Why in News ?

• American space agency, NASA, has announced its two new robotic missions namely Davinci+ and Veritas, to Venus to examine atmosphere and geological features on the planet.

About the mission

• Each of the missions has been awarded $500m funding. They will be launched in between 2028 and 2030. Missions would provide a chance to investigate the planet Venus that hasn’t been provided in about 30 years. T

Davinci+ Mission

• Davinci+ is “Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging” mission. It will measure atmosphere of Venus to gain insight into how it formed and evolved. It also seeks to determine whether Venus ever had an ocean.

Veritas Mission

• This mission is called as “Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy”. It will map surface of Venus to understand its geologic history.
• It will also investigate how it developed differently than Earth.
• It will use a form of radar to investigate surface elevations and will discover if volcanoes and earthquakes are still happening.

Why in News ?

Union Agriculture Minister, Narendra Singh Tomar, launched a seed Minikit programme by distributing high-yielding varieties seeds of oilseeds and pulses to farmers.

About Seed Minikit Programme

• This programme was launched as a major tool to introduce new varieties of seeds in fields.
• It will also help in increasing the seed replacement rate.
• Under the programme, Mini-kits are being provided by NAFED, National Seeds Corporation (NCS), and Gujarat State Seeds Corporation.
• It is completely funded by government through National Food Security Mission.

Distribution of seed minikits

• Under the mission distribution of seeds will continue till June 15, 2021. Thus, farmers will get seeds before commencement of Kharif sowing season.
• About 20,27,318 seed minikits of pulses, 74000 minikits of groundnut and 8 lakh for soybean will be provided free of cost to the farmers directly under National Food Security Mission.

Focus of the programme

• This mission was launched to increase production of oilseeds and pulses.

Why in News ?

• India and United Kingdom have launched a new workstream to promote industrial energy efficiency. The workstream was launched under Industrial Deep Decarbonization Initiative (IDDI) of Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM).

12th Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM)

• 12^thCEM is being organised by Chile in virtual mode. It was started on May 31 and will conclude on June 6.
• India and United Kingdom launched a new workstream which is also coordinated by United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

Industrial Deep Decarbonization Initiative (IDDI)

• Clean Energy Ministerial Industrial Deep Decarbonisation Initiative (IDDI) is a global coalition comprising of public and private organisations working together to stimulate demand of low carbon industrial materials.
• IDDI works to standardise carbon assessments and establish ambitious public & private sector procurement targets in collaboration with governments. It also incentivises investment into low-carbon product and design industrial guidelines. IDDI is coordinated by UNIDO while Co-led by India and UK.

• The former judge of Supreme Court Arun Kumar Mishra on June 2, 2021, took charge as the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
• Justice Arun Kumar Mishra enrolled as a lawyer in 1978 and was elected as the youngest chairperson of India in 1998-99. Mishra has also served as the Chief Justice of Rajasthan and Calcutta High Courts.
• The National Human Rights Commission or NHRC is a standalone entity of the Government of India with the mission of promoting and protecting human rights. It is a statutory body mentioned in the Constitution of India that was established in 1993 under the ‘Protection of Human Rights Act.’

The Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare have launched the Horticulture Cluster Development Programme (CDP).

About Horticulture Cluster Development Program (CDP)

• Horticulture Cluster Development Programme (CDP) aims at growing and developing identified horticulture clusters to make them globally competitive. A cluster is a group of enterprises. They are located within an identifiable and, as far as practicable, contiguous area and producing similar products or services.
• Nodal Agency: The nodal agency for the programme will be the National Horticulture Board(NHB). It will implement the programme as a Central Sector Component of NHB.

• Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar(IIT Ropar) in Punjab has developed a device named AmbiTag.
• AmbiTag is the first-of-its-kind Internet of Things(IoT) device. The device will be helpful in the secure transportation of vaccines, blood and body organs, perishable products (food and dairy) among others.

How does the device work?

• The device records real-time ambient temperatureduring the transportation of perishable products, vaccines, and even body organs and blood.
• The recorded temperature helps to know whether that particular item transported from anywhere in the world is still usable or perished because of temperature variation.

• First Human case of H10N3 bird flu was reported in eastern province of Jiangsu in China.
• A 41-year-old man has become first human case of infection with H10N3 strain of bird flu. He was diagnosed of H10N3 avian influenza virus on May 28. It is still not confirmed how he was infected with virus.
• About H10N3 bird flu: H10N3 is a low pathogenic or less severe strain of virus in poultry. The risk of it transmitting on a large scale is also very low.
• About Avian influenza or Avian flu or Bird flu: It is caused by viruses adapted to birds.  It is similar to swine flu, horse flu, dog flu and human flu. Among three types of influenza viruses namely, A, B, and C; influenza A virus is zoonotic infection which entirely affects birds.

• New Zealand has become the latest country to sign “space agreement with NASA” with the objective of boosting nascent space industry of New Zealand.
• New Zealand is the eleventh signatory to Artemis Accords.
• Artemis accords are an international agreement and American-led effort which seeks to relaunch humans to Moon by 2024. Agreement was signed by governments participating in Artemis programme with the objective of expanding and deepening space exploration. It was drafted under the aegis of NASA. It provides a framework for cooperation in civil exploration and peaceful use of Mars, Moon and other astronomical objects.  The accord was signed in October 13, 2020.

• Microsoft has launched first ever “Asia Pacific Public Sector Cyber Security Executive Council”. It was launched with the aim of building strong communications channel to address cyber threats and to share best practices among participating countries.
• Asia-pacific cybersecurity Council: Cybersecurity Council comprises of policy makers and influencers from countries like Indonesia, Korea, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, and Thailand. It is supported by cybersecurity professionals. Council was set up with the aim of accelerating public-private partnerships in cybersecurity, and share threat intelligence.
• Council was set up to build strong coalition and to strengthen cyber security defense. It was launched in the view that; these countries experience higher-than-average encounter rate of malware and ransomware attacks. They experience 1.6 times higher malware attacks and 1.7 times higher ransomware attacks as compared to other countries.

WHY IN NEWS ?

• BRICS foreign ministers meeting was held virtually on June 1, 2021. This meeting was hosted by India.

Agenda of the meeting

• During the minister’s meet, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar highlighted significant principles which were guiding BRICS.
• He also referred to international law and UN Charter which recognises sovereign equality of all states and respects territorial integrity.
• According to him, desired change can be achieved only by conducting policies in line with these principles.

Who hosted the meeting?

• BRICS meeting was hosted by India in its capacity as chair of BRICS. It was attended by Foreign Minister of Russia, Sergey Lavrov; Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi; Minister of International Relations of South Africa, Grace Naledi Mandisa Pandor; and Foreign Minister of Brazil, Carlos Alberto Franco.

Significance of meeting

• BRICS foreign ministers, for the first time, have agreed on common goal of “reforming the multilateral system”. They also agreed, such reform should cover all key multilateral institutions, including-

• UN and its principal organs such as UN general assembly, UN Security Council etc.
• International financial architecture such as IMF & World Bank
• Multilateral trading system such as WTO & UNCTAD and
• Global health governance system along with WHO.

BRICS ministers agreed to bring in new life on discussions regarding reform of UN Security Council.

Key deliverables by India

• India put forward four key deliverables including, reform of multilateral system, use of digital and technological solutions to achieve SDGs, counter-terrorism cooperation and enhancing people-to-people cooperation apart from BRICS cooperation on COVID-19 pandemic