Current Affairs Exam

The Government of India has accorded sanctions to Team CLAW to steer a team of individuals with disabilities to scale Siachen ice mass and make a replacement record for the most important team of individuals with disabilities.

This is the land record expedition a part of Operation Blue Freedom Triple World Records being undertaken.

Triple Elemental World Records could be a series of world records being tried by the team in 2021 of collectives of individuals with disabilities achieving nice feats toward land, in air and underwater.

PV Sindhu, a 26-year-old badminton player, has turned out to be the first Indian woman to win two Olympic medals after defeating ‘He Bingjiao’ of China.

Highlights:

Sindhu defeated ‘He Bingjiao’ via 21-13, 21-15 in the Women‘s singles bronze medal match at Tokyo Olympics 2020.

She is the 1st Indian girl to win Olympic silver and the first Indian girl to finish on the podium two instances at the Olympics.

At the Rio Olympics, Sindhu had won women’s singles badminton silver in her Olympics debut.

The ISRO-NASA joint mission NISER (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite, aimed at making international dimension of land floor adjustments using superior radar imaging, is proposed to be launched in early 2023.

dual-band (L-band and S-band) radar imaging mission with the functionality of full polarimetric and interferometric modes of operation to have a look at minor adjustments inland, vegetation and cryosphere.

NASA is creating L-band SAR and related structures, whilst ISRO is creating S-band SAR, spacecraft bus, the launch automobile and associated launch Services. The essential scientific goals of the mission are to enhance the perception of the influence of local weather trade on Earth’s altering Ecosystems, land and coastal processes, land deformations and cryosphere. NISER is one of the integral collaborations of the ISRO and NASA. India and the U.S. had agreed upon this mission in then-President Barack Obama’s go-to India in 2015.

The World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) is marked once a year within the initial week of August, between one to seven August, to lift awareness on the importance of breastfeeding for mothers and infants.

Highlights:

The theme of the planet Breastfeeding Week 2021 is “Protect Breastfeeding: A Shared Responsibility”. The annual week is organized by WABA, the UN agency and United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund since 1991. Breastfeeding provides each kid with the most effective potential to begin in life. It delivers Health, biological process and emotional advantages to each youngster and mother. And it forms a part of a property food system. However, whereas breastfeeding could be an action, it’s not continually simple. Mothers would like support each to urge started and to sustain breastfeeding.

Union Minister of Communications and Electronics & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, announced the introduction of the Bharat 6G Alliance, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at launching the next-generation technology in India following the successful implementation of 5G.

The Bharat 6G Alliance brings together key stakeholders from the public and private sectors, as well as other departments, with a common objective of advancing telecommunications technology and fostering the development of 6G in the country.

In addition to the Bharat 6G Alliance, the government plans to introduce a new wave of telecom reforms in the upcoming weeks. The anticipated arrival of 6G is set to revolutionise Communication by providing speeds nearly 100 times faster than 5G, opening up exciting possibilities for the development of novel communication applications.

The Bharat 6G Alliance will serve as a platform for comprehensive discussions on various facets of emerging telecom technologies and platforms that will shape the next decade. It will facilitate collaboration, knowledge sharing, and strategic planning to ensure India remains at the forefront of technological advancements.

Over 90 million Indians live in households where spending onhealthcareaccounts for more than 10% of their total expenditure. Of these, 31 million live in families where the Health spend is more than a quarter of household expenditure. The proportion of households spending over 10% or 25% of their expenditure on healthcare has gone up between 2017-18 and 2022-23.

This was revealed in theSustainable Development Goals NationalIndicator Framework Progress Report 2023, released recently by thestatistics ministry. Catastrophic health expenditure is defined as health spending exceeding 10% of household consumption expenditure. The third of the United Nation’s Goals (SDG) is to provide universal health coverage (UHC) and to improve financial protection, thus preventing catastrophic spending.UHCincludes securing access to quality healthcare and safe, affordable medicines and Vaccines for everyone.

According to the progress report, the proportion of households where more than 10% of expenditure was on health went up from 4.5% to 6.7% while that of those spending over 25% on healthcare went up from 1.6% to 2.3%.

In 2022-23, the highest proportion of people spending more than 10% or 25% of household expenditure on health were in Kerala, 16% and 6% respectively, followed by Maharashtra where it was 9% and 3% respectively. Kerala also saw the biggest jump in this proportion between 2017-18 and 2022-23. Other states which saw a significant increase are Karnataka, Odisha and Telangana in that order.

According to the National Health Accounts 2019-20, out of pocket expenditure (OOPE) as a proportion of the total health expenditure (68%) was the second highest in Kerala, just below Uttar Pradeshwhere it was 72%. Uttar Pradesh is among the five states with the highest proportion of households spending more than 10% or 25% of their expenditure on health. However, in the case of Karnataka, though OOPE as a proportion of total health expenditure is the lowest among the bigger states (31.8%), the state is among those which have witnessed the highest increase in the proportion of households using more than 10% and 25% of the expenditure on healthcare.

In June 2021, the NITI Aayog estimated that at least 400 million people or about 30% of the Population did not have any financial protection for health, leading to high out-of-pocket expenditure and impoverishment. It also estimated that the actual uncovered population would be higher due to existing coverage gaps in PMJAY and overlaps between schemes.

In 2022, the health ministry had notified the inclusion of coronary stents in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), 2022, to make the life-saving medical devices more affordable. Doctors say the inclusion of stents in NLEM will help reduce the cost of angioplasty a minimally invasive procedure to open up blocked arteries and thus make it more accessible.

Africa has become the second-largest recipient of credit from India as the country tries to catch up with China in expanding its influence in the resource-rich continent.

Forty-two African nations received about $32 billion or 38% of all credit extended by India in the last decade just a few Percentage points below its neighbors, Harsha Bangari, the managing director ofIndias Export Import Bank saidin an interview.

The bank is an instrument of Indias economic diplomacy, Bangari said, adding that the South Asian nation has also opened up 195 project-based lines of credit worth about $12 billion across Africa, three times the number it has in its own region in the last decade.

The PSLV Orbital Experimental Module is a platform which will perform in-orbit experiments through the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket.

It is a four-stage rocket in which first three spent stages will drop into the ocean and the final stage will end up as space junk after launching the satellite into orbit.

However, in PSLV-C53 mission, spent final stage will be used as a stabilised platform for performing the experiments.

POEM comprises of a dedicated Guidance and Control (NGC) system for Attitude stabilisation.

Governments think tank published its report titled Harnessing Green Hydrogen- Opportunities for Deep Decarbonisation in India. This report has been prepared in collaboration with Delhi-based think tank RMI India.

In its report, NITI Aayog has recommended to reduce or exempt the GST & Custom duties on production of green hydrogen, in order to boost the production in India.

It also proposed to set up green hydrogen corridors as well as offer grants to start-ups that are working on green hydrogen solutions domestically.

According to it, government should focus on bringing a cost reduction pathway for green hydrogen production in country.

-WEP report on Take-Home Ration, presents a set of good and innovative practices that have been adopted by states & UTs, in implementation of Take-Home Ration value chain.

Take-Home ration is provided by Government of India, under Supplementary Nutrition component of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).

It is provided to fill the gap in nutrition amongchildren, and pregnant & lactating Women (PLW).

It suggests to build a robust system for procurement, standardized process, full coverage, Supply Chain Management & monitoring to ensure complete transparency, sustainability, leverages local ties, and bring a culture of collaboration and trust within a community.