Prelim Bits 16-12-2017

North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme (NESIDS)

• The Union Cabinet has recently approved new scheme NESIDS to fill up the gaps in creation of infrastructure in specified sectors till March, 2020.
• It is a central sector scheme which will be funded 100% by the Central Government.
• It covers,

1. Physical infrastructure relating to water supply, power, connectivity and specially the projects promoting tourism
2. Infrastructure of social sectors of education and health.

• Thus it will not only strengthen health care and education facilities in the region but will also encourage tourism and employment opportunities for local youth.  

Initiatives by Ministry of Railways

• SRESTHA - New R&D organisation to serve the future technology needs of Railways.
• SUTRA – A special unit for Transportation Research and Analytics.
• The team will be involved in World class data analytics, simulation softwares, network optimisation and decision support systems.
• NIVARAN – A grievance redressal portal and first IT application in Rail Cloud for resolving service related grievances of serving and former railway employees.

RNI Report

• Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI) is mandated to submit an annual report on the status registered publications to the government under PRB Act, 1867.
• RNI reports acts as an important index for print media in the country.
• It gives comprehensive analysis of growth amongst regional language publications.
• It submits its report to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
• This year report highlighted that 4007 new publications were registered.
• Uttar Pradesh tops the list of largest number of registered publications.

Exercise Ekuverin

• It is the joint military exercise conducted between India and Maldives.
• It is being conducted every year alternatively in India and Maldives.
• This year, the 8^th annual exercise will be conducted in Belagavi, Karnataka.
• The objectives are to enhance defence cooperation and interoperability between the army of both countries with emphasis on Counter Insurgency and Counter Terrorist operations under UN mandate.

Plants that can glow

• Scientists have recently found a way to induce plants to give off dim light by embedding specialised nanoparticles into their leaves.
• It is considered as a major step towards using plants to illuminate the workspace, providing low-intensity indoor lighting or transforming trees into self-powered streetlights.
• Scientists embed 3 components in to a different type of nanoparticle carrier.
• It includes luciferase, luciferin and co-enzyme A.
• Luciferase is an enzyme. It is used by the fireflies that give their glow.
• Luciferase acts on a molecule called luciferin, causing it to emit light.
• Co-enzyme A molecule helps the process along by removing a reaction byproduct that can inhibit luciferase activity.
• Optimising the concentration and release rates of these components will boost the light emitted and duration of light.

National Ayush Mission

• It is a centrally sponsored scheme under the Ministry of Ayush with the objective of providing cost effective AYUSH Services with a universal access.
• It also aims to improve educational institutions capable of imparting quality AYUSH education and adoption of quality standards of Ayush drugs.
• The resource allocation to the States/UTs is proposed on the basis of population, backwardness and performance of the State/UT.
• Grant-in Aid will be transferred through treasury route to State Governments.
• Union Cabinet has recently approved the continuation of the scheme from 2017-2020.

Source: The Hindu, PIB