PIB Notes
Civil Services Chronicle Online, January, 2020 :
‘Bibha’ & ‘Santamasa’
- The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has named a star and its planet with Indian names:
- Bibha or HD 86081 is a yellow-white dwarf star in the constellation Sextans. It is bigger and more massive than our Sun. The star has been named ‘Bibha’ in honour of a pioneering Indian woman scientist Bibha Choudhury, who discovered subatomic particle, pi-meson. ‘Bhibha’ also means “a bright beam of light” in Bengali.
- Santamasa or HD 86081b is a planet revolving around ‘Bibha’ has been named as ‘Santamasa’ to reflect the cloudy nature of its atmosphere. ‘Santamasa’ is the Sanskrit term for ‘clouded’.
3rd Phase Of PMGSY
- The government has launched Phase-3 of Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).
- The Phase III involves consolidation of ‘Through Routes’ and ‘Major Rural Links’ connecting habitations to Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs), Higher Secondary Schools and Hospitals.
- Under the PMGSY-III Scheme, it is proposed to consolidate 1,25,000 Km road length in the States. The duration of the scheme is 2019-20 to 2024-25.
- The funds would be shared in the ratio of 60:40 between the Centre and State for all States except for 8 North Eastern and 3 Himalayan States (Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh & Uttarakhand) for which it is 90:10.
- The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) was launched by the Govt. of India to provide connectivity to unconnected habitations as part of a poverty reduction strategy.
Tweezer Clock
- This is a clock designed by researchers at California Institute of Technology and NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that will give more accurate and precise time than currently used atomic clocks.
- Atomic clocks are used around the world to precisely tell time. Standard atomic clocks in use today, based on the atom cesium, tell time by "counting" radio frequencies.
- The new clock design builds upon two types of optical atomic clocks already in use. The first type is based on a single trapped charged atom, or ion, while the second uses thousands of neutral atoms trapped in what is called an optical lattice.
- Instead of using a collection of many atoms, the new design uses 40 atoms -- and those atoms are precisely controlled with laser tweezers.
EChO Network
- EChO Network, a national program, has been launched to train a new generation of educators and students who can identify and solve problems in an interdisciplinary manner and who can listen to our natural world and tackle real-world problems in medicine, agriculture, ecology, and technology.
- The initiative has drawn in partners from Government, industry and academia, with the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Govt. of India steering the program under the guidance of Prof. Shannon Olsson, Director, EChO Network. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Hindustan Unilever Limited, RoundGlass, India Climate Collaborative, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), and Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) are the founding partners of the EChO Network.
Saudi Arabia: First Arab Nation To Take Over The G20 Presidency
- Saudi Arabia became the first Arab nation to take over the G20 Presidency on December 1, 2019.
- It has taken over from Japan and it will host the G20 Summit in its capital, Riyadh on November 21 and 22, 2020.
- The G20 is an informal group of 19 countries (including India) and the European Union, with representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
China-Russia-Iran Trilateral Naval Exercise
- China, Russia and Iran carried out a trilateral naval exercise in the Gulf of Oman, the first such move by the three countries in the volatile Middle East amid heightened tensions in the region after the Trump administration withdrew from a landmark nuclear pact with Tehran.
- The Gulf of Oman borders Iran and Pakistan on the north, Oman on the south, the United Arab Emirates on the west and faces the Gujarat coast.
- The Gulf of Oman is only a short distance away from the Strait of Hormuz, which has been a site of contention over the passage of oil tankers between Iran and some Western nations.
Eight West African Nations Rename Common Currency To Eco
- Eight West African countries have agreed to change the name of their common currency to ‘Eco’ and severed their earlier currency CFA Franc's links to former colonial ruler France.
- Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo currently use the currency. All the countries are former French colonies with the exception of Guinea-Bissau.
Global Refugee Forum
- The first-ever Global Refugee Forum was held in Geneva with more than 770 pledges of support, covering areas such as protection, employment, and education, for refugees and the communities which have taken them in.
- The Forum was a key element of the ‘Global Compact on Refugees’, which the international community signed in December 2018. It calls for Global Refugee Forums to be held every four years.
- The Forum revealed a “decisive shift” towards long-term action to assist the more than 25.9 million people worldwide who have fled their homelands due to conflict, persecution or violence.
- A stock-taking meeting will take place in two years, and the second Global Refugee Forum is scheduled for late 2023.
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Global Compact on Refugees
Its four key objectives are to:
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‘Good Governance Index’
- The Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions released, the ‘Good Governance Index’ on the occasion of Good Governance Day (December 25). The Day is observed on the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
- The Good Governance Index is a uniform tool across States to assess the Status of Governance and impact of various interventions taken up by the State Government and UTs.
- The objectives of GGI are to provide quantifiable data to compare the state of governance in all states and UTs, enable states and UTs to formulate and implement suitable strategies for improving governance and shift to result oriented approaches and administration.
- The states and UTs are divided into three groups- Big States, North-East & Hill States and UTs.
- The GGI takes into consideration ten sectors (Agriculture and Allied Sectors, Commerce & Industries Human Resource Development, Public Health, Public Infrastructure & Utilities, Economic Governance, Social Welfare & Development, Judicial & Public Security, Environment, Citizen-Centric Governance) on total 50 indicators.
- Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh and Pondicherry topped in the Composite Index in the Big States, North-East & Hill States and UTs respectively.
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Sectors and Best Performers
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Big States |
North-East & Hill States |
UTs |
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Agriculture and Allied Sectors
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Madhya Pradesh
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Mizoram
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Daman & Diu
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Commerce & Industries
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Jharkhand
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Uttarakhand
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Delhi |
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Human Resource Development
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Goa
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Himachal Pradesh
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Pondicherry
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Public Health
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Kerala
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Manipur
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Pondicherry A&N Islands Chandigarh |
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Public Infrastructure & Utilities
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Tamil Nadu
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Himachal Pradesh Uttarakhand |
Chandigarh |
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Economic Governance
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Karnataka |
Uttarakhand
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Delhi |
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Social Welfare & Development
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Chhattisgarh
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Meghalaya
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Daman & Diu |
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Judicial & Public Security
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Tamil Nadu
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Himachal Pradesh
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Pondicherry
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Environment
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West Bengal
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Himachal Pradesh
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Chandigarh
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Future Skills PRIME
- Future Skills PRIME is the next phase of the ‘Future Skills’ platform that was launched in 2018.
- This expanded digital platform would be called Future Skills PRIME (Programme for Reskilling/ Upskilling of IT Manpower for Employability).
- Now it is open to professionals from outside the IT industry as well, those who want to skill themselves in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, Internet of Things, Big Data, cybersecurity, social and mobile and so on.
- It is a joint venture program between the Ministry of Electronics and IT with National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) to skill 412,000 professionals in the next three years.
