Indian Government has recently renamed National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR) as “National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research”.
NCAOR was formed in 1998 with an objective to conduct expedition to India’s base stations in Antarctica.
NCAOR is under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
The intent behind the name change is to show that government is refocusing its priorities to Arctic.
It is because of the opportunities and challenges posed by climate change in Arctic.
Now, India only has one Arctic observation station near Norway.
India is already an observer at the Arctic Council.
Arctic Council
It is a forum of countries that decides on managing the region’s resources and popular livelihood in Arctic region.
The Ottawa Declaration lists the few countries as Members of the Arctic Council.
They are Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the United States.
Observer countries are China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
India setup an underground observatory, called IndARC in 2015.
It is located at the Kongsfjorden fjord, half way between Norway and the North Pole.
Samagra Shiksha Scheme
Samagra Shiksha is an Integrated Scheme for School Education formulated by the Department of School Education.
It is a centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) subsumes 3 erstwhile CSS schemes such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).
It is an overarching programme for the school education sector extending from pre-school to class XII.
It aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels of school education.
It envisages the ‘school’ as a continuum from pre-school, primary, upper primary, secondary to senior secondary levels.
Workshop on Empowering Women
The workshop was jointly organised by Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) and University of Delhi.
WEP was launched by Niti Aayog the occasion of International Women’s Day, 2018.
The initiative is aimed at building an ecosystem for women across India to realize their entrepreneurial aspirations, scale-up innovative initiatives and chalk-out sustainable, long-term strategies for their businesses.
The three pillars on which WEP is built:
Ichha Shakti (motivating aspiring entrepreneurs to start their enterprise)
Gyaan Shakti (providing knowledge and ecosystem support to women entrepreneurs to help them foster entrepreneurship)
Karma Shakti (providing hands-on support to entrepreneurs in setting-up and scaling up businesses).
Ganga Vriksharopan Abhiyan
National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) has organised “Ganga Vriksharopan Abhiyan” in Ganga basin states.
The campaign has been initiated as part of the Forest Interventions in Ganga (FIG) component of Namami Gange programme.
It aims to bring greater awareness among people and other stakeholders regarding the importance of afforestation for the task of Ganga Rejuvenation
Afforestation and augmentation of existing forest along the Ganga strengthen the riparian ecosystem thereby contributing to the overarching cause of Ganga Rejuvenation.
The five states covered are Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
LiDAR
Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is a remote sensing instrument.
It is used as a monitoring system for mapping and modelling in -micro-topography, forestry, agriculture, meteorology and environmental pollution.
LiDAR has been recently deployed at Gulf of Khambat, off the Gujarat Coast by National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE).
The objective of the installation is to assess offshore wind resource.
National Resource Centres
The Government has proposed to set up National Resource Centres (NRCs) to prepare online training material.
The resource centres will focus on latest developments in the discipline, new & emerging trends, pedagogical improvements and methodologies for transacting revised curriculum.
Under this initiative, all in-service teachers, irrespective of their subject and seniority have an enabling opportunity to keep update of the latest developments in their disciplines through the technology based online refresher course, through SWAYAM platform.
