Prelim Bits 22-11-2018

Sentinelese Tribe

An American man has been killed by an endangered sentinelese tribe in India's Andaman and Nicobar islands.
The Sentinelese belongs to negrito tribe who live on the North Sentinel Island of the Andamans.
The inhabitants are connected to the Jarawas on the basis of physical, as well as linguistic similarities.
They have been fiercely hostile to outside contact.
The Govt. of India issued the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956.
According to the regulations,

The rules were amended later to enhance penalties. But restricted area permits were relaxed for some islands recently.

Click here to know about Restricted Area Permit.

Ease of Doing Business Grand Challenge

It was launched to resolve 7 identified ‘Ease of doing business’ problems with the use of cutting edge technologies.
The objective is to tap the potential of young Indians, startups and other private enterprises to provide solutions to complex problems using current technology.
Ease of doing business report is published by World Bank.
India’s rank in 2018 has recorded a jump of 23 positions against its rank of 100 in 2017 to be placed at 77th rank among 190 countries.
India has improved its rank by 53 positions in the last two years and 65 positions in the last four years (2014-18).

Bhudhaar

Andhra Pradesh government has recently launched “Bhudhaar” initiative.
It aimed at enabling easy identification of details of the land parcel.
Under this, each land parcel will be given a Bhudhaar number, an 11-digit unique figure.
It would put an end to irregularities in land registration and corruption in revenue department.

BASIC Nations Meeting

Environment ministers and climate change negotiators from Brazil, South Africa, China and India (BASIC) countries has recently convened in Delhi.
They aimed at pushing Climate finance from developed countries.
Developed countries have committed to providing $100 billion annually from 2020 as part of their NDC.
Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) are the commitments made by countries to adapt to climate change and reduce emissions.
It is ahead of the 24^th United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) meeting at Katowice, Poland in December, 2018.
It will specify how countries will agree to take forward commitments taken at the 21st COP in Paris in 2015.

APEC Meet

The recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit was held in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
The meeting was topped by disputes between the US and China over trade, security and which would be the better investment partner for the region.
APEC is a forum for 21 Pacific Rim member economies that promotes free trade throughout the Asia Pacific region.
It is headquartered at Singapore.
It was established due to growing inter dependence among Asia Pacific regions, increasing regional trade blocs, to diffuse growing power of Japan.
The criterion for membership is that the member is a separate economy, rather than a state and the result of it is the inclusion of Taiwan.
APEC also includes three official observers: ASEAN, the Pacific Islands Forum and the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council
India is not in the grouping.

Institution’s Innovation Council

Ministry of Human Resource and Development has recently launched Institution’s Innovation Council (IIC) programme.
Under the programme, innovation cell at AICTE is going to be established at AICTE.
It will systematically foster the culture of Innovation in all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) across the country.

Source: The Hindu, PIB