ANSWER: A

• India has exported the first consignment of plant-based meat products from Nadiad in the Kheda district of Gujarat to California in the United States.
• In a move to boost exports of unique agricultural processed food products, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Authority, APEDA, facilitated the export of the first consignment of plant-based meat products under the Vegan Food category.
• Plant-based food products have a huge export potential in the international market due to the high nutrient value of vegan food products. Due to its rich fibre and lesser cholesterol contents, vegan food products are becoming alternative food products across the globe.
• The 5,000 kg consignment consisted of mini samosas, hot and spicy strips, momos, spring rolls, nuggets, and grilled patty, among other products.
• APEDA has planned to promote a variety of vegan food products, including pancakes, snacks, and cheese to the countries of Australia, Israel, New Zealand, and others in the coming months.

About APEDA:

• The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) was established by the Government of India under the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority Act passed by the Parliament in December, 1985.
• Basmati Rice has been included in the Second Schedule of APEDA Act.

ANSWER: B

• The Ministry of Women and Child Development has called for the creation of “Poshan Vatikas” throughout the country in anticipation of the month-long Poshan Maah celebrations in September 2021.
• The government said that four lakh 37 thousand Anganwadi Centres have set up Poshan Vatikas or Nutri-gardens to provide easy and affordable access to fruits, vegetables, medicinal plants and herbs.
• The Nutri-gardens have been set up under the Poshan Maah Scheme (2018) and aimed at improving nutritional outcomes for children, pregnant women and lactating mothers.
• Under the Poshan Maah Scheme, efforts are being put into setting up Nutri gardens with backyard poultry and fishery units across the country.
• Around 1.10 lakh medicinal saplings have also been planted across some selected districts of six states. More than 75 thousand sensitization camps have been conducted to promote millets and backyard kitchen gardens. Beyond the locally available wholesome produce, these Nutri-gardens will reduce external dependency and will make communities proactive in maintaining their nutritional security.
• To replicate the idea of Nutri-gardens around new Anganwadi centres, close to 40 thousand land identification drives have been conducted. Also, more than 1.5 lakh events on these nutria-gardens have been reported so far.
• The main idea behind setting up of these gardens is to provide a fresh and regular supply of locally produced fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants to women and children straight from a Nutri-garden at or near an Anganwadi Centre. They can also play an important role in enhancing dietary diversity by providing key micronutrients through local fruits and vegetables.
• Launched in 2018, POSHAN Abhiyaan is a key component of Mission Poshan 2.0 which seeks to address the challenges of malnutrition in children, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers through a strategic shift in nutrition content and delivery. It also aims at promoting practices that nurture health, wellness and immunity.
• In India, child malnutrition has been improving gradually. As per reports, comparing the two National Family Health Surveys conducted in the years 2016 and 2021, children who are underweight reduced by 3.7 percentage points, those who are stunted reduced by 2.9 percentage points, and those who are wasted reduced by 1.7 percentage points.

ANSWER: D

• The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and the Council for Industry and Scientific Research (CSIR) have partnered to support an outreach programme designed to promote the chemical sciences in schools and universities.
• About 2000 students across the country participated in RSC’s Global Coin experiment organised across over 30 CSIR laboratories.
• The two organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), committing to work together on the CSIR’s Jigyasa programme – an India-wide outreach programme aimed at school children and researchers.
• The MoU will be a non-financial one and will be time-bound for at least three years with an option of renewal, stated the Ministry of Science and Technology.
• As per the Ministry, the Jigyasa programme will complement existing educational programmes in India. For example, the RSC-Jigyasa partnership will help to expand the RSC’s existing teacher training programme and Chemistry Camps, and will be launching several online education initiatives.
• As part of the launch event for the Jigyasa programme, the collaboration is organising a Global Experiment including all the CSIR’s laboratories.
• At least 2,000 schoolchildren, 150 teachers, and 350 volunteers took part in the ‘RSC’s Global Coin experiment organised across over 30 CSIR laboratories, in which participants are asked to compare batteries made from different types of coins. The participants will then be able to compare their data with that of participants from around the globe.
• The MoU was signed by both organisations at a ceremony on 22 September. It was signed by Dr. Geetha Vani Rayasam from the CSIR and Paul Lewis, Chief Operating Officer, RSC in the presence of Dr N Kalaiselvi, Director General of the CSIR and Dr Venugopal Achanta, Director of National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL).

ANSWER: B

• Dr M Srinivas has been appointed as the director of All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences, AIIMS, New Delhi.
• Dr Srinivas who is Dean of ESIC Medical College and Hospital, Hyderabad, will succeed Randeep Guleria who has been holding the post since March 2017.
• The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved the appointment of Dr. Srinivas to the post of AIIMS director.
• His appointment is for a period of five years with effect from the date of assumption of charge of the post or till attaining the age of 65 years.

ANSWER: D

• Coal India Limited (CIL) is scheduled to sign agreements with three other major public sector undertakings – Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and GAIL (India) – next week for setting up four Surface Coal Gasification (SCG) projects.
• As per an official statement released by the Ministry of Coal, the Memorandum of Undertaking (MoU) among the government-run firms will be signed on 27th September 2022 in New Delhi.
• These PSUs will join hands for setting up of coal-to-chemical projects through Surface Coal Gasification (SCG) route.
• Through SCG route coal is converted into syngas that can be subsequently processed for downstream production of value-added chemicals. These are otherwise produced through imported natural gas or crude oil. Envisaged end products would be di-methyl ether, synthetic natural gas and ammonium nitrate.
• The upside of the proposed projects are reduced forex outgo and direct and indirect employment generation to the tune of 23,000, the Ministry of Coal said in a statement.
• With the twin objectives of self-reliance and energy independence, Ministry of Coal has set a target for achieving 100 million tonne coal gasification by 2030.

ANSWER: A

• Indian author and poet Meena Kandasamy has been announced as this year’s recipient of the Hermann Kesten Prize by the PEN Centre in Germany’s
• The Hermann Kesten Prize honours personalities who, in the spirit of the charter of the PEN association, stand up for the rights of persecuted authors and journalists.
• The PEN Center, Germany, will present the award to the Indian author at a ceremony in Darmstadt on November 15 this year.
• The winner will receive an amount of €20,000 ($19,996) as prize money. This year, the PEN Center is also honouring the website “Weiter Schreiben” (German for “Keep writing”) with a special award for encouragement, for giving authors in exile and writers from conflict zones a platform to express their thoughts.

About Meena Kandasamy:

• Meena Kandasamy was born in 1984 in Chennai, Kandasamy is a feminist and anti-caste activist whose work revolves around the issue of gender, caste, sexuality, patriarchy, and oppression by the Brahmanical system.
• Her novels have been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Jhalak Prize and the Hindu Lit Prize.
• She previously held an editorial role at the English-language magazine ‘The Dalit’. Kandasamy has been a vocal critic of the arrest of fellow writers like Varavara Rao and former Delhi University professor G N Saibaba.

ANSWER: D

• The first avalanche monitoring radar has been installed at a forward post in north Sikkim along the boundary with China.
• Located at an altitude of 15,000 ft, the radar, the first of its kind in India, has the capability to detect an avalanche within three seconds of its trigger and will assist in saving lives of troops and reducing damage to property.
• It uses a series of short microwave pulses which detect an avalanche in under three seconds. The radar can permanently scan the targeted slope for avalanche and track the path of the avalanche and its size in case it is triggered.
• The radar can see through snow, fog as well as in the night, making it an all-weather solution and covers an area of 2 sq km, obviating the requirement to place additional instruments in dangerous avalanche-prone areas.
• The radar is also linked to an alarm system enabling automatic control and warning measures in case an avalanche is triggered. Images and videos of the event are automatically recorded for future analysis.
• The Army will operate the radar made by the Defence Geoinformatics and Research Establishment (DGRE). Lieutenant General Tarn Kumar Aich, Commander of the 33 Corps, inaugurated it.

ANSWER: A

• Dilip Tirkey, a former India hockey captain and member of the gold medal-winning team at the 1998 Asian Games, was unanimously elected as Hockey India (HI)
• First time in history, a former sportsperson and an Olympian has gone on to head the national body.
• Tirkey, 44, has a record 412 international matches as a defender in his career spanning more than 15 years.
• He represented India at the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, Sydney in 2000, and Athens in 2004.
• The Hockey India elections were supposed to be completed by October 9, according to the deadline set in August by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) and the Committee of Administrators (CoA).
• Prior to Tirkey’s election as president, Hockey India was subject to the COA’s jurisdiction on the orders of the Delhi High Court due to an alleged violation of the National Sports Act.

ANSWER: A

• Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur inaugurated a new Milkfed plant at Chakkar in Balh area of Mandi district. Constructed at a cost of Rs 16.32 crore, the new plant would increase its capacity to over 50,000 litres.
• This plant would process milk in a semi-automatic way, which would provide the facility of procurement of more milk from the farmers.
• The HP Milkfed collected about 395 lakh litres of milk from 47,295 farmers of the state during 2021-22 and Rs 110.56 crore was paid to farmers.
• The purchase of milk has increased by 78 per cent, that is, from 219.00 lakh litres in 2017-18 to 395.39 lakh litres in 2021-22.
• The total turnover of Himachal Pradesh Milk Federation in the year 2017-18 was Rs 99 crore, which has increased to Rs 172 crore in 2021-22, he added.
• An increase of Rs 9 per litre was made in the price of milk purchased from farmers, from Rs 22.90 per litre in the year 2017-18 to Rs 31.90 per litre in 2022-23.
• The commission of milk societies was increased from 4.5 per cent to 5 per cent and the Milk Federation was paying the best price to the milk producers in the country.
• The Milkfed has 11 milk processing plants, one cattle feed plant and one powder plant functioning in the state.
• With the commissioning of milk plant Chakkar, Mandi, the daily capacity of milk has increased from 100000 litres to 130000 litres. He said that another milk processing plant of 50,000 litres capacity was under construction in Duttnagar, of which 70 per cent work has been completed.
• This plant would facilitate about thousands of farmers from Mandi, Kullu and other districts.

ANSWER: D

• Himachal Medical Officers Association (HMOA) has alleged that the government was trying to implement the Mobile Clinic Scheme without the required manpower and facilities.
• The Chief Minister had announced that doctors would be recruited separately for the scheme.
• According to HMOA official, the doctors for the scheme are being drawn from PHCs and CHCs.
• According to HMOA official, there is also lack of some basic facilities for the diagnosis of the patients.
• Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur had announced this scheme during the Budget Session.
• Under this scheme, a mobile medical unit, comprising a doctor, a pharmacist and a lab technician, would provide healthcare services in remote and un-serviced areas in all 68 Assembly constituencies.