PUNJAB

FCI helps Punjab stave off crisis by lifting wheat stock

The Food Corporation of India (FCI) under the central government has helped the Punjab government tide over a crisis which would have hit wheat procurement scheduled to start from April 10, by lifting 22.42 million tonnes of the foodgrain held with the state agencies since 2018-19. Failure to clear the stock would have come in the way of the Punjab government to take advance loans from banks to pay the MSP to farmers for the fresh procurement.

In Punjab, farmers sell their foodgrains to five state procuring agencies (SPAs) and they pay the money to farmers. Later this amount is reimbursed by FCI. To pay the amount to farmers immediately, these state agencies take advance loan from an SBI-led consortium of banks. As per rules, this Food Credit advance has to be repaid within three years. But the Punjab government could not pay the loan of Rs 89,000 crore from 2018-19 as the stock was still to be lifted.

INTERNATIONAL

Russia Launched 38 Satellites Successfully

Russia has successfully put 38 satellites from 18 countries into orbit from the Baikonur Astronomical Museum in Kazakhstan. Highlights:

The Russian space agency Roscosmos released a video showing its Soyuz rocket launched under a gray and cloudy sky. The rocket successfully put satellites of countries including Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Italy, Germany and Brazil into orbit.

The launcher also launched the Challenge 1 Satellite, the first satellite fully manufactured in Tunisia manufactured by the Telnet Telecom Group.

Soyuz 2.1a is a launch vehicle composed of Fregat superiors. The 2.1a version of the Soyuz satellite includes a conversion from analog to digital flight control system and an upgraded engine on the booster. This new type of digital flight control and telemetry system rocket is launched from a fixed platform rather than an angled launch platform.

The Soyuz is a series of Soviet expendable launch systems developed by OKB-1. It was manufactured by the Progress Rocket Space Center in Samar located in Russia. This is the most commonly used launch vehicle(LV) in the world.

Joint Earth Observing Mission of NASA and ISRO NISAR

NASA and ISRO are collaborating to develop a satellite called NISAR. The satellite will be launched into near-polar orbit from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India in 2022. Highlights:

In the three-year mission of imaging the earth’s land, ice sheets and sea ice, it will scan the earth every 12 days to provide an “unprecedented” panorama of the earth.

It can detect that in an area that is only half the size of a tennis court, the movement of the planet’s surface is only 0.4 inches.

NASA will provide one of the satellite radars, a high-speed communication subsystem for scientific data, a GPS receiver and a payload data subsystem.

ISRO will provide the spacecraft bus, the second type of radar (called S-band radar), launch vehicles and related delivery services.

NISAR will be equipped with the largest reflector antenna in NASA’s history. Its main goals include tracking subtle changes in the Earth’s surface, detecting warning signs of impending volcanic eruptions, helping monitor groundwater supply and tracking the rate of ice cap melting. ♦ NISAR is the abbreviation of NASA-ISRO-SAR. SAR refers to the synthetic aperture radar used by NASA to measure changes in the earth’s surface.

Human Rights and App Update ProtonVPN

ProtonVPN, a Swiss virtual private network service provider, criticized Apple for stopping application updates and violating human rights. Highlights:

A virtual private network (VPN) provides you with online privacy and anonymity by creating a private network from a public Internet connection. VPN will block your Internet Protocol (IP) address, so your online operations are almost untraceable. Most importantly, the VPN service establishes a secure and encrypted connection.

The Burmese military launched a coup (it was the third military coup in the country’s history since it broke away from British rule in 1948). A state of emergency was imposed and the democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi was detained.

Apple blocked Proton’s security updates on the same day that the United Nations recommended the Proton app to the people of Myanmar to report criminal evidence from the military. These updates include security enhancements to prevent account takeover attempts.

NATIONAL

PMFME Scheme – One District One Product

PMFME scheme to adopt the “One District One Product ” approach to obtain scale gains from the procurement of inputs, provision of public services and product marketing. Highlights:

Under the Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises Scheme (PM FME Scheme) initiated by the central government, the Ministry of Food Processing Industry (MoFPI) provides financial, technical and business support for upgrading existing micro-food processing companies. About One District One Product (ODOP):

The purpose of the concept is to transform each district of the country into an export center by:

Identify products with export potential in the district

Solve the bottleneck of exporting these products

Support local exporters and manufacturers to expand production scale and look for potential buyers outside India.

The purpose is to promote exports, promote manufacturing and service industries in the districts and create employment opportunities in the districts.

To this end, each district has established a District Export Promotion Committees (DEPC).

Launch of Tribal TB Initiative

The launch of “TB Tribe Initiative” to pursue TB Mukt Bharat. Ministry: Ministry of Health Highlights:

Also released the “Guidelines for the Joint Action Plan to Eliminate Tuberculosis”, a special edition of the Tribal Ministry’s publication “ALEKH” on Tuberculosis, and a document on the “Tribal Tuberculosis (TB) Initiative”.

There are more than 104 million tribal population living in 705 tribes in India, accounting for 8.6% of the Indian population.

177 tribal districts have been identified as high priority districts, where remoteness, malnutrition, poor living conditions and lack of awareness make the tribal population vulnerable to tuberculosis.

Initially, the activities of the joint plan will be concentrated in 161 districts in 18 identified States.

This will include the regular implementation of active tuberculosis cases detection, the provision of TB Preventive Therapy (IPT) for identified vulnerable groups, and the establishment of long-term mechanisms to reduce vulnerability.

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