TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Sustaining Food Production under Environmental Stress 2. BRICS STI Steering Committee 3. MoU between NCGG, GoI and NIRD&PR 4. Streets for People and Nurturing Neighbourhood Challenge 5. Bamboo Shoot Processing and Preservation
1. Sustaining Food Production under Environmental Stress
Syllabus: GS III, Food Security
Prelims: SDGs, Global Hunger Index (GHI)
Mains: Ways to mitigate the issues of food security to achieve the goal of zero hunger
Context: A joint India – UK meeting was held virtually to collaborate on the important issues of mutual concern like achieving the goals of food security and zero hunger.
Aim: India and UK are intending to expand the areas of collaboration in various dimensions of science like agriculture, medicine, food, pharma, engineering, and defence. Important Highlights:
- The India – UK collaboration includes programmes like exchange of students, basic research, technology development, product development, and product demonstration and their implementation.
- The issue of sustainable food production was talked about.
- The shrinking arable land in the South Asian region and the implications of climate change are major challenges that were addressed.
- According to World Bank Group data, about 43.18% of the land in South Asia is arable, which has been stagnant since 1970.
- More intensive and sustainable use of land for crop production has been envisaged.
- The areas of food and nutrition were discussed with a primary focus on the improvement of nutritional quality of foods that reaches all citizens across the country. This will be a forward-looking step towards the achievement of SDG 2 that aspires for zero hunger.
Read more about the Food Security of India in the linked article.
About the workshop:
- The workshop on Sustainable Food Production under Environmental Stress was organized by the National Agri-food Biotechnology Institute (NABI) in Mohali which is an institute under the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, and the University of Birmingham, UK.
- This workshop was supported by Newton Bhabha Fund and the British Council.
2. BRICS STI Steering Committee
Syllabus: GS II, International Relations, Regional groupings involving India
Prelims: BRICS, STI Steering Committee
Mains: India’s growing prominence as a BRICS member
Context: The 15th meeting of the BRICS Science Technology Innovation Steering Committee was organized and attended by representatives from BRICS scientific ministries.
The theme for BRICS 2022: “Foster high-quality BRICS Partnership Usher in a New Era for Global Development”.
About BRICS Steering Committee meeting :
- India will host a series of five events in 2022 namely :
- BRICS startups forum meeting
- Working groups meeting on Energy, Biotechnology and Biomedicine
- ICT and High-Performance Computing
- Science, Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Partnership (STIEP) Working Group Meeting
- Launch of BRICS innovation launchpad as a microsite (Knowledge hub)
- A number of sectoral events and meetings have been planned along with Ministerial Summits.
Note:
- India has successfully handed over the BRICS chairmanship to China from January 2022.
Significance:
- As the 10th BRICS S & T Ministerial meeting and senior official meeting are lined up, it will promote – open, inclusive, and shared science and technology and innovation.
To know more about BRICS visit the given link.
3. MoU between NCGG, GoI, and NIRD&PR
Syllabus: GS II, Governance
Prelims: Panchayati Raj Institutions
Mains: Initiatives to promote good governance mechanisms
Context: The National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG), Government of India and the National Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj signed an MoU to promote good governance that is inclusive.
Purpose of the agreement:
- This agreement focuses on the strengthening of local institutions and the effective implementation of government programmes.
- Both the institutions agreed to exchange knowledge and take up capacity building of functionaries at all levels of government including the Panchayati Raj System.
4. Streets for People and Nurturing Neighbourhood Challenge
Syllabus: GS I, Society, Urbanisation, their problems and their remedies
Prelims: About Smart Cities Mission
Mains: Significance of making the cities healthier and well planned
Context:
The Ministry of Housing and Urban affairs (MOHUA) organised an online event that will announce 11 winning cities for the Streets for People Challenge. 10 winning cities will be announced for the pilot stage of Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge.
About the Event:
- This event marked the launch of Cycles4Change Season 2 and a book called ‘ Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge : Stories from the field’.
- The cities will enter a scale up stage of the challenge and efforts will be made to make the cities more sustainable with people’s participation.
- The intention of such challenges is to make the public spaces more people friendly.
- Under the Streets for People challenge, 38 cities piloted re-imaginations of an important street each by prioritising them for pedestrians. Cities selected by the jurist will be awarded with financial assistance from the ministry(MOHUA) to scale up the pilot project.
- These initiatives are in alignment with the objectives of Smart Cities Mission.
Outcomes of Stage – 1 of the India Cycles4Change & Streets for People Challenges
- Cities transformed 400+ km of corridors through temporary solutions to make streets suitable for cycling.
- Surveys were conducted to get feedback from the citizens.
- More than 600 Civil Society Organisations supported their cities.
- It witnessed the participation of design professionals, students and other organisations putting their efforts together to develop creative solutions for people-friendly streets.
Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge:
- This challenge was introduced in 2020 by MOHUA in collaboration with Bernard van Leer Foundation and World Resources Institute (WRI).
- This is a three year phased initiative that aims at shaping early childhood friendly neighbourhoods in Indian cities.
- The projects touched upon areas like creation of public spaces in slums, age-appropriate play areas, primary health centres and anganwadis, public toilets and improved street conditions with adequate number of parks and gardens.
5. Bamboo Shoot Processing and Preservation
Syllabus: GS III, Marketing of agricultural produce and issues
Prelims: National Bamboo Mission, Benefits of bamboo shoots
Mains: Necessity to promote bamboo industry
Context: A training programme on bamboo shoot processing and preservation was organised by the North East Cane and Bamboo Development Council (NECBDC).
Objective of the programme:
- The major aim of such training is to help the women and other rural people avail the means of decent livelihood through the bamboo sector as it is a booming sector in the northeast region.
Benefits of bamboo shoots:
- The young bamboo shoots are rich in proteins, carbohydrates, minerals, fibres and are low in fat and sugars.
- They also consist of phytosterols and high content of fibres that are considered for nutraceutical (Natural medicines) properties that opens an avenue of research on such components.
- The shoots are devoid of toxicity and can grow without the fertilisers.
- Bamboo shoots have various health benefits such as they help in digestion, weight loss, cure of cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
- These shoots have antioxidant capacities due to the presence of phenolic compounds.
- The bamboo fibres are a crucial ingredient in breakfast cereals, fruit juices, bakery and meat products, cookies, frozen desserts and other food products.
- The shoots of bamboo are resistant to diseases, insects and climate change.
- Fermented bamboo shoots have potential nutrient capacities and can be used as an important condiment in various dishes.
Benefits of bamboo shoots in the development of rural people:
- Bamboo shoots have great potential for economic growth through cultivation, processing, packaging and commercialization.
- This can be an essential scope for the development of standard processes and technologies for products based on bamboo shoots.
Read about the National Bamboo Mission in the linked article.
January 18th, 2022, PIB:- Download PDF Here
| Related Links | |||
| PM KISAN Samman Nidhi Yojana | Gist of Yojana January 2022 | ||
| India’s Bilateral Relations | Financial Relations between Centre and States | ||
| Global Hunger Index | UNFCCC COP 26 | ||
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