• The Union Higher Education Ministry has discontinued the ‘Shiksha Puraskar’ and the ‘Hinditar Bhashi Hindi Lekhak Puraskar’.
• The decision is part of the Union Home Ministry’s move to rationalise various awards instituted by the Centre.

ABOUT ‘SHIKSHA PURASKAR’

• It was launched by the Centre in 1992 for encouraging original writings in Hindi.
• Under the ‘Shiksha Puraskar’, five awards worth ₹1 lakh each is given every year.
• The ‘Shiksha Puraskar’ is given to books originally written in Hindi by Hindi and non-Hindi-speaking authors in various fields of knowledge such as education policy, method of teaching, Social Sciences, Philosophy, political thought, culture, communication, moral science, science and technology, medical science, law, Political Science, Environment, and other subjects related to education.

ABOUT HINDITAR BHASHI HINDI LEKHAK PURASKAR

• It is an award given to promote writings in Hindi by writers from non-Hindi speaking areas.
• It carries a cash prize of ₹50,000.

• The US Air Force recently released rare images of the weapon, the GBU-57, known as the “Massive Ordnance Penetrator”.

ABOUT GBU-57

• It is a GPS-guided, earth-penetrating strike weapon for use against hard and deeply buried targets.
• Manufactured by-Boeing.
• It is used to destroy deeply entrenched enemy bunkers such as those concealing a supply of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
• Dimensions
  • 5 feet long with a diameter of 31.5 inches.
  • Weight: 14,000 kg
• The warhead case is made from a special high-performance steel alloy that can reportedly penetrate up to 200 feet of concrete.
• The bomb is probably carrying a mix of AFX-757 — a standard explosive — and PBXN-114, a relatively new explosive compound.
• B-2 stealth bomber is the only aircraft that can deploy the bomb.
  • It can carry two of the bombs at a time.
• The bomb is equipped with a delayed-action fuse, allowing the warhead to survive the impact, not detonating until the bomb has stopped traveling underground.

• India is hosting the 44^th edition of the coveted annual ISO COPOLCO Plenary from 23-26 May 2023 in New Delhi.
• The event is being organized by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the national standards body of India.

ABOUT COMMITTEE ON CONSUMER POLICY

• ISO COPOLCO, or the Committee on Consumer Policy, is a committee of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) responsible for promoting consumer interests in the standardization process and for ensuring that standards are developed with the needs of consumers in mind.
• COPOLCO members are ISO members.
• Objectives:
  • helping consumers to benefit from standardization,
  • improving consumer participation in national and international standardization.
  • exchange of information on the experience of consumer participation in the development
• COPOLCO offers a range of training and events including an annual workshop for consumers, public authorities, manufacturers and standardization experts.
• ISO COPOLCO is reckoned as the major international event that brings together representatives from ISO member countries to discuss and develop strategies for accelerating the development of standards for the world.

ABOUT INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS ORGANISATION (ISO)

• ISO is an independent, non-governmental international organization made up of members from the national standards bodies of 168 countries.
• Central Secretariat- Geneva, Switzerland.
• Members – 168 countries (India is one of the founding members of ISO).

• The Ministry of Education and the World Bank recently held a workshop on School-to-Work Transition under the Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States (STARS) Program.

ABOUT STARS

• It is a centrally sponsored scheme.
• There are six Indian states which are covered under the STARS Project- Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Odisha.
• The project is being implemented through the Samagra Shiksha Scheme.
• The total cost of the project is approximately Rs. 5,718 crore.
• The World Bank has provided financial support worth Rs. 3700 crores through International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which is the lending arm of the World
• Its focus is on those elements that will most directly support school education enhancement.
• 2 major components
  • Strengthening of learning assessment systems, Establishing a National Assessment Center (PARAKH) etc. at National level.
• Strengthening Early Childhood Education, classroom instruction, Vocational education etc. at state level.

ABOUT PARAKH

• It stands for The Performance Assessment, Review, and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development.
• PARAKH has been launched as part of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP)-2020 that envisaged a standard-setting body to advise school boards regarding new assessment patterns and latest research, and promote collaborations between them.
• It will be tasked with holding periodic learning outcomes tests like the National Achievement Survey (NAS) and State Achievement Surveys.

• Since 2018, archaeologists have discovered 500 graves at the site of Juna Khatiya.

ABOUT JUNA KHATIYA

• Juna Khatiya is an Early Harappan burial site located about 30 km from Lakhpat in Kutch district, Gujarat.
• The burial site, spread over 16 hectares in a Kutch village, is considered to be the largest pre-urban Harappan cemetery.
• The burials discovered at this site date from 3,200 BCE to 2,600 BCE, predating Dholavira—a UNESCO World Heritage Site—and several other Harappan sites in the state.
• The site is important because others like Dholavira have a cemetery in and around the town, but no major habitation has been discovered near Juna Khatiya.
• The site demonstrates the transition from earth-mound burials to stone graves.
• Significant Findings
  • Burial structures are made of dressed sandstone and most of them are rectangular in plan followed by oval or circular ones.
  • Painting on Reserved Slip Ware jar is peculiar feature noticed.

Another distinctive feature includes beakers and other smaller vessels, found within large vessels

• A delegation of 45 students of various higher education institutions from Goa state, including IIT Goa, visited different temples like Bhutnath temple, Trilokinath temple, Panchavakra temple and a in the town as part of the second phase of the government’s ambitious cultural and educational endeavour ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat YuvaSangam’ programme.
• The nodal institute of Goa is IIT Goa, while the nodal institute of Himachal Pradesh is IIT Mandi.
• The programme gives an opportunity to the students of different states to know about the culture and tradition of different states where they visit under this programme.

• World Turtle Day is an annually observed on every May 23^rd.
• World Turtle Day is marked to raise awareness about the need to protect turtles and tortoises and their nesting sites around the world.
• World Turtle Day was founded by the American Tortoise Rescue (ATR), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection and welfare of turtles and tortoises.
• It was first celebrated in the year 2000.

• World Metrology Day is celebrated on 20^th May each year.
• It is an annual celebration of the signature of the Metre Convention on 20^th May 1875 by representatives of seventeen nations.
  • Metre Convention was an international treaty signed in Paris which established the basis for international agreement on units of measurement.
• The theme for World Metrology Day 2023 is ‘Measurements supporting the global food system’.

• Rising cases of lumpy skin disease (LSD) in livestock of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts of West Bengal were reported recently.

ABOUT LUMPY SKIN DISEASE

• It is an acute to chronic, highly infectious viral disease that affects cattle.
• It is caused by the lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV), which belongs to the genus capripoxvirus, a part of the poxviridae family (smallpox and monkeypox viruses are also a part of the same family).
• The first reported outbreak of LSD occurred in Zambia in 1929.
• The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that its mortality rate is less than 10%.
• Symptoms include –fever, nodules on the skin, mucous membranes and internal organs, emaciation, enlarged lymph nodes, oedema of the skin, and sometimes death.
• It is not transmissible to humans.
• Transmission: LSD is primarily spread between animals through the bite of vectors, such as mosquitoes and flies.
  • Indirectly it can spread from contaminated equipment, movement of infected animals
• Treatment:
  • It has no direct antiviral treatment.
  • There are no specific antiviral drugs for treating LSD, and treatment primarily involves supportive care for the affected animals by use of antibiotics, painkillers, and wound care sprays.
  • As there’s no treatment, vaccines are used to control disease transmission

Other info

• Lumpi-ProVacInd is a live attenuated vaccine developed jointly by ICAR’s National Research Centre on Equines and the Indian Veterinary Research Institute, which is targeted to protect cattle against the LSD virus, and provides 100% protection.
• It is expected to be commercially launched soon.

• The Union government is looking to formally launch the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) this year to “democratise e-commerce” and “to provide alternatives to proprietary e-commerce sites”.

ABOUT ONDC

• Background- The government wants to change the fundamental structure of the e-commerce market from the current “platform-centric model to an open-network model”.
• The ONDC is an open source network set up modelled after the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) project that is seen as a success by many.
  • The UPI project allows people to send or receive money irrespective of the payments platforms on which they are registered.
  • Similarly, the government wants to ensure that buyers and sellers of goods in the e-commerce market can transact regardless of the platforms on which they are registered.
• It will enable local commerce across segments, such as mobility, grocery, food order and delivery, hotel booking and travel, among others, to be discovered and engaged by any network-enabled application.
• It is an initiative of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• It consists of-
  • buyer-side apps where consumers can place orders,
  • seller-side apps that onboard merchants and display their listings, and
  • logistics platforms that handle deliveries.
• Thus project ONDC is mainly aimed at curbing “digital monopolies”.
• ONDC could give a huge booster shot to smaller online retailers and new entrants.