14 November 2019: PIB Summary & Analysis

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November 14th, 2019 PIB:- Download PDF Here

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon
2. Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure
3. National Agrochemicals Congress
4. Golden Leaf Award
5. 11th Maitree Diwas Celebrations
6. Global Cooling Prize

Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon

Context:

Selected student innovators of Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon 2018 call on the President.

About the Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon:

• Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon is organised by the Atal Tinkering Labs of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and the NITI Aayog in an effort to identify India’s best student innovators.
• It is a six-month-long nationwide challenge across six different thematic areas, namely, clean energy, water resources, waste management, healthcare, smart mobility and agriculture-tech.
• This is open to all students under the age of 18 years.
• Students of top 30 innovations will be trained on business and entrepreneurship skills, including intellectual property, effective communication, making an elevator pitch, etc.
• These top 30 innovations have been identified from 20 different States/UTs from across India.
• The winners are being awarded with several prizes including a three month-long ATL Student Innovator Program (ATL SIP) in partnership with the industry and start-up incubators.
• The goal of the student innovator program is to test the innovations in the community.
• The ATL Student Innovator Program is an effort to institutionalize a mechanism, where high school students can work with university incubators to pursue their innovative and entrepreneurial ideas along with their education.

About the Atal Tinkering Labs:

• Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) under the Atal Innovation Mission of NITI Aayog, is based on the philosophy that incentives and prize awards are a great beginning to create an exponential wave of innovation and entrepreneurship amongst school children.
• ATLs are established in schools across the country.
• The objective of this scheme is to foster curiosity, creativity and imagination in young minds; and inculcate skills such as design mindset, computational thinking, adaptive learning, physical computing, etc.
• ATL is a workspace where young minds can give shape to their ideas through hands-on do-it-yourself mode, and learn innovation skills.
• Young children will get a chance to work with tools and equipment to understand the concepts of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).
• ATL would contain educational and learning ‘do it yourself’ kits and equipment on – science, electronics, robotics, open source microcontroller boards, sensors and 3D printers and computers.

About the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM):

• The AIM was launched in 2016.
• It is a flagship initiative set up by the NITI Aayog to promote innovation and entrepreneurship across the length and breadth of the country.
• AIM’s objectives are to create and promote an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship across the country at school, university, research institutions, MSME and industry levels.

Also read: Atal New India Challenge

Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure

Context:

At the Leaders’ Dialogue with BRICS Business Council and New Development Bank (NDB), the Prime Minister requests the BRICS countries and the NDB to join the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.

About the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI):

• In September 2019, PM Modi launched the CDRI at the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit in New York, US.
• The fledgling partnership has a secretariat in Delhi, supported by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), to enable knowledge exchange, technical support and capacity building.
• CDRI’s mission is to rapidly expand the development of resilient infrastructure and retrofit existing infrastructure for resilience, and to enable a measurable reduction in infrastructure losses.
• The partnership will be working in the areas of governance and policy, emerging technology, risk identification and estimation, recovery and reconstruction, resilience standards and certification, finance, and capacity development.
• CDRI is bringing together developed and developing countries to build synergies to reach the goal of disaster-resilient infrastructure.
• The World Bank and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) expressed support for CDRI and committed to working closely with its secretariat in Delhi.
• The formation of the Coalition is the result of efforts by India and UNDRR.
• Other founding members of CDRI:
  • Australia
  • Bhutan
  • Fiji
  • Indonesia
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • Maldives
  • Mexico
  • Mongolia
  • Rwanda
  • Sri Lanka
  • The UK

About the New Development Bank:

• The New Development Bank (NDB), formerly referred to as the BRICS Development Bank, is a multilateral development bank operated by the BRICS states.
• It is based in Shanghai.
• The bank’s primary focus of lending will be infrastructure projects with authorized lending of up to $34 billion annually.
• South Africa will be the African Headquarters of the Bank named the “New Development Bank Africa Regional Centre”.

National Agrochemicals Congress

Context:

The Union Agriculture Minister inaugurated the first-ever National Agrochemicals Congress in New Delhi.

About the National Agrochemicals Congress:

• The Congress is conducted in view of the relevance chemical pesticides still continue to play in pest management as more and more target specific and environment-friendly products are being introduced.
• It is being held in New Delhi in November 2019.
• The benefits of pesticide use are high relative to their risks.
• New concepts in crops, human health, resource management, nanotechnology, smart formulations and related sciences are likely to boost agricultural productivity.
• With this background, current status of agrochemicals on various fronts will be collated for researchers and policymakers in order to ensure agriculture grow in a sustainable manner.

Golden Leaf Award

Context:

Tobacco Board Receives 2019 Golden Leaf Award.

Details:

• The Tobacco Board of India has been awarded the Golden Leaf Award in the ‘Most Impressive Public Service Initiative’ category for the year 2019.
• The award was given in recognition of the Board’s efforts to initiate various sustainability (green) initiatives in Flue-Cured Virginia (FCV) tobacco cultivation in India.
• It also received the award for its initiatives pertaining to natural tobacco farming, improving soil health through green manuring, introduction of 365 days green cover, promotion of advanced nursery technologies, elimination of Non-Tobacco Related Material and elimination of pesticide residues in tobacco by encouraging residue-free practices, energy conservation initiatives resulting in energy savings of 25%, development of greenery through mandatory planting of trees by tobacco farmers and tobacco trade and educating and guiding farmers on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP).
• The award was given in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
• The awards under this category are given to a company or institution that introduced a public service programme or educational campaign of creativity, effectiveness to date and best use of resources.

About the Golden Leaf Award:

• The Golden Leaf Awards were created to recognize professional excellence and dedication in the tobacco industry by Tobacco Reporter, an international magazine in the year 2006.
• Awards are granted on an annual basis to companies that have achieved outstanding performance in five categories:
  • Most impressive public service initiative
  • Most promising new product introduction
  • Most exciting newcomer to the industry
  • Most outstanding service to the industry
  • BMJ most committed to quality award

About the Tobacco Board:

• The Tobacco Board was constituted as a statutory body in 1976 under the Tobacco Board Act, 1975.
• The Board is headed by a Chairman with its headquarters at Guntur, Andhra Pradesh and is responsible for the development of the tobacco industry.
• While the primary function of the Board is export promotion of all varieties of tobacco and its allied products, its functions extend to production, distribution (for domestic consumption and exports) and regulation of Flue Cured Virginia (FCV) tobacco.
• In 2014, the Tobacco Board of India won a Golden Leaf Award in the Most Impressive Public Service Initiative category for its implementation of an electronic auction system, which has made the marketing of flue-cured tobacco in India more transparent and accountable.
• The Board introduced natural farming techniques for production of organic and residue-free tobaccos.

About FCV Tobaccos:

• FCV tobacco stands for Flue Cured Virginia tobacco.
• India is the world’s fourth-largest producer of FCV tobacco.
• About 88,000 FCV tobacco farmers and their families in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are dependent on this crop for their livelihood.
• There are more than 90 varieties of tobacco grown in India.

11th Maitree Diwas Celebrations

Context:

The Defence Minister attended the 11^th ‘Maitree Diwas’ in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh.

About Maitree Diwas:

• The annual Maitree Diwas festival symbolises the patriotism of the people of the Tawang region and their close relationship with the Armed Forces.
• The two-day socio –military – cultural extravaganza was organized by the Indian Army, the Tawang Civil Administration and other volunteers.
• ‘Know Your Army’ was the underlying theme of the event that enlightened the youth about the Armed Forces and motivated them to adorn the uniform and serve their motherland.
• The Minister also announced that the government is planning to set up a North East Industrial Corridor that will create numerous job opportunities for the people of the region.

Global Cooling Prize

Context:

The Union Minister for Science & Technology, Earth Sciences and Health & Family Welfare to announce the Global Cooling Prize.

About the Global Cooling Prize (GCP):

• In 2018, the Ministry of Science & Technology instituted a new prize for innovative cooling technologies that could reduce the climate impact of Residential Air Conditioning (RAC) at least by five times, called the Global Cooling Prize, under the Mission Innovation (MI) programme.
• The award carries a total prize money of $3 million.
• The GCP was launched by the Department of Science & Technology (DST – Under the S&T Ministry), in partnership with the Bureau of Energy Efficiency and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, jointly with Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI).
  • The RMI is an independent non-profit research institute and think tank founded in 1982 in the US.
• GCP aims to spur development of a residential cooling solution that has at least five times less climate impact than today’s standard products.
• India has proposed to support this innovation prize with a grant up to $2 million, which would fund the India-based teams in developing working prototypes of their innovative cooling technology designs including model energy efficient building.
• GCP received 139 applications from 31 countries around the globe from innovators, start-ups, research institutes, universities, and key AC industry manufacturers, out of which the maximum (45) are from India.
• Mission Innovation (MI) is a global initiative of 24 countries and the European Union to accelerate global clean energy innovation. MI identified “Affordable Heating and Cooling of Building Innovation Challenge” as one of the seven innovation challenges.

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