1. INFLATION (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 - Economy)

Context: The central government will take a medium-term view while intensifying efforts to reduce the inflationary burden, and will avoid any knee-jerk reaction to transitory price rises, Finance Secretary said.

Measures to control inflation

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2. PM-eBUS SEWA (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 - Infrastructure)

Context: The Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister has approved a bus scheme “PM-eBus Sewa” for augmenting city bus operation by 10,000 e-buses on PPP model. 

• The Scheme would have an estimated cost of Rs.57,613 crore, out of which support of Rs.20,000 crore will be provided by the Central government. The Scheme will support bus operations for 10 years.

Key Points

• The scheme will cover cities of Three lakh and above population as per census 2011 including all the Capital cities of Union Territories, North Eastern Region and Hill States. 
• Under this scheme priority will be given to cities having no organized bus service.

• The Scheme has two segments:

• Segment A – Augmenting the City bus services:(169 cities)
• The approved bus scheme will augment city bus operations with 10,000 e-buses on Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.
• Associated Infrastructure will provide support for Development/ up-gradation of depot infrastructure; and Creation of behind-the-meter power infrastructure (substation, etc.) for e-buses.
• Segment B– Green Urban Mobility Initiatives (GUMI): (181 cities)
• The scheme envisages green initiatives like bus priority, infrastructure, multimodal interchange facilities, NCMC-based Automated Fare Collection Systems, Charging infrastructure, etc.
• Support for Operation: Under the scheme, States/Cities shall be responsible for running the bus services and making payments to the bus operators.  
• The Central Government will support these bus operations by providing subsidy to the extent specified in the proposed scheme.

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3. CPGRAMS (Syllabus: GS Paper 2 - Governance)

Context:  The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) released the Centralized Public Grievance Redressal and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) 12th monthly report for States for July, 2023. 

• The said report provides a detailed analysis of types and categories of public grievances and the nature of disposal.
• The report mentions that in July, 2023, the BSNL Call Centre collected feedback from 1,00,186 citizens, which is the highest number of feedbacks collected since its inception in July, 2022.
• Out of these, approximately 35% citizens gave outstanding / very good rating with the resolution provided to their respective grievances.

Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS)

• It is an online platform available to the citizens 24x7 to lodge their grievances to the public authorities on any subject related to service delivery. 
• It is a single portal connected to all the Ministries/Departments of Government of India and States. 
• Every Ministry and States have role-based access to this system. 
• It is also accessible to the citizens through standalone mobile applications downloadable through Google Play store and mobile applications integrated with UMANG.

• Tracking of status :

• The status of the grievance filed in CPGRAMS can be tracked with the unique registration ID provided at the time of registration of the complainant. 
• CPGRAMS also provides an appeal facility to the citizens if they are not satisfied with the resolution by the Grievance Officer. 

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4. HANDBOOK ON GENDER STEREOTYPES (Syllabus: GS Paper 1 - Issue Related to Women)

Context:  In a new handbook , the SUpreme Court offered the correct terms that should be used instead: woman, woman, wife, street sexual harassment, intersex.

• The 30-page Handbook on Combating Gender Stereotypes aims to free the judiciary and the legal community from the mechanical application of gender stereotypical language in judgments, orders, and court pleadings.
• The handbook deals with the “so-called inherent characteristics” of women. 

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5. DEEMED FORESTS (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 - Env & Eco)

Context: The Odisha government has withdrawn a controversial order issued on August 11, which told district officials that ‘deemed forests’ as a category would cease to exist under the recently amended Forest Act.

• The Odisha government, since 1996, had with the help of expert committees at the district-level, identified nearly 66 lakh acres as ‘deemed forest’ but many of them were not officially notified as such in government records.

Deemed forests

• ‘Deemed forests’ are forests that aren’t classified so, by the Centre or States, in their records. 
• However, a 1996 judgment of the Supreme Court in the Godavarman case entrusted States with identifying parcels of land “that conformed to the dictionary meaning of forest irrespective of ownership” and expanding protections available under the Forest Act to them too. 
• An updated Forest Act said that only forests classified and recorded as such after 1980 would be protected. 
• Forest land officially diverted by the government for non-forestry purposes between 1980 and 1996 would also not be protected.
• However, the Environment Ministry clarified to a Joint Parliamentary Committee, constituted to examine provisions of the Bill, that the amendments did not fall afoul of the 1996 Supreme Court judgment. 
• Tracts of forest land or “.. deemed forest lands, identified by the Expert Committee of the State, have been taken on record and hence the provisions of the Act will be applicable in such lands also.”

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6. INCLUSIVE CONSERVATION INITIATIVE (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 - Env & Eco)

Context: A recent report focusing on the first phase of the Inclusive Conservation Initiative (ICI) highlights that although there has been an increase in funding commitments for Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IP and LC) to enhance conservation efforts, the overall funding landscape for them remains largely unchanged.

Key Points

• The report, on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, notes that despite growing evidence of the positive impact of IP and LC involvement in conservation, donors have allocated less than 1% of climate change mitigation and adaptation funding to them.
• The report highlights that in Latin America, while national and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) implement 26% of disbursements, Indigenous Peoples’ organizations are attributed with 41% of the funding, emphasizing the central role of local efforts in conservation financing.
• In June 2023, during the Subsidiary Bodies 58 (SB 58) conference in Bonn, Germany, Indigenous Peoples’ groups from around the world, including India, called for representation on the Transitional Committee (TC) for the establishment of a Loss and Damage Fund (LDF). 
• The committee is composed of 24 members, 10 of whom are from developed countries and 14 from developing countries. 

Inclusive Conservation Initiative (ICI)

• About: The Inclusive Conservation Initiative (ICI) was endorsed by Global Environment Facility (GEF) in 2022.
• Aim: To enhance Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ (IPs and LCs) efforts to protect land, waters and natural resources to deliver global environmental benefits.
• The initiative will support enhanced Indigenous and community stewardship across 7.5 million hectares of landscapes, seascapes, and territories with high biodiversity and irreplaceable ecosystems.

• Technical support and supervision by: Conservation International and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
• Significance: Indigenous Peoples and local communities make up just 5% of the world’s population. But they steward 25% of land and 40% of intact ecosystems on Earth. Yet, many have lacked financial support to improve and scale their sustainable management of these territories.
• This initiative will provide financial support to these Indigenous and locally-led initiatives.

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7. CRITICAL MINERALS (Syllabus: GS Paper 1 - Geography)

Context: Miners discovering critical and deep-seated minerals may be allowed a revenue share from the block over the entire 50-year lease period.

• Miners may also be given the right to carve out as many mineral blocks from the prospected areas that would be auctioned for mining lease later, ensuring recurring returns for the standalone mining entity over the life of different mines with varied mineral deposits. 
• These would be part of the rules for the auction exploration licence (EL) that would be given for the first time after Parliament’s monsoon session cleared amendments to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act.

Critical Minerals

• Critical minerals are a group of minerals that are essential for various industrial sectors and have strategic importance for a country’s economy and security. 
• These minerals are characterized by their scarcity, high economic value, and criticality in the production of advanced technologies and defence systems.
• Critical Minerals List prioritizes minerals essential for industrial sectors like high-tech electronics, telecommunications, transport, and defence.
• India just joined Mineral Security Partnership (MSP) as the newest partner, which aims to strengthen critical mineral supply chains.
• The Geological Survey of India (GSI) is currently focused on exploring critical and deep-seated minerals to boost the growth of the mining sector.
• A Joint Venture Company among NALCO, HCL and MECL named Khanij Bidesh India Limited (KABIL) has been formed in August 2019 to ensure the supply of Critical Minerals.

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8. ALAI DARWAZA (Syllabus: GS Paper 1 - Art & Culture)

Context: The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) will start the first phase of conservation work on the 13th-century Alai Darwaza, the southern gateway of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque in the Qutub complex, next month after the G20 Summit in the city.

Alai Darwaza

• Ala'i Darwaza is the southern gateway of the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque in Qutb complex, Mehrauli, Delhi, India. 
• Built by Sultan Alauddin Khalji in 1311 and made of red sandstone, it is a square domed gatehouse with arched entrances and houses a single chamber.
• Although he planned to construct four gates, only the Alai Darwaza could be completed as he died in 1316.
• It has a special significance in Indo-Islamic architecture as the first Indian monument to be built using Islamic methods of construction and ornamentation.
• In 1993, the Darwaza and the other monuments of the complex were designated a World Heritage Site.

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9. NANOMECHANICS (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 - Sci & Tech)

Context:  A novel method to test nanomechanical properties of materials at very minute scales with high precision and accuracy has been developed by an Indian scientist in collaboration with two international institutions.

• Nanomechanics is that branch of nanoscience which deals with the study and application of fundamental mechanical properties of physical systems at the nanoscale, such as elastic, thermal and kinetic material properties.

Key Points

• The new method enables faster testing of mechanical strength of extremely small volumes of materials for a wide range of fields from medicine to space.
• The new methodology not only significantly improves the precision and accuracy of what is known as nanoindentation technique or testing of mechanical strength, but enables testing at much higher rates, thus facilitating high throughput.
• The technique has been widely used to measure the strength of semiconductor devices and structural materials that have ubiquitously penetrated every aspect of our daily life through electronic gadgets. 
• The technique has been used for a wide range of applications from identifying cancerous cells to establishing how meteorites are formed in deep space.

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10. CYBER-PHYSICAL SYSTEMS (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 - Cyber Security)

Context:  IITM Pravartak Technologies Foundation at IIT Madras, a Technology Innovation Hub for Sensors, Networking, Actuators and Control Systems (SNACS), supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) under National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems (NM-ICPS), along with its incubated startup, is developing an indigenous security testing solution for 5G core network functions and Radio Access Network (RAN) software..

Key Points

• This technology solution can automatically identify zero-day vulnerabilities in the network in advance by using techniques such as fuzzing and test oracles.
• This can help smoothen countrywide communication as 5G networks become its lifeline in the near future.
• Around ninety percent of the 5G technology is implemented into software by integrating several latest technologies (NFV, SDN, control plane/user plane segregation) which enable testing the technology easily. 
• But attack surface area is increased multifold in this process and is impossible to manage manually. 
• Automating the whole testing process and continuous monitoring is the only sustainable solution.

National Mission in Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems

• About: It was launched in 2018 at a total outlay of Rs.3660 Crores for a period of five years.
• Cyber-physical system combines digital/cyber elements with physical objects (e.g. machines, autonomous vehicles) and data with capabilities of communication, data collection & processing, computing, decision making and action
• Objectives: It is comprehensive mission to address technology development, application development, human resource development & skill enhancement, entrepreneurship and start-up development in CPS and associated technologies.
• As part of the Mission implementation, 25 Technology Innovation Hubs (TIHs) have been established in advanced technologies in reputed institutes across the country.
• Nodal Ministry: It is being implemented by Department of Science & Technology under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

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