Prelim Bits 31-12-2019

SDG India Index

• NITI Aayog has released its latest SDG India Index 2019, which assesses each state and Union Territory’s achievement on 16 sustainable development goals (SDG).
• Kerala is in the top slot with a score of 70, while Bihar is at the bottom with 50.
• Scores are given for a state or UT on each SDG, The composite score for each state or UT is computed by aggregating their performance across these goals, and then by taking the arithmetic mean of individual goal scores.
• A score of 100 implies that the state/ UT has achieved targets set for 2030.
• Among the 16 SDGs, marine ecosystems is for coastal states only, and scores on this one were not counted in the composite total.
• In the other SDGs, the best performers were

1. Tamil Nadu for ‘no poverty’;
2. Goa for ‘zero hunger’, sustainable cities and communities’;
3. Kerala for ‘good health’;
4. Himachal Pradesh for ‘quality education’;
5. Himachal again for ‘gender equality ‘;
6. Andhra Pradesh for ‘clean water and sanitation’;
7. Sikkim for ‘affordable and clean energy’;
8. Telangana for ‘decent work & economic growth’;
9. Gujarat for ‘industry, innovation and infrastructure;
10. Telangana for ‘reduced inequalities’;
11. ‘Nagaland for ‘sustainable consumption and production;
12.  Karnataka for ‘climate action’;
13. Manipur for ‘life and land’;
14. Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat for ‘peace, justice, strong institutions’.

• Following Kerala’s composite score of 70, Himachal Pradesh took the second spot with a score of 69 while Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Telangana shared the third spot with each scoring 67.

Review of 2019 ISRO Missions

• PSLV-C44 successfully launched Microsat-R and Kalamsat-V2 on January 2019 from Sriharikota.
• GSAT 31 communication satellite was successfully launched from Kourou, French Guiana onboard Arianespace rocket on February 2019 .
• NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), Bengaluru, a wholly owned Government of India Company under Department of Space, was incorporated on March 2019.
• The business activities of NSIL is mainly driven towards enabling Indian industries to produce space systems and to exploit the commercial opportunities emanating from the Indian space programme.
• EMISAT was successfully launched onboard PSLV-C45 on April, 2019 from Sriharikota.
• The launch viewing gallery was inaugurated and opened to the public for viewing launches live from Sriharikota.
• On May, 2019 RISAT-2B radar imaging earth observation satellite was successfully launched onboard PSLV-C46 from Sriharikota.
• The successful launch of GSLV-MK III M1, India's most powerful launch vehicle, was accomplished in July ,2019.
• This launch vehicle is capable of launching 04 ton of satellites into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit(GTO).
• The mission carried Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter spacecraft to its intended orbit.
• India’s first inter-planetary mission “Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)” completed five years in Martian orbit in September 2019.
• Astrosat, the first Indian multi-wavelength space observatory, completed four years in orbit in Sept 2019.
• Global Standards body 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), which develops protocols for mobile telephony, has approved India’s regional navigation system NAVIC.
• A new center namely Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) is created within ISRO/DOS with the responsibility to act as the lead center for Human Space Flight Program, Gaganyaan.
• The Gaganyaan project has the objective of demonstrating human space flight capability to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with 3 crew members for 5-7 days in orbit and to safely recover them after the mission.
• On November ,2019 Cartosat-3, a third generation agile advanced satellite having high resolution imaging capability was successfully launched by PSLV-C47 from Sriharikota.
• On December,2019, PSLV-C48 successfully launched RISAT-2BR1radar imaging earth observation satellite from Sriharikota.

Prominent Schemes under Ministry of Tribal Affairs in 2019

Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojana

• Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojana (PMVDY) is a Market Linked Tribal Entrepreneurship Development Program.
• It will form clusters of tribal SHGs and strengthening them into Tribal Producer Companies.
• It has been launched with participation from all the 27 States from the Country.
• The scheme will be implemented by TRIFED.
• The number of MFPs notified have been revised from 23 to 49 under Mechanism for Marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) through Minimum Support Price (MSP) and Development of Value Chain for MFP’.

Tribal Empowerment under TRIFED

• Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited (TRIFED) under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs strives to promote economic development of the Tribal communities.
• In works on  marketing development and sustained upgradation of their skills and products.

• Some of the other important activities taken up by TRIFED for empowerment of tribals include

1. Opening new outlets of TRIBES India,
2. Procurement of tribal products,
3. Sale of tribal products through countrywide exhibitions,
4. Promoting domestic and international sales through e-commerce,
5. Tribal artisan melas.

Tribal Healers and Tribal Medicines

• Tribals have vast traditional knowledge of treating diseases with locally available medicinal plants. 
• In order to protect this knowledge, which is fast vanishing, Patanjali Research Institute has been given pilot project for research on Tribal Healers and Medicinal Plants in Uttarakhand. 
• Similar projects have been given to AIIMS-Jodhpur, Parvara Institute of Medical Science and Mata Marittima Institute for Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Kerala.
• Tribal Research Institute (TRI) Uttarakhand has been made nodal agency for coordination of research works being conducted for tribal medicine and designated as a central knowledge hub.

National Level Tribal Research Institute

• Ministry has mooted the proposal for setting up of National Level Tribal Research Institute to act as a knowledge hub and repository of information related to STs.
• The NTRI is to spearhead research and evaluation studies on tribal issues and to provide handholding support to State TRIs in their functioning. 
• NITI Aayog has provided in-principle approval for the NTRI.

Eklava Model Residential Schools

• Ekalavya Model Residential School (EMRS) is a scheme for model residential school for Indian tribal (ST, Scheduled Tribes) across India.
• It is one of the flagship intervention of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India and was introduced in the year 1997-98, to ensure tribal students get access to quality education in the remote tribal areas.
• EMRSs are set up in States/UTs with grants under Article 275(1) of the Constitution of India.
• As per the budget 2018-19, every block with more than 50% ST population and at least 20,000 tribal persons, will have an Eklavya Model Residential School by the year 2022.
• The government gives one time ₹30 lakh grant for establishing the school, thereafter up to ₹30 lakh per school annually.
• Additional cost is borne by state governments, at the end of 2018, a total of 284 EMRSs have been sanctioned with maximum of 32 approved in Madhya Pradesh.
• There is around 226 EMRSs functional across the country and 68 of them are affiliated to the CBSE.
• Under the programme government aims to establish 462 new EMRS across India.

Source: Indian Express, PIB