Eco-bridges
- Telangana is the first state to have eco-friendly bridges for the movement of tigers over a canal cutting across the tiger corridor.
- The bridge links Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) in Maharashtra with the forests in Telangana.
- It requires the laying of fertile soil to grow grass and plants over the structure, so that fragmentation of the reserve forest is camouflaged.
Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve
- Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve is a tiger reserve in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra state in central India.
- It is Maharashtra's oldest and largest national park.
- It is one of India's 50 "Project Tiger" - tiger reserves.
- Andhari, a minor river in waiganga basin flows through the tiger reserve.
National Academic Depository (NAD)
- It is a 24 X 7 online store house of academic awards digitally lodged by various academic institutions/school boards/eligibility assessment bodies.
- The academic awards in NAD shall cover degrees, diplomas, certificates, mark-sheets including awards issued for skill development.
- The University Grants Commission (UGC) has been designated as authorized body to operationalise NAD.
- NAD comprises of two interoperable digital depositories viz., NDSL Database Management Limited (NDML) and CDSL Ventures Limited (CVL).
- The Aadhaar or unique NAD ID will be used for registration and usage of the digital database.
- NAD facilitates online access, retrieval and verification of academic awards and eliminates fraudulent practices such as forgoing of certificates and mark sheets etc.
Initiatives to improve Quality of Education
- Global Initiative Of Academic Networks (GIAN) – It aimed at collaborating Indian institutes of Higher Education in India with Foreign academics.
- Impacting Research Innovation And Technology (IMPRINT) - It is a pan-IIT and IISc joint initiative to develop a roadmap for research in premier institutions to solve major engineering and technology challenges in ten technology domains relevant to India.
- Uchchtar Aavishkar Abhiyan – It aims to promote industry-specific need-based research in the educational institutions to keep up the competitiveness of the Indian industry in the global market.
- Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan – It aims at providing strategic funding to higher educational institutions to improve the overall quality of existing state institutions.
Science Express
- Science Express is a flagship programme of the Dept. of Science & Technology (DST).
- It is an innovative mobile science exhibition mounted on AC train, traveling across India since October 2007. Since then, it has made eight tours of the country.
- Currently, the 9th phase of the Science Express exhibition train is on a nationwide tour since 17 February 2017.
- This phase of train is being referred as ‘Science Express Climate Action Special (SECAS) highlighting the global challenge of climate change.
Monetary neutrality
- A theory which states that money has no real effect on how resources are allocated in an economy.
- For instance, a doubling of the stock of money supply caused by central bank policy should have no other effect on the economy except the doubling of the nominal prices of all goods.
- But this theory has been criticized for assuming that when the supply of money is increased, the new money percolates into the economy and affects prices evenly.
- Others have argued that the new money enters the economy at different points and affects prices unevenly, thus distorting resource allocation.
Neolithic Axe
- Recently, the largest Neolithic granite axe has been shifted to a museum in Kerala.
- Neolithic Period, also called New Stone Age, is the final stage of cultural evolution or technological development among prehistoric humans.
- It was characterized by stone tools shaped by polishing or grinding, dependence on domesticated plants or animals, settlement in permanent villages, and the appearance of such crafts as pottery and weaving.
- It is generally thought to have occurred sometime about 10,000 BC.
- During that time, humans learned to raise crops and keep domestic livestock and were thus no longer dependent on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants.
- The cultivation of cereal grains enabled Neolithic peoples to build permanent dwellings and congregate in villages.
- The Neolithic Period was succeeded by the Bronze Age when human societies learned to combine copper and tin to make bronze, which replaced stone for use as tools and weapons.
- Important Neolithic Age sites are Mehrgarh (in present day Pakistan), Gufzral, Burzahoam (Kashmir), Chirand (Bihar), Utnur (A.P), Paiyampalli (T.N) etc.
