Context

• The Ministry of Finance released details about the electoral bonds scheme.

What are Electoral Bonds?

• An electoral bond is designed to be an interest-free bearer instrument like a Promissory Note — in effect, it will be similar to a bank note that is payable to the bearer on demand.
• It can be purchased by any citizen of India or a body incorporated in India. A person being an individual can buy Electoral Bonds, either singly or jointly with other individuals.
• The electoral bonds were announced in the 2017 Union Budget.
• The bonds will be issued in multiples of ₹1,000, ₹10,000, ₹1 lakh, ₹10 lakh and ₹1 crore and will be available at specified branches of State Bank of India. 
• They can be bought by the donor with a KYC-compliant account. 

Context

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to release the 10th installment of financial benefit under the PM-KISAN scheme.

About the scheme

• Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) is a Central Sector Scheme with 100% funding from Government of India.
• Aim : To augment the income of the farmers by providing income support to all landholding farmers’ families across the country.
• The Scheme initially provided income support to all Small and Marginal Farmers’ families across the country, holding cultivable land upto 2 hectares. Its ambit was later expanded w.e.f. 01.06.2019 to cover all farmer families in the country irrespective of the size of their land holdings. 
• Under the Scheme an amount of Rs. 6000/- per year is transferred in three 4-monthly installments of Rs. 2000/- directly into the bank accounts of the farmers, subject to certain exclusion criteria relating to higher income status.
• Eligibility : All landholder farmer’s families in the country are eligible for the PM-Kisan Scheme subject to the prevalent exclusion criteria. Farmers who do not own any land are not eligible for this scheme.

Context

• The government has launched a facility for overdraft (OD) of Rs. 5,000/- to verified SHG members under DAY – NRLM having accounts under the prime Minister Jan Dhan Yojana.
• This facility has been initiated in pursuance of the announcement made by the Finance Minister in her budget speech of 2019-20.

About

• Aajeevika-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) was launched by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) in 2011. 
• Aided in part through investment support by the World Bank, the scheme aimed at helping the rural poor by enabling them to increase household income through sustainable livelihood enhancements and improved access to financial services.
• NRLM has the mandate of reaching out to 100 million rural poor in 6 lakh villages across the country.
• In 2015, the program was renamed Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM).

Context

• The Government of India has released the Good Governance Index 2021 prepared by DARPG on Good Governance Day (25th December).

About the Index

• Good Governance Index (GGI) 2021 Framework covered ten sectors and 58 indicators. 
• The sectors of GGI 2020-21 are
  • Agriculture and Allied Sectors,
  • Commerce & Industries,
  • Human Resource Development,
  • Public Health,
  • Public Infrastructure & Utilities,
  • Economic Governance,
  • Social Welfare & Development,
  • Judicial & Public Security,
  • Environment, and
  • Citizen-Centric Governance.
• The GGI 2020-21 categorises States and UTs into four categories, i.e., (i) Other States – Group A; (ii) Other States – Group B; (iii) North-East and Hill States; and (iv) Union Territories.

Context

• The Government of India conducted a workshop on Mission Karmayogi.
• The aim of “Mission Karmayogi” is to impart futuristic vision to civil services which could effectively determine the roadmap for next 25 years and shape the Century India of 2047.

About the programme

• Mission Karmayogi is a nationwide programme to lay the foundation for capacity building of civil servants. It will help the officers to learn about the best practices across the world.
• Officially called the “National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB)“, the mission plans to transform human resource management in the country. 
• Mission Karmayogi aims to prepare the Indian civil servant for the future by making him more creative, constructive, imaginative, innovative, proactive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology-enabled.
• The fundamental focus of the reform is the creation of a ‘citizen centric civil service’ capable of creating and delivering services conducive to economic growth and public welfare.
• It shifts the focus from “Rule based training to Role based training”. Greater thrust has been laid on behavioural change.

Context

• There are certain challenges in sustaining LPG adoption in rural India and emphasises that the goal must be a more sustainable energy basket per family.

Data on LPG use

• Over the five years, the average per capita consumption among Ujjwala customers has hovered around three cylinders per year (of 14.2 kg), rising to 4.2 (2020-21).
• Relatively poorer Ujjwala consumers are reaching the LPG consumption levels of relatively well-off non-Ujjwala rural consumers.
• Completed the target of enlisting eight crore Ujjwala customers in late 2019.

How was this possible?

• Successful implementation of the Direct Benefit Transfer of LPG (DBTL) or PAHAL (Pratyaksh Hanstantrit Labh) scheme of 2014 which freed up the financial resources needed to dream of a large-scale programme for deposit-free LPG connections.
• Ujjwala was conceptualised and launched which ensured enhanced availability of LPG.
• Various capacities such as of the ports for handling imports, of tanks for storage of LPG, of pipelines and trucks for transportation of gas, and of bottling plants for filling in more cylinders were enhanced.
• Production of cylinders, pressure regulators, hose and affordable LPG stoves was also enhanced.
• New distributors/dealers were appointed to reach remote pockets.
• Enthusiasm for Ujjwala was sustained by creating avenues for local MPs and other elected representatives to support Ujjwala and its implementation.

Context

• The Delhi High Court dismissed a petition by the wife of the late Mirza Mohammed Bedar Bakht, great-grandson of last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar to hand over to her the possession of the Red Fort.

The Red Fort

• The Red Fort Complex was built as the palace fort of Shahjahanabad – the new capital of the fifth Mughal Emperor of India, Shah Jahan. Shah Jahan, after ruling from Agra for eleven years, decided to shift to Delhi and laid the foundation stone of the Red Fort in 1618. 
• Named for its massive enclosing walls of red sandstone, it is adjacent to an older fort, the Salimgarh, built by Islam Shah Suri in 1546, with which it forms the Red Fort Complex.
• For its inauguration in 1647, the main halls of the palace were draped in rich tapestry and covered with silk from China and velvet from Turkey.
• With a circumference of almost one and a half miles, the fort is an irregular octagon and has two entrances, the Lahore and Delhi Gates 
• The private apartments consist of a row of pavilions connected by a continuous water channel, known as the Nahr-i-Behisht (Stream of Paradise).
• The Red Fort is considered to represent the zenith of Mughal creativity which, under the Shah Jahan, was brought to a new level of refinement.

The planning of the palace is based on Islamic prototypes, but each pavilion reveals architectural elements typical of Mughal building, reflecting a fusion of Persian, Timurid and Hindu traditions.

Context

• Be it education, healthcare, or the roadside vendor, the biggest takeaway for every sector — organised and unorganised — from the Covid-19 pandemic is adapting to the new normal.
• And this ‘new normal’ is almost entirely technology driven and farming will also need to embrace new technologies.

Tech in agriculture so far

• Advances in machinery have expanded the scale, speed, and productivity of farm equipment, leading to more efficient cultivation of larger land parcels.
• Seed, irrigation, and fertilisers also have vastly improved, helping farmers increase yields.

However the farming sector, which contributes 16 per cent to the GDP and employs more than 45 per cent of the workforce, is nowhere near leveraging the benefits of technological innovations that are being offered by agritech start-ups.

Recent technologies and their benefits

Now, agriculture is in the early days of yet another revolution, at the heart of which lie data and connectivity.

• Artificial intelligence, analytics, connected sensors, and other emerging technologies could further increase yields, improve the efficiency of water and other inputs, and build sustainability and resilience across crop cultivation and animal husbandry.

Context

• According to a study published in journal Scientific reports, Glaciers in the Himalayas are melting at an “exceptional” rate because of global warming, threatening the water supply of millions of people in Asia.

Key highlights

• The Himalayan mountain range is home to the world’s third-largest amount of glacier ice, after Antarctica and the Arctic and is often referred to as ‘the Third Pole’.
• The researchers found that the Himalayan glaciers have lost ice ten times more quickly over the last few decades than on average since the last major glacier expansion 400-700 years ago, a period known as the Little Ice Age.
• The study also shows that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking far more rapidly than glaciers in other parts of the world.

Context

• The Ministry of Panchayati Raj provided details about the proposed state-wise villages to be covered under SVAMITVA Scheme in the Parliament.

About the scheme

• SVAMITVA (Survey of villages and mapping with improvised technology in village areas) scheme is a collaborative effort of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, State Panchayati Raj Departments, State Revenue Departments and Survey of India.
• It is a central sector scheme that aims to provide rural people with the right to document their residential properties so that they can use their property for economic purposes. The scheme is for surveying the land parcels in rural inhabited areas using Drone technology.