Prelim Bits 22-03-2018

Periyar Tiger Reserve

• Periyar Tiger Reserve is in Thekkady, Kerala, comprising the Periyar National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary.
• Besides being a tiger reserve, it is also one of the most significant Elephant Reserve in the country housing Asiatic Elephants.
• It comprises a range of tropical evergreen and semi-evergreen forests, moist deciduous forests, grasslands and eucalyptus plantations.
• Periyar and Pamba rivers flow through the reserve.

• In 2015, the Periyar Tiger Reserve won the National Tiger Conservation Authority biennial award for encouraging local public participation in managing the Reserve.

Angkor

• Angkor is situated in Cambodia and consists of several temples, hydraulic structures like basins, dams and reservoirs, and communication routes.
• It is also known as Yashodarapura and was the capital city of the Khmer empire.

• It is one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia.
• The world-famous Angkor Wat and the Bayon temple at Angkor Thom form a major part of Angkor ruins.
• Angkor was declared as a World heritage Site by UNESCO.
•  The Archaeological Survey of India had undertaken major conservation work at the Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

World Water Day

• World Water Day, on 22 March every year, is about focusing attention on the importance of water.
• The theme for World Water Day 2018 is ‘Nature for Water’ – exploring nature-based solutions to the water challenges we face in the 21st century.
• The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day to a recommendation made in Rio summit 1992.
• On this day, an assessment by Down To Earth sounds alarm bells for many cities across the globe which is fast approaching the ‘Day zero’.
• ‘Day Zero’ is a situation when taps start running dry.
• Cape Town, one of the richest cities of Africa, has been reeling under one of the worst ever water crisis.

National Health Mission (NHM)

• The Union Cabinet has approved the continuation of the National Health Mission which is a major boost to health infrastructure.
• The National Health Mission (NHM) encompasses its two Sub-Missions, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and National Urban Health Mission (NUHM).
• Some of the salient features of NHM are

1. NHM will be the principle vehicle for the UHC (Universal Health Coverage).
2. The goals/targets are aligned with National Health Policy, 2017 and SDG-3.
3. It will integrate with the proposed National Health Protection Mission under Ayushman Bharat.
4. In addition it will facilitate horizontal integration of all vertical disease program to ensure integrated approach to health and wellness.

Rashtriya Uchchatar ShikshaAbhiyan (RUSA) - National Higher Education Mission

• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has given its approval for continuation of Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA).
• RUSA was launched in 2013that aims at providing strategic funding to eligible state higher educational institutions.
• Transformative reforms such as governance, academic, affiliation and accreditation reforms are pre-requisites in the implementation of the scheme in State higher educational institutions.
• The funding would flow from the central ministry through the state governments/union territories to the State Higher Education Councils before reaching the identified institutions.
• RUSA seeks to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio of the country to 30% by 2020.
• It also seeks to increase the spending on higher education by the State Governments.

Copernicus Program

• Recently, India has joined Europe’s mega global arrangement of sharing data from Earth observation satellites, called Copernicus.
• Under this arrangement, both European Commission and India will mutually share the data from Copernicus Sentinel family and ISRO’s land, ocean and atmospheric series of civilian satellites (Oceansat-2, INSAT-3D) respectively.
• Copernicus is the European Union's Earth Observation Program.
• The Program is coordinated and managed by the European Commission.
• It is implemented in partnership with the Member States, the European Space Agency (ESA), and European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), EU Agencies and Mercator Océan.
• The space-based information will be used for forecasting disasters, providing emergency response, to glean land, ocean data and for issues of security, agriculture, climate change and atmosphere.

• The Copernicus emergency response mapping system was activated on at least two Indian occasions — during the 2014 floods in Andhra Pradesh and after the 2013 storm in Odisha.

Map of the Day

Central Asia

• Central Asian Countries are landlocked countries.
• TAPI pipeline will run from Dauletabad gas field in Turkmenistan to India through Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• Ashgabat agreement is a multimodal transport agreement between India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Oman, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for creating an international transport and transit corridor

Source: PIB, The Hindu, Business Standard