What is Van Dhan Scheme?

• An initiative of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs and TRIFED.
• Lunched on 14th April 2018.
• Objective: to help increase tribal income through Value Addition.
• This is a Market Linked Tribal Entrepreneurship Development Program for forming clusters of tribal SHGs and strengthening them into Tribal Producer Companies has been launched with participation from all the 27 States from the Country.
• Through this initiative, the share of tribals in the value chain of Non-Timber Forest Produce is expected to rise from the present 20% to around 60%.
• The Van DhanVikas Kendra will be established for providing capacity building training and skill upgradation and value addition facility and setting up of primary processing.

Ministry of Earth Sciences launches Mobile App “Mausam”

• The initiative is for India Meteorological Department on its Foundation Day Celebrations.
• This mobile app is available both on Playstore and Appstore.
• Mobile App is dedicated to the general public and designed to communicate the weather information and forecasts in a lucid manner without technical jargons.
• Users can access observed weather, forecasts, radar images and be proactively warned of impending weather events.
• The mobile app has been designed and developed jointly by ICRISAT’s Digital Agriculture & Youth (DAY) team, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune and India Meteorological Department.
• Current temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction for 200 cities updated 8 times a day.
• Three hourly warnings of localized weather phenomena and their intensity issued for about 800 stations, and districts of India by State Meteorological Centres of IMD.
• Services under MAUSAM mobile App –
• Past 24 hours and 7 day forecast of weather conditions around 450 cities in India.
• Alerts issued twice a day for all districts for the next five days in colour code (Red, Orange, and Yellow) to warn citizens of approaching dangerous weather.
• Latest Station wise radar products updated every 10 minutes

Haryana to host 2021 Khelo India Youth Games

• Haryana will host the 4th edition of the Khelo India Youth Games after the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
• The Games will be held in Panchkula.
• Announcement is done by Haryana Chief Minister, Manohar Lal Khattar, and the Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, Kiren Rijiju.
• Khelo India Youth Games usually take place in January every year.
• All the states with over 10,000 participants will take part in the games.
• Haryana came second in KIYG 2019 and 2020 editions (200 medals in 2020 and 159 medals in 2019).
• They won the KIYG 2018 edition with 102 medals. Maharashtra came first in the 2020 edition with 256 medals.

India hands over Bangladesh 10 railway locomotives

• The handover of the broad-gauge diesel locomotives, part of grant assistance from the Indian side, is in line with a commitment of ‘neighbourhood first’ policy.
• Aim – To help handle the increasing volume of passenger and freight train operations in the neighbouring country.
• Locomotives are designed for a speed of 120 mph and are suitable for hauling freight and passenger trains.
• India and Bangladesh have close trade ties. However, the trade was greatly affected due to COVID-19 crisis. Therefore, it is essential to strengthen cross border transport infrastructures.

47 more Chinese apps Banned

• The Indian Government banned 47 more Chinese in addition to the earlier banned 59 apps.
• These 47 apps were acting as clones of the earlier banned 59 Chinese apps. The problem is with the operational ethics of certain apps.
• These banned clones include Tiktok Lite, Helo Lite, SHAREit Lite, BIGO LIVE Lite and VFY Lite.
• The Indian government is also investigating 275 more apps for possible violations of national security and user privacy.
• The government is also examining apps that are not just fully-owned by Chinese companies but have investments from China.
• Some of the apps under the government radar include apps linked to Alibaba and top gaming app PUBG.

Current COVID19 Situation in India

QUIZ TIME

“Mausam” App is launched by?

1. Ministry of Electronics and IT
2. Ministry of Earth Sciences
3. NITI Ayog
4. Ministry of Tribal Affairs

Answer – B

Which state is about to host 2021 Khelo India Youth Games?

1. Haryana
2. Madhya Pradesh
3. UP
4. Maharashtra

Answer – A

Who ranked second in KIYG 2020 ?

1. Haryana
2. Madhya Pradesh
3. UP
4. Maharashtra

Answer – A

Question of the Day

What is ‘neighbourhood first’ policy?

Answer in next session…