Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 03 March 2021

::NATIONAL::

Union Minister for Social justice and Empowerment will virtually launch Sugamya Bharat App.
The App have been developed by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) under Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

About:

A Crowdsourcing Mobile Application is a means for sensitising and enhancing accessibility in the 3 pillars of the Accessible India Campaign i.e. built environment, transportation sector and ICT ecosystem in India.
The app provides for five main features, 4 of which are directly related to enhancing accessibility, while the fifth is a special feature meant only for Divyangjan for COVID related issues.
The accessibility related features are:

1. the registration of complaints of inaccessibility across the 3 broad pillars of the Sugamya Bharat Abhiyaan;

2. positive feedback of examples and best practices worth emulating being shared by people as jan-bhagidhari; Departmental updates; and

3. guidelines and circulars related to accessibility.

Features:

The Sugamya Bharat App is a simple to use Mobile App with an easy registration process, requiring only 3 mandatory fields, namely, Name, Mobile number and Email-id.
Registered users can raise issues related to accessibility being faced. The App has been provided with several user-friendly features like easy drop-down menus, videos in Hindi and English, along with sign language interpretation have been added demonstrating the process of registration and uploading complaints with photographs.
The App is made accessible for ease of use for persons with disabilities also with features such as font size adjustment, color contrasting option, text to speech, and having an integrated screen reader in Hindi and English.
It is available in 10 regional languages, namely, Hindi, English, Marathi, Tamil, Odia, Kannada, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, and Malayalam.
The App also has provision of easy photo uploads with geotagging option of the premise where accessibility intervention is required.
The App has provision for providing notifications to the users at the time of registration, regular status updates as well as at the time of resolution and closure of the complaint.

The Land Ports Authority of India (LPAI) has celebrated its 9th Foundation Day on 01 March 2021.
LPAI is a statutory body under Ministry of Home Affairs, to develop, sanitize and manage facilities for cross-border movement of passengers and goods at designated points along the international borders of India.

Key functions:

To address security imperatives at integrated check posts (ICP).
Construct roads, terminals and ancillary buildings at ICP.
Provide appropriate space and facilities for immigration, customs, security, taxation authorities, animaland plant quarantine, warehouses, cargo etc.

Archaeologists working at Pompeii have announced the discovery of a large ceremonial chariot, found with four wheels, its iron components, bronze and tin decorations, mineralised wood remains, and imprints of organic materials.

The excavation of the chariot

It is likely that the chariot was used as a transport vehicle by Roman elites during various ceremonies.
This chariot is “entirely unique in Italy” –– because of its state of preservation, and because it is not a chariot used for agricultural products or the activities of daily life.

Background:

Pompeii was a Roman town in Southern Italy’s Campania region situated along the Bay of Naples. The town was completely buried by volcanic ash after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, over 2,000 years ago.

Russia launched its space satellite Arktika-M.
It is the country’s first Arctic monitoring satellite to monitor the climate and environment in the Arctic region.
The Arctic has warmed more than twice as fast as the global average over the last three decades.
This opens up opportunities for huge oil and gas reserves that are being eyed by countries including theUnited States, Russia, Canada etc.

The NITI Aayog recently circulated a discussion paper on a proposed revision in the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013.

About:

Under Schedule-I of the Act, these subsidised prices were fixed for “a period of three years from the date of commencement of the Act”. While different states began implementing the Act at different dates, the deemed date of its coming into effect is July 5, 2013, and the three-year period was therefore completed on July 5, 2016.
The NFSA provides a legal right to persons belonging to “eligible households” to receive foodgrains at subsidised price– rice at Rs 3/kg, wheat at Rs 2/kg and coarse grain at Rs 1/kg — under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS).
These are called central issue prices (CIPs).
A revision of CIPs is one of the issues that have been discussed. The other issues are updating of the population coverage under the NFSA, and beneficiary identification criteria.
Under sub-section (1) of Section 3 of the Act, the term “eligible households” comprises two categories — “priority households”, and families covered by the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY).
Priority households are entitled to receive 5 kg of foodgrains per person per month, whereas AAY households are entitled to 35 kg per month at the same prices.

NITI Aayog proposal:

The discussion has been held under the chairmanship of Prof Ramesh Chand, Member, NITI Aayog.
The NITI Aayog has suggested that the national rural and urban coverage ratio be reduced from the existing 75-50 to 60-40.
To make these changes in the law, the government will have to amend subsection (2) of Section 3 of the NFSA. For this, it will require parliamentary approval.
Besides the Food Ministry and the NITI Aayog, discussions on the proposed revisions include the Chief Economic Adviser and top officers of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

Implication of the revision for the Centre and the states:

If the national coverage ratio is revised downward, the Centre can save up to Rs 47,229 crore (as estimated by the NITI Aayog paper). However, the move may be opposed by some of the states.
On the other hand, if the rural-urban coverage ratio remains at 75-50, then the total number of people covered will increase from the existing 81.35 crore to 89.52 crore —an increase of 8.17 crore.
This estimate by the NITI Aayog is based on the projected 2020 population, and, according to the paper, will result in an additional subsidy requirement of Rs 14,800 crore.

The Udaipur Science Centre, at Udaipur, Tripura was dedicated to the people by the Governor of Tripura.

About:

Udaipur Science Centre is the 22nd Science Centre which has been developed by National Council of Science Museums (NCSM) and handed over to the State Governments under the Ministry of Culture’s Scheme for Promotion of Culture of Science.
This Science Centre has been developed at a cost of Rs 6.00 crore funded jointly by Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India and Dept. of Science, Technology & Environment, Government of Tripura.
With this; NCSM has now set-up science centres in all the north eastern states.