Goaltide Daily Current Affairs 2022

Aug 04, 2022

Current Affair 1:
Requirement of Aadhaar for Supplementary Nutrition Programme

 

A child's Aadhaar card is not mandatory for availing the benefits under the Supplementary Nutrition Programme of the Anganwadi Services Scheme. The benefits under the scheme can be accessed using the mother's Aadhaar card.

Anganwadi Services scheme is being digitized by the Ministry through the POSHAN Tracker App to enable the Ministry to identify the beneficiaries as part of the programme as a whole and to ensure uninterrupted supply of nutrition to the children, Pregnant Women and Lactating mothers and adolescents girl beneficiaries, who move within the State or outside the state due to any reason.

So far approximately 10.63 crore beneficiaries have been registered under the scheme as per Poshan Tracker and approximately 53% have been Aadhar verified covering around 5.61 crore beneficiaries.

Current Affair 2:
Smart Farming

 

Government is promoting adoption of smart farming methods through the use of technology and innovation in the agriculture sector in the country.

Government is implementing a Digital Agriculture Mission (DAM) which includes India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture (IDEA), Farmers Database, Unified Farmers Service Interface (UFSI), Funding to the States on the new Technology (NeGPA), Revamping Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC), Soil Health, Fertility and profile mapping.

  1. Under the NeGPA programme funding is given to State Governments for Digital Agriculture projects using emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML), Internet of Things (IOT), Block chain etc.
  2. Adoption of drone technologies is being done.
  3. To promote smart farming, the Government promotes Start-ups in the Agriculture sector and nurtures Agri-entrepreneurs.
  4. The Per Drop More Crop component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sichai Yojana (PMKSY-PDMC) aims to increase water use efficiency at the farm level through micro irrigation technologies, i.e., drip and sprinkler irrigation systems.
  5. The GoI started e-NAM (National Agriculture Market), an electronic trading portal which creates networks between the existing Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis for the farmers.
  6. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) promotes innovation, extension and education in agriculture.
  7. A total of 1575 field crop varieties were released for different agricultural crops during 2014-21. During 2014-21, 91.43 crore agro-advisories were provided to farmers through mobiles.
  8. ICAR developed 187 mobiles apps on different farm and farmer related services during 2014-21.
  9. These ICAR apps are now integrated on one common platform called KISAAN.
  10. The Farmer FIRST (Farm, Innovations, Resources, Science and Technology) initiative was launched during this period by ICAR with enhanced farmers-scientists interface to move beyond production and productivity.

Current Affair 3:
Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP)

 

The MSP is fixed on the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP). The Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP) is an attached office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India. It came into existence in January 1965.

It is mandated to recommend minimum support prices (MSPs) to incentivize the cultivators to adopt modern technology, and raise productivity and overall grain production in line with the emerging demand patterns in the country. Towards this end, MSP for major agricultural products is fixed by the government, each year, after taking into account the recommendations of the Commission.

Procedure:

  1. CACP submits its recommendations to the government in the form of Price Policy Reports every year.
  2. Commission draws a comprehensive questionnaire from different stakeholders.
  3. Based on all these inputs, the Commission then finalizes its recommendations/reports, which are then submitted to the government. The government, in turn, circulates the CACP reports to state governments and concerned central Ministries for their comments.
  4. After receiving the feed-back from them, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) of the Union government takes a final decision on the level of MSPs and other recommendations made by CACP.
  5. As of now, CACP recommends MSPs of 23 commodities, which comprise 7 cereals (paddy, wheat, maize, sorghum, pearl millet, barley and ragi), 5 pulses (gram, tur, moong, urad, lentil), 7 oilseeds (groundnut, rapeseed-mustard, soyabean, seasmum, sunflower, safflower, nigerseed), and 4 commercial crops (copra, sugarcane, cotton and raw jute).
  6. MSP is determined for the country as a whole and not region or state-specific.

How MSP pricing is determined?

Cost of production is one of the important factors in the determination of MSPs. While recommending its price policy, the CACP considers all costs in a comprehensive manner which is based on the methodology recommended by Expert Committees from time to time.

CACP considers both A2+FL and C2 costs while recommending MSP, both at state and all-India average levels. ‘A2’ covers all paid-out costs directly incurred by the farmer — in cash and kind — on seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, hired labour, leased-in land, fuel, irrigation, etc. ‘A2+FL’ includes A2 plus an imputed value of unpaid family labour. ‘C2’ is a more comprehensive cost that factors in rentals and interest forgone on owned land and fixed capital assets, on top of A2+FL.

Determinants Of MSP

While recommending price policy of various commodities under its mandate, the Commission keeps in mind the various Terms of Reference given to CACP in 2009. Accordingly, it analyses:

Current Affair 4:
Solar Geoengineering'

 

Geoengineering is conventionally split into two broad categories:

The first is carbon geoengineering, often also called carbon dioxide removal (cdr). The other is solar geoengineering, often also called solar radiation management (srm), albedo modification, or sunlight reflection. There are large differences.

Now, lets see both the terms:

Carbon geoengineering seeks to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which would address the root cause of climate change — the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In the chain from emissions to concentrations to temperatures to impacts, it breaks the link from emissions to concentrations.

Solar geoengineering seeks to reflect a small fraction of sunlight back into space or increase the amount of solar radiation that escapes back into space to cool the planet. In contrast to carbon geoengineering, solar geoengineering does not address the root cause of climate change. It instead aims to break the link from concentrations to temperatures, thereby reducing some climate damages.

Different Technologies:

There are several proposed solar geoengineering technologies. These include marine cloud brightening, cirrus cloud thinning, space-based techniques, and stratospheric aerosol scattering, amongst others.

 

Marine cloud brightening would attempt to brighten marine clouds to reflect more sunlight back into space.

Cirrus cloud thinning would attempt to reduce the thin, high-altitude cirrus clouds to emit more long-wave radiation from the earth to space.

Space-based technologies would attempt to reflect a small fraction of sunlight away from the earth by positioning sun shields in space.

Lastly, stratospheric aerosol scattering would introduce tiny reflective particles, such as sulfate aerosols or perhaps calcium carbonate, into the upper atmosphere, where they could scatter a small fraction of sunlight back into space.

Current Affair 5:
National Green Tribunal

 

Learn this body:

Composition:

The chairperson shall be appointed by the central government in consultation with the chief justice of India. Judicial member & expert member shall be appointed on the recommendations of select committee as provided by the central government.

Chairperson, judicial member & expert member shall hold office for a term of 5 years but shall not be eligible for re- appointment.

Removal and suspension of Chairperson, Judicial Member and Expert Member:

Jurisdiction:

 

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