The Union cabinet has recently approved extension of special financial package for implementation of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission for Jammu and Kashmir for one year (2018-19).
Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM) is assisted by investments from World Bank.
It aims at enabling rural poor to increase household income through sustainable livelihood enhancements and improved access to financial services.
Universal Social Mobilisation - At least one woman member from each identified rural poor household, is to be brought under the Self Help Group (SHG) network.
Target Group is identified through the Participatory Identification of Poor (PIP) method and it is delinked from BPL.
The responsibility of identification of poor must be vetted by the Gram Sabha and approved by the Gram Panchayat.
NRLM provides Revolving Fund (RF) and Community Investment Fund (CIF) as resources in perpetuity to the institutions of the poor to strengthen their institutional and financial management capacity.
Financial Inclusion - It promotes financial literacy among the poor.
Partnerships with NGOs and linkages with Panchayat Raj Institutions.
India-Bangladesh Friendship Pipeline Project
This project was recently inaugrated jointly by India and Bangladesh.
This 130-kilometre pipeline project will connect Siliguri in West Bengal in India and Parbatipur in Dinajpur district of Bangladesh.
The capacity of the pipeline will be one million metric tonnes per annum.
This project will fulfil energy needs at a cheaper rate to Bangladesh's northern part.
IAEA Safeguards
India has decided to place four more reactors under the IAEA safeguards.
Two Russian-designed Pressurised Light Water Reactors and two Pressurised Heavy Reactors being built with Indian technology will be covered.
With this, a total of 26 Indian nuclear facilities will be under the international nuclear energy watchdog.
IAEA is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons and materials.
It was established as an autonomous organization which is not under direct control of the UN, but reports to both the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council.
Unlike most other specialized international agencies, the IAEA does much of its work with the Security Council, and not with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
It is widely known as the world‘s Atoms for Peace organization.
It is headquartered at Vienna with 168 member nations.
North Korea has withdrawn its candidature from IAEA.
Launch Pad for Gaganyaan
ISRO is setting up a third launch pad at Sriharikota to undertake the Gaganyaan manned space flight programme.
Gaganyaan is India’s ambitious manned spaceflight mission.
It aims to send a three-member crew to space for a period of five to seven days.
It will be launched by ISRO by 2022.
It will make India the fourth nation in the world to launch a Human Spaceflight Mission after USA, Russia and China.
ISRO has developed some critical technologies through demonstrations like Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-2007), Crew module Atmospheric Reentry Experiment (CARE-2014) and Pad Abort Test (2018).
The spacecraft will be placed in a low earth orbit of 300-400km.
GSLV Mk-III launch vehicle will be used to for the mission. It has the payload capacity of 4000 kg satellites in Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) and 8000 kg payload to Low Earth Orbit.
The crew will be selected by Indian Air Force (IAF) and ISRO jointly after which they will undergo training for two-three years.
Crew Escape System – It is an emergency escape measure to quickly pull the astronaut crew out to a safe distance from launch vehicle during a launch abort.
Pad Abort test was conducted earlier to demonstrate this to ascertain the efficiency of crew escape system.
CARA
Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) is a statutory body of Ministry of Women & Child Development, Government of India.
It functions as the nodal body for adoption of Indian children and is mandated to monitor and regulate in-country and inter-country adoptions.
It is designated as the Central Authority to deal with inter-country adoptions in accordance with the provisions of the Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption, 1993, ratified by Government of India in 2003.
The eligibility criteria under Adoption Regulations, 2017, permit single women to adopt a child of any gender, while single men can adopt only boys.
When a married couple seeks to adopt a child, it needs to give its consent for adoption and should be stable marriage for at least two years.
Earlier this year, CARA has issued a circular disallowing individual in a live-in relationship to adopt children.
Now, Individuals in a live-in relationship will once again be able to adopt children from and within India.
