardiogram of the human heart. These are the binary star systems where each star travels in a highly elliptical orbit around the common center of mass, and the distance between the two stars varies drastically as they orbit each other. When the stars are at the closest passage of binary systems, a sudden increase in integrated brightness with amplitude of the order of several parts per thousand (ppt) is observed. As the components move apart, the light variation falls and finally becomes flat, indicating that combined flux is reduced, resulting in alternating peaks and troughs in their light curves. The pulsational activity of such stars is due to the oscillations in the component stars when they are at their closest approach.
• The discovery is of vital importance for the study of inhomogeneities due to spots in non-magnetic stars and to investigate the origin of the pulsational variability. The research has been the result of the Nainital-Cape survey, one of the longest ground-based surveys to search and study the pulsation variability in a sample of CP stars which was initiated about two decades ago by astronomers of ARIES, Nainital, and South African Astronomical Observatory SAAO, Cape Town. As part of this survey, the group had monitored a few members of Praesepe in the past. The other members of this wide collaboration are from Uganda, Thailand, the United States of America, Russia, Belgium, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, South Africa, Poland, and Turkey. This joint work is supported by the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt. of India, and the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO), Govt. of Belgium under the Belgo-Indian Network for Astronomy and Astrophysics (BINA), project.

Source: PIB

6) PRASHAD projects

• Union Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Shri G. Kishan Reddy developed at the Govardhan Bus Stand under the project “Development of Govardhan, Mathura” under the PRASHAD Scheme of the Ministry of Tourism
• The ‘National Mission on Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Heritage Augmentation Drive (PRASHAD) is a Central Sector Scheme with complete financial assistance by the Government of India. The scheme has been launched under the leadership of the Prime Minister by the Ministry of Tourism in the year 2014-15 with the vision of focused infrastructure development to harness pilgrimage and heritage tourism destinations for its direct and multiplier effect upon employment generation and economic development. The scheme aims at infrastructure development to envisage world-class infrastructural development of the sites with special emphasis on Tourist Facilities including Tourist Facilitation Centres, way-side amenities Parking, Public convenience, Illumination and Sound and Light Shows.

Source: PIB

7) Sea Dragon Exercise

• India is among the six Indo-Pacific nations participating in Sea Dragon Exercise- a multi-lateral anti-submarine warfare exercise in the Pacific Ocean.
• Participants: Navies of the US, India, Australia, Canada, Japan, and South Korea.
• Sea Dragon is a US-led multi-national exercise designed to practice and discuss Anti-submarine warfare tactics to operate together in response to traditional and non-traditional maritime security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region.

8) Special Protection Group (SPG) Act

• The Centre is considering action under the Special Protection Group (SPG) Act against Punjab Police officers following the alleged breach in the security of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Punjab recently.
• The Centre is preparing to take action against erring officials under provisions of the SPG Act. This could entail summoning the officers responsible to Delhi or instituting a central-level inquiry against them.
• Protocols are set by the SPG for the PM’s movement.
• Section 14 of the SPG Act makes the state government responsible for providing all assistance to the SPG during the PM’s movement.
• In March 1985, following the recommendations of a committee set up by the Home Ministry, a special unit was created for this purpose under the Cabinet Secretariat. This unit, initially called the Special Protection Unit, was renamed as Special Protection Group in April 1985.
• Subsequently, the Parliament passed The Special Protection Group (SPG) Act, which was notified in June 1988 “to provide for the constitution and regulation of an armed force of the Union for providing proximate security to the Prime Minister of India and for matters connected therewith”.

Source: The Hindu