03 June 2024 PIB
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. ITU’s WSIS+20 Forum High-Level Event 2. World’s Largest Grain Storage Plan 3. Rashtriya e-Pustakalaya 4. Self-Declaration by Advertisers 5. Phenome India Project 6. Tidbits
1. ITU’s WSIS+20 Forum High-Level Event
Syllabus: GS-3, Science and Technology
Prelims: ITU, WSIS+20, ‘AI for Good’ Global Summit
Context:
India participated in ITU’s WSIS+20 Forum High-Level Event and ‘AI for Good’ Global Summit.
Details:
- The WSIS+20 (World Summit on the Information Society) Forum High-Level Event 2024 and the ‘AI for Good’ Global Summit were held from 27 to 31 May 2024.
- The event was co-organized by ITU, UNESCO, UNDP and UNCTAD and co-hosted by ITU and the Swiss Confederation.
- India hosted WTSA 2024 in New Delhi from 15-24 October 2024 during the AI for Good Global Summit at ITU Geneva. It extended a warm invitation to foreign delegates from across the globe to attend the upcoming WTSA in New Delhi.
- It was highlighted that while AI holds immense potential to revolutionise digital governance by enhancing efficiency, improving service delivery, and supporting informed decision-making, it is essential to address ethical, privacy, and inclusivity challenges to realise the benefits of AI in governance.
2. World’s Largest Grain Storage Plan
Syllabus: GS-3, Economy, Infrastructure
Mains: Grains storage infrastructure
Context:
National level Coordination Committee for the world’s largest grain storage plan held its first meeting in Delhi.
Details:
- The secretaries of the ministries of Cooperation, Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Food and Public Distribution and Food Processing Industries, and the MD of NCDC held the first meeting with the Food Corporation of India (FCI), National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), WDRA and other stakeholders.
- The committee reviewed the status of implementation of its pilot project in 11 States, which was initiated last year.
- The Plan envisages the creation of various agricultural infrastructures at the PACS level, including warehouses, custom hiring centres, processing units, Fair Price Shops, etc. through the convergence of various existing schemes of the Government of India (GoI), such as the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF), Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure Scheme (AMI), Sub Mission on Agricultural Mechanization (SMAM) Pradhan Mantri Formalization of Micro Food Processing Enterprises Scheme (PMFME), etc.
- The project is one of the most ambitious ones being undertaken by the Government of India envisaging the creation of warehouses at a decentralised level for nationwide rollout of the plan.
- The Pilot project has been implemented by the National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) with the support of NABARD, Food Corporation of India (FCI), Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC), NABARD Consultancy Services (NABCONS) in coordination with states/ UTs concerned.
- Further, the pilot is being extended to 500 additional PACS with the support of State Governments, NCCF, National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC), etc.
Read more on the world’s largest grain storage plan in the linked article.
3. Rashtriya e-Pustakalaya
Syllabus: GS-2, Education
Prelims: Rashtriya e-Pustakalaya, National Book Trust
Context:
The Department of School Education signed an MoU with the National Book Trust under the Department of Higher Education to develop an institutional framework for Rashtriya e-Pustakalaya.
Details:
- Rashtriya e-Pustakalaya is a digital library platform.
- It will be available round-the-clock, irrespective of the geographic location of the readers, making the books more accessible to them.
- Rashtriya e-Pustakalya seeks to instil a lifelong love of reading among Indian children and youth by offering over 1,000 non-academic books to children and adolescents published by over 40 reputed publishers in more than 22 languages besides English.
- It is envisaged that in the coming 2-3 years, there will be over 10000 books in more than 100 languages.
- The library includes books in multiple genres such as adventure and mystery, humour, literature and fiction, classics, non-fiction and self-help, history, biographies, comics, picture books, science, poetry, cultural awareness, patriotism, etc.
- The Rashtriya e-Pustakalaya app will be available for download on both Android and iOS devices.
- The signing of the MoU will usher in a cooperative endeavour that will hold the potential to transform the availability of quality non-academic reading materials throughout the country to propagate healthy reading habits in the youth of the country.
4. Self-Declaration by Advertisers
Syllabus: GS-1, Social Issues
Prelims/Mains: Self-Declaration by Advertisers
Context:
Supreme Court mandates self-declaration by Advertisers/Advertising Agencies before releasing advertisements.
Details:
- The Supreme Court issued a directive according to which all advertisers/advertising agencies must submit a ‘Self-Declaration Certificate’ before publishing or broadcasting any advertisement.
- Accordingly, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has introduced a new feature on the Broadcast Seva Portal of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) for TV and Radio Advertisements and on the Press Council of India’s portal for Print and Digital/Internet Advertisements.
- The certificate, signed by an authorized representative of the advertiser/advertising agency, needs to be submitted through these portals.
- The portal will be activated on 4th June 2024.
- The Self-Declaration Certificate is required to be obtained by all advertisers and advertising agencies for all new advertisements that will be issued/telecast/aired/published on or after 18th June 2024.
- The self-declaration certificate is to certify that the advertisement (i) does not contain misleading claims, and (ii) complies with all relevant regulatory guidelines, including those stipulated in Rule 7 of the Cable Television Networks Rules, 1994 and the Norms of Journalistic Conduct of Press Council of India.
5. Phenome India Project
Syllabus: GS-3, Science and technology
Prelims: Phenome India Project CSIR
Context:
CSIR’s ‘Phenome India’ Project hit the target with 10,000 samples collected.
Details:
- The Phenome India project is a pan-India longitudinal study being conducted for the first time to develop an enhanced prediction model for cardio-metabolic disease, especially diabetes, liver diseases and cardiac diseases.
- Such a study is vital as these diseases have both genetic and lifestyle factors that contribute to risk.
- Launched on 7th December 2023, the PI-CHeCK project aims to assess risk factors in non-communicable (cardio-metabolic) diseases within the Indian populace.
- This unique initiative has already enrolled nearly 10,000 participants, who have volunteered to provide comprehensive health data.
- These participants include CSIR employees, pensioners, and their spouses from across 17 states and 24 cities.
- The collected data encompasses a wide range of parameters, including clinical questionnaires, lifestyle and dietary habits, anthropometric measurements, imaging/scanning data, and extensive biochemical and molecular data.
Significance of the project:
- It is important to understand the mechanisms which underlie the increasing risk and incidence of cardiometabolic disorders in the Indian population and develop new strategies for risk stratification, prevention and management of these major diseases.
- Currently, most of these risk prediction algorithms are based on epidemiological data from Caucasian populations and there is evidence that they may be not very accurate for the Indian population due to ethnic diversity, varied genetic makeup and lifestyle patterns including dietary habits.
- It is, therefore, important that India-specific risk prediction algorithms are developed.
6. Tidbits
FSSAI directs FBOs to remove claim of 100% Fruit Juices from the label and advertisement of fruit juices
- The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has issued a directive mandating all Food Business Operators (FBOs) to remove any claim of ‘100% fruit juices’ from the labels and advertisements of reconstituted fruit juices with an immediate effect.
- All the FBOs have also been instructed to exhaust all existing pre-printed packaging materials before 1st September 2024.
- According to the FSSAI, such claims are misleading, particularly under conditions where the major ingredient of the fruit juice is water and the primary ingredient, for which the claim is made, is present only in limited concentrations, or when the fruit juice is reconstituted using water and fruit concentrates or pulp.
- As per FSSAI regulations, in the ingredient list, the word “reconstituted” must be mentioned against the name of the juice that is reconstituted from the concentrate.
- Additionally, if added nutritive sweeteners exceed 15 gm/kg, the product must be labelled as ‘Sweetened juice’.
Read previous PIB articles here.
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