• The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry has recommended that the Centre should extend the deadline of the Faster Adoption & Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) – II Scheme by at least three more years.

ABOUT FAME II SCHEME

• The main objective of the scheme is to offer upfront incentives for the purchase of electric and hybrid vehicles, and add more charging stations.
• Implementing Agency- Department of Heavy Industry, Ministry of Heavy Industry and Public Enterprises.
• The deadline for the ongoing FAME II scheme is March 31, 2024, with a budget outlay of Rs 10,000 crore.
• This phase aims to generate demand by way of supporting 7000 e-Buses, 5 lakh e-3 Wheelers, 55000 e-4 Wheeler Passenger Cars (including Strong Hybrid) and 10 lakh e-2 Wheelers.
• Scheme will be applicable mainly to vehicles used for public transport or those registered for commercial purposes in e-3W, e-4W and e-bus segments.
  • However, privately owned registered e-2Ws are also  covered under the scheme as a mass segment.

ABOUT FAME I

• Phase-I of the FAME India Scheme was approved in March 2015.
• After multiple extensions, the deadline was extended till March 31, 2019, with an outlay of Rs 895 crore.
• The scheme had four focus areas — technology development, demand creation, pilot project, and charging infrastructure.

• The Odisha government has declared leprosy, a reportable disease in the state.
• It has asked hospitals and persons dealing with diagnosis and treatment, institutions imparting medical education and providing diagnostic services to report all cases to the respective district health authorities.

ABOUT LEPROSY

• Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by a type of bacteria, Mycobacterium leprae.
• Also known as Hansen’s disease.
• It is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) that is still prevalent in more than 120 countries.
• Transmission- Leprosy is transmitted via droplets, from the nose and mouth, during close and frequent contact with untreated cases.
• Leprosy is known to occur at all ages ranging from early childhood to old age.
• The disease affects the skin, the peripheral nerves, mucosal surfaces of the upper respiratory tract and the eyes.
• It leads to physical deformity and morbidity if the patient is not treated early.
• The communicable disease is also associated with stigma and discrimination.
• Leprosy is a curable disease with a full course of multi-drug therapy (MDT).
  • Also the patient stops transmitting the disease when he/she begins treatment.

ABOUT NATIONAL LEPROSY ERADICATION PROGRAMME (NLEP)

• It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme under the umbrella of National Health Mission (NHM).
• Even as India has eliminated leprosy as public health problem, according to the WHO criterion (less than one case per 10,000 population at the national level), it remains endemic in some states including Odisha, where prevalence is greater than one.
• The NLEP aims at eliminating leprosy in each of the districts by 2030.

The NLEP strategies and plans are formulated centrally, and the programme is implemented by the States/UTs

• The renowned Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize has named poet-critic Sukrita Paul Kumar as its sixth recipient for her book, “Salt & Pepper: Selected Poems”.
• At the award ceremony, Kumar received a cash prize of USD 5,000, a Tagore statue, and a certificate acknowledging her significant contribution to literature.
• Also, the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize for social achievement was awarded to Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee for his contributions to societal welfare.

ABOUT THE PRIZE

• Founded in 2018 by US-based publisher Peter Bundalo, the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize has established itself as a valuable platform for world peace, literature, art, education and human rights.
• It also recognises works towards human rights and world peace with the Social Achievement Prize.

• The Sports Ministry put its stamp on the nominations for the annual sports awards, confirming the prestigious Khel Ratna honour for badminton players Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty and the Arjuna award for 26 sports persons, including pacer Mohammed Shami.
• The awards will be conferred on the athletes by President Droupadi Murmu at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on January 9.
• Chirag and Satwik are Asian Games gold medallists, World Championships bronze winners and Commonwealth Games silver medallists.
• Arjuna Award winners-
  • The athletes selected for this year’s Arjuna award include hockey players Krishan Bahadur Pathak and Sushila Chanu, archers Ojas Pravin Deotale and Aditi Gopichand Swami, boxer Mohammad Hussamuddin, chess player R Vaishali, golfer Diksha Dagar, shooters Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Esha Singh, wrestlers Antim Panghal and Sunil Kumar, paddler Ayhika Mukherjee and para archer Sheetal Devi, among others.
• Dronacharya Award (regular category) for outstanding coaches: Lalit Kumar (wrestling), RB Ramesh (chess), Mahaveer Prasad Saini (para athletics), Shivendra Singh (hockey), Ganesh Prabhakar Devrukhkar (mallakhamb).
• The Dhyan Chand award in the life-time category will be conferred to three persons-
  • Manjusha Kanwar (badminton), Vineet Kumar Sharma (hockey), Kavitha Selvaraj (kabaddi)
• Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar is the recipient of the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (MAKA) Trophy 2023, while Lovely Professional University, Punjab and Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra are the first and second runner-ups.

• Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) convened a meeting with the Chief Ministers of the States in the region for optimal implementation of Prime Minister’s Development Initiative for North East Region (PM-DevINE).

ABOUT PM -DEVINE

• The scheme was announced in the 2022-23 Union Budget with an initial allocation of ₹1,500 crore.
• The scheme is “aimed at rapid and holistic development” of the northeast region by “funding infrastructure and social development projects, based on felt needs of the States.”
• It will strive to fill the gaps in various sectors and will not be a substitute for existing Central and State Schemes”.
• It is a Central Sector scheme, with 100% Central funding.
• Implemented by the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MDoNER) through North Eastern Council or Central Ministries/agencies or State Government agencies.
• The time frame defined for PM-DevINE scheme projects is 2023-24 for sanction and 2025-26 for completion.

• To provide important information about MSP and agronomy to jute farmers, the Ministry of Textiles launched “Paat-Mitro” – a mobile application,
• It has been developed by The Jute Corporation of India Limited (JCI).
• The application is available in 6 languages.
• The application can be freely downloaded from Google Play Store and all the functionalities are made available to the users free of cost.
• In addition to, the latest agronomic practices and Minimum Support Prices (MSP); Jute Gradation Parameters, Farmer-centric schemes like ‘Jute-ICARE’, weather forecasts, JCI’s Purchase Centers’ locations, Procurement Policies are also made available in the app.
• Farmers will also be able to track status of their payments for the raw jute sold to JCI under MSP Operation.
• Latest technology feature like Chatbot is included for their queries through this mobile application “Paat-Mitro”.

• The 8th edition of Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) Conclave of Chiefs (CoC) was conducted by Royal Thai Navy at Bangkok, Thailand
• Chiefs of Navies/ Senior Delegates from 27 Members/ Observer countries participated in the event.

ABOUT IONS

• The ‘Indian Ocean Naval Symposium’ (IONS) is a voluntary initiative that seeks to increase maritime co-operation among navies of the littoral states of the Indian Ocean Region.
• IONS was conceived by the Indian Navy in 2008.
• The inaugural edition of IONS was held in Feb 2008 at New Delhi, with Indian Navy as the Chair for two years (2008 – 2010).
• It aims at providing an open and inclusive platform for discussions on regionally relevant maritime issues.
• Recently, Republic of Korea Navy was welcomed by the Conclave as the latest ‘Observer’, raising the collective strength of IONS to 34 (25 Members & 09 Observers).
• India is also scheduled to take over as the Chair of IONS (2025-27) during 9th CoC planned to be conducted in India in end 2025.

• The Namdapha flying squirrel has resurfaced in Arunachal Pradesh after going missing for 42 years.
• It was last described in 1981 based on a single individual found in the 1,985 sq. km. Namdapha Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh’s Changlang district.

ABOUT NAMPDAPHA FLYING SQUIRREL

• Scientific name- Biswamoyopterus biswasi
• It is an arboreal, nocturnal flying squirrel endemic to Arunachal Pradesh.
• It is one of the 43 known flying squirrel species in the world.
• These squirrels glide between trees and cannot take flight like birds or bats.
• These are herbivores thriving on fruits, nuts, seeds, fungi, flowers, and tree sap.
• Protection status
  • IUCN red list- Critically Endangered (CR)
  • Wildlife Protection Act- Schedule II
• It is among one of the 25 “most wanted lost” species targeted by the Global Wildlife Conservation’s “Search for Lost Species” initiative.

• The death anniversary of revolutionary Taraknath Das was observed recently.

ABOUT TARAKNATH DAS

• Taraknath Das was an Indian revolutionary with a global outlook.
• He was born in a Bengali middle-class family in Majhipara, North 24 Parganas.
• At a young age, Das became a member of Anushilan Samiti, a secret society,
• On the advice of Jatindranath Mukherjee, Das escaped initially to Japan and then moved to the United States of America.
• He started the publication of an anti-British newspaper, ‘Free Hindusthan’ to champion the cause of immigrants.
• In 1913, Das came in contact with Har Dayal and got associated with the Ghadar Movement and its anti-colonial activities.
• In 1917, he was implicated in the Indo-German conspiracy case for which he was imprisoned in Kansas for two years.

• The Union Women and Child Development Ministry aims to establish 17,000 creches in Anganwadi centres across the country out of which 5,222 have been approved to date.
  • The Ministry also plans to depute two additional creche workers in Anganwadis along with the existing staff.
• These initiatives are being taken under the ‘Palna’ scheme.

 ABOUT PALNA SCHEME

• The erstwhile National Creche Scheme has been reorganized and renamed as Palna Scheme under the sub scheme ‘Samarthya’ of ‘Mission Shakti’.
• The objective of the scheme is to address the urgent need for quality day-care facilities/creches for the children of working women by providing a safe and secure environment for the nutritional, health and cognitive development of the children.
• Thus it aims at enabling more women to take up gainful employment amongst all socio-economic groups both in the organized and unorganized sector, irrespective of their employment status.
• Objectives
  • To provide day-care facilities for children (6 months to 6 years) of working mothers in the community.
  • To improve nutrition and health status of children.
  • To promote physical, cognitive, social and emotional development (Holistic Development) of children.
  • To educate and empower parents /caregivers for better childcare.
• The scheme focuses on two types of crèches
  • Anganwadi-cum-Crèches: These centers combine existing Anganwadi services with dedicated crèche facilities. This approach aims to holistically address the needs of both mothers and children in one convenient location.
  • Stand-alone creches: The crèches which were running under the erstwhile National Creche Scheme have been included as Stand Alone Creches.