Why in news?

• India’s Union Minister of Commerce and Industry and Australian Trade Minister signed India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (IndAus ECTA) in a virtual ceremony with the presence of Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and Australian PM Scott Morrison.
• The above agreement is set to provide zero-duty access to 96 per cent of India’s exports to Australia including shipments from key sectors such as engineering goods, gems and jewellery, textiles, apparel and leather.
• It also set to provide 85 per cent of Australia’s exports zero-duty access to the Indian market, including coal, sheep meat and wool, and lower duty access on Australian wines, almonds, lentils, and certain fruits.
• The bilateral trade was emphasised to raise the existing 27 billion USD to 45-50 billion USD in the upcoming 5 years.

About India & Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA)

• This is the first trade agreement that India has signed with a developed country after a decade.
• Also, India will be offering 70 percent of its tariff lines, which includes export interest of Australia such as raw materials and intermediaries such as coal, mineral ores and wines etc.
• Australian goods exports to India (valued at more than $12.6 billion a year), rising to almost 91 per cent (valued at $13.4 billion) over 10 years.
• Zero-duty access for Indian goods is set to be expanded to 100 per cent over five years under the agreement.
• Under the agreement, Indian graduates from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) will be granted extended post-study work visas.

Exports and Imports:

• ‘Australia is the 17th largest trading partner of India, and New Delhi will be Canberra’s 9th largest partner.
• India’s goods exports worth United States Dollar (USD) 6.9 billion and imports aggregated to USD 15.1 billion in 2021. 2021 the bilateral trade in goods and services stood at USD 27.5 billion.

Why in news?

• In order to meet the domestic food security needs of poor population, India has invoked peace clause of World Trade Organisation (WTO) for exceeding the 10% ceiling on support offered to rice farmers.
• India informed the WTO that value of its rice production in 2020-21 was $45.56 billion while it gave subsidies worth $6.9 billion, which comes out to 15.14% as against the permitted 10%.
• India became the first country to invoke peace clause in 2020 as rice subsidies exceeded cap in 2018-19.
• Under peace clause, WTO member countries are refrained from challenging any breach in prescribed subsidy ceiling given by a developing nation at dispute settlement forum of WTO.

Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and Peace Clause

• 3 Pillars of AoA:
• Under market access conditions, both developed and developing nations were to convert all non-tariff barriers into tariffs.
• Domestic support includes the classification of subsidies into ‘boxes’ depending their effects on production and trade.
• Export Subsidies and other methods used to make exports artificially competitive.
• AoA contains a “due restraint” or “peace clause” which regulates the application of other WTO agreements to subsidies in respect of agricultural products.

Green Box

• These measures are exempted from reduction commitments and, indeed, can even be increased without any financial limitation under the WTO.
• Applies to both developed and developing country members but in the case of developing countries special treatment is provided in respect of governmental stockholding programmes for food security purposes and subsidized food prices for urban and rural poor. (India’s PDS does not come under Green Box)

Amber Box

• All domestic support measures considered to distort production and trade (with some exceptions) fall into the amber box.
• For instance, MSP, Procurement Price, sum total of subsidies on inputs like fertilizer, water, credit, power, etc.

Blue Box

• These are basically Amber Box subsidies, but they tend to limit the production. Any support that would normally be in the amber box, is placed in the blue box if the support also requires farmers to limit their production.
• These measures are also exempted from reduction commitments.

Special and Differential Treatment Box

• It comprises of investment subsidies like tractors and pump sets. Agricultural input services like fertilizers to farmers etc.
• SOT box subsidies can be given by only developing and low-income countries.

Why in news?

• The International Children’s Book Day (ICBD) is organised annually on the 2nd of April since 1967, by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). IBBY is an international non-profit organization, to inspire a love of reading and to call attention to children’s books.
• In 2022, Canada is hosting International Children’s Book Day with this chosen theme: “Stories are wings that help you soar every day.” Every year, a different international section of IBBY hosts a children’s books event on or around April 2 (which is the birthday of classic children’s book author Hans Christian Andersen).
• The host country picks a theme and invites a well-known author and illustrator to create a message for children around the world.

Why in news?

• Dr S Raju has taken over as the Director-General of the Geological Survey of India (GSI) with effect from April 01, 2022. He succeeds  S. Garkhal who superannuated on March 31, 2022. Prior to this, Dr Raju was holding the post of Additional Director General and National Head, Mission-III & IV at GSI HQ.
• S. Raju joined the Geological Survey of India in 1988. During the initial period of his career, he was instrumental in geological mapping of Bundelkhand Granitic Complex in Uttar Pradesh and also executed an investigation on gold mineralization and carried out a geo-environmental appraisal of Jhansi district of Bundelkhand Region, Uttar Pradesh.
• With his expertise, he has also supplemented in the geology of Tamil Nadu especially, establishing the metamorphic and techtono-magmatic history of the Satyamangalam Group of rocks.

Why in news?

• Uttar Pradesh has become the top producer of vegetables, getting back its first position by demoting West Bengal to the second position, with a difference of a million tonnes in production in 2021–22 Crop Year (CY) (July–June), after two years since 2020.
• Vegetable production in Uttar Pradesh is expected to be 29.58 million tonnes (mt) in the 2021–22 crop year (July–June), down from 29.16 mt in 2020–21, while West Bengal output is expected to dip to 28.23 mt in 2021-22 from 30.33 mt in 2020-21.
• Other top producers of vegetables as per the data in the current year 2021-22 include Madhya Pradesh at 20.59 mt, Bihar at 17.77 mt and Maharashtra at 16.78 mt.
• Andhra Pradesh remains the top fruit producer. India’s horticulture output is likely to drop marginally by 0.4% to 333.25 mt in 2021–22 from the previous year (2020–21) as production of vegetables, spices, and plantation crops is set to decline.
• In 2021–22, Andhra Pradesh is expected to produce 18.01 million tonnes of fruit, up from 17.7 million tonnes in 2020–21. Maharashtra is anticipated to produce 12.3 million tonnes of fruit, up from 11.74 million tonnes in 2020–21.

Why in news?

• National Medical Commission has recommended a modified Maharishi Charak Shapath for candidates on introduction to medical education.
• Acharya Charak, also known as Pranacharya Charak, was born in Kashmir and remembered as Father of Indian Medicine.
• He was an Ayurvedic practitioner and considered to be a court physician of King Kanishka.
• He wrote Charaka Samhita, a Sanskrit text on Ayurveda dealing with subjects such as basic physiological and anatomical details of humans, Tridosha (vata, pitta and kapha), etc.
  • Charaka Samhita is dedicated to Maharshi Bharadwaja, as it traces its root to Atharva Veda with verses from Maharshi Bharadwaja to treat various ailments.
  • Agnivesha Samhita (by Rishi Agnivesha) on Ayurveda is also mentioned in Charaka Samhita.

Why in news?

• Accessible India Campaign’s targets will finally be achieved in June 2022.
• The original deadlines for different projects under the three heads were between July 2016 and July 2019. These have now been revised to June 14, 2022.

About Accessible India Campaign (Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan)

• Objective -to achieve universal accessibility for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).
• For creating universal accessibility for Persons with Disabilities (PwD), the campaign has been divided into three verticals;
  • Built-up environment,
  • Transportation sector (airports, railways, public transport) and
  • Ict ecosystem (websites and public documents, sign language interpreters and TV viewing).
• Ministry: Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment

Why in news?

• Punjab will be the first state in the country to provide “digitized form J1” in real-time to farmers from this Rabi procurement season.
• ‘J form’ is the sale receipt of a farmer’s agricultural produce in mandis (grain market) which acts as an income proof for a farmer who sells his crop.
• These forms were earlier issued manually by arthiyas (commission agents).
• It can be used for raising finance, IT waivers, subsidy claims, farmers’ insurance etc.
• It will act as a record of land under cultivation for both the wheat and paddy crops in state.
• J Forms can also be stored in DigiLocker.

Why in news?

• On 31 March 2022, The H aryana Agriculture Minister J P Dalal launched the portal of ‘Mukhya Mantri Bagwani Bima Yojana’ with an initial corpus of Rs 10 crore for the scheme. Under which the farmers will be compensated for the damage caused to their crops due to adverse weather and natural calamities.
• The scheme compensates a sum of Rs 30,000 per acre for vegetable and Spices and Rs 40,000 per acre for fruits, which will be compensated to the farmers upon claim via four categories such as 25 percent, 50 percent, 75 percent and 100 percent based on the survey.
• The farmers contribution will be only 2.5 percent of the insured amount i.e.Rs 750 per acre for vegetable and Spices and Rs 1000 per acre for fruits.
• The Scheme covers 21 crops – 14 vegetables (tomato, onion, potato, cauliflower, peas, carrot, okra, bottle gourd, bitter gourd, brinjal, green chilli, capsicum, cabbage, radish), 2 spices (turmeric, garlic) and 5 fruits (mango, kinnow, berry, guava, lychee).
• The scheme will be optional for all those farmers who will get registered under ‘Merl Fasal Mem Byora’ (a web portal through which the problems of the farmers of the state will be resolved).
• Monitoring of the scheme, review and resolution of disputes will be done through the state-level and district-level committees constituted under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana.

Why in news?

• On 31st March 2022, the Chief Justice of India (01), NV Ramana virtually launched the ‘Fast and Secured Transmission of Electronic Records’ (FASTER) programme.
• It is a digital platform to communicate interim orders, stay orders, bail orders etc., of the Supreme Court to authorities concerned through a secured electronic communication channel.
• It allows court orders to be transmitted in a quick and secure electronic format.
• Objective-To eliminate the situation in which inmates’ release is delayed even after the Supreme Court grants them bail.

About ‘Fast and Secured Transmission of Electronic Records’ (FASTER) programme: 

• The FASTER program was created in response to a news report published in July 2021, regarding prisoner release delays.
• lt is developed on war footing by the Registry in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
• All nodal officers have been connected through a specific Judicial Communication Network (JCN) by creating a secured pathway.
• Every proceeding will have digital signatures of authorized Nodal Officers of the Supreme Court as well as institutional digital signatures.
• Such directives would be received by all parties affected on time, allowing them to take the necessary actions.