08 Mar 2022: PIB Summary for UPSC

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. PARAM Ganga
2. IREDA
3. Atal Innovation Mission
4. Nari Shakti Puraskar
5. MoU between India and Singapore
6. Jharokha - Compendium of Indian handicraft/handloom, art and culture

1. PARAM Ganga

Syllabus: GS III, Awareness in the field of computers

Prelims: Supercomputers, PARAM Ganga, National Supercomputer Mission

Mains: India’s progress in the development of indigenous supercomputing ecosystems.

Context: A petascale supercomputer named ‘PARAM Ganga’ has been established at IIT Roorkee under the National Supercomputing Mission. 

Supercomputers:

• These are computers with special features that offer high-level performance compared to a general-purpose computer. 
• The floating point operations per second (FLOPS) denotes the measuring unit of the performance of supercomputers. 
• Supercomputers are used in computational science with a wide range of applications in quantum mechanics, weather forecasting, climate research, oil and gas exploration, molecular modelling, detonation of nuclear weapons and so on. 
• The fastest supercomputers were made by Seymour Cray at Control Data Corporation in the US, Cray Research and other associate companies.  
• Pratyush and Mihir are the fastest supercomputers in India.
• The petascale supercomputers are capable of calculating at least 1015 FLOPS allowing faster processing than the traditional supercomputers.

About PARAM Ganga:

• This indigenous petascale supercomputer has been a joint effort between the National Supercomputing Mission under the Ministry of Electronics and IT in association with the Department of Science and Technology.
• It is implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. 
• C-DAC is facilitating the establishment of the supercomputing ecosystem in a phased manner and has designed and developed the computer server “Rudra” along with high speed interconnect “Trinetra” which are major components required for supercomputers. 
• C-DAC will shoulder the responsibility of design, development, deployment and commissioning of the supercomputing systems under the supervision of the National Supercomputer Mission. 
• Infrastructure, Applications, R & D and Human Resource Development are the four pillars of the National Supercomputer Mission. 
• The major objective of this initiative is to assist the research community to achieve milestones and introduce products for scientific and societal applications. 
• The National Supercomputer Mission plans to build and deploy 24 facilities with cumulative compute power of more than 64 petaflops. 

Significance:

• PARAM Ganga will accelerate the research and development activities in multidisciplinary domains of science and engineering.
• This supercomputer will focus on providing computational support to the user community of IIT Roorkee and the adjoining academic institutions. 
• This is a significant step towards the vision of Make in India.

2. IREDA

Syllabus: GS III, Indian Economy and mobilisation of resources

Prelims: About IREDA

Context: The Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency celebrated International Women’s Day by encouraging the leadership role of women in all spheres of work.            

Highlights of the event: 

• IREDA has expressed its firm determination towards achieving gender equality in the organisation and intended to enhance women’s participation in the workforce. 
• Interactive sessions were conducted on India@75: Financial freedom for women and India@75: Freedom from Medicines as a part of the celebration. 

Read more about IREDA in the linked article.

3. Atal Innovation Mission

Syllabus: GS III, Developing new technology

Prelims: Atal Innovation Mission

Mains: Role of Atal Innovation Mission to bring a digital revolution in India.

Context: In order to promote augmented reality (AR) skilling among the youth, the Atal Innovation Mission partnered with Snap Inc. 

About the Partnership:

• The partnership aims to open up new avenues for digital innovation and technology to skill the youth and transform them into employable ones. 
• Snap Inc. is a global camera company that plays a transformative role in the manner in which people experience the world around them and all that is available to them in the digital world.
• It will be a two-year training program that will skill many teachers who are affiliated with Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) on augmented reality helping the program to reach millions of students affiliated with ATL’s network of schools. 
• It will also collaborate with Atal Incubation Centres to extend assistance to the Indian start-up ecosystem with AR advertising boot camps and other opportunities. 
• This partnership has been launched on International Women’s Day which is observed on the 8th of March every year. A Lensathon which is an Augmented Reality making hackathon is organised across the country emphasising increasing participation of girls and young women above the age of 13. 

To read more about Atal Innovation Mission, follow the link shared.

4. Nari Shakti Puraskar

Syllabus: GS I, Role of Women and Women’s organisation

Prelims: About Nari Shakti Puraskar 

Mains: Challenges existing and emerging for women in India at the present hour.

Context: The President of India presented the ‘Nari Shakti Puraskar’ on the occasion of International Women’s Day.

About the award:

• The ‘Nari Shakti Puraskar’ has been conferred to 29 outstanding and exceptional women achievers for their praiseworthy contributions towards women empowerment, especially towards the development and betterment of women from marginalised and vulnerable sections of society. 
• This award signifies the efforts of the government to acknowledge the social welfare initiatives by the women and appreciate the leadership roles played by these women. This will add to the continuity of the good work that is existing. 
• This award is the highest civilian honour for women in India that is distributed annually by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
• The award is conferred to either individual women or to institutions that work towards women empowerment. 
• It was first introduced as the Stree Shakti Puraskar in 1999 and was renamed as ‘Nari Shakti Puraskar’ in 2015. 
• The winners hailed from diverse fields that include entrepreneurship, agriculture, tribal rights activism, arts and crafts, science and technology, medicine, literature, merchant navy and so on. 
• These awards recognise the equal stand of women across the country for the advancement and welfare of society.

Read more about International Women’s Day in the linked article.

5. MoU between India and Singapore

Syllabus: GS II, Bilateral agreements involving India

Mains: Measures adopted by the government to develop products related to economic and societal challenges. 

Context: India and Singapore signed an MoU for their cooperation in the areas of mutual interests. 

About the MoU:

• The industry and research institutions from India and Singapore have agreed to develop new products related to economic and social challenges. 
• The MoU will create opportunities for collaboration in the fields of science and technology and innovation between the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India and the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Government of Singapore. 
• This will enable a demand-driven approach towards developing cooperation helping companies and institutions that intend to optimise the benefits of the cooperation. 
• This will result in the increased mobility of scientists and experts between the two countries. 
• The MoU will embolden the India-Singapore collaboration through the spheres of Science, Technology and Innovation.
• This will be effective for a period of five years with an automatic extension for a successive period of 5 years accompanied by an annual review of the implementation of the agreement. 
• The areas of mutual interest include agriculture, food science, green economy, energy, data science, research on advanced materials, health and biotechnology.

6. Jharokha – Compendium of Indian handicraft/handloom, art and culture

Syllabus: GS I, Indian heritage and Culture

Prelims: About Jharokha, TRIFED

Mains: Contributions of Indian women in the field of art and culture 

Context: The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Textiles will be organising a pan-India programme on Indian handicraft/handloom, art and culture which is named “Jharokha”.

Jharokha: An Overview

• The first event which has been launched on international women’s day under the celebration of “ Jharokha” was organised in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh at Rani Kamlapati Railway Station.  
• Rani Kamlapati Railway Station was named after the gallant Queen Kamlapati of the Gond kingdom of Madhya Pradesh. The Gond community is the largest tribal group in India with over 1.2 crore people according to the census of 2001. 
  • In Madhya Pradesh, Gonds are the second largest tribal group after Bhils. 
• This event will offer a platform to showcase the rich craftsmanship and artistic prowess of the women artisans. 
• A literary corner would be set up focusing on local art, culture and festivals along with the celebration of Indian cuisines. 
• Ek Bharat Shreshth Bharat will occupy a dedicated corner exhibiting the art and culture of Manipur and Nagaland.

Rani Kamlapati:

• She was an 18th-century queen and one of the seven wives of Nizam Shah, the ruler of Gond who ruled the territory from Ginnor fort which is present-day Ginnorgarh in Sehore district. 
• She was known for her courage and intelligence and was an expert horse rider and archer.
• The Kamlapati Palace has been designated as a monument of national importance and is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
• It is a contemporary secular architecture of the 18th century built on Lakhauri bricks, cusped arches over crumpled pillars. The merlons are shaped as water lotuses that are in honour of the queen. 
• After the death of her husband, Kamlapati secretly met Dost Mohammed Khan, the Afghan leader and a mercenary in those days and asked him to attack Chain Shah who wanted to capture the fort of Ginnorgarh.
• In order to protect her dignity and kingdom, she offered Dost Mohammed Khan the considerable amount of hundred thousand rupees requesting him to conquer the fort of  Ginnorgarh.
• Dost Mohammed Khan killed Chain Shah and captured the fort by leading the Afghan and Gond army. 
• Rani Kamlapati sacrificed her life taking “Jal Samadhi”.

Read previous PIB here.

March 8th, 2022, PIB:- Download PDF Here