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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 10 December 2022

::NATIONAL::

Mission Shakti

The Ministry has formulated ‘Mission Shakti’, an Integrated Women Empowerment Programme, as Umbrella Scheme for the Safety, Security and Empowerment of Women for implementation during the 15th Finance Commission period.

Key objectives:

strengthening interventions for safety,
security and empowerment of women in a mission mode through institutional and
convergence mechanism for greater efficiency,
effectiveness and financial prudence.

Structure of this scheme:

The Umbrella Scheme of Mission Shakti has two sub-schemes namely

1. "Sambal" for safety and security of women and
2. "Samarthya" for empowerment of women.

Under 'Samarthya' sub- scheme, a new component i.e. Hub for Empowerment of Women (HEW) has been included with the aim to facilitate inter-sectoral convergence of schemes and programs meant for women at the Central, State/ UT and District levels for creating an environment in which women are able to realize their full potential.
The support under the HEW provides for guiding, linking and hand holding women to various institutional and schematic set ups for their empowerment and development including access to healthcare, quality education, career and vocational counseling/ training, financial inclusion, entrepreneurship, backward and forward linkages, health and safety for workers, social security and digital literacy at districts/ Blocks/ Gram Panchayats level across the country.

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Uttarakhand Public Services (Horizontal Reservation for Women) Bill, 2022

The Uttarakhand Assembly on November 30 passed a Bill to provide 30 per cent horizontal reservation to local women in state government services. This comes weeks after the Supreme Court lifted an Uttarakhand High Court stay on a 2006 order of the government, providing the same benefit.

What does the Bill say?

In the Bill’s statement of objects and reasons, the government says that due to Uttarakhand’s geographical structure, people living in remote areas lead a difficult life, especially the women. Because of this, their standard of living is below the women of other states. Also, women have very little representation in the state’s public services.
The Bill proposes to plug these gaps by providing women with 30 per cent horizontal reservation in public services and posts, in addition to the existing quotas applicable in the state. The beneficiaries need to be women with a domicile certificate of Uttarakhand.
The reservation will be applicable for posts in local authorities, Uttarakhand co-operative committees in which the holding of the state government is not less than 51 per cent of share capital, board or corporation or legal body established by any central or Uttarakhand State Act which is under the ownership or control of the state government, and any educational institution under the ownership and control of the state government or which receives grants in aid from the state government.
If enough women are not available to fill the reserved seats, they wil be filled with qualified male candidates in the order of proficiency.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

World Malaria Report 2022

Each year, WHO’s World malaria report offers in-depth information on the latest trends in malaria control and elimination at global, regional and country levels.
The report highlights progress towards global targets and describes opportunities and challenges for curbing and eliminating the disease.

About:

This year’s report includes 3 new sections on:

(1)   global and regional initiatives launched in 2021 and 2022;
(2)   global malaria surveillance and country-level case studies on surveillance systems assessments; and
(3)   research and development.

The report also includes an expanded section on threats to malaria control, with a focus on the declining effectiveness of insecticide-treated mosquito nets.

Key highlights of the report:

Despite continued impact of COVID-19, malaria cases and deaths remained stable in 2021.
There were an estimated 247 million cases and 619 000 malaria deaths globally in 2021.
India accounted for 79% of cases and about 83% of all malaria deaths in WHO South-East AsiaRegion.
Malaria is caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through infected female Anophelesmosquitoes.
5 parasite species cause malaria in humans, and 2 of these P. falciparum (most prevalent onAfricancontinent) and P. vivax (prevalent outside of sub-Saharan Africa)– pose greatest threat.

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Aichi Targets

Delegates from 196 countries — Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) — are meeting in Montreal, Canada from December 7-21 with the aim to hammer out a new global agreement on halting environmental loss.

About:

Many of the 24 conservation targets under discussion at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) aim to avoid past mistakes and improve on the world’s last set of conservation goals — the Aichi Biodiversity Targets that expired in 2020.
No single country met all 20 Aichi Targets within its own borders, according to a September 2020 UN assessment.

Aichi Targets:

The Aichi Targets, adopted during the 2010 CBD summit in Nagoya, located in Japan’s Aichi prefecture, included goals such as reducing deforestation by at least half during the coming decade and curbing pollution so that it no longer harmed ecosystems.
The Aichi Biodiversity Targets laid out a 10-year plan (Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020), which had 20 global biodiversity targets, divided under five goals, with a deadline of 2020.
Strategic Goal A: Initiating action to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss.
Strategic Goal B: Taking action now to decrease the direct pressures on biodiversity.
Strategic Goal C: Continuing direct action to safeguard and, where necessary, restore biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Strategic Goal D: Efforts to ensure the continued provision of ecosystem services and to ensure access to these services, especially for the poor who most directly depend on them.
Strategic Goal E: Enhanced support mechanisms for: capacity-building; the generation, use and sharing of knowledge; and access to the necessary financial and other resources.

::Economy::

Heat-Resistant Variety of Wheat

The wheat varieties DBW187 and DBW222 have been found superior over HD-3086 as far as heat tolerance is concerned.

About:

During the crop season 2021-22, the varieties namely DBW187 and DBW222 have shown heat tolerance with yield gain of 3.6% and 5.4%, respectively as compared to HD-3086.
The Government aims to promote the use of heat-resistant varieties amongst the farmers through public and private partnership and providing seed directly to the farmers.
To promote the use of these varieties, the Indian Institute of Wheat and Barely Research (IIWBR), Karnal under ICAR has signed 250 Memorandum of Agreements (MoAs) for DBW 187 and 191 MoAs for DBW 222 with private companies for seed production.
The ICAR-IIWBR Karnal has initiated a specific research project entitled “Breeding high yielding wheat genotypes for stress conditions of warmer regions of India” on heat tolerant varieties.
Besides, ICAR-IIWBR Karnal is also collaborating with International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), Mexico on development of climate resilient wheat varieties.

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::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

Air-Breathing Scramjet Engine

The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) successfully conducted the hot test of scramjet engine.

About:

In an air-breathing scramjet engine, air from the atmosphere is rammed into the engine’s combustion chamber at a supersonic speed of more than Mach two.

Key findings about the process:

In the chamber, the air mixes with the fuel to ignite a supersonic combustion but the cruiser’s flight will be at a hypersonic speed of Mach six to seven.
So, it is called supersonic combustion ramjet or Scramjet.
Air from the atmosphere was then rammed into the scramjet engine’s combustion chamber at a supersonic speed.
The air mixed with the atomised fuel, the fuel was ignited and the scramjet engine revved into action.

Benefits:

Mastering the air-breathing scramjet technology will lead to the development of hypersonic missiles, faster civilian air transportation and facilities for putting satellites into orbit at a low cost.

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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 10 December 2022