The Ministry of Civil Aviation took a major step today towards making flying a reality for the small town common man. The Civil Aviation Minister Shri P Ashok Gajapathi Raju launched the Ministry’s much awaited Regional Connectivity Scheme “UDAN” (“Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik”) in New Delhi today. UDAN is an innovative scheme to develop the regional aviation market. It is a market-based mechanism in which airlines bid for seat subsidies. This first-of-its-kind scheme globally will create affordable yet economically viable and profitable flights on regional routes so that flying becomes affordable to the common man even in small towns.”

The Sakewa festival of Rai Community has recently celebrated in Sikkim as a tribute to Mother Nature. The fest is also known as Bhoomi Puja or Chandi Puja or worship of land. This festival is marked with the performing of puja where prayers are offered to the Supreme Power for Peace and Protection and for the well-being of all the living and non-living things of the universe. Apart from this, Buddha Purnima is also celebrated in Sikkim as the day marked the birth of Gautam Buddha and also the day on which he attained Nirvana under the Mahabodhi tree at Bodh Gaya. The people visited monasteries and listen sermons across the state. Most monks have spent the day reading scriptures before the statue of the Buddha.

• DigiYatra plan– paperless travel for air passengers, including digital boarding passes at airports.

The International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM) was founded in January 2006. It is an independent group of arms-control and nonproliferation experts from sixteen countries, including both nuclear weapon and non-nuclear weapon states. The mission of the IPFM is to analyze the technical basis for practical and achievable policy initiatives to secure, consolidate, and reduce stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and plutonium. These fissile materials are the key ingredients in nuclear weapons, and their control is critical to nuclear disarmament, halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and ensuring that terrorists do not acquire nuclear weapons.

The Global Fissile Material Report is released by IPFM.

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) is a government regulatory agency {set up as per executive order and thus not a statutory body} that controls the prices of pharmaceutical drugs in India.

• DMH-1 is a hybrid variety of mustard.
• If approved, it would be the first transgenic edible crop to be grown in Indian fields.
• DMH-11 is a hybrid variety of mustard developed by crossing a traditional variety of mustard, called Varuna, and an East European variety.

• BirdLife International (formerly the International Council for Bird Preservation) is a global partnership of conservation organisations that strives to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity, working with people towards sustainability in the use of natural resources.
• It is the world’s largest partnership of conservation organisations, with over 120 partner organisations.
• Bombay Natural History Society is India’s partner.

The Xpert molecular diagnostic test  is a cartridge based nucleic acid amplification test, automated diagnostic test that can identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) DNA and resistance to rifampicin (RIF) by nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT).

• The National Human Rights Commission of India of India is an autonomous public body constituted on 12 October 1993 under the Protection of Human Rights Ordinance of 28 September 1993. It was given a statutory basis by the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993.
• The NHRC is the National Human Rights Commission of India, responsible for the protection and promotion of human rights, defined by the Act as “rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the Constitution or embodied in the International Covenants”.
• Its chairperson should be retired Chief Justice of India.

• Egyptian vultures usually build their nests on the cliffs of mountains, roofs of buildings and on tree-tops.
• The species rarely hunt its food — the birds mostly feed on dead carcasses of animals, birds and reptiles.
• They eat eggs and sometimes, in the absence of animal carcasses, switch over to household solid waste like rotten fruits and vegetables.

• India taking part in global disaster risk reduction meet in Mexico
• The GPDRR is a global forum for strategic advice, coordination, partnership development and review of progress in the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) 2015-2030 which was adopted at the 3rd UN World conference on disaster risk reduction held in March 2015 in Sendai, Japan.

NERAMCL objectives:

• It facilitates processing of horticulture produce.
• It assists processing units to market their products.
• It helps in developing linkages of farmers with the market.

• In plants, Phosphorus (P) is considered second to nitrogen as the most essential nutrient to ensure health and function. Phosphorus is used by plants in numerous processes such as photophosphorylation, genetic transfer, the transportation of nutrients, and phospholipid cell membranes.
• Phosphorus deficiency can be controlled by applying sources of phosphorus such as bone meal, rock phosphate, manure, and phosphate-fertilizers.
• Bone meal (or Bone manure) is a mixture of finely and coarsely ground animal bones and slaughter-house waste products. It is used as an organic fertilizer for plants and as a nutritional supplement for animals. As a slow-release fertilizer, bone meal is primarily used as a source of phosphorus and protein.

Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme

• It is a major credit-linked subsidy programme
• Aim: Generating self-employment opportunities through establishment of micro-enterprises in the non-farm sector
• Nodal agency: Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) is the nodal implementing agency at the national level
• Implementing agencies: KVIC, Khadi & Village Industry Boards (KVIB) and District Industry Centres (DIC)
• Financial assistance/loans: is provided through Banks, Government pays margin money subsidy to the beneficiaries through KVIC.

Biotech Kisan and Cattle Genomics Schemes

Biotech Kisan programme:

• Biotech Kisan Hub’s will understand problems of farmers related to water, soil, seed and marketing and provide solutions with validated technologies
• The programme is expected to create strong scientists-farmers interactive platform
• Under the programme thematic farmer fellowship as well as fellowships to women farmers (Mahila Kisan Biotech Fellowship) will be awarded

Cattle Genomics programme:

• The main objective is to predict breeding values of animal, using DNA level information with performance record, more accurately and identify genetic worth of animal (elite animal) at an early age
• The ability to select elite breeding animal at an early age will help in enhancing productivity at farmer’s level in future

Occurrences of Coral Reefs in India The major reef formations in India are restricted to the Gulf of Mannar, Gulf of Kachchh, Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep Islands. Scattered coral growth has also been reported along certain inter-tidal belts and submerged banks both on the east and west coasts of the country. The reefs at present are important to the local community only to the extent of sustenance fishing. Tourism is being developed at some places though local communities do not benefit much from the revenue generated. The health of corals, as deduced from the literature records since 60s has been on steady decline mainly due to stress from anthropogenic pressures and interference.

• The Nahar Wildlife Sanctuary (NWS) is located at Rewari district in Haryana State and spread over an area of 211.35 hectares. It is home to neelgai, geedar, langur, blue peafowl (mor), rufous treepie, greater coucal, Indian grey hornbill, coppersmith barbet, etc.

• Ain-i-Akbari by Abul Fazal is the main source for today’s historians to know about the structure of agrarian relations from the time of Akbar onwards.

• The Dashavatara Temple or Vishnu Temple also called Gupta temple at Deogarh. It was built in the Gupta Period (320 to c. 600 AD ). Archaeologists have inferred that it is the earliest known Panchayatana temple in North India. A hindu temple is a Panchayatana one when the main shrine is surrounded by four subsidiary shrines.

The second statement is not correct because President of India can be re-elected to office for any number of terms.

NIIF is a trust registered under Indian Trust Act 1882.

Industry-Academia Collaborative Mission

Aims to accelerate discovery research to early development for biopharmaceuticals.

• They’re able to make cells from all three basic body layers, so they can potentially produce any cell or tissue the body needs to repair itself. This “master” property is called pluripotency.

GBD is based out of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

• Patola is a double ikat woven sari, usually made from silk, made in Patan, Gujarat, India.
• The word patola is the plural form; the singular is patolu.They are very expensive, once worn only by those belonging to royal and aristocratic families.
• These saris are popular among those who can afford the high prices.
• Velvet patola styles are also made in Surat. Patola-weaving is a closely guarded family tradition.
• There are three families in Patan that weave these highly prized double ikat saris. It is said that this technique is taught to no one in the family, but only to the sons.
• It can take six months to one year to make one sari due to the long process of dying each strand separately before weaving them together.
• Patola was woven in Surat, Ahmedabad and Patan.
• Highly valued in Indonesia, became part of the local weaving tradition there.

The court also stressed the need to seek guidance of the World Wildlife Fund, which has created a network called the India Water Stewardship Network and Alliance for Water Stewardship, “to ensure sustainable water management.”

Under the distribution of legislative powers between Union of India and states under article 246(3) of the Constitution of India, the preservation of cattle is a matter on which the legislature of the states has exclusive powers to legislate.

• The Miyako Strait is of global geopolitical significance, as it is one of the few international waterways for China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy to access the Pacific Ocean from the East China Sea
• The Miyako Strait also known as the Kerama Gap, is a waterway which lies between Miyako Island and Okinawa Island. It is the widest strait in the Ryukyu Islands.

“Despite the deficit monsoon, unseasonal rains and hailstorm in the major part of the country, the production of horticulture crops have outpaced the production of foodgrains since 2012-13…”

NFSM includes coarse cereals as well as commercial crops.

The Aichi Targets are a set of 20, time-bound, measureable targets for the conservation of biodiversity. The targets were agreed by the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, in October 2010. Achievement of the targets will contribute to reducing, and eventually halting, the loss of biodiversity at a global level by the middle of the twenty-first century.

The Manipur Sangai Festival is an annual calendar mega-event of the Government of Manipur spearheaded by the Tourism Department that seeks to showcase and promote the finest of Manipur’s arts & culture, adventure sports, indigenous cuisines, handloom & handicrafts, fine arts, indigenous games & music and various other niche products to a regional, national and global audience.

The Yamal Peninsula stretches some seven hundred kilometres into the Arctic Ocean from the Russian mainland below the Arctic Circle. It is believed that his region has one of the largest oil and gas reserves in the world.

Rajgir, the ancient capital of the Magadhan empire in Bihar is held sacred by both Buddhists and Jains for its association with the Buddha and Mahavir. Department of Tourism, Bihar holds a colourful festival of dance and music, Rajgir Mahotsav or Dance Festival every year in Rajgir.