Current Affairs – 9.October.2019

MoUs signed between India and Foreign Broadcasters

Context : The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister has given ex-post facto approval for the MoUs between India and Foreign Broadcasters in the field of Radio and Television.

Benefits:

The MoUs with the Foreign Broadcasters will help:

Public broadcaster in exploring new visions;
New Strategies to address the demands of new technologies and stiff competition;
Media liberalization; and
Globalization.

Major Impact:

Broadcasting of programmes to be obtained through mutual exchange, co-production will lead to equity and inclusiveness among viewer/listeners of DD and AIR. Exchanges of technical Know-how, expertise and training of manpower would help the public broadcaster to meet the emerging challenges in the field of broadcasting.

Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship Programme

Context : Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship launches Mahatma Gandhi National Fellowship Programme with IIM Bangalore. Designed under Skills Acquisition and Knowledge Awareness for Livelihood Promotion (SANKALP)

Aims :

To provide academic inputs and field experience to understand and contribute to the creation of a district level skill development ecosystem.

About MGNF :

The MGNF programme has an in-built component of on-ground practical experience with the district administration.
Launched on a pilot basis in 75 districts across Gujarat, Karnataka, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, eligible fellows for the programme have to be in 21-30 years age-group, have a graduation degree from a recognized university and be citizens of India.
Proficiency in official language of state of fieldwork will be mandatory.

Whats in the Programme :

Fellows will work under the close supervision of state skill development missions (SSDM) and will spend time and effort in understanding skilling challenges and gaps in the district.
They are expected to enrich skilling programmes by bringing in fresh thinking to local planning, execution, community interaction and outcome management.
Fellows will receive a stipend of Rs. 50,000 in the first year and Rs. 60,000 in the second year.
On completion of their engagement, they will be awarded a Certificate in Public Policy and Management from IIM Bangalore.

WHO India Country Cooperation Strategy

Context : The WHO India Country Cooperation Strategy 2019–2023: “A Time of Transition”, has been launched .

Strategy :

Four areas identified for strategic cooperation of WHO with the country encompass

To promote health and wellness by addressing determinants of health.
To protect the population better against health emergencies.
To enhance India’s global leadership in health.
To accelerate progress on UHC .

Need

Needs to be given on other equally pertinent health areas of environmental and occupational health, accidents and road injuries, and good nutrition and food safety.Emphasizing the need of inter-ministerial collaboration for a healthy nation.

Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP)

Context: Soon, some stricter measures to fight air pollution will come into force in Delhi’s neighbourhood, as part of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP).

As per the plan:

Measures aimed at stopping the use of diesel generator sets will extend beyond Delhi to the NCR, where many areas see regular power cuts.

Measures will be incremental. As pollution rises, and it is expected to as winter approaches, more measures will come into play depending on the air quality.

What is GRAP?

Approved by the Supreme Court in 2016.

It works only as an emergency measure.

As such, the plan does not include action by various state governments to be taken throughout the year to tackle industrial, vehicular and combustion emissions.

When the air quality shifts from poor to very poor, the measures listed have to be followed since the plan is incremental in nature.

Has it been helpful?

It has created a step-by-step plan for the entire Delhi-NCR region and getting on board several agencies including pollution control boards, industrial area authorities, municipal corporations, regional officials of the India Meteorological Department, and others.
It has been successful in fixing accountability and deadlines. For each action to be taken under a particular air quality category, executing agencies are clearly marked.
Coordination among as many as 13 agencies from four states is simplified to a degree because of the clear demarcation of responsibilities.
Three major policy decisions that can be credited to EPCA and GRAP are the closure of the thermal power plant at Badarpur, bringing BS-VI fuel to Delhi before the deadline set initially, and the ban on Pet coke as a fuel in Delhi NCR.

2019 NOBEL PRIZE FOR PHYSICS

In News

Three scientists, James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz have won the Nobel Prize 2019 for Physics for their contribution to the understanding of the evolution of the universe and earth’s place in the cosmos.

Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB):

Canadian-American cosmologist James Peebles, 84, won one-half of the Prize for his theoretical work helping us understand how the universe evolved after the Big Bang.
His work is focused largely on Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation, which is electromagnetic radiation left over from the early universe once it had cooled sufficiently following the Big Bang.

Exoplanet:

The other half went to Swiss astronomers Michel Mayor, 77, and Didier Queloz, 53, for their discovery of an exoplanet that challenged preconceived ideas about planets.
Using a spectrograph, ELODIE, they predicted the planet by observing the “Doppler effect” — when the star wobbles as an effect of a planet’s gravity on its observed light.
Today, exoplanets are being discovered very frequently — over 4,000 are known — which is remarkable progress from three decades ago, when not even one exoplanet was known

India formally received the first Rafale fighter jet