Why in news?

• Recently, Mirat-ul-Akhbar completed 200 years.
• First published on 12 April 1822, Mirat-ul-Akhbar was India’s first Persian Journal started by Raja Ram Mohan Roy.
• It was published on a weekly basis on Fridays.
• In 1823, it was stopped from publication under the Licensing Regulations for Press.
• Other Contributions of Raja Ram Mohan Roy: Set up Hindu College (1817), Brahmo Samaj (1828), fought against Sati tradition, child marriage etc.

Why in news?

• Ministry of Tourism launches the Utsav Portal at the inaugural day of Amrit Samagam Conference.
• Utsav Portal website, digital initiative, aims to showcase all the events, festivals and live darshans across India to promote different regions of the country as popular tourist destinations worldwide.
• Objective is to increase tourism awareness, attractions, and opportunities by providing tourists with contextual digital experiences in the form of visually appealing photographs and stills from the events.

Why in news?

• The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)and Arbor Day Foundation have jointly recognised Mumbai and Hyderabad as the ‘2021 Tree City of the World.
• The two Indian cities have won the recognition for their “commitment to growing and maintaining urban trees and greenery in building healthy, resilient and happy cities”.
• It must be noted that Hyderabad has been recognised for a second consecutive year. In 2021, Hyderabad was the only city in India to be recognised as a ‘ 2020 Tree City of the World’. Apart from Hyderabad and Mumbai 136 other cities from 21 countries have been recognised in the third edition of the Tree City of the World list.

About the programme:

• The United Nations’ ‘Tree City of the World’ programme provides direction, assistance, and worldwide recognition for communities’ dedication to its urban forest, and provides a framework for a healthy, sustainable urban forestry.

Why in news?

• Ecuador, a South American Country, became the first country in the world to give legal rights to wild animals. The highest court in the country has ruled in favour of the case that focused on a woolly monkey named “Estrellita” who was taken from her home to a zoo, where she passed just a week later.
• The court decided to rule in favour of Estrellita and said that her rights had been violated by the government. However, they added that the animal’s rights were also violated by the owner when she removed her from her natural habitat at a young age. The Court has finally stated that animals are subject to rights protected by the rights of nature.

Why in news?

• For the first time in the last 11 years, the number of domestic patent filing surpassed the number of international patent filing at Indian patent office.
• Overall, in the last 7 years the total filings of patents have increased by more than 50%.
• India’s ranking in Global Innovation Index (GII) has increased to 46th in 2021 as compared to 81st in 2015-16.
• Intellectual Property refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce. E.g. patents, copyright and trademarks.

Factors behind increasing domestic patents

• National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy (2016) for a Creative India; Innovative India.
• Consistent efforts from Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), as a nodal point on policy implementation, towards strengthening of the IPR regime.
• Scheme for IPR Awareness
  • Reduction in time of patent examination from 72 months in Dec 2016 to 5-23 months at present, for different technological areas.
  • Fee concessions like 10% rebate on online filing, 80% fee concession for Start-ups, Small Entities and educational institutions.
  • Expedited examination for Startups and MSMEs along with other categories.
  • India Innovation Index (I3) by NITI Aayog to promote innovation etc.
• GII, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) along with Cornell University and INSEAD, takes the pulse of these innovations and ranks the innovation ecosystem performance of different countries on 81 different indicators.

Why in news?

• Barbara forest is significant as it is known as Asia’s largest Teak and Sal forest.
• It is located near Chilika lake in coastal Odisha and is inhabited by Sabara tribes.
  • Ecotourism is defined as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education”.
• It aims to support Forest & Wildlife conservation by providing alternative livelihood to Forest dependent communities in State.
• In order to promote ecotourism, Ministry of Tourism has also formulated a Draft National Strategy and Roadmap for Sustainable Tourism with focus on ecotourism.

Why in news?

• Recently, indigenously developed helicopter launched Anti-Tank Guided Missile ‘HELINA’ was successfully flight tested.

About HELINA (Helicopter based NAG):

• It is third generation fire and forget class anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) system mounted on the Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH).
• The system has all weather day and night capability.
• It can defeat battle tanks with conventional armour as well as explosive reactive armour.
• Developed by: Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

Why in news?

• It was launched recently which is an annual one-month long people centric fuel conservation campaign of the Petroleum Conservation Research Association (PCRA).
• Its objective is to spread the message of fuel conservation and greener environment across India.
• PCRA is a registered society set up under the aegis of Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas.
• It helps the government in proposing policies and strategies for petroleum conservation, aimed at reducing excessive dependence of the country on oil requirement.

Why in news?

• It was recently released by Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).
• NTRS 2022 presents the annual report of cargo clearance process through four categories of ports-
  • seaport,
  • Inland Container Depots (ICDs),
  • Air Cargo Complexes (ACC) and
  • Integrated Check Posts (ICPs).
• NTRS 2022 has reported imp rovement in the average cargo release time for all the four port categories in 2022.
• Time Release Study is a performance measurement tool for assessing cargo clearance process of international trade, as recommended by World Trade Organization (WTO) under Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and World Customs Organization (WCO).

Why in news?

• SECI’s objective is to develop healthy competition among the states to perform better and provide quality energy services to users in their states.
  • The index is based on 2019-20 data.
  • The states have been categorized based on size and geographical differences as larger states, smaller states, and UTs.
• Index ranks the states’ performance on 6 parameters-
  • Discom performance
  • Access, acessibility and reliability of eergy
  • Clean energy inititatives
  • Energy efficiency
  • Environmental sustainability
  • New initiatives

Key findings

• Gujarat, Kerala (access, affordability and reliability category), and Punjab (discom performance) have been ranked as top performers in larger states category.
• In smaller states category, Goa, Tripura and Manipur emerged as top-performing states.
• Among UTs top performers are Chandigarh, Delhi, and Daman & Diu/Dadra & Nagar Haveli.

Significance of the index

• Can be used by the states and UTs to benchmark their performance against their peers,
• Analyse the potential challenges to develop better policy mechanisms, and
• Efficiently manage their energy resources.

Recommendations made

• Best practices for all indicators in better-performing states can be adopted by other states to improve their performance.
• Data updation and validation need to be a priority of state governments going forward to help them design better policies.