• Centre has formulated an action plan to promote exports of millets. The government has planned to facilitate participation of exporters, farmers, and traders in 16 international trade expos and Buyer Seller Meets for exports and promotion of Indian millets across the globe.
• According to the action plan, Indian missions in abroad would be roped in branding and publicity of Indian millets. This include, identification of potential buyers such as departmental stores, supermarkets, and hypermarkets for organizing business-to-business meetings and direct tie-ups.
• As part of the promotion of Indian millets, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority has planned to showcase millets and its value-added product at various global platforms.
• The United Nations has declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets. India is one of the leading producers of millets in the world with an estimated share of around 41 percent in global production.
• The country recorded 27 percent growth in millet production in 2021-22 which stood at 15.92 million metric tonnes. Country’s top five millet-producing states are Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. It is estimated that the millets market is set to grow to 12 billion US dollar by 2025 from the current 9 billion dollars.

• Union Minister for Labour and Employment Bhupender Yadav launched an online portal for ESIC Maternity benefits claim facilities for insured women in New Delhi.
• The portal was launched at the 102 birth anniversary of Dattopant Thengadi , a social reformer and the founder of  Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh , organized by the National Labour Education and Development Board.
• Speaking at the event the Minister said Dattopant Thengadi wanted to develop India and Indian workers not as followers but as leaders on the world stage.
• He said that the public needs to be made aware of all government programmes at the local level in order to benefit the most from them.
• Talking about the e-SHRAM Portal, Mr. Yadav said that as of now 29 crore people who are working in unorganized workers have been registered and the government is working to take it to 38 crores.
• The e-SHRAM portal was launched on August 26 2021 to improve the implementation efficiency of the social security services for unorganized workers.

• Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s office, Dr Jitendra Singh launched India’s first national repository for life science data, the Indian Biological Data Center’ (IBDC) at Faridabad, Haryana.
• Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Jitendra Singh said, as per the BIOTECH-PRIDE guidelines of the Government of India, IBDC is mandated to archive all life science data generated from publicly-funded research in India.
• Supported by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), it has been established at Regional Centre of Biotechnology (RCB), Faridabad with a data disaster recovery site at National Informatics Centre (NIC), Bhubaneshwar.
• According to the Ministry of Science and Technology, it has a data storage capacity of about 4 petabytes and houses the ‘Brahm’ High-Performance Computing (HPC) facility.
• Dr Jitendra Singh informed that IBDC has started nucleotide data submission services via two data portals viz. The ‘Indian Nucleotide Data Archive (INDA)’ and ‘Indian Nucleotide Data Archive – Controlled Access INDA-CA’ has accumulated over 200 billion bases from 2,08,055 submissions from more than 50 research labs across India.

• India has joined the Mangrove Alliance for Climate, MAC, at the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP27) at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.
• After joining the alliance, India called for integration of mangroves conservation with the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programmes for carbon sequestering.
• Speaking at the launch of MAC, Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said, India sees the tremendous potential mangroves have for mitigation of growing GHG concentration in the atmosphere.
• He said studies have shown that mangrove forests can absorb four to five times more carbon emissions than landed tropical forests.
• MAC is an intergovernmental alliance that seeks to expand and hasten the progress towards conservation and restoration of mangrove ecosystems. India is among the first five countries to join the MAC, including Australia, Japan, Spain, and Sri Lanka.
• The alliance will raise global awareness about the role of mangroves as a nature-based climate change solution. It will ensure the rehabilitation of mangrove forests on a global level.

About Mangroves:

• Mangroves are small trees and shrubs which grow along the coastlines thrive in salty water and form unique forests on the edge of land and the sea. Mangrove ecosystems are among the most productive and ecologically important ecosystems in the world.
• They provide significant climate change mitigation and adaptation co-benefits since they are capable of storing carbon up to 400 percent faster than land-based tropical rainforests.
• They protect coastal regions from rising sea levels, erosion, and storm surges and provide breeding grounds for marine biodiversity. Around 80 percent of the global fish population rely on these ecosystems for their survival.
• India contributes to nearly half of the total mangrove cover in South Asia and West Bengal, the home to Sundarbans, has the highest percentage of mangrove cover in India. Spread over India and Bangladesh the Sundarbans are also the single largest mangrove forest in the world.
• Gujarat and Andaman, and Nicobar Islands, Maharashtra, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Goa, and Kerala too have mangrove forests.

• The BJP announced its manifesto, the saffron party, out of 11, declared the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code as its first promise, as shown in the “Sankalp Patra.” But in the context of the Himachal state, here over 95% of the people are Hindu, 2.18 % are Muslims, 1.16% are Sikhs, and 0.1% practise Christianity.
• While reacting to this, Senior Congress leader Mukesh Agnihotri said that there is no point in UCC in the context of Himachal. Since the state is very law-abiding & peaceful state.
• The announcement on the Uniform Civil Code does not make sense now, with one week left for the Assembly elections the issues as a result of government failure. The Center has the authority to put the Uniform Civil Code into effect, if they want he continued.

What is Uniform Civil Code?

• According to the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), all religious communities in India would be subject to one legislation that would govern issues including marriage, divorce, inheritance, and adoption. The law is mandated by Article 44 of the Constitution, which states that the state must work to establish a uniform civil code for its residents across the whole Indian subcontinent.

• Billing in Kangra district is among the top paragliding sites in the world. The place has been regularly hosting the prestigious Paragliding World Cup. But as rules to govern the sport are normally overlooked, it has started courting controversies. In the absence of proper check from the state tourism department, the number mishaps has gone up in the past few years.

As per the rules laid down in 2004,

• It is mandatory for a pilot to have a licence which is issued by the Aero Sport Society of India, he should carry internationally homologated design parachute with helmet, have two-way radio communication system with instrument panel, altimeter, barometer and compass with speed indicator and two first aid kits equipped with medicines and bandages.
• Besides, there should be ground support with a retrieval vehicle, insurance cover for two persons in tandem flights and insurance support for arranging helicopter in the case of emergency

Various Mishaps happened in past:

• An Army jawan from Mizoram was killed when his para glider crash-landed near Billing. He was flying solo when the tragedy occurred. He had no knowledge of the topography of Dhauladhar ranges which led to the mishap.
• In another mishap, a Ghaziabad tourist and his helper were killed while taking off from Billing. In another mishap, a resident of Nagrota Bagwan was killed when the co-pilot failed to tighten safety belts.
• In February 2020, a 24-year-old para glider Akshya and co-pilot Shyam Lal were killed. Both had taken off from Billing and were untrained.
• In 2018, a Singaporean pilot Kok Chang had died after his glider crash-landed in high mountains of Dhauladhar hills after he took off from Billing. His body was spotted by rescue teams after many days. Earlier, two Russian pilots were killed in similar mishaps
• Two years back, Max Kent McGowan, a US pilot, remained stranded in snow-covered mountains for nearly 60 hours after taking off from Billing when his glider moved in wrong direction bordering Chamba district. Though he was able to land at Bir after two hours heavy rain, snowfall and high velocity wind forced his landing in high mountains. He had neither insurance cover nor permission from the administration to fly.

HC seeks govt reply on Bir Billing mishaps

• Taking a strong note of the issue of regular mishaps at the paragliding site at Bir Billing, the HP High Court has sought response from the state govt and the Shimla administration
• The Bench comprising Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan and Justice Virender Singh took cognizance of the news report in The Tribune on November 9 under the headline, “Navy officer killed in paragliding mishap in Himachal’s Billing.”

About:

• According to the report, the Mother Tongue Survey of India is a project that “surveys the mother tongues, which are returned consistently across two and more Census decades”.
• It also documents the linguistic features of the selected languages.
• The report states that the NIC and the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) will be documenting and preserving the linguistic data of the surveyed mother tongues in audio-video files.
• Video-graphed speech data of Mother Tongues will also be uploaded on the NIC survey for archiving purposes.
• Linguistic Survey of India (LSI) is a regular research activity in the country since the 6th Five Year Plan.

How many “mother tongues” does India have, and what is spoken the most?

• As per an analysis of 2011 linguistic census data in 2018, more than 19,500 languages or dialects are spoken in India as mother tongues.
• The category “mother tongue” is a designation provided by the respondent, but it need not be identical with the actual linguistic medium.
• After subjecting the 19,569 returns to linguistic scrutiny, edit and rationalisation, they were grouped into 121 mother tongues.
• According to the 2011 linguistic census, Hindi is the most widely spoken mother tongue, with 52.8 crore people or 43.6 per cent of the population declaring it as the mother tongue.
• The next highest is Bengali, mother tongue for 9.7 crore individuals, and accounting for 8 per cent of the population.

Mother tongue in the education of children:

• The new National Curriculum Framework (NCF) for the foundational stages of education, has recommended that mother tongue should be the primary medium of instruction in schools for children up to eight years of age.
• The focus on mother tongue as the medium of instruction, especially for primary schooling, has been a feature of education policies for years.
• The new NCF, which deals with pre-school and classes I-II, emphasises the virtues of the mother tongue as the primary medium of instruction, saying that by the time children join pre-school, they acquire significant competence in the “home language”.
• According to the NCF, evidence from research confirms the importance of teaching children in their mother tongue during the foundational years and beyond.
• NCF also states that since children learn concepts most rapidly and deeply in their home language, the primary medium of instruction would optimally be the child’s home language/ mother tongue/ familiar language in the Foundational Stage.

• The UMEED scheme of Jammu and Kashmir Rural Livelihoods Mission (JKRLM) is providing wings to the aspirations of rural women in the Union territory, who dream of becoming economically independent.
• The Mission aims to reduce poverty by building strong grass-root institutions for the poor in Jammu and Kashmir, engaging them in gainful livelihood interventions and ensuring appreciable improvements in their income on a sustainable basis.
• AIR Correspondent reports, Through UMEED, hundreds of women are not only scripting their success stories in Jammu and Kashmir but are motivating others to come out of poverty and become successful
• UMEED is immensely helping women entrepreneurs to exhibit and market their products.
• Jammu Kashmir Rural Livelihoods Mission (JKRLM) is turning the wheel of transformation for J&K women to become progressive and self-employed entrepreneurs.
• The UMEED programme under JKRLM is a centrally sponsored scheme to encourage women to be self dependent and self-sufficient.
• It also encourages women to make small savings so that their Self-Help Groups (SHGs) eventually become bankable at reduced rate of interest.

• Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal will inaugurate the two day PM Gati Shakti Multimodal Waterways Summit.
• The summit will be held at the Deendayal Hastkala Sankul (Trade Centre and Museum) Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. The primary object of the summit is to bring about greater awareness about the PM Gati Shakti National Masterplan with focus on infrastructure development in the waterways.
• Speaking about the Summit, Mr Sonowal said the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan is a transformative approach for improving logistics efficiency and reducing logistics cost to ensure first and last mile connectivity.
• He said, the Ministry had identified 101 projects estimated to cost around over 62 thousand crore rupees under GatiShakti which are aimed to be completed by 2024.
• PM Gati Shakti was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi which aims at providing Multimodal connectivity infrastructure to various Special Economic Zones and enhancing logistical efficiency.

• Atal Innovation Mission of NITI Aayog launched the Women centric challenges under the 2nd edition of Atal New India Challenge (ANIC).
• The Woman centric challenges address the major issues faced by women from all spheres of life. These include driving women hygiene through innovation, innovations to improve women’s safety, professional networking opportunities for women, innovations that make working mothers’ life better, and easing the life of Rural Women.
• CEO NITI Aayog Parmeswaran Iyer said that these challenges are thought provoking and can lead to major innovations and solutions. He said that NITI Aayog and AIM focus on women empowerment.
• The Aayog highlighted that ANIC aims to seek, select, support and nurture technology-based innovations that solve sectoral challenges of national importance and societal relevance through a grant-based mechanism of up to one crore rupees.