Why in news?

• PM VIKAS, under Ministry of Minority Affairs, focuses on socio-economic-educational empowerment of minorities wit h special emphasis on artisan communities, women, and youth.
• At least 33% of the total targets in the scheme are reserved for women and provide entrepreneurship and leadership support exclusively to women.
• 10% of these women trained as entrepreneurs shall also be selected to become Business Mentors, based on their leadership qualities.

Other Skill development and employment-oriented programmes for minorities

• Nai Manzil provides a combination of formal education (Class VII or X) and skills, to enable beneficiaries to seek better employment and livelihood.
• Nai Roshni scheme empower and enhance confidence in Minority women by providing knowledge, tool and techniques for Leadership Development of Women.
• Upgrading the Skill and Training in Traditional Arts/Crafts for Development (USTTAD) scheme
• Garib Nawaz Self-Employment Scheme provides for short term job-oriented skill development courses to minorities’ youth in order to enable them for ski-based employment.
• Backup to Brilliance policy.
• Extending PM Jan Vikas Karykram across the country.
• Hunar Haat.
• Seekho aur Kamao (learn and earn).

Why in news?

• Prehistoric relics are discovered along the banks of three rivers flowing through Attappady hills in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• Attappady is a tribal block in Palakkad district of Kerala with hulas, Mudugas and Kurumbas as main tribes.
• The archaeological finds include- stone tools, inhabited caves, menhirs, cists or burial chambers, stone circles, burial urns, black and red ware pottery, terracotta images, stone carvings, and granite inscriptions.

Why in news?

• Recently , Arunachal Pradesh State Biodiversity Board (APSBB) inks a pact with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)- India to develop, the State Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (SBSAP) in New Delhi during a meeting presided by the State Environment and Forest Minister Mama Natung.
• The action plan involves multi-stakeholder consultations and a participatory approach which develops an inclusive action plan to secure nature’s contribution to people.
• The SBSAP will align with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity(CBD)’s Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and Arunachal Pradesh’s recent Pakke Declaration.

About Pakke Declaration:

• The Arunachal Pradesh state cabinet on November 17 2021, adopted the ‘Pakke Tiger Reserve 2047 Declaration on Climate Change Resilient and Responsive Arunachal Pradesh’, which aims to promote ‘climate-resilient development’ in the state.
• The ‘Pakke Declaration’ focuses on a multi-sectoral approach to low-emission and climate-resilient development based on five broad themes or Panch Dharas (environment, forest and climate change; health and wellbeing of all; sustainable and adaptive living; livelihoods and opportunities; and evidence generation and collaborative action).

Why in news?

• According to the list of Hurun Richest Self-Made Women in the World 2022 released by the Hurun Research Institute. Falguni Nayar, Founder and Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of Nykaa, is ranked 10th with a wealth of USD 7.6 billion. She is the only Indian among the top 10.
• Radha Vembu, co-founder & product manager of Zoho is the second-richest self-made woman billionaire in India with US$3.9bn & ranked 25th in the global list.
• Radha Vembu is top in India, and second across the world, in the list of Biggest Risers.
• Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, executive chairperson and founder of Biocon Limited and Biocon Biologics, is 26th on the list, down two places from last year. She has a wealth of US$3.8 bn.

Top 3 on the list:

• Wu Yajun co-founder of Longfor (China) has topped the list followed by Fan Hongwei, Chairman/President, Hengli Petrochemical Co Ltd(China) and Wang Laichun of Luxshare Precision Industry(China).
• According to the list, there are 124 Self-Made Women Billionaires in World and China contributes to two-thirds of the world’s self-made women billionaires with 78 followed by the United States with 25 and the United Kingdom with 5.

Why in news?

• India contributed USD 500,000 to the United Nation (UN) Women, an agency for gender equality and women empowerment, for their core budget.
• It was handed over by India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, TS Tirumurti to Executive Director (ED) Dr Sima Bahous (UN Women Chief).
• With this contribution, India reaffirmed its support for gender equality and women empowerment and development.
• Earlier in 2021, India also contributed USD 300,000 to the United Nations agency for gender equality and women empowerment.
• Gender Equality is the 5th Sustainable Development Goal(SDG)

About United Nation (UN) Women:

• Headquarters-New York, United States (US)
• Founded- 2010

Why in news?

• India’s Union Minister of Commerce and Industry and Australian Trade Minister signed India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (IndAus ECTA) in a virtual ceremony with the presence of Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and Australian PM Scott Morrison.
• The above agreement is set to provide zero-duty access to 96 per cent of India’s exports to Australia including shipments from key sectors such as engineering goods, gems and jewellery, textiles, apparel and leather.
• It also set to provide 85 per cent of Australia’s exports zero-duty access to the Indian market, including coal, sheep meat and wool, and lower duty access on Australian wines, almonds, lentils, and certain fruits.
• The bilateral trade was emphasised to raise the existing 27 billion USD to 45-50 billion USD in the upcoming 5 years.

About India & Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA)

• This is the first trade agreement that India has signed with a developed country after a decade.
• Also, India will be offering 70 percent of its tariff lines, which includes export interest of Australia such as raw materials and intermediaries such as coal, mineral ores and wines etc.
• Australian goods exports to India (valued at more than $12.6 billion a year), rising to almost 91 per cent (valued at $13.4 billion) over 10 years.
• Zero-duty access for Indian goods is set to be expanded to 100 per cent over five years under the agreement.
• Under the agreement, Indian graduates from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) will be granted extended post-study work visas.

Exports and Imports:

• ‘Australia is the 17th largest trading partner of India, and New Delhi will be Canberra’s 9th largest partner.
• India’s goods exports worth United States Dollar (USD) 6.9 billion and imports aggregated to USD 15.1 billion in 2021. 2021 the bilateral trade in goods and services stood at USD 27.5 billion.

Why in news?

• In order to meet the domestic food security needs of poor population, India has invoked peace clause of World Trade Organisation (WTO) for exceeding the 10% ceiling on support offered to rice farmers.
• India informed the WTO that value of its rice production in 2020-21 was $45.56 billion while it gave subsidies worth $6.9 billion, which comes out to 15.14% as against the permitted 10%.
• India became the first country to invoke peace clause in 2020 as rice subsidies exceeded cap in 2018-19.
• Under peace clause, WTO member countries are refrained from challenging any breach in prescribed subsidy ceiling given by a developing nation at dispute settlement forum of WTO.

Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and Peace Clause

• 3 Pillars of AoA:
• Under market access conditions, both developed and developing nations were to convert all non-tariff barriers into tariffs.
• Domestic support includes the classification of subsidies into ‘boxes’ depending their effects on production and trade.
• Export Subsidies and other methods used to make exports artificially competitive.
• AoA contains a “due restraint” or “peace clause” which regulates the application of other WTO agreements to subsidies in respect of agricultural products.

Green Box

• These measures are exempted from reduction commitments and, indeed, can even be increased without any financial limitation under the WTO.
• Applies to both developed and developing country members but in the case of developing countries special treatment is provided in respect of governmental stockholding programmes for food security purposes and subsidized food prices for urban and rural poor. (India’s PDS does not come under Green Box)

Amber Box

• All domestic support measures considered to distort production and trade (with some exceptions) fall into the amber box.
• For instance, MSP, Procurement Price, sum total of subsidies on inputs like fertilizer, water, credit, power, etc.

Blue Box

• These are basically Amber Box subsidies, but they tend to limit the production. Any support that would normally be in the amber box, is placed in the blue box if the support also requires farmers to limit their production.
• These measures are also exempted from reduction commitments.

Special and Differential Treatment Box

• It comprises of investment subsidies like tractors and pump sets. Agricultural input services like fertilizers to farmers etc.
• SOT box subsidies can be given by only developing and low-income countries.

Why in news?

• The International Children’s Book Day (ICBD) is organised annually on the 2nd of April since 1967, by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). IBBY is an international non-profit organization, to inspire a love of reading and to call attention to children’s books.
• In 2022, Canada is hosting International Children’s Book Day with this chosen theme: “Stories are wings that help you soar every day.” Every year, a different international section of IBBY hosts a children’s books event on or around April 2 (which is the birthday of classic children’s book author Hans Christian Andersen).
• The host country picks a theme and invites a well-known author and illustrator to create a message for children around the world.

Why in news?

• Dr S Raju has taken over as the Director-General of the Geological Survey of India (GSI) with effect from April 01, 2022. He succeeds  S. Garkhal who superannuated on March 31, 2022. Prior to this, Dr Raju was holding the post of Additional Director General and National Head, Mission-III & IV at GSI HQ.
• S. Raju joined the Geological Survey of India in 1988. During the initial period of his career, he was instrumental in geological mapping of Bundelkhand Granitic Complex in Uttar Pradesh and also executed an investigation on gold mineralization and carried out a geo-environmental appraisal of Jhansi district of Bundelkhand Region, Uttar Pradesh.
• With his expertise, he has also supplemented in the geology of Tamil Nadu especially, establishing the metamorphic and techtono-magmatic history of the Satyamangalam Group of rocks.

Why in news?

• Uttar Pradesh has become the top producer of vegetables, getting back its first position by demoting West Bengal to the second position, with a difference of a million tonnes in production in 2021–22 Crop Year (CY) (July–June), after two years since 2020.
• Vegetable production in Uttar Pradesh is expected to be 29.58 million tonnes (mt) in the 2021–22 crop year (July–June), down from 29.16 mt in 2020–21, while West Bengal output is expected to dip to 28.23 mt in 2021-22 from 30.33 mt in 2020-21.
• Other top producers of vegetables as per the data in the current year 2021-22 include Madhya Pradesh at 20.59 mt, Bihar at 17.77 mt and Maharashtra at 16.78 mt.
• Andhra Pradesh remains the top fruit producer. India’s horticulture output is likely to drop marginally by 0.4% to 333.25 mt in 2021–22 from the previous year (2020–21) as production of vegetables, spices, and plantation crops is set to decline.
• In 2021–22, Andhra Pradesh is expected to produce 18.01 million tonnes of fruit, up from 17.7 million tonnes in 2020–21. Maharashtra is anticipated to produce 12.3 million tonnes of fruit, up from 11.74 million tonnes in 2020–21.