• BSF’s first female camel riding squad is ready to be deployed along the India-Pakistan border in Rajasthan and Gujarat.
• The squad will participate for the first time in the BSF Raising Day Parade on 1ST December.
• This Squad will be the first of its kind in the world.
• Pushpendra Singh Rathore DIG BSF Bikaner told that Intensive training was given to this squad at the Bikaner Regional Headquarters of BSF under the supervision of skilled trainers.

• India is going to host 9th session of the Governing Body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture from 19th to 24th of this month.
• The Treaty is a legally binding comprehensive agreement adopted in November 2001 at Rome during the 31st session of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which entered into force in June 2004.
• Addressing media about the event, Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Secretary Manoj Ahuja informed that during the event an extensive deliberation on how to preserve, conserve and maintain the germplasm, biodiversity, and food and agriculture will be held.  He said, deliberation will also be held on how to exchange and share the tolerant germplasm through a multilateral system.
• Mr Ahuja added that the event will also witness a discussion on farmers’ and breeders’ rights.
• Representatives of nearly 262 countries are expected to participate in this seven-day-long event.

• Prime Minister will launch the National Logistics Policy NLP in New Delhi.
• The need for a national logistics policy was felt since the logistics cost in India is high as compared to other developed economies.
• It is imperative to reduce the logistics cost in India for improving the competitiveness of Indian goods both in domestic as well as export markets.
• Reduced logistics cost improves efficiency cutting across various sectors of the economy, encouraging value addition and enterprise.
• Since 2014, the government has put significant emphasis on improving both Ease of Doing Business and Ease of Living.
• National Logistics Policy, a comprehensive effort to address issues of high cost and inefficiency by laying down an overarching interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral, and multi-jurisdictional framework for the development of the entire logistics ecosystem, is yet another step in this direction.
• The policy is an endeavour to improve competitiveness of Indian goods, enhancing economic growth, and increasing employment opportunities.
• It will develop world-class modern infrastructure through integration of all stakeholders in holistic planning and implementation so that efficiency and synergy is achieved in the execution of the project.
• The PM GatiShakti – National Master Plan for muti-modal connectivity, launched by the Prime Minister last year, was a pioneering step in this direction.
• PM GatiShakti will get further boost and complementarity with the launch of National Logistics Policy.

• In the world’s highest ultra marathon Khardungla Challenge, Divya Vashisht of Dharamsala has secured the second position in the Veteran category.
• In the competition held in Leh on September 9, Divya completed the race in the senior category of 50 plus age in 12:48 hours in the tough Khardungla Challenge Marathon of 72 km.
• In the marathon which started at 3:00 am in minus degree temperature, Divya has completed this race on her own strength

Khardung La

• Khardung La or Khardung Pass is a mountain pass in the Leh district of the Indian union territory of Ladakh. The pass is on the Ladakh Range, north of Leh, and connects the Indus river valley and the Shyok river valley. It also forms the gateway to the Nubra valley, beyond which lies the Siachen Glacier.

• The Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, has given an in-principal approval to the innovative Urban Transport Ropeway project worth Rs 1,546.4 crore for Shimla.
• The ropeway network will have a length of 14.9 km, with several boarding and disembarking points
• Tourists to park their vehicles at entry points of Shimla. They will then use the ropeway network
• Eco-friendly mode of transportation as the project will be carbon neutral
• The ropeway project would start off from Taradevi and would have a combination of smart parkings, lifts and escalators integrated with the existing transport networks,” said Thakur.

• The Jharkhand Government recently approved a proposal to grant 77 per cent reservation in the state government jobs for people belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, backward classes, OBC and other economically weaker sections.
• The state government of Jharkhand has approved a bill to amend the Jharkhand Reservation of Vacancies in Posts and Services Act, 2001.
• The amendment bill provides 77 per cent reservation to SC, ST, BC, OBCs and economically weaker sections.
• It has increased the OBC reservation to 27 per cent from the present 14 per cent.
• It provides quota of 12 per cent for people belonging to local SC communities and 28 per cent for local ST communities.
• The extremely Backward Class people are given 15 per cent reservation and OBCs are given 12 per cent reservation.
• Economically backward individuals who are not included in other reserved categories are given 10 per cent reservation.
• The reservations in the government jobs would curtail migration of people to other states across India.
• Increasing reservation limits, especially for other backward classes (OBCs) has been a long-pending demand in Jharkhand.
• The state government also approved the “Jharkhand definition of local persons and for extending the consequential, social, cultural and other benefits to such local persons Bill, 2022”.
• Those who are landless or do not have their or their families’ names in the 1932 Khatiyan, respective gram sabha would have the power to certify them based on language and customary traditions.
• This decision comes after the tribes demanded that the last land survey conducted by the British in 1932 must be used for determining who the local inhabitants were.
• The State Government has decided to request the Central Government to include the bill in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution.

• INS Satpura and a P8 I Maritime Patrol Aircraft of the Indian Navy reached Darwin in Australia, for participation in the multinational Exercise Kakadu – 2022, hosted by the Royal Australian Navy(RAN).

Exercise Kakadu 2022

About:

• The exercise Kakadu is the RAN’s flagship biennial regional International engagement activity and has grown in size and complexity since its inception in 1993.
• It  is a two-week-long exercise, both in harbour and sea, involving ships and maritime aircraft from 14 navies. During the harbour phase of the exercise, the ship’s crew will engage in operational planning interactions and sports activities with the participating naval forces.

Significance:

• The exercise provides an opportunity for regional partners to undertake multinational maritime activities ranging from constabulary operations to high-end maritime warfare in a combined environment.
• It underscores India’s vision of SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and shared objectives of the two countries towards ensuring good order in the maritime domain and strengthening cooperation.

• Recently, the Union Cabinet approved the addition of four tribes to the list of Scheduled Tribes, including those from Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh.
• The Hatti tribe in the Trans-Giri area of Sirmour district in Himachal Pradesh, the Narikoravan and Kurivikkaran hill tribes of Tamil Nadu and the Binjhia in Chhattisgarh, who were listed as ST in Jharkhand and Odisha but not in Chhattisgarh, were the communities newly added to the list.
• Further, the Cabinet approved a proposal to bring the Gond community residing in 13 districts of Uttar Pradesh, under the ST list from the Scheduled Caste list.
• This includes the five subcategories of the Gond community (Dhuria, Nayak, Ojha, Pathari, and Rajgond).

Process of Inclusion

• The process to include tribes in the ST list begins with the recommendation from the respective State governments, which are then sent to the Tribal Affairs Ministry, which reviews and sends them to the Registrar General of India for approval.
• This is followed by the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes’ approval before the list is sent to the Cabinet for a final decision.

• Recently, the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), 2022, was released, with 384 drugs in it across 27 categories.
• While 34 new drugs are on the list, 26 drugs from the earlier NLEM were dropped.

About National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM)

• The National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) is a list released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

• The medicines listed in the NLEM are sold below a price ceiling fixed by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA).

• In India, it was framed on the lines of the Essential Medicines List (EML)released by the WHO.
• It is a dynamic document and is revised on a regular basis considering the changing public health priorities as well as advancement in pharmaceutical knowledge.
• It was first formulated in 1996 and was revised thrice in 2003, 2011 and 2015, before 2022.
• They have to be licensed by the DCGI, have proven efficacy, a safety profile based on scientific evidence and are cost effective.

Purpose: 

• Guide safe and effective treatment of priority disease conditions of a population.
• Promote the rational use of medicines.
• Optimize the available health resources of a country. It can also be a guiding document for:

• State governments to prepare their list of essential medicines
• Procurement and supply of medicines in the public sector.

• Scientists from Seoul National University and the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy have made a major breakthrough in their pursuit of clean nuclear energy by creating an ‘artificial sun’ at the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) reactor.
• Reportedly, the reactor reached temperatures upward of 100 million degree Celsius for 30 seconds.
• Comparatively, the core of the sun hits temperatures around 15 million degrees. 

Significance

Energy security

• By mimicking the natural reaction of the sun, scientists are hoping that the technology may help humanity harness vast amounts of energy and help battle the energy crisis.

 Cleaner energy:

• It is pertinent to note that nuclear fusion is considered the holy grail of energy and it is what powers our sun.
• It merges atomic nuclei to create massive amounts of energy, which is the opposite of the fission process used in atomic weapons and nuclear power plants, which splits them into fragments.
• The process requires no fossil fuels and leaves behind no hazardous waste materials, unlike the nuclear fission process that powers commercial nuclear energy production.
• Unlike fission, fusion emits no greenhouse gases.

 Less Disaster: 

• Physicists also claim that there is far less risk of an environmental disaster.