ANSWER: C

• Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, MK Stalin launched the Ennum Ezhuthum scheme to bridge the learning gap that was caused due to the COVID pandemic among students aged below eight.
• The scheme aims to ensure foundational literacy and numeracy by 2025.

Under the programme:

• The education department will distribute workbooks to students from Classes 1 to 3to assess and bridge the learning gap.
• Teachers were advised to opt for interactive learning methods and encourage students to read newspapers and books in the school library.
• The State government has announced a slew of programmes and schemes for the academic year 2022-23, with the motive to improve the quality of education in the State.
• The children will be trained in 3 subjects – Tamil, English, and Mathematics in a classroom suitable for conducting lessons that are designed in the format of dance, songs, storytelling, and puppetry, and also videos.

ANSWER: D

• About one in eight people in the world live with a mental disorder as stated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in a landmark report released calling for urgent action on transforming mental healthcare.
• The lack of awareness and access to care remain the most significant obstacles to mental health care.
• Even before the pandemic, in 2019, the number of people living with a mental disorder was nearly a billion, including 14 per cent of the world’s adolescents, a number that has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic in the last two years.
• The WHO report revealed that on average, countries dedicate less than 2 per cent of their healthcare budgets to mental health. As a result, just a small fraction of people in need get access to effective, affordable and quality mental health care.
• The report also called to end stigma, discrimination and human rights violations against people with mental health conditions, with 20 countries still criminalising attempted suicide.

ANSWER: C

• The Eighth Global Conference of Young Parliamentarians has been started in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt to address climate change.
• The two-day conference is being jointly organized by the House of Representatives and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). 
• Nagaland’s first woman elected as Member of Parliament to Rajya Sabha, Phangon Konyak is representing India at the Conference.
• She, along with two other young Lok Sabha MPs from India, will be sharing her thoughts on the ‘Young MPs for Climate Actions’.

About the Conference:

• The 8th Global Conference of Young Parliamentarians provides a platform for young MPs from across the world to exchange learn and define common and innovative strategies to advance youth empowerment.
• This year in Egypt, around 200 young MPs, from 60 countries are participating to discuss strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change and ensure that global warming does not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius in line with the Paris Agreement.
• According to official information shared by IPU, there are 35,177 Parliamentary seats globally but just 2.66 per cent of these are held by young MPs.

ANSWER: B

About Prithvi-II:

• Prithvi-II is capable of carrying 500-1,000 kilogram of warheads and is powered by liquid propulsion twin engines. The state-of-the-art missile uses advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvring trajectory to hit its target.
• The missile was randomly chosen from the production stock and the entire launch was carried out by the Strategic Force Command (SFC) of the Army and monitored by the scientists of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) as part of a training exercise.
• The missile trajectory was tracked by radars, electro- optical tracking systems and telemetry stations by the DRDO along the coast of Odisha.

KEY POINTS:

• India has test-launched Short-Range Ballistic Missile, Prithvi-II from an integrated test range in Chandipur, Odisha.
• This missile system is capable of striking targets with a very high degree of precision.
• It is an indigenously developed, surface-to-surface missile. It is powered by liquid propulsion twin engines. Its range is 350 km and can carry one-ton payload.

ANSWER: C

• The septic tank is a hazardous environment, filled with semi-solid and semi-fluid human faeces, which account for roughly two-thirds of the tank’s volume.
• Hundreds of people die each year in India as a result of manual scavenging in septic tanks, despite bans and prohibition orders.
• The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has developed a robot that can clean septic tanks without the need for humans.
• Ten units are expected to be distributed across Tamil Nadu under the name “HomoSEP,” and researchers would be in contact with sanitation workers to determine where they can be placed.

KEY POINTS:

• According to IIT Madras, Gujarat and Maharashtra are being considered for the deployment of robots that have been designed with the goal of eliminating manual scavenging in the future.
• Through the support of the NGO, Safai Karamchari Andolan, the first two HomoSEP units have been delivered to self-help groups led by Nagamma and Ruth Mary, whose husbands tragically perished during sanitation work.
• The HomoSEP can homogenise stubborn sludge in septic tanks using a custom-developed rotating blade mechanism and pump the tank slurry using an integrated suction mechanism.

ANSWER: B

• Renowned Urdu scholar, linguist, theorist, literary critic, and former Chairperson of Sahitya Akademi Professor, Gopi Chand Narang has passed away at 91.
• He was a Professor Emeritus at the University of Delhi and Jamia Millia Islamia.
• He has been honoured with the Padma Bhushan (2004) and Sahitya Akademi Awards (1995).
• He incorporated a range of modern theoretical frameworks, including stylistics, structuralism, post-structuralism, and Sanskrit poetics.

ANSWER: A

APEDA Formation: 1986.

APEDA Headquarters: New Delhi.

• The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA)has organized an eight-day long mango festival in Bahrain to boost the export of Mangoes.
• 34 varieties of mangoes from eastern states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha, are being displayed at eight different locations of Bahrain’s Al Jazira group supermarket.
• All the varieties of mangoes have been directly procured from farmers and two Farmer Producer Organizations.
• The mango show in Bahrain is part of APEDA’s new initiatives to explore international markets for Indian mangoes under the ‘Mango Festival 2022.

ANSWER: D

• According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Strong and consistent inflow of moist southwesterly/ southerly winds from the Bay of Bengal are reaching straight over to the northeast India, resulting in such a deluge.
• Such winds along with local orographic and weather factors contributed to such high rainfall over northeast India.
• Such extreme rain comes after last month’s surplus rain over the northeast India region. Between March and May this year, Meghalaya received 93 per cent surplus rain and had ended as one of the wettest northeastern states.
• The rainfall received at Cherrapunji was more than what Mumbai would record during an entire monsoon season between June to September.

ANSWER: C

• Three-day international literary festival ‘Unmesh’ began at Gaiety Theatre.
• Over 425 writers, poets, translators, critics and distinguished personalities from 15 countries, representing over 60 languages will attend the event.
• Unmesh is being held for the first time and similar functions would be held in different parts of the country.
• The festival is being organised by the Union Ministry of Culture and the Sahitya Akademi with the support of the Himachal Pradesh Department of Art and Culture as part of the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’.
• According to the organisers, Unmesh’ — a celebration of expression — is the biggest international literary festival in the country so far.
• More than 1,000 books related to the freedom movement will be displayed during the event.

ANSWER: A

• Chief Minister announced that necessary budget provision would be made by the Language, Arts and Culture Department for Dev Shri Ganpati Mandir Bhatwari and Dev Shri Laxmi Narayan Mandir Kot Khamaradha so that it could be developed from a tourism point of view.
• Dev Darshan Samaroh’ was held at Shri Dev Ganpati Temple at Bhatwari in Drang Vidhan Sabha area of Mandi district.