• 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.

• Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri virtually launched the Transport 4 All Challenge Stage-2 and Citizen Perception Survey 2022.
• The Transport 4 All Challenge is an initiative aims at enhancing the mobility experience of citizens.
• The Challenge focuses on digital innovation and invites cities, citizens, and innovators to join hands to develop contextual digital solutions to improve public transport to better serve the mobility needs of all citizens.
• The Stage-2 is opened to Startups for developing solutions to Transport problems in 46 participating cities.
• The Citizen Perception Survey is launched under Ease of Living Index-2022 for 264 cities to capture citizens feedback about their city.
• It is an initiative to undertake a transparent and comprehensive assessment of cities based on cross-city outcomes across major sectors. This survey will continue till 23rd of next month.

• Centre has allowed International Trade Settlements in Indian Rupees for Export Promotion Schemes under the Foreign Trade Policy.
• According to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry the decision was taken to facilitate and ease international trade transactions in Indian Rupees.
• The Ministry said, suitable amendments have been made in the Foreign Trade Policy(FTP) and Handbook of Procedures to allow International Trade Settlement in Indian Rupees including, invoicing, payment, and settlement of exports and imports in Indian Rupees.
• It said that the changes have been introduced for grant of exports benefits , incentives, fulfilment of export obligation under FTP for export realisations in Indian Rupees as per the RBI guidelines.
• The Ministry informed, that given the rise in interest in internationalisation of Indian Rupee, the  Policy amendments have been undertaken to facilitate and to bring ease in international trade transactions in Indian Rupees.

• Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman approves the final Sovereign Green Bonds framework of India. This approval will further strengthen India’s commitment towards its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs) targets, adopted under the Paris Agreement, and help in attracting global and domestic investments in eligible green projects. The proceeds generated from issuance of such bonds will be deployed in Public Sector projects which help in reducing carbon intensity of the economy.
• The Framework comes close on the footsteps of India’s commitments under “Panchamrit” as elucidated by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, at COP26 at Glasgow in November, 2021. The approval is fulfillment of the announcement in the Union Budget FY 2022-23 by the Union Finance Minister that Sovereign Green Bonds will be issued for mobilising resources for green projects.
• Green bonds are financial instruments that generate proceeds for investment in environmentally sustainable and climate-suitable projects. By virtue of their indication towards environmental sustainability, green bonds command a relatively lower cost of capital vis-à-vis regular bonds and necessitates credibility and commitments associated with the process of raising bonds.
• In the above context, India’s first Sovereign Green Bonds framework was formulated and as per the provisions of the framework, Green Finance Working Committee (GFWC) was constituted to validate key decisions on issuance of Sovereign Green Bonds.
• Further, CICERO, an independent and globally renowned Norway-based Second Party Opinion (SPO) provider, was appointed to evaluate India’s green bonds framework and certify alignment of the framework with ICMA’s Green Bond Principles and international best practices. After due deliberation and consideration, CICERO has rated India’s Green Bonds Framework as ‘Medium Green’ with a “Good” governance score.

• The Union Minister of Jal Shakti, Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat released the Dynamic Ground Water Resource Assessment Report for the entire country for the year 2022.
• The assessment was carried out jointly by Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) and States/UTs, which can be used for taking suitable interventions by various stake-holders.

As per the 2022 assessment report,

• Assessment indicates increase in ground water recharge
• Analysis indicates improvement in ground water conditions in 909 assessment units in the country compared with 2017 assessment data
• Total annual ground water recharge for entire country is 437.60 billion cubic meters (BCM)
• Annual ground water extraction for the entire country is 239.16 BCM
• Out of total 7089 assessment units, 1006 units categorized as ‘Over-exploited’
• Such joint exercises between CGWB & States/UTs were carried out earlier in 1980, 1995, 2004, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2017 and 2020
• A detailed analysis of the information collected from the assessment indicates increase in ground water recharge which may mainly be attributed to increase in recharge from canal seepage, return flow of irrigation water and recharges from water bodies/tanks & water conservation structures.
• Further, analysis indicates improvement in ground water conditions in 909 assessment units in the country when compared with 2017 assessment data.
• In addition, overall decrease in number of over-exploited units and decrease in stage of groundwater extraction level have also been observed.