Prelim Bits 14-09-2017

Electric Vehicle Capital of India

Karnataka wants to become the electric vehicle capital of India.
Karnataka is the first state to roll out an Electric Vehicle and Energy Storage Policy.
The policy looks not only at boosting sales of EVs, but also setting up charging infrastructure.
Policy aims to set up EV manufacturing zones along with facilities for testing that can be used even by start-ups.
The state estimates that it will be able to create employment for 55,000 individuals over the next few years through the EV industry.

SHAKTI

Scheme for Harnessing and Allocating Koyala (Coal) Transparently in India (SHAKTI) is the new scheme of the centre to provide cheaper coal to private power units through bidding.
Under this new programme, Coal India offered assured coal supply to units through bidding.
The private power units had to quote the discount in their power tariffs that they would offer after getting cheaper coal from the company.
Thus the bidding will be for private power units with power purchase agreements (PPAs) but no long-term coal supply.

New NIRF Exercise

National Institution Ranking Framework (NIRF) for the year 2018 has been announced by the centre with a change.
The NIRF ranking was started in 2016, ranks higher educational institutions in India on the basis of a variety of parameters.
The 2016 and 2017 NIRF lists reflected the ranks of only those institutions that had taken part in the exercise.
But for 2018, instead of institutions choosing to take part in the exercise, they are being auto-registered through a large online database.
The All-India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) portal of institutions available with the Ministry of Human Resource Development will be used for auto registration of institutions.
With this initiative, the number of institutions for NIRF is expected to raise three fold from previous year rankings.
Last year ranking, among universities, Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore was ranked first and Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi was second.

Citizenship for Chakma and Hajong refugees

GoI has announced that it will grant citizenship to all chakma and hajong refugees living in the north east.
The government also ensured that the rights of the indigenous people are not diluted.
Chakmas and Hajongs were originally residents of Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh (erstwhile East Pakistan).
They left their homeland when it was submerged by the Kaptai dam project near Chittagong, Bangladesh, in the 1960s.
The Chakmas, who are Buddhists, and Hajongs, who are Hindus, also allegedly faced religious persecution and entered India through the then Lushai Hills district of Assam (now Mizoram).
The Centre moved the majority of them to the North East Frontier Agency, which is now Arunachal Pradesh.

Monitor Lizard

India is home to four varieties of monitor lizard - Agra, Yellow, Water, and Large Bengal.
Monitor Lizards are protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
They share their Schedule 1 status with tigers, rhinos, elephants and leopards, and hunting or harming them can attract jail terms of at least 3-7 years;
Their trade is restricted under Appendix 1 of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
The male reproductive organs of monitor lizards are traded in the name of “Hatha Jodi”, which is claimed to possess magical powers that ensure prosperity for its owner.

Forest Plus Programme

Forest Plus, also known as Land Use Science is a joint programme by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).
It aims to strengthen capacity for REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) implementation in India.
It brings together experts to develop technologies, tools and methods of forest management to meet the technical challenges of managing forests for the health of ecosystem, carbon stocks, biodiversity and livelihood.

Source: PIB, The Hindu, Business Line, Indian Express