Why in news?

• Government has announced that nearly 2,71,000 persons will be trained over five years under the scheme.
• PM-DAKSH yojana is a skill development scheme from Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
• Started from 2020-21, it aims to provide free training to persons from SCs/OBCs, Safai Karamcharis etc. through Up-skilling/Reskilling, Short Term Training Programme (focus on self-employment), Long Term Training Programme and Entrepreneurship Development Program.
• Implementation is through 3 Corporations:
  • National Scheduled Castes Finance and Development Corporation
  • National Backward Classes Finance & Development Corporation
  • National Safai Karamcharis Finance & Development Corporation

Why in news?

• Pinaka Mk-1 (Enhanced) Rocket System (EPRS) and Pinaka Area Denial Munition (ADM) rocket systems have been successfully flight-tested by Defence Research and Development Organisation and Indian Army at Pokhran.
• The new Pinaka ER gives it a range of around 70 km, over the 45 km existing range of the missile which has been with the Indian forces for nearly a decade.
• The Pinaka is a Multi-Barrel Rocket-Launcher (MBRL) system which can fire a salvo of 12 rockets over a period of 44 seconds.

Why in news?

• Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate change chaired the 20th NTCA in Arunachal Pradesh.
• It released the three reports
  • Tiger Reintroduction and Supplementation in Wild Protocol
  • Forest Fire Audit protocol for tiger reserve
  • Technical manual on Management Effectiveness Evaluation (MEE) of tiger reserve. MEE exercise in tiger reserves was initiated in 2006 and four cycles have been completed.
• National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
• It was established in 2005following the recommendations of the Tiger Task Force.
• It was constituted under enabling provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972,as amended in 2006, for strengthening tiger conservation, as per powers and functions assigned to it.
• It approves the Tiger Conservation Plan prepared by the State Governments.

Why in news?

• Centre has reduced the maximum stock limit of raw Jute to 500 quintals for Jute balers (from 750 quintals) and 50 quintals for traders (from 150 quintals).
• It will prevent hoarding of raw jute in the market and ease its supply to mills at a reasonable price.

About Jute

• Jute, also known as golden fibre, is a soft, flexible and hard-wearing bast fibre obtained from the plants Corchorus olitorius (White Jute) and Corchorus capsularis (Tossa Jute).
• It is native to the Indian subcontinent.
• Jute is included in the Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime of the country.
• Temperature: Between 25-35°C.
• Rainfall: Around 150-250 cm.
• Soil Type: Well-drained alluvial soil.
• Top Jute Producing States: West Bengal > Bihar > Assam > Andhra Pradesh > Odisha.
  • It is mainly concentrated in eastern India because of the rich alluvial soil of Ganga-Brahmaputra delta.
• The world’s largest jute producing countries are India, Bangladesh, China and Thailand.
• India is the largest producer of Jute contributing 50% of raw jute and 40% of jute goods.
• It is known as the golden fibre because it is one of the longest and most used natural fibre for various textile applications.
• It is used in making gunny bags, mats, ropes, yarn, carpets and other artefacts.
• Due to its high cost, it is losing market to synthetic fibres and packing materials, particularly nylon.

Why in news?

• Eastern Zonal Council, comprising the states of Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal and Jharkhand, will hold a meeting on April 26 in Kolkata.
• Idea of zonal council was mooted by the first Prime Minister of India to “develop the habit of cooperative working” among these States.
• Five Zonal Councils were set up vide Part-Ill of the States Re-organisation Act, 1956.
• Chairman – Union Home Minister
• Members-Chief Minister and two other Ministers as nominated by the Governor from each of the States and two members from Union Territories included in the zone.

Why in news?

• Currently a Member of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), Dr Manoj Soni has been appointed the chairman of the country’s premier government recruiting agency.
• He has been associated with the Swaminarayan sect’s Anoopam Mission, at Mogri in Anand district, since a young age and received diksha (initiation)as a nishkarma karmayogi (selfless worker) on Jan 10, 2020.
• Dr Soni has been appointed to replace the previous UPSC chairman Pradip Kumar Joshi.
• Prior to this assignment, Soni has also served as the vice-chancellor of two universities and has earned several national and international awards and recognitions.

Why in news?

• Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) launched Banarasi Pashmina in Varanasi.
• This is for the first time that Pashmina products are being produced outside the region of Leh-Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir.
• Changthangi or Pashmina goats are raised for ultra-fine cashmere wool, known as Pashmina once woven.
  • Changthangi or Pashmina goat is a special breed of goat indigenous to the high altitude regions of Ladakh (domesticated and reared by Changpa nomadic communities).
• Kashmir Pashmina has been assigned Geographical indication (GI) tag.

Why in news?

• The FFPI measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities.
• It consists of the average of five commodity group price indices (cereal, sugar, meat, vegetable oil, and dairy) weighted by the average export shares of each of the groups in 2014-2016 (base year).
• FAO is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger.
• It is headquartered in Rome, Italy.

Why in news?

• Under the new monetary policy, RBI announced the introduction of SDF as a basic tool to absorb surplus liquidity (deposit) from banking system.
• Earlier, liquidity measures undertaken in the wake of pandemic, combined with liquidity injected through various other operations of RBI, have left excess liquidity in the system.
• When liquidity is surplus, as it is now, the RBI absorbs liquidity through the reverse repo facility.
• However, reverse repo window is a collateralised one. So when banks park their money at that window, the RBI gives them securities in return to hold. But given a large amount of surplus liquidity, the RBI was running out of securities to offer.
• Therefore, government has introduced SDF as a non-collateralised window. So the RBI can absorb liquidity without offering securities now.
• SDF has its origins in a 2018 amendment to RBI Act (based on Urjit Patel Committee recommendations ) and allows RBI to absorb liquidity from commercial banks without giving any collateral in return.
• SDF rate will be the new floor rate for the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) corridor, replacing fixed-rate reverse repo.
• LAF is a monetary policy tool that allows banks to borrow money through repurchase agreements or repos.
• All LAF participants will be eligible to participate in SDF scheme.

Definitions

• Repo rate is the interest rate that the RBI charges when commercial banks borrow money from it.
• Reverse repo rate is the interest rate that the RBI pays commercial banks when they park their excess cash with the central bank. RBI borrows a part of this money at a fixed rate and some of it at variable rate.

Why in news?

• Indonesia, world’s largest producer and exporter of palm oil is facing domestic shortages, leading to price controls and export curbs.
• Reasons of palm oil crisis in Indonesia
  • Supply disruptions — manmade and natural — in other cooking oils, especially sunflower and soyabean.
  • Soyabean oil is facing supply issues due to dry weather in South America.
  • Use of palm oil as a bio-fuel. Since 2020, Indonesia made 30% blending of diesel with palm oil mandatory as part of a plan to slash fossil fuel imports.
• India is world’s biggest vegetable oils importer. Out of its annual imports of 14-15 mt, the share of palm oil is 8-9 mt.
  • Indonesia has been India’s top supplier of palm oil, however, now it will get lower supplies from Indonesia.
  • This may result in higher imports from Malaysia for Palm oil.
• Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil, comes from the fruit of oil palm trees. It is an efficient crop, producing more oil per land area than any other equivalent vegetable oil crop.
  • Globally, palm oil supplies 40% of the world’s vegetable oil demand on just under 6% of land used to produce all vegetable oils.
  • Palm oil has been a major driver of deforestation of the world’s most biodiverse forests.