26 Jul 2023: PIB Summary for UPSC

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. National Scheduled Caste Finance and Development Corporation
2. ‘India AI’ and Meta, India sign MoU
3. Kargil Vijay Diwas
4. PM-KISAN
5. National Coal Index
6. 8th India-Australia Defence Policy Talks

1. National Scheduled Caste Finance and Development Corporation

Syllabus: GS-2, Polity and Governance

Prelims: National Scheduled Caste Finance and Development Corporation (NSFDC)

Context: 

NSFDC is organizing a two-day Workshop-cum-Management Development Programme.

National Scheduled Caste Finance and Development Corporation (NSFDC):

• It is a not-for-profit company under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, with the objective of working for the socio-economic empowerment of Scheduled Caste persons having annual family income up to Rs.3.00 lakh. 
• The Corporation provides loan assistance for self-employment ventures in the sectors like Agriculture and Allied Activities, Small Business/Artisan & Traditional Occupation, Service Sector (Including Transport Sector) and Education Loans for Technical & Professional Trades/Courses.
• It channelises funds at concessional interest rates through State Channelizing agencies (SCAs), and Channelizing (including partner Public Sector Banks, Regional Rural Banks, NBFC-MFIs, select Cooperative Societies and Cooperative Banks).
• It was established in 1989 as National Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Finance and Development Corporation (NSCSTFDC). In 2001, the NSCSTFDC was bifurcated into two organisations, each working separately for SCs and STc.
• NSFDC is managed by a Board of Directors with representation from Central Government, State Scheduled Castes Development Corporations, Financial Institutions and non-official members representing Scheduled Castes.
• Objectives:
  • Identification of trades & other economic activities of importance to the SC population.
  • Upgradation of skills & processes used by persons belonging to SC.
  • Promotion of small, cottage & village industries.
  • Financing of pilot programmes for the upliftment and economic welfare of persons belonging to SC.
  • Improvement in the flow of financial assistance to persons belonging to SC for their economic well-being.
  • Assistance to target group in setting up their projects by way of project preparation, training and financial assistance.
  • Extending loans to eligible students belonging to SC for pursuing full-time professional and technical courses in India and abroad.
  • Extending loans to eligible youth to enhance their skill & employability by pursuing vocational education & training courses in India.
• It is headquartered in Delhi.

2. ‘India AI’ and Meta, India sign MoU

Syllabus: GS-3, Science and Technology; IT

Prelims: ‘India AI’ and Meta, India sign MoU

Context:

‘India AI’ and Meta, India signed an MoU to foster advancements in AI & emerging technologies.

Who has signed the MoU?

• ‘India AI’ – an IBD under Digital India Corporation and Meta, India.

Objective of the MoU:

• To establish a framework for collaboration and cooperation between ‘India AI’ and Meta in the field of Artificial Intelligence & Emerging Technologies including making Meta’s open-source AI models available for use by the Indian AI ecosystem.

Details:

• ‘India AI’ and Meta have entered into a collaboration aimed at advancing research and development in AI & Emerging Technologies, seeking breakthroughs in AI technology and its applications. 
• Both organisations may also consider establishing a Centre of Excellence to nurture the startup ecosystem of AI & other Emerging Technologies. 
• Leveraging Meta’s AI research models like LlaMA, Massively Multilingual Speech, and No Language Left Behind, the partnership will focus on building datasets in Indian Languages to enable translation and large language models, with priority given to low-resource languages. 
• This effort will foster social inclusion, improve government service delivery, and spur innovation using large language models, Generative AI, cognitive systems, and translation models.
• ‘India AI’ and Meta will strive to enhance accessibility to AI computing resources for researchers, startups, and organizations with limited resources. 

3. Kargil Vijay Diwas

Syllabus: GS-3, Security

Prelims: Kargil War

Mains: Indo-Pak relations

Context:

24th Anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas.

Read more on the Kargil War in the link.

4. PM-KISAN

Syllabus: GS-2, Govt schemes

Prelims: PM-KISAN, Urea Gold, PMKSKs

Context:

PM to release the 14th instalment of the PM-KISAN scheme.

Details:

• The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) is one of the world’s largest Direct Benefit Transfer schemes.
• It is a central sector scheme launched in 2019 to supplement the financial needs of all land-holding farmers subject to certain exclusion criteria of higher income status. 
• Financial benefit of Rs 6000/- per year in three equal instalments, every four months is transferred into the bank accounts of farmers’ families across the country through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode.
• In the 14th instalment, over 8.5 crore farmers will receive an amount of around Rs. 17,000 crores.
• The total amount transferred to the beneficiaries since the inception of the scheme is expected to cross well over Rs 2.59 lakh crore. 
• This financial assistance will support farmers in meeting their daily needs and contribute to their overall well-being.

Additional Information:

• The  Prime Minister will dedicate 1.25 lakh PM Kisan Samriddhi Kendras (PMKSKs) to the Nation.
  • PMKSKs will cater to a wide variety of needs of the farmers and provide agri-inputs (fertilizers, seeds, implements), testing facilities for soil, seeds, and fertilizers; generate awareness among farmers; provide information regarding various government schemes and ensure regular capacity building of retailers at block/district level outlets.
• The government is launching sulphur-coated urea called Urea Gold – this will address sulphur deficiencies in the soil.
• The ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) will witness the onboarding of 1,600 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs). 
  • ONDC empowers FPOs with direct access to digital marketing, online payment, B2B and B2C transactions, and encourages local value addition, catalysing the growth of logistics in rural areas.

5. National Coal Index

Syllabus: GS-3, Economy

Prelims: National Coal Index

Context:

The National Coal Index (NCI) has shown a significant decline of 33.8% in May 2023 at 157.7 points compared to May 2022, where it was at 238.3 points, which indicates a strong supply of coal in the market, with sufficient availability to meet the growing demands.

What is the National Coal Index?

• The NCI is a price index which reflects the change of price level of coal on a particular month relative to the fixed base year.
• The base year for the NCI is FY 2017-18.
• Prices of coal from all the sales channels of coal, including import, as existing today are taken into account for compiling the NCI.
• The amount of revenue share per tonne of coal produced from auctioned blocks would be arrived at using the NCI by means of a defined formula.
• NCI was rolled out in June 2020 and the same is placed on the website of the Ministry of Coal.
• NCI is composed of a set of five sub-indices: three for Non-Coking Coal and two for Coking Coal.
  • The three sub-indices for Non Coking Coal are combined to arrive at the Index for Non Coking Coal and the two sub-indices for Coking Coal are combined to arrive at the Index for Coking Coal.
  • Thus, indices are separate for Non-coking and Coking Coal.
• As per the grade of coal pertaining to a mine, the appropriate sub-index is used to arrive at the revenue share.

6. 8th India-Australia Defence Policy Talks

Syllabus: GS-2, International Relations

Prelims: India – Australia Defence Policy Talks

Mains: India – Australia Bilateral Relations

Context:

8th India-Australia Defence Policy talks were held in Canberra.

Details:

• As part of the talks, both sides reviewed the bilateral defence cooperation between the two countries and explored new initiatives to further strengthen and deepen bilateral defence engagements.
• Both sides discussed ways to enhance partnership in the co-development and co-production of defence equipment.
• India and Australia share a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership since June 2020 and defence is a key pillar of this partnership. 
• The two countries have a 2+2 mechanism at the Ministerial level. The 8th DPT reviewed the outcomes of the maiden 2+2 conducted in September 2021. 
• Both sides agreed to the early finalization of the hydrography agreement. 

Read more on India – Australia relations in the linked article.

Read the previous PIB articles here.

July 26th, 2023, PIB:- Download PDF Here