The Minister of Commerce and Industry launched the Intellectual Property (IP) mascot – IP Nani.
It was released at the conference on National Intellectual Property Rights Policy.
Mascot IP Nani is a tech-savvy grandmother who helps the government and enforcement agencies in combating IP crimes with the help of her grandson “Chhotu” aka Aditya.
The IP mascot will spread awareness about the importance of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) among people, especially children, in an interesting manner.
The first and foremost objective of the National IPR Policy 2016 is “IPR Awareness: Outreach and Promotion”.
Under this objective, one of the key focus areas is awareness on IPR for school children, as it is essential to nurture creativity and the ability to innovate starting out from a young age.
In this context, the Cell for IPR Promotion and Management (CIPAM), a professional body under the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) collaborated with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EU-IPO) to produce a series of animated videos.
The videos were on IPRs for children with IP Nani as their central character.
National Policy on Biofuels – 2018
The Union Cabinet has approved National Policy on Biofuels – 2018 recently.
The Policy categorises biofuels as
"Basic Biofuels" as First Generation (1G) bioethanol & biodiesel
"Advanced Biofuels"- Second Generation (2G) ethanol,Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) to drop-in fuels
Third Generation (3G) biofuels, bio-CNG etc.
It is to enable extension of appropriate financial and fiscal incentives under each category.
The Policy allows use of surplus food grains for production of ethanol for blending with petrol with the approval of National Biofuel Coordination Committee.
One of the expected benefits is that the Used Cooking Oil can be used as potential feedstock for biodiesel and its use for making biodiesel will prevent diversion of used cooking oil in the food industry.
In order to promote biofuels in the country, a National Policy on Biofuels was made by Ministry of New and Renewable Energy during the year 2009.
National Institute of Mental Health Rehabilitation
The Union Cabinet has approved the establishment of National Institute of Mental Health Rehabilitation (NIMHR) at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
It will be established as a Society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 under the aegis of the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities.
The main objectives of the NIMHR are
to provide rehabilitation services to the persons with mental illness,
capacity development in the area of mental health rehabilitation,
policy framing and advanced research in mental health rehabilitation.
NIMHR will be the first of its kind in the country in the area of mental health rehabilitation.
Microhyla kodial
M.kodial is the latest addition to India’s frog fauna.
It is also known as the Mangaluru narrow-mouthed frog.
It is christened as Microhyla kodial after the city of Mangaluru (called kodial in the Konkani language).
The frog is seen only in a small industrial region, a former timber dumping yard.
It is surrounded by seaport, petrochemical, chemical and refinery industries.
The yard is bounded by the rail line of the Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited on one side and the busy National Highway 66 on another.
Swachhata Survekshan 2018
The result of Swachh Survekshan 2018 was released recently by the Ministry of Urban Development.
It assessed 4203 Urban Local Bodies and was organized by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), under the aegis of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban).
The on-field survey for Swachh Survekshan has been conducted by an independent agency and the data for ranking of the cities collected from 3 sources:
Service Level Progress: To verify whether systems and processes are in place in Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to implement Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) in the most efficient way.
Direct Observation: To verify and assess general cleanliness in the cities by making random field visits in different parts of the city and public conveniences (Community/Public Toilets).
Citizens Feedback: To collect feedback directly from citizens and monitor the performance of Swachhata App, a citizens grievance Mobile App.
Under ‘Service Level Progress’, Swachh Surveksan-2018 has introduced one more component ‘Innovation and Best Practices’ in addition to existing five components.
At the national level, the Top 3 cleanest cities are: (Madhya Pradesh)
Indore
Bhopal
Chandigarh
Mangaluru is “India’s best city in solid waste management” under the categories of cities having a population between three lakh and 10 lakh.
