0.2057
7667766266
x

Prelim Bits 22-08-2018

iasparliament Logo
August 22, 2018

TRIFED

  • 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.

 

Source: Indian Express, The Hindu, PIB

Login or Register to Post Comments
There are no reviews yet. Be the first one to review.

ARCHIVES

MONTH/YEARWISE ARCHIVES

sidetext
Free UPSC Interview Guidance Programme
sidetext