Prelim Snippets 02-08-2019

 WORLD BREASTFEEDING WEEK

Context: The Food and Nutrition Board, Ministry of Women and Child Development, is organizing a number of activities during the World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) being observed from 1st to 7th August 2019.

  • Theme: “Empower Parents, Enable Breastfeeding”
  •  Focus: Protection, Promotion, and Support of breastfeeding.
The objectives of World Breastfeeding Week are:
  • To create awareness among the parents about breastfeeding
  • Encourage parents to adopt breastfeeding
  •  Creating awareness about the importance of initiation and exclusive breastfeeding, and adequate and appropriate complementary feeding
  • Providing advocacy material about the importance of breastfeeding.
  • The activities being organized during the World Breastfeeding Week are symposiums for lactating mothers and anganwadi workers to create awareness about the importance of breastfeeding
  • Apart from this, exhibitions, on nutrition, displaying low cost nutritious diets for infants and young children will also be organized at grassroots level.
  • In addition to this, awareness programmes will be held at the village level through puppet shows, skits, dance and drama, films, slide shows, AV Spots and rallies.
  • This important nutrition intervention will help in breaking the vicious cycle of malnutrition and aid the Government to achieve National Nutrition Goals and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 2030.
  • According to WHO, increasing breastfeeding to near-international levels will help in saving more than 800 000 lives every year, the majority being children under 6 months.

GHAR-GHAR DASTAK GHAR GHAR PUSTAK

Context: Ministry of Culture and Tourism (I/C) launched the Mobile Library Buses procured under C.S.R assistance from Airports Authority of India in New Delhi.

  • The Programme was organized by Delhi Public Library of Ministry of Culture.
About the Scheme:
  • The Mobile Library Buses were launched under the “Ghar Ghar Dastak Ghar Ghar Pustak” Scheme of the Delhi Public Library.
  • Aim: To provide books to the citizens of Delhi, especially, the residents of slums, resettlement colonies and rural areas.
Delhi Public Library:
  • It is a national depository library in the Indian state of Delhi.
  • The library has more than 30 branches across the state. The DPL has started its services from the NCR, initially from Noida
  • The Library was established in 1951 as a pilot project sponsored by UNESCO and the Government of India.
  • It functions under the administrative control of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.

NATIONAL DIGITAL HEALTH BLUEPRINT REPORT

Context: The Ministry of Health is organising a stakeholder consultation for seeking comments/suggestions on the National Digital Health Blueprint (NDHB) report.

  • In order to fulfil the vision of National Health Policy 2017, the Committee constituted by the Health Ministry to create an implementation framework for the National Health Stack (NHS)
  • It has come up with the National Digital Health Blueprint after surveying the global best practices in adoption of digital technologies holistically

 TIME RELEASE STUDY (TRS)

Context: The Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, as part of its strategic commitment to improve global trade, is conducting India’s first national Time Release Study (TRS)

About:
  • The exercise will be conducted at the same time across 15 ports including sea, air, land and dry ports which cumulatively account for 81% of total Bills of Entries for import and 67% of Shipping Bills for export filed within India.
  • It will be institutionalized on an annual basis, during the same period every year hereafter.
  • This initiative will help India maintain the upward trajectory on Ease of Doing Business, particularly on the Trading Across Borders indicator which measures the efficiency of the cross-border trade ecosystem.
  • Last year India’s ranking on the indicator improved from 146 to 80.
About TRS:
  • The TRS is an internationally recognized tool advocated by World Customs Organization to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of international trade flows.
  • This initiative for accountable governance, will measure rule based and procedural bottlenecks (including physical touchpoints) in the clearance of goods, from the time of arrival until the physical release of cargo
  • Aim: To identify and address bottlenecks in the trade flow process and take the corresponding policy and operational measures required to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of border procedures, without compromising efficient trade control.

DECIPHERING INDUS SCRIPT

Context: New research could show the way to deciphering Indus script. So far, inscriptions from the ancient civilisation have remained an enigma

  • The paper, titled Interrogating Indus inscription to unravel their mechanism of meaning conveyance, points out that the inscriptions can be compared to the structured messages found on stamps, coupons, tokens and currency coins of modern times.
About:
  • Majority of the Indus Valley inscriptions were written logographically (by using word signs) and not by using phonograms (speech sounds units).
  • The popular hypothesis that the seals were inscribed with Proto-Dravidian or Proto-Indo-European names of the seal-owners does not hold ground.
  • This study could serve as a basis in future for the deciphering of the script.

PASHMINA

Context: Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) would set up a Pashmina testing centre in Leh, in partnership with the lab of Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC), Leh.

  • The standards testing will have lab, machines and scientists to check the quality of pashmina collected.
About Pashmina:
  • It is a fine type of Kashmiri wool.
  • The wool comes from a number of different breeds of the cashmere goat
    • Changthangi or Kashmir pashmina goat from the Changthang Plateau in Tibet and part of the Ladakh region
    • malra from the Kargil area in the Kashmir region
    • chegu from Himachal Pradesh in the Himalayas of northern India
  • Pashmina literally translates to “Soft Gold” in Kashmiri.
  • It is used to make shawl, scarf and wrap/stole.
  • Kashmir Pashmina has been assigned Geographical indication (GI) tag under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999.

ADARSH SMARAK SCHEME

Context:
  • Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has identified 100 monuments as ‘Adarsh Smarak’ for upgradation of existing facilities like wi-fi, cafeteria, interpretation centre, braille signage and modern toilets.
About:
  • Adarsh Smarak Scheme was launched by The Ministry of Culture in 2014 to promote, preserve and conserve the cultural heritage of the country.
  • It also aims to provide improved visitor amenities, especially for the physically challenged.
The Salient Features of The Scheme Are As Under:
  • To make monument visitor friendly.
  • To upgrade/provide wash rooms, drinking water, signages, cafeteria and wi-fi facility
  • To provide Interpretation and audio-video centres
  • To streamline waste water and garbage disposal and rain water harvesting system
  • To make monument accessible to differently abled
  • To implement Swachh Bharat Abhiyan
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