1. National webinar on Seed Chain Development
Syllabus: GS Paper 3- Economy- Issues related to agriculture
Prelims: Seed chain development initiatives
Context:
- Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare presided over a national webinar on “Seed Chain Development”.
Details:
- The Minister asked the state governments to work with the Central Government to prepare a roadmap for seed production and supply for the next 10-15 years.
- Ensuring the timely supply of good quality and affordable seeds to farmers should remain a top priority for the agricultural sector given its relationship with production and productivity, which in turn can ensure higher incomes for the farmers and help contribute to increasing the agricultural GDP. Supply of seeds of crops like pulses-oilseeds, cotton, etc. needs additional attention given the bottlenecks in their supply chain.
- Curbing black marketing and fake seeds should also be undertaken with due diligence. Aspects such as seed traceability, and raising awareness among the farmers on quality seeds would be valuable interventions in this direction.
- The development of new and more productive seeds should remain a top priority for agricultural research in India.
2. Foreign Investment Facilitation Portal
Syllabus: GS Paper 3- Indian Economy and issues relating to Planning, Mobilization of Resources, Growth, Development and Employment.
Prelims: Foreign Investment Facilitation Portal
Context:
- The Foreign Investment Facilitation Portal has completed 5 years.
- The Foreign Investment Facilitation Portal (FIF) was established after the abolishment of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).
Working of the FIF portal:
- The Foreign Direct Investment proposals are required to be filed on Foreign Investment Facilitation Portal (FIF Portal).
- The FIF portal is managed by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce & Industry.
- The proposals filed on FIF Portal are forwarded to the concerned Administrative Ministry. The proposals are also sent to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for necessary security clearance, wherever required.
- Automated alerts through SMS and emails to concerned ministries/departments and periodic reviews of the pendency of FDI proposals are being undertaken.
- Regular training sessions are also being conducted to educate ministries/departments regarding the judicious and expeditious processing of FDI proposals.
Significance:
- There has been a notable increase in FDI since the establishment of the FIF portal. The FDI inflow into India has increased from USD 45.15 billion in 2014-15 to USD 83.57 billion during 2021-22. The streamlining of the regulatory process involved in FDI inflows has been a contributive factor.
- There have been faster disposals of FDI proposals due to reduced compliance burden on applicants. This will help ensure that India remains an investor-friendly destination.
3. Digital India BHASHINI – India’s AI led language translation platform
Syllabus: GS Paper 2- Governance- Government Policies and Interventions for Development in various sectors and Issues arising out of their Design and Implementation.
Prelims: Digital India BHASHINI
Context:
- The Ministry of State for Electronics and Information Technology has held brainstorming with Researchers & Start-ups to shape strategy for Digital India BHASHINI.
- BHASHINI stands for BHASHa INterface for India, the National Language Translation Mission (NLTM).
Details:
- The Bhashini Platform will make Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) resources available to Startups and Individual Innovators in the public domain.
- Mission will create and nurture an ecosystem involving Central/State government agencies and start-ups, working together to develop and deploy innovative products and services in Indian languages.
- Mission Digital India Bhashini also aims to increase the content in Indian languages on the Internet substantially in the domains of public interest, particularly, governance-and-policy, science & technology, etc.
Significance of the initiative:
- The initiative will allow Indian citizens to consume the internet and Digital Government service in their own languages. This will digitally empower the Indian citizens by connecting them to the Digital Initiatives of the country in their own language thereby leading to digital inclusion and the realization of the vision of Digital India.
- As public websites become multilingual and interactive, the reach of public welfare schemes will also increase.
- The Bhashini platform will also help catalyze the entire Digital Ecosystem.
4. Swachh Survekshan 2023
Syllabus: GS Paper 2- Governance- Government Policies and Interventions for Development in various sectors and Issues arising out of their Design and Implementation.
Prelims: Swachh Survekshan; Swachh Bharat Mission
Context:
- The eighth edition of the Swachh Survekshan Survey under Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0 was launched recently.
- Swachh Survekshan was introduced in 2016 as a competitive framework to encourage cities to improve the status of urban sanitation while encouraging large scale citizen participation. In recent years, Swachh Survekshan has emerged as the largest urban sanitation survey in the world.
Details:
- The theme of this edition would be ‘Waste to Wealth’ aimed at achieving circularity in waste management, while tapping the immense scope of recovering value from waste.
- The survey would give priority to the principle of 3Rs – Reduce, Recycle and Reuse.
- In the present survey additional weightage has been given to source segregation of waste, enhancement of waste processing capacity of cities and reduction of waste going to the dumpsites.
- Indicators have been introduced with additional weightage on emphasizing the need for a phased reduction of plastic, plastic waste processing, encouraging waste to wonder parks and zero waste events.
Significance:
Apart from being an assessment tool, the Swachh Survekshan survey has developed into an inspiration tool to inspire cities to perform better with respect to cleanliness.
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