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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 21 December 2020

::NATIONAL::

The Madhya Pradesh government has issued an order for appointment of committees led by mothers to ensure better monitoring of services delivered at anganwadis or daycare centres.
The mothers will keep a watch on weekly ration distribution to beneficiaries as well as suggest nutritious and tasteful recipes for meals served to children at the centres. The move is aimed at strengthening community response to the problem of hunger and malnutrition.

Called ‘MatruSahyogini Samiti’ or Mothers’ Cooperation Committees, these will comprise 10 mothers at each anganwadi, representing the concerns of different sets of beneficiaries under the Integrated Child Development Services, or the National Nutrition Mission -children aged between six months and three years, children between three years and six years, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
According to the order issued earlier this month, the committees will include mothers of beneficiary children as well as represented by pregnant women and lactating mothers, who are enrolled under the scheme.
The scheme includes a package of six services, including supplementary nutrition, health services including vaccination, early education, among others.
The committees will also include a woman ‘panch’ (elected village leader), women active in the community and eager to volunteer their support to the scheme, teachers from the local school, and women heads of self-help groups.
The mothers will monitor the weekly distribution of take-home ration as well as coordinate with self-help groups engaged in preparing hot cooked meals for daily distribution to beneficiaries at anganwadis to ensure good quality.

to make such food tasteful and nutrition;
ensure that all children as well as pregnant women and lactating mothers due for vaccines receive them;
stay alert about malnourished and severe malnourished children in the community,
ensure they receive benefits from anganwadis and make parents of such children aware about the benefits available to them through the government.

MoUs with TRIFED and other agencies have been signed for defining convergence mechanism inimplementation of PM FME scheme (PM Formalisation of Micro food processing Enterprises Scheme).
PM FME scheme is a Centrally Sponsored scheme of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries(MoFPI) for providing financial, technical and businesssupport for upgradation of existing micro food processing enterprises.

The United Arab Emirates’ top diplomat has publicly acknowledged a so-far unexplained ban on visitors from Pakistan, which travel agents say also targets tourists and laborers from a dozen Muslim-majority countries amid the pandemic and the UAE’s normalization of ties with Israel.
The reported visa restrictions targeting countries such as Lebanon, Kenya, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen came just as tourists began arriving in the Persian Gulf country on Israeli passports following the normalization agreement.
The Emirati and Israeli governments are hammering out a mutual visa waiver agreement to grant Israeli tourists visas on arrival.
Gastrodiaagnicellus
Gastrodiaagnicellus, a newly discovered orchid has been named “the ugliest orchid in the world.”
It has been discovered in the forests of Madagascar.

Gastrodiaagnicellus, one of 156 plants and fungal species named by Kew scientists and their partners around the world in 2020, has been crowned “the ugliest orchid in the world”.
“The 11 mm flowers of this orchid are small, brown and rather ugly,” Kew said in its list of the top 10 discoveries of the year. The orchid depends on fungi for nutrition and has no leaves or any other photosynthetic tissue.
The result was that it was not just a new species, but a new genus and a new family, called Tiganophytonkarasense.
While around 2,000 plants are named new to science annually, new families are only published around once a year.
The shrub has bizarre scaly leaves and grows in extremely hot natural salt pans, hence its name Tiganophyton, derived from the Latin ‘Tigani’, or ‘frying pan’, and ‘Phyton’, or ‘plant’.

Centre Approves Revised Estimate for Northeast Power Project.
Scheme is implemented through POWERGRID, a PSU under Ministry of Power and is being funded withassistance of World Bank fund.
Objective of NERPSIP is total economic development of North Eastern Region (NER) and to strengthenIntra-State Transmission & Distribution Infrastructure in NER.
Beneficiary states are Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura.
It will create a reliable power grid and improve NER States’ connectivity to the upcoming load centers.

China’s Chang’e 5 lunar mission returned to Earth carrying around 2 kilograms of the first fresh rock samples from the moon in 44 years.
The spacecraft landed in Siziwang Banner, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, a little earlier than 2 a.m. (Beijing Time), Chinese state news agency, quoting the China National Space Administration (CNSA). Zhang Kejian, head of the CNSA, declared the Chang’e-5 mission a success.

The retrieved re-entry capsule of Chang’e-5 will be airlifted to Beijing, where the capsule will be opened and the samples will be ready for analysis and study, according to Chinese state news agency.
The probe, named after the ancient Chinese goddess of the moon, first took off from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in Hainan on November 24th.
Two of the Chang’e 5’s four modules landed on the moon on 1st December and collected about 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of samples by scooping them from the surface and drilling 2 meters into the moon’s crust. The samples were deposited in a sealed container that was carried back to the return module by an ascent vehicle.
The samples were retrieved from a previously unvisited area of the moon. These are also the first samples to be collected by any country after Russia in 1976.
The latest samples come from a part of the moon known as the OceanusProcellarum, or Ocean of Storms, near a site called the Mons Rumker that was believed to have been volcanic in ancient times.
Chang’e-5, a three-week operation underlined China’s growing prowess and ambition in space.
It was China’s most successful mission till date. With this, China became the third country after the United States and the Soviet Union, to collect lunar samples.

Robert Lewandowski won his biggest personal prize, showing that a forward not named Messi or Ronaldo can be voted the world’s best soccer player.
The Poland captain was named the FIFA Best Men’s Player for 2020 after his 55-goal season lifted Bayern Munich to a sweep of international and domestic trophies.
Lewandowski topped a three-player shortlist that included Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Voting was by a global jury of national team captains and coaches, plus selected journalists and fans.
FIFA hosted the virtual ceremony in Zurich, its president Gianni Infantino went to Munich to present the trophy in person.
Lewandowski joined Luka Modric, the Croatia and Real Madrid midfielder who won in 2018, as the only players in the past 13 years to deny both Messi and Ronaldo the victory.