UPSC NEWS DIARY FOR TODAY 20 JULY, 2022 | DAY LONG CURRENT AFFAIRS DIGEST FOR UPSC

”UPSC News Diary For Today” is every day published in the evening between 6-7 PM and contains all current affairs articles from the day on a single platform. ”UPSC News Diary For Today” covers various topics from UPSC Syllabus and is very helpful and time managing for UPSC Aspirants. The framing of this daily current affairs compilation article is easy to read and understandable also.

In the ”UPSC News Diary For Today” article, we focus on both UPSC Preliminary and Mains exam-oriented current affairs & prepare a gist of daily important news articles from leading National Newspapers, PIB, and other various official sources.

GOAL Programme (GOAL 2.0)

Why GOAL Programme (GOAL 2.0) is in News?

• The second phase of the GOAL Programme (GOAL 2.0) was launched on 28^thJune, 2022 with an aim to digitally upskill tribal youth by promoting entrepreneurship and opening up opportunities for them using digital technology.

What is GOAL Programme (GOAL 2.0)?

• GOAL (Going Online as Leaders) is a joint initiative of Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Meta (formerly Facebook), which aims at digital empowerment of tribal youth and women through concept of mentor and mentee.
• The first phase of the GOAL programme was launched as a pilot project in May 2020 and it was completed by Dec 2021.
• The mentees in the first-phase were provided with 40+ hours of training across three course pillars: (1) Communication & Life Skills; (2) Enabling Digital Presence, and (3) Leadership & Entrepreneurship. The programme is fully funded by Meta (Facebook India).
• As part of the phase 1 of GOAL program, 176 tribal youth from 23 States across India were selected through an online application process.  The mentees were also given a smart phone and Internet Connectivity by Facebook.

Sarnath Pillar

Why Sarnath pillar chosen as the national emblem?

• As India won independence, the Constituent Assembly decided on the Sarnath pillar as the national emblem. It was felt that the pillar epitomised the power, courage and confidence of the free nation.
• The emblem depicts a two-dimensional sculpture with the words Satyameva Jayate (truth alone triumphs) written below it, taken from the Mundaka Upanishad, written in Devanagari script.
• On January 26, 1950, the Lion Capital of Asoka at Sarnath officially became the national emblem of India. The emblem represents the seal of the Republic of India.
• Five students of renowned artist Nandalal Bose created the emblem. Among them were Jagdish Mittal, Kripal Singh Shekhawat, Gauri Bhanja and Dinanath Bhargava who was a young man in his 20s then.
• He was advised by Bose to visit the Kolkata zoo to observe the lions closely so as to get the exact expression of the majestic animal. He is said to have travelled 200 kilometres to observe the lions from close quarters.
• Incidentally, Bhargava has also designed the first 30 pages of the Constitution.

National Culture Fund

What is the aim of the National Culture Fund (NCF)?

• The aim of the National Culture Fund (NCF) is to establish and nurture partnerships in the field of Culture and Heritage with private and public sectors, government, non-government agencies, private institutions and foundations and mobilize resources for the restoration, conservation, protection and development of India’s rich, natural, tangible and intangible heritage.
• The major objectives of NCF is to administer and apply the Fund for conservation, maintenance, promotion, protection, preservation and up gradation of monuments protected or otherwise; for the training and development of a cadre of specialists and cultural administrators, for innovations and experiments in arts and for documentation of cultural expressions and forms that have lost their relevance in contemporary scenario and are either fading out or facing extinction.

About NCF

• The government of India set up National Culture Fund (NCF) as a Trust on 28^th November 1996 under the Charitable Endowment Act, 1890.
• NCF is managed by a (Governing) Council and an Executive Committee.
• The Council is chaired by the Union Minister of Culture and has a strength of 21 including 15 non-official members representing various fields including corporate sector, private foundations and not-for-profit voluntary organizations.
• The Executive Committee is chaired by Secretary (Culture) and has a strength of 9 including 4 non-official members from the Council.

CRISPR-Cas9

What is Genome Editing?

Genome editing (also called gene editing) is a group of technologies that give scientists the ability to change an organism’s DNA. These technologies allow genetic material to be added, removed, or altered at particular locations in the genome.

What is CRISPR-Cas9 Genome Editing technology?

• Several approaches to genome editing have been developed. A well-known one is called CRISPR-Cas9, which is short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR-associated protein 9.
• The CRISPR-Cas9 system has generated a lot of excitement in the scientific community because it is faster, cheaper, more accurate, and more efficient than other genome editing methods.
• CRISPR-Cas9 was adapted from a naturally occurring genome editing system that bacteria use as an immune defence.
• When infected with viruses, bacteria capture small pieces of the viruses’ DNA and insert them into their own DNA in a particular pattern to create segments known as CRISPR arrays.
• The CRISPR arrays allow the bacteria to “remember” the viruses (or closely related ones).
• If the viruses attack again, the bacteria produce RNA segments from the CRISPR arrays that recognize and attach to specific regions of the viruses’ DNA. The bacteria then use Cas9 or a similar enzyme to cut the DNA apart, which disables the virus.

Shree Padmanabha Swamy

Shree Padmanabha Swamy- Relevance for UPSC Exam

• GS Paper 1: Indian History- Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, Literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.

Shree Padmanabha Swamy in News

• Recently, the Supreme Court extended time till August 31, 2022 for completion of the special audit of 25 years for the iconic Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple.

Supreme Court on Shree Padmanabha Swamy Temple

• In 2020, the Supreme Court had handed over the administration of the temple from the erstwhile Travancore Royal Family to an Administrative Committee headed by a District Judge of Thiruvananthapuram.
• The Supreme Court also ordered the Administrative Committee to initiate an audit of the temple’s income and expenses for the past 25 years.
• In this backdrop, the Trust had approached the Supreme Court, arguing that they were an independent institution formed in 1965 to conduct the religious rituals of the temple and that they have no role in the day-to-day administration of the temple.
• The Supreme Court recognized the “shebait” rights of the ex-royal family but handed over the administration to the Administrative Committee, which was to be headed by the District Judge of Thiruvananthapuram.
  • Earlier, the Kerala High Court had declared that the royal family has no rights over the temple.
  • According to the HIgh Court, the rights of family had ceased to exist with the death of the last ruler of Travancore, in 1991.
• The Court had also directed the temple to repay to the State Government amount to the tune of Rs 11.70 Crores expended by the State for the security and maintenance of the Temple.

Shree Padmanabha Swamy Temple

• About: The Shree Padmanabha Swamy temple is believed to dates back to the 8th century.
  • However, the present Shree Padmanabha Swamy temple structure was built in the 18th century by the then Travancore Maharaja Marthanda Varma.
• Construction: The the Shree Padmanabha Swamy temple was initially made of wood but later it was constructed with granite.
• Architectural Style: The the Shree Padmanabha Swamy temple is built in the unique Chera style of architecture.
  • its main deity is Lord Vishnu who is found in the Anantha Shayana posture (reclined posture of eternal yoga) on Adishesha or king of all serpents.
• Significance: Shree Padmanabha Swamy temple is known to be one of the 108 holy temples associated with Vaishnavism in India.

DEVAYATANAM | Conference on Indian Temple Architecture

Doubling Farmer Income

Doubling Farmer Income UPSC: Relevance

• GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment.

Agriculture in India: Context

• Recently, the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has informed the Lok Sabha about the progress in doubling farmer income.

Doubling Farmer Income: Key points

• Government had constituted an Inter-Ministerial Committee in April, 2016 to examine issues relating to “Doubling of Farmers Income (DFI)” and recommend strategies to achieve the same.
• The Committee submitted its final report to the Government in September, 2018 containing the strategy for doubling of farmers’ income through various policies, reforms & programmes.
• The DFI strategy recommends recognition of agriculture as a value-led enterprise, identifying 7 major sources of income growth viz.
  • improvement in crop productivity;
  • improvement in livestock productivity;
  • resource use efficiency or savings in the cost of production;
  • increase in the cropping intensity;
  • diversification towards high value crops;
  • improvement in real prices received by farmers; and
  • shift of surplus manpower from farm to non-farm occupations.

Government steps in agriculture sector

• Formation and promotion of 10,000 FPOs along with necessary financial support under AtmaNirbhar Package (Agriculture),
• Special attention for creation of infrastructure through Agri Infrastructure Fund (AIF) with a size of Rs. 100,000 crore,
• Supplementary income transfers under PM-KISAN,
• Crop insurance under Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY),
• Better access to irrigation under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY),
• Increase in Minimum Support Price (MSPs) for all Kharif& Rabi crops ensuring a minimum of 50 percent of profit margin on the cost of production,
• New procurement policy under PM-AASHA in addition to FCI operations,
• Kisan Credit Cards (KCC) offering production loan to even dairy & fishery farmers besides agricultural crops,
• National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), which aims to evolve and implement strategies to make Indian agriculture more resilient to the changing climate.
• Focus on application of digital technology at all stages of agricultural value chain.
• Adoption of drone technologies in agriculture which has a potential to revolutionize the Indian agriculture.
• Benefits accruing under Bee-Keeping, Rashtriya Gokul Mission, Blue Revolution, Interest Subvention Scheme, agro-forestry, restructured bamboo mission, implementation of new generation watershed guidelines, etc.

Read current affairs for UPSC

National Culture Fund (NCF)

National Culture Fund (NCF)- Relevance for UPSC Exam

• GS Paper 1: Indian History- Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, Literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.

National Culture Fund (NCF) in News

• Recently, Minister of Culture and Tourism informed that the National Culture Fund (NCF) has completed 52 projects with various donors since its inception.

Payment Infrastructure Development Fund Scheme

National Culture Fund (NCF)

• About: Government of India has set up National Culture Fund (NCF) as a Trust on 28th November, 1996 under the Charitable Endowment Act, 1890.
• Mandate: National Culture Fund (NCF) aims to-
  • Establish and nurture partnerships in the field of Culture and Heritage with private and public sectors, government, non-government agencies, private institutions and foundations and
  • Mobilize resources for the restoration, conservation, protection and development of India’s rich, natural, tangible and intangible heritage.
• Administrative Structure: NCF is managed by a (Governing) Council and an Executive Committee.
  • Governing Council: It is chaired by the Union Minister of Culture and has a strength of 21 including 15 non-official members representing various fields including corporate sector, private foundations and not-for-profit voluntary organizations.
  • Executive Committee: It is chaired by Secretary (Culture) and has a strength of 9 including 4 non-official members from the Council.
• Project Selection: A donor/sponsor while making contributions to the NCF may indicate a project along with any specific location/aspect and also an agency for execution of the project.
  • Besides, the interests accrued from the Primary and Secondary Corpus is also utilized for activities associated with the field of culture.

National Culture Fund (NCF) Functions

The major objectives of NCF is to administer and apply the Fund for-

• Conservation, maintenance, promotion, protection, preservation and up gradation of monuments protected or otherwise;
• Training and development of a cadre of specialists and cultural administrators,
• Innovations and experiments in arts and
• Documentation of cultural expressions and forms that have lost their relevance in contemporary scenario and are either fading out or facing extinction.

Amrit Samagam | Conference of Tourism and Culture Ministers of India

TB in India

TB in India: Relevance

• GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

TB eradication in India: Context

• The Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare has informed Rajya Sabha about the implementation of National TB Control Programme to achieve Sustainable Development Goals related to TB by 2025.

National TB Control Programme: Key points

• Government has implemented the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) under the aegis of the National Health Mission (NHM).
• With the goal of achieving Sustainable Development Goals related to TB by 2025, five years ahead of the global targets, the programme has implemented a National Strategic Plan with the following objectives:
  • Early diagnosis of TB patients, prompt treatment with quality assured drugs and treatment regimens.
  • To engage with the patients seeking care in the private sector.
  • Prevention strategies including active case finding and contact tracing in high risk /vulnerable population.
  • Airborne infection control.
  • Multi-sectoral response for addressing social determinants.

TB cases in India

• In India, the TB capital of the world, the disease kills some 1,400 persons every day. These are gross estimates, for our health management system has no method to count the exact numbers.
• In the 1950s and ’60s, India was the global leader in research in epidemiology, transmission and domiciliary treatment of TB.
• India is a high-burden country. Large proportions of adults carry TB infection in the lung in a dormant condition for life (latent TB). Some among them deteriorate and develop overt TB disease (reactivation TB).
• HIV infection, diabetes, undernutrition, lung damage due to pollution, tobacco smoking, fall in immune functions due to chronic diseases, alcoholism, etc. accelerate reactivation TB.

Government steps for TB in India

• State and District Specific Strategic plan for targeted interventions in high burden areas.
• Provision of free drugs and diagnostics to TB patients including for drug resistant TB.
• Active TB case finding campaign in key vulnerable and co-morbid population.
• Integration with Ayushman Bharat- Health & Wellness Centres to decentralize screening and treatment services closer to the community.
• Private sector engagement including incentives for notification and management of TB cases.
• Scale up of molecular diagnostic laboratories to sub-district levels.
• Nikshay Poshan Yojana for nutritional support to TB patients.
• Intensified IEC campaigns to reduce stigma, raise community awareness and improve health seeking behaviour.
• Multi-sectoral response with involvement of line ministries.
• Scale up TB preventive therapy to contacts of pulmonary TB.
• Notified TB cases are tracked through web-based portal Ni-kshay.

Read current affairs for UPSC

GOAL 2.0

GOAL 2.0: Relevance

• GS 2: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States

GOAL 2.0: Context

• Recently, second phase of the GOAL Programme (GOAL 2.0) was launched with an aim to digitally upskill tribal youth by promoting entrepreneurship and opening up opportunities for them using digital technology.

What is GOAL programme?

• GOAL (Going Online as Leaders) is a joint initiative of Ministry of Tribal Affairs and Meta (formerly Facebook), which aims at digital empowerment of tribal youth and women through concept of mentor and mentee.
• The first phase of the GOAL programme was launched as a pilot project in May 2020 and it was completed by Dec 2021.
• The mentees in the first-phase were provided with 40+ hours of training across three course pillars: (1) Communication & Life Skills; (2) Enabling Digital Presence, and (3) Leadership & Entrepreneurship.
• The programme is fully funded by Meta (Facebook India) and Ministry of Tribal Affairs has not incurred any expenditure or provided any funds for implementation of the program.
• As part of the phase 1 of GOAL program, 176 tribal youth from 23 States across India were selected through an online application process.
• The mentees were also given a smart phone and Internet Connectivity by Facebook.

GOAL Phase 2

• In Phase-I, the digital mentorship was provided online by attaching one mentor to 2 mentees.
• Based on learnings from Phase-I, there is change in the design in Phase-II.
• Rather than inviting applications to become mentees under the scheme, Goal 2 program will be open to all people from tribal communities.
• The program aims to upskill and digitally enable tribal youth via Facebook live sessions and Meta Business Coach, a digital learning tool.
• There will be special focus on more than 10 lakh members of 50000 Vandhan Self Help Groups.
• They will be digitally trained with regard to market demand, packaging, branding and marketing of their products.
• The GOAL 2 will enable maximum participation and percolation of benefits of the training within the tribal youth with provision of Chatbot, need based on line sessions from Industry experts in different fields as per requirements from the mentees.

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PM Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY)

PM Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY)- Relevance for UPSC Exam

• GS Paper 2: Governance, Administration and Challenges- Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

PM Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY) in News

• Recently, Andhra Pradesh has rejoined the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) following a request from the Central Government.
• Andhra Pradesh had opted out of the PMFBY scheme earlier, as the Central government was not willing to extend the scheme to the farmers outside the webland data.

PM Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY)- Claim Disbursals under PMFBY

The details of claims disbursed under from 2018-19 onwards under the PM Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY) scheme are given below :

(Rs. in crore)

*  As on 30.06.2022.

• Settlement of Claims: The admissible claims under the PMFBY are generally paid by the concerned insurance companies-
  • Within two months of completion of Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs)/harvesting period and
  • One month of notification for invoking the risks/perils of prevented sowing, mid-season adversity and
  • Post-harvest losses subject to receipt of total share of premium subsidy from concerned State Government within time.
• Monitoring of Claims: Department of Agriculture is regularly monitoring the implementation of PMFBY including timely settlement of claims through weekly video conference of stakeholders, one to one meetings with insurance companies/States etc.
• Compensation for Delayed Payment: Insurance companies have to pay penal interest @12% per annum to the farmers for the period beyond the stipulated period in the PMFBY Guidelines from the date of receipt of final yield data from the State Government and completion of crop damage survey.
  • State Governments have been advised to calculate the admissible interest, if any and direct the concerned insurance companies to pay to eligible farmers.

PM Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY)- Key Points

• About: PMFBY is a centrally sponsored scheme to provide insurance coverage and financial support to the farmers in the event of failure of any of the notified crop as a result of natural calamities, pests & diseases.
  • PMFBY was launched in 2016 by replacing two schemes namely, National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) as well as the Modified NAIS.
• PMFBY Premium: The scheme has a uniform premium of only 2% to be paid by farmers for all Kharif crops and 5% for all Rabi crops.
  • In case of annual commercial and horticultural crops, the premium to be paid by farmers will be only 5%.
  • The balance premium is equally divided between Centre and the state.
  • There is no upper limit on Government subsidy. Even if balance premium is 90%, it will be borne by the Government.
• Dispute Resolution: To resolve the technical disputes between insurance companies and other stakeholders including States, following committees have been set-
  • At Centre Level: Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) at Centre level and
  • At State Level: State Technical Advisory Committees (STAC) at State level

PM Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY) Coverage

• The PMFBY envisages coverage of all food crops (cereals, millets and pulses), oilseeds and commercial/horticultural crops.
  • This is subject to availability of past yield data of requisite number of years based on Crop Cutting Experiments (CCEs) as well as capacity of the State Government to conduct requisite number of CCEs to assess the yield of the crop to calculate claims.
• However, specific crop is notified by the concerned State Government keeping in view the aforesaid provision.
• For the crops not meeting the aforesaid conditions, the concerned State Government is free to notify them for coverage under Restructured Weather Based Crop Insurance Scheme (RWBCIS).
  • Under RWBCIS, claims payment are being structured on the basis of weather index parameters.

Agriculture Export Touch a Historic High of USD 50 Billion

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