Prelim Bits 18-03-2018

Festival of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (FINE)

• The President of India will soon inaugurate a Festival of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (FINE) at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
• He will also present Gandhian Young Technological Innovation awards instituted by Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions [SRISTI].
• FINE is an initiative to recognize, respect, showcase, reward innovations and to foster a supportive ecosystem for innovators.
• It is organized by Rashtrapati Bhavan in association with the Department of Science and Technology and the National Innovation Foundation-India.
• It will provide a window to showcase creative and innovative solutions for social development through innovation emerging from grassroots, student ideas and other technologies.

Regional New Years in India

• The Vice President of India has greeted the people on the auspicious occasion of Ugadi, Gudi Padava, Chaitra Sukladi and Cheti Chand.
• Ugadi, also known as Yugadi, is the Telugu and Kannada New Year festival.
• Gudi Pudwa is celebrated in Maharashtra that will mark the first day of the Hindu luni-solar calendar which is celebrated by people of Maharashtra, Marathi and Konkanis across the world.
• Chaitra Sukladi is the New Year in traditional Hindu calendar based on the beginning of the new moon and marks the first day of the Chaitra Month.
• Cheti Chand is celebrated by the Sindhi Hindus which marks the beginning of the Hindu New Year.

Saakshar Bharath

• Saakshar Bharat is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme for Adult Education and Skill Development.
• This program was formulated in 2009 with the objective of achieving 80% literacy level at national level, by focusing on adult women literacy.
• It is being implemented in rural areas 26 States and one UT that had adult female literacy rate of 50 per cent and below as per Census 2001.
• It is seeking to reduce the gap between male and female literacy to not more than 10 percentage points.
• It has four broader objectives,

1. To impart functional literacy and numeracy to non-literates
2. To acquire equivalency to formal educational system
3. To impart relevant skill development program
4. To promote a learning society by providing opportunities for continuing education.

• The principal target of the program is 70 million non-literate adults in the age group of 15 years and beyond.

KUSUM Scheme

• The Government of India is in the process of formulating a Scheme ‘Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (KUSUM)’.
• It’s a farmer-oriented solar power scheme that will allow setting up grid-connected solar plants in rural areas and off-grid solar pumps.
• Finance minister had announced the scheme in this year’s budget that involves decentralized solar power production of up to 28,250 Megawatt (Mw) over five years.
• It aims at boosting farmers’ income by allowing them to sell additional power to the grid through solar plants set up on
• It will also have provisions for solarization of tube wells and lift irrigation projects.
• The other benefits of the scheme include

1. reduction in transmission losses,
2. support the financial health of discoms by cutting the burden of agricultural subsidy;
3. supporting states in meeting their Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) targets;
4. promotion of energy efficiency; and providing water security to farmers.

Initiatives for Digitalization of Education

• Some of the Government taken  initiatives for digitalization of education are,

1. E-Pathshala is a web portal designed to disseminate e-resources including e-books developed by NCERT, State Boards.
2. Shagun portal is designed to showcase the innovative and successful models implemented by all States and UTs in diverse circumstances.
3. The National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER) is an initiative to bring together all digital and digitisable resources across all stages of school education and teacher education.
4. SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active learning for Young Aspiring Minds) is a Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) platform launched to offer various online courses for school education and higher education.
5. SWAYAM PRABHA DTH-TV program for utilization of satellite communication technologies for transmission of educational e-contents through 32 National Channels has been launched.

• Click here to know about initiatives to push education.

World consumer Day

• Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution launched integrated portal for consumer services (jagograhakjago.gov.in) on the occasion of World Consumer Rights Day.
• Every year March 15 is celebrated as the World Consumer Rights day.
• This year theme is “Making Digital Markets Fairer”.
• The new Consumer Protection Bill is under government’s consideration that would replace the 30 year old Consumer Protection Act (COPRA) of 1986 once enacted.
• The Day on which the COPRA, 1986 act received the Presidents assent is celebrated as National Consumer Day in December which is different from World Consumer Rights day.
• To safeguard the interest of consumers, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is in the process of adopting ISO Standard i.e. ISO 10008:2013 on Guidelines for business-to-consumer electronic commerce transactions.

Source: PIB, The Hindu