The National Dairy Development Board with the support of Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries has initiated “Quality Mark” award scheme for dairy cooperatives.
It is to promote and encourage enhancement of safety, quality and hygiene of milk and milk products manufactured by dairy cooperatives.
It is aimed at bringing about process improvement in the entire value chain from producer to the consumer to ensure availability of safe and quality of milk and products both for the domestic and foreign market.
Brahmos Missile
Recently, Indian Navy has successfully test fired the land variant of supersonic cruise missile “Brahmos”.
This variant of Long Range Brahmos Missile was fired from Indian Naval Ship Teg, a Guided Missile Frigate, on a target on land.
Brahmos, a two-stage (solid – liquid ramjet) missile is developed by a joint venture between India and Russia with a range upto 290 km and can carry conventional warhead weighing 200 to 300 kgs.
Recently, Brahmos Extended Range (ER) Missile which is capable of hitting the enemy targets at higher range than 290 km was successfully test fired.
BRS Convention
Conference of Parties (COP) to BRS (Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm) convention will be held in Geneva with the theme - "A future detoxified: sound management of chemicals and waste".
The BRS Conventions are multilateral environmental agreements, which share the common objective of protecting human health and the environment from hazardous chemicals and wastes.
Basel Convention - It will discuss the control of trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal.
It covers wide range of wastes defined as “hazardous wastes” that are explosive, flammable, poisonous, infectious, corrosive, toxic or eco-toxic including household and incinerator ash.
Rotterdam Convention – It will deliberate on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure for certain hazardous chemicals and pesticides in international trade.
The PIC procedure is the mechanism for formally obtaining and disseminating the decisions of importing Parties for receiving the chemicals under the convention and ensuring compliance by the exporting countries.
The inclusion of chemicals under this convention does not ban the chemical. However, importing countries need to follow the PIC procedure and it may lead to an increase in the trade cost, as well as delay the import/export process.
Stockholm Convention – It will discuss on the control of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).
POP - These remain intact in the environment for long periods (persistent), become widely distributed geographically (long range transport), accumulate in the fatty tissue of humans and wildlife (bioaccumulation), and have a harmful impact on human health, or on environment (toxic).
Under the Convention, the chemicals can be listed for complete elimination from production, use, export and import (Annex-A), restriction in use and production for specific purpose only (Annex-B) or unintentional production (Annex-C).
Listing of chemicals under Stockholm convention bans/restrict the chemicals for trade, import, export and use along with minimizes unintentional release of POPs.
India has ratified all the three conventions and the meetings of the COPs of BRS Conventions are generally held every alternate year.
