Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited (TRIFED) has made record procurement of tribal products during the current financial year.
There is an increase of 511% in procurement in comparison to the corresponding period of the last financial year.
It is a national level apex organization functioning under the administrative control of Ministry of Tribal Affairs.
The objective of TRIFED is socio-economic development of tribal people by undertaking marketing development of the tribal products.
It serves the interest of Tribal people by ensuring better remunerative price for their Minor Forest Produce and tribal art and handicraft products.
It is also engaged in skill up gradation and capacity building to develop the marketing of Minor Forest Produce.
Its approach involves exploring marketing possibilities for products in national as well as international markets, brand building & creating opportunities for marketing on sustainable basis.
Holocene Epoch
The Holocene Epoch is the current period of geologic time.
It refers to the last 11,700 years of the Earth's history, the time since the end of the last major glacial epoch, or "ice age."
Another term that is sometimes used is the Anthropocene Epoch or “The Age of Man”.
The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) had divided this Epoch in to three ages – Greenlandian, Northgrippian and Meghalayan which began at 11,700 year, 8200 year and 4200 year points.
There are controversies over this newly designated geological age, though the stratification by ICS is official.
International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS)
ICS is a body of geological timekeepers and is the largest and oldest constituent scientific body in the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS).
Its primary objective is to precisely define global units (systems, series, and stages) which are basic for the units (periods, epochs and age) of the International Geological Time Scale.
It sets global standards for the fundamental scale for expressing the history of the Earth.
Presence of Water in the Moon
Scientists have found frozen water deposits in the Moon’s polar region using data from the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.
The ice deposited on the surface would possibly acts as a resource for future expeditions to explore Moon.
Scientists used NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument aboard Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft to confirm the presence of solid ice using specific signatures.
This is not the first time that evidence of water has been found on the Moon.
In 2009, observations of NASA’s EPOXI spacecraft showed the evidence of presence of water across the lunar surface.
After 2009, the data from ISRO’s hyperspectral imager aboard Chandrayaan-1, supplemented the evidence.
The recent finding shows that water ice lies in the shadows of craters in the Moon’s polar region, where the warmest temperatures never reach above -2500F.
Chandrayaan-1
Chandrayaan-1 is India's first mission to Moon launched in 2008 by PSLV-C11.
The spacecraft is orbiting around the Moon at a height of 100 km from the lunar surface for chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon.
It also carried the payloads built in UK, USA, Bulgaria Germany and Sweden.
The mission comprised an orbiter and an impactor launched by ISRO‘s workhorse PSLV.
Cyclone Warning Centre
Union Ministry of Earth Sciences is proposing to set up a Cyclone Warning Centre in Thiruvananthapuram.
At present, IMD has cyclone warning centres only at Chennai, Vishakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Mumbai.
The newly proposed centre will cater to the needs of Kerala and Karnataka with rising incidents of tropical cyclones and extreme weather events in the region.
