Why in news?

• Khadi Prakratik Paint has been developed from cow dung by Kumarappa National Handmade Paper Institute (KNHPI), Jaipur, a unit of Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), under the administrative control of the Ministry of MSME.
• Khadi Prakratik paint is eco-friendly and cost effective.
• It is envisaged that manufacture ofKhadi Prakratik Paint will promote local manufacturing, create sustainable employment and generate additional revenue for farmers and cow shelter homes and will also generate employment in the rural areas, which will improve the rural economy and help in controlling the migration from rural to urban areas, in the country.
• Cow dung is a major constituent used in the manufacture of Prakritik Paint. 100 kgs. of cow dung is utilized for making 500 liters of paint. Therefore, setting up of paint units would be helpful in utilization of cow dung and thereby help in cleaning the environment.

Why in news?

• The Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) has installed and commissioned Param Pravega, one of the most powerful supercomputers in India, and the largest in an Indian academic institution, under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).
• It has a total supercomputing capacity of 3 petaflops (1 petaflop equals a quadrillion, or 1015 operations per second).
• It has been designed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC).
• A majority of the components used to build this system have been manufactured and assembled within India, along with an indigenous software stack developed by C-DAC, in line with the Make in India initiative.
• The Param Pravega system at IISc. is a mix of heterogeneous nodes, with Intel Xeon Cascade Lake processors for the CPU nodes and NVIDIA Tesla V100 cards on the GPU nodes. The hardware consists of an ATOS BullSequana XH2000 series system, with a comprehensive peak compute power of 3.3 petaflops.

National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).

• NSM is steered jointly by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and implemented by C-DAC and IISc.
• The Mission has supported the deployment of 10 supercomputer systems so far at IISc., in IITs, IISER Pune, JNCASR, NABI-Mohali and C-DAC, with a cumulative computing power of 17 petaflops.
• About 31,00,000 computational jobs have successfully been carried out by around 2,600 researchers across India till date.

Why in news?

• The government has appointed former civil servant Ravi Mittal as the chairperson of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI).
• Mittal would head the IBBI for five years or till he is 65 years of age, whichever is early.
• Mittal, has served as Secretary of Information and Broadcasting (I&B), among other positions.
• Mittal will be the second full-time Chairperson of the IBBI, a key institution in implementing the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), which came into force in 2016.

About IBBI

• The IBBI is a regulatory institution set up by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs for enforcing the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.
• The board regulates corporate insolvency and resolution processes.
• It also regulates insolvency professionals and information utilities.

Why in news?

• India recently inked an interim agreement confirming its commitment to work on the mega science project —  Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) — proposed to be the world’s largest radio telescope.
• The agreement will be valid for one year.
• The signing of the Cooperation Agreement between India, represented by TIFR – National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA), and SKA, was held virtually.
• This move will facilitate India to make its first monetary contribution towards the construction phase of the SKA, which got underway last year. Though India is a participating country in the setting up of the world’s largest radio telescope, it is yet to get the central government’s approval to become a Member Country.

About SKAO

• SKAO is working towards the establishment of the world’s largest radio telescope.
• SKAO is a new intergovernmental organisation dedicated to radio astronomy and is headquartered in the UK.
• SKA will be built in Australia and South Africa.
• Along with the three host countries, Italy, France, China, Switzerland and Canada are among the countries building SKAO, which is expected to be operational by the end of this decade.

Why in news?

• Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) and Indian Army on Wednesday signed a three-year contract of Rs 3,131.82 crore for manufacture and supply of anti-tank guided missile Konkurs-M to the Indian Army.
• BDL has augmented its manufacturing capacity to meet the domestic as well as overseas demand for Konkurs-M. BDL also exports the missile to friendly countries. As a part of its global outreach, the company also offers portable anti-tank guided missiles Nag, Milan-2T and Amogha.

About Konkurs-M

• Konkurs-M is a second-generation, mechanised infantry anti-tank guided missile, to destroy armoured vehicles.
• The missile can be launched either from BMP-II tank or from ground launcher.
• It covers a range between 75 and 4,000 metre with a flight time of 19 seconds.

Why in news?

• Strengthening its support for sports in India, the Union Government has approved continuation of Scheme of Assistance to National Sports Federations (NSFs) with an outlay of Rs. 1575 crore for 15^th Finance Commission Cycle (2021-22 to 2025-26).

About the scheme

• The Scheme of Assistance to NSFs is the flagship Central Sector Scheme.
• It is the main source of funding for preparation of national teams for all major national and international competitions, including the Olympic Games, Para-Olympics, Asian Games, Para Asian Games, Commonwealth Games (CWG) and other major international tournaments.
• The outlay in the cycle will therefore be extended to NSFs to train and field national teams for national and international competitions between 2022 and 2026, prime among them, the Commonwealth and Asian Games of 2022, Olympics and Paralympics 2024 and Asian and Commonwealth Games in 2026.
• The financial support extended by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports through this Scheme will be used by NSFs to conduct national coaching camps, procure sports equipment and consumables, provide training of international standards to athletes, conduct data analysis on the performance of athletes, provide sports science support, provide recovery and rehabilitation to athletes with injury, engage foreign coaches and high performance directors, as well as to set up a professional administrative system within the NSFs.
• The scheme also sets out to improve the bench strength of Indian athletes through a strong talent identification and development system so as to achieve sporting excellence and drive India towards becoming a sporting power house.

Why in news?

• The Government has decided to continue the scheme of ‘Khelo India – National Programme for Development of Sports’over the 15th Finance Commission Cycle — 2021-22 to 2025-26 — at an outlay of Rs 3165.50 crore.
• Khelo India Scheme Allocation increases by 48 per centin Budget 2022 and includes it in the Prime Minister’s Award Scheme.”

About the Khelo India Scheme:

• It is a flagship Central Sector Scheme of the Sports ministry which aims to develop grassroots level talent by providing them with a national level platform.
• Khelo India Scheme is based on Gujarat’s model of “Khel Mahakumbh” in which schools and colleges from across the country participate in 27 different disciplines.
• It has been formed after the merger ofRajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan (RGKA), Urban Sports Infrastructure Scheme (USIS) and National Sports Talent Search Scheme (NSTSS).
• This programme strives to promote “Sports for All” as well as “Sports for Excellence.”

Why in news?   

• As per SBI Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara,National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL) or bad bank and India Debt Resolution Company Ltd (IDRCL) are ready to commence operations.
• A total of 38 Non-Performing Asset(NPA) accounts worth Rs 82,845 crore have been identified to be transferred to NARCL initially.
• In Phase I, 15 stressed assets (i.e. Non-Performing Asset accounts) worth Rs 50,000 crore will be transferred to NARCL in the current financial year.

About NARCL AND IDRCL

• The National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd or NARCL is the name of the asset reconstruction company incorporated to take over and dispose of the stressed assets of commercial banks.
• Stressed assets of commercial banks worth Rs 2 lakh crore have been identified to be taken up in the first phase by the NARCL.
• NARCL will be starting with a total capital of Rs 6,000 crore.
• In October 2021, NARCL received the RBI’s license to enable it to commence operations as a ‘bad bank’.
• Public Sector Banks (PSBs) have a 51% ownership of NARCL.
• Banks will aggregate and consolidate stressed assets with NARCL for resolution.
• NARCL’s Managing Director is PM Nair, a stressed assets expert from the State Bank of India (SBI).
• NARCL will acquire fully provisioned stressed assets by making an offer to the lead bank in a consortium of lenders; once the offer is accepted, NARCL will engage with India Debt Resolution Company Ltd. (IDRCL) for management and resolution of the stressed assets.
• IDRCL is an operational entity/service company that would manage the assets and engage professionals and turnaround experts in the process.
• PSBs and public FIs would hold a maximum of 49% stake in IDRCL while the remaining 51% will be vested with private lenders.
• Stressed assets acquired by NARCL will be managed by IDRCL for price discovery and value addition.

Why in News?

• Olympics gold medal winner Neeraj Chopra was nominated for the prestigious Laureus World Breakthrough of the Year award, making him the first Indian to be featured in the short-list for this category.
• At the Tokyo Olympics, the 23-year-old Neeraj Chopra became only the second Indian to win an individual gold medal in the Games’ history.
• The javelin thrower was clubbed alongside tennis stars Daniil Medvedev and Emma Raducanu among others.
• Neeraj Chopra is only the third Indian to fetch a Laureus nomination after cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and wrestler Vinesh Phogat

About The Laureus World Sports Awards

• The Laureus World Sports Awards is an annual award ceremony honouring individuals and teams from the world of sports along with sporting achievements throughout the year.
• It was established in 1999 by Laureus Sport for Good Foundation founding patrons Daimler and Richemont.

Why In News

• The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has formulated a scheme “SMILE – Support for Marginalized Individuals for Livelihood and Enterprise”, which includes sub scheme -‘Comprehensive Rehabilitation for Welfare of Transgender Persons’.
• The focus of the sub-sch eme is on rehabilitation, provision of medical facilities and intervention, counseling, education, skill development, economic linkages to the transgender persons.
• Ministry has also initiated 12 pilot shelter homes namely Garima Greh: Shelter Home for Transgender Persons and provided financial assistance to community-based organizations (CBOs) for setting up of these shelter homes.
• These pilot shelter homes are in States of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and also including Bihar.
• The main aim of Garima Greh is to provide shelter to transgender persons with basic amenities like food, medical care and recreational facilities.