Union Education Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’  launched the “MyNEP2020” Platform of  NCTE Web Portal. The platform seeks to invite suggestions/inputs/membership from the stakeholders for preparing draft for development of National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST) and National Mission for Mentoring Program membership (NMM).

The “MyNEP2020” platform will be operational from 1^st April 2021 to 15th May 2021.

This exercise of digital consultation envisages the participation of teachers, education professionals, academicians, & other stakeholders in preparing the documents on teacher policy for sustainable and positive change in the Teacher’s Education Sector. For preparing the documents on above two major recommendations of NEP 2020, NCTE will work in close consultation with individuals/organizations.

To commemorate the 50^th anniversary of Indian victory in the 1971 war, the year 2021 is being celebrated as ‘Swarnim Vijay Varsh’.

As part of Swarnim Vijay Varsh activites in Southern Naval Command, the Victory Flame lit by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is being carried to Lakshadweep and Minicoy group of Islands.

The President of India appointed Shri Justice Nuthalapati Venkata Ramana, the senior most Judge of the Supreme Court, to be the Chief Justice of India (present CJI S.A. Bobde).

A notification in this regard has been issued by the Department of Justice, Ministry of Law & Justice today. Justice Nuthalapati Venkata Ramana, will take over as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India on 24th April, 2021. He will be 48th Chief Justice of India.

He hails from Ponnavaram Village, Krishna District in Andhra Pradesh.

Appointment of the CJI:

The Chief Justice of India and the Judges of the Supreme Court (SC) are appointed by the President under clause (2) of Article 124 of the Constitution.

• India ranks 40 in the 2021 index among the 53 global economies. In 2020, India ranked 40 as well.
• Among BRICS nations, India registered the second-highest growth with an overall improvement of over 13%,
• It is an annual report that the US Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Centre(GIPC) releases.
• The Index evaluates  Intellectual Property  rights in 53 global economies from patent and copyright policies to commercialisation of IP assets and ratification of international treaties. These economies represent together over 90% of global GDP.

• India has been ranked 139 out of 149 countries in the list of UN World Happiness Report 2021, in 2020, India was ranked 144 out of 156 countries.
• Finland ranked the top spot in the report with India’s neighbours Pakistan ranking 105th, Bangladesh at 101st and China on 84th on the report.
• Finalnd is followed by Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Norway.
• The World Happiness Report 2021, issued by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, focuses on the effects of  COVID-19 and how people all over the world have fared.

The Parameters used for measuring happiness in the report : The survey used the Gallup World Poll. This world poll asked people to vote on three indicators:

• Life Evaluations
• Positive Emotions
• Negative Emotions
  

• ‘Anamaya’, the Tribal Health Collaborative was launched by the government. The Collaborative is a multi-stakeholder initiative of Tribal Affairs Ministry supported by Piramal Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
• It will converge efforts of various Government agencies and organisations to enhance the health and nutrition status of the tribal communities of India and to end all preventable deaths among the tribal communities of India.
• It aims to build a sustainable, high-performing health eco-system to address the key health challenges faced by the tribal population of India.
• It will begin its operations with 50 tribal, Aspirational Districts (with more than 20% ST population) across 6 high tribal population states.

About the Aspirational Districts’ Programme: 

• Aspirational Districts are those districts in India, that are affected by poor socio-economic indicators.
• The Government is committed to raising the living standards of its citizens and ensuring inclusive growth for all – “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas” on those grounds, the name  aspirational signifies that the  improvement in these districts can lead to the overall improvement in human development in India.
• The 115 districts were identified from all over the country. The programme is monitored by the  NITI Aayog. The  program focuses on  the real-time monitoring and progress of aspirational districts.
• The programme is based on 49 indicators from the five identified thematic areas, which concentrates on improving people’s  education, health and nutrition, their financial inclusion, agriculture and water resources, their skill development and needs of basic infrastructure.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has approved the National Rare Disease Policy 2021. 
It aims to increase focus on indigenous research and local production of medicines, to lower the cost of treatment of rare diseases, to screen and detect rare diseases early at early stages, which will in turn help in their prevention.

Major Provisions of the Policy:
Categorization:
The policy has categorized rare diseases in three groups:
Group 1: Disorders amenable to one-time curative treatment.
Group 2: Those requiring long term or lifelong treatment.
Group 3: Diseases for which definitive treatment is available but challenges are to make optimal patient selection for benefit, very high cost and lifelong therapy.

Financial Support: Those who are suffering from rare diseases listed under Group 1 will have the financial support of up to Rs. 20 lakh under the umbrella scheme of Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi.

TRIFED under Ministry of Tribal Affairs has now launched “Sankalp se Siddhi” – Village & Digital Connect Drive. Starting from April 1, 2021, this 100 day drive will entail 150 teams (10 in each region from TRIFED and State Implementation Agencies/Mentoring Agencies/Partners) visiting ten villages each. 100 villages in each region and 1500 villages in the country will be covered in the next 100 days. The main aim of this drive is to activate the Van Dhan Vikas Kendras in these villages.

Among all of TRIFED’s initiatives that have been put in place to help the disadvantaged tribal sections of the society, the Scheme, Mechanism for Marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) Through Minimum Support Price (MSP) & Development of Value Chain for MFP’ that provides MSP to gatherers of forest produce and introduces value addition and marketing through tribal groups and clusters and Van Dhan Vikas Kendras has found widespread acceptance across the country. Especially during the pandemic in 2020, this scheme has emerged as a panacea for the tribals.

The objective of the MSP for MFP scheme is to establish a framework for ensuring fair prices for the tribal gatherers, primary processing, storage, transportation etc. while ensuring sustainability of the resource base addressing the problems tribals are facing such as perishable nature of the produce, lack of holding capacity, lack of marketing infrastructure, exploitation by middle men, and timely government intervention. Rs 200 crore Sales during the next 12 months is targeted as a result of this initiative once the VDVKs are activated in these 1500 villages. The visiting teams will also identify locations and shortlist potential VDVKs for clustering as TRIFOOD, and SFURTI units as larger enterprises.  They will also identify tribal artisans and other groups and empanel them as suppliers so that they can have access to larger markets through the Tribes India network – both physical outlets and TribesIndia.com.

According to the recent data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India’s Foreign Exchange (Forex) reserves declined by USD 2.986 billion to reach USD 579.285 billion in the week ended 26th March 2021.

The gold reserve component of the Forex Reserve increased whereas the other components – Special Drawing Rights (SDR), the Foreign Currency Assets (FCA) and the Reserve Position witnessed decline.

About the Foreign Exchange Reserves
Foreign exchange reserves are assets held on reserve by a central bank in foreign currencies, which can include bonds, treasury bills and other government securities.
It needs to be noted that most foreign exchange reserves are held in US dollars.

Motive behind Holding Forex Reserves: 
Supporting and maintaining confidence in the policies for monetary and exchange rate management.
Provides the capacity to intervene in support of the national or union currency.

Limits external vulnerability by maintaining foreign currency liquidity to absorb shocks during times of crisis or when access to borrowing is curtailed.

• India’s Forex Reserve include:
  Foreign Currency Assets
  Gold reserves
  Special Drawing Rights
  Reserve position with the IMF

Indian Railways on April 5, completed the Arch closure of the iconic Chenab Bridge.

Chenab Bridge, the world’s highest railway bridge (after completion), part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project (USBRL), set an important construction milestone today with completion of the steel arch of the iconic Chenab Bridge. This was one of the most difficult part of the bridge over Chenab. This achievement is a major leap towards the completion of the 111 k.m. long winding stretch from Katra to Banihal. It is arguably the biggest civil-engineering challenge faced by any railway project in India in recent history. The 5.6-metre last piece of metal was fitted at the highest point today and joined  the two arms of the arch that currently stretch towards each other from both the banks of the river. This completed the shape of the arch that will then loom over the treacherous Chenab, flowing some 359 metres below