• The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology has recenlty launched a National Program for the youth: “Responsible AI for Youth”.

Responsible AI for Youth Programme

• The National Programme is open to students of classes 8 - 12 from Central and State government-run schools (including KVS, NVS, JNV) from across the country - all 28 States and 8 Union Territories.
• The aim of this Program is to give the young students of our country a platform and empower them with appropriate new age tech mind-set, relevant AI skill-sets and access to required AI tool-sets to make them digitally ready for the future.
• The Program has been created and launched by the National e-Governance Division, Ministry of Electronics & IT in collaboration with Intel India, with support from Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSE&L), Ministry of Human Resource Development.

DoSE&L will help reach-out to State Education Departments to nominate teachers as per eligibility criteria.

• National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) in Goa has recently predicted that there would be a 24 per cent increase in the expansion of the Ameri Ice Shelf (AIS) boundaries in Antarctica by 2021 and another 24 per cent by 2026 from its 2016 positions.
• The prediction made by NCPOR is based on a 16-year-long satellite-based observation that covered an area of 60,000 sq km across the AIS.
• This study would help understand the ongoing changes in the ocean and atmospheric forcing better.
• NCPOR carried out this study based on the satellite data collected from 2001-2016.

Ameri Ice Shelf (AIS)

• The AIS is one of the largest glacier drainage basins in the world, located on the east coast of Antarctica.
• The AIS dynamics and mass balance help in understanding the changes in the global climate scenario.

Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report

• The Energy Progress Report was released by the International Energy Agency, the International Renewable Energy Agency, the United Nations Statistics Division, the World Bank and the World Health Organization.

• The United Nations-mandated SDG 7 is aimed at ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy by 2030.
• According to the report, the global electrification rate progressed steadily from 2010 to 2018, rising to 90 per cent of the world’s population in 2018 from 83 per cent in 2010.
• But the effort made since 2016 has not been sufficient, between 2016 and 2018, electrification grew by just 0.82 percentage points per year.
• According to the report, it is believed that to achieve the target of universal access of electricity by 2030, the world needed to do electrification with an increase of 0.87 percentage points a year, This was required to be done before COVID-19 era.
• In 2018, India was among top three countries with largest deficits regarding access to electricity. Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and India had the three largest deficits: 85 million, 68 million and 64 million people respectively.
• The world needed progress with three percentage points to achieve the goal of universal access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking since 2010, the report said.
• But it progressed at an annualized average of just 0.8 percentage points.
• The latest data on SDG 7 progress, before the onset of the pandemic, demonstrated that there was a need to accelerate efforts towards targets at urgent basis.

• The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) has recently launched the National Artificial Intelligence Portal of India.

National Artificial Intelligence Portal

• This portal has been jointly developed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and IT Industry.
• National e-Governance Division of Ministry of Electronics and IT and NASSCOM from the IT industry will jointly run this portal.
• This portal shall work as a one stop digital platform for AI related developments in India, sharing of resources such as articles, startups, investment funds in AI, resources, companies and educational institutions related to AI in India.
• The portal will also share documents, case studies, research reports etc.
• It has section about learning and new job roles related to AI.

National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR)

• The National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, (NCPOR) formerly known as the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR) is an Indian research and development institution, situated in Vasco da Gama, Goa.
• It is an autonomous Institution of the Department of Ocean Development (DOD), Ministry of Earth Sciences which is responsible for administering the Indian Antarctic Programme and maintains the Indian government's Antarctic research stations, Bharati and Maitri.
• NCPOR complex is a home to a special low-temperature laboratory and is setting up a National Antarctic Data Centre and a Polar Museum.

Apart from this the NCPOR operates in different fields or tasks:

1. Operating the Himadri and IndARC Arctic research stations in Svalbard, Norway.
2. Managing the oceanic research vessel ORV Sagar Kanya, the flagship of India's fleet of oceanographic study vessels.

• Recently, US President says he wants to include India, Russia, South Korea, and Australia in the G7 group.
• Last year, the G-7 summit was held on August at Biarritz in southwestern France, where Prime Minister of India  was invited as a special guest of French President.
• The G-7 or ‘Group of Seven’ are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US.
• It is an intergovernmental organisation that was formed in 1975 by the top economies of the time as an informal forum to discuss pressing world issues.
• Canada joined the group in 1976, and the European Union began attending in 1977.
• The G-7 was known as the ‘G-8’ for several years, Russia was expelled as a member in 2014 following the latter’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine.
• The G-7 nations meet at annual summits that are presided over by leaders of member countries on a rotational basis and the summit is an informal gathering.
• The G-7 does not have a formal constitution or a fixed headquarters.
• The decisions taken by leaders during annual summits are non-binding.

• Recently, China has issued a statement reiterating its long-standing objections to the presence of the US THAAD missile defence system in South Korea..
•  Its opposition came following reports of an overnight operation to bring in new, replacement interceptor missiles to the US base in South Korea.
• Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) is an anti-ballistic missile defense system developed by US.
• It is designed to shoot down short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase.
• The missile carries no warhead, but relies on the kinetic energy to destroy the incoming missile.
• A kinetic energy hit minimizes the risk of exploding conventional warhead ballistic missiles and nuclear tipped ballistic missiles will not detonate upon a kinetic energy hit.
• U.S and South Korea agreed to deploy the THAAD to counter the threat of missile launches by North Korea.

• The tensions continue between India and China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
• The LAC is the demarcation that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory.
• India considers the LAC to be 3,488 km long, while the Chinese consider it to be only around 2,000 km.
• It is divided into three sectors: the eastern sector which spans Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, the middle sector in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and the western sector in Ladakh.
• India’s claim line is the line seen in the official boundary marked on the maps as released by the Survey of India, including both Aksai Chin and Gilgit-Baltistan.
• In China’s case, it corresponds mostly to its claim line, but in the eastern sector, it claims entire Arunachal Pradesh as South Tibet.
• The LoC emerged from the 1948 ceasefire line negotiated by the UN after the Kashmir War.
• It was designated as the LoC in 1972, following the Shimla Agreement between India and Pakistan.
• It is delineated on a map signed by DGMOs of both armies and has the international sanctity of a legal agreement.
• The LAC, in contrast, is only a concept, it is not agreed upon by the two countries, neither delineated on a map or demarcated on the ground.

• As massive protests following the death of George Floyd continued to rock the United States, President Donald Trump announced that the group Antifa would be designated as a terrorist organisation by government.
• Antifa is a far-left, anti-fascist, militant political activist movement.
• Antifa has been around for several decades, dates back to Nazi Germany, describing the etymology of ‘antifa’ as “borrowed from German Antifa, short for antifaschistische ‘anti-fascist’.
• While the movement has had a presence in several European countries and has come into focus in the United States in recent years.
• Antifa does not have a formal organisational structure.
• It draws its members from other movements such as Black Lives Matter and the Occupy movement.
• The movement has been known to have a presence in the US in the 1980s.
• It shot into prominence following the election of President Trump in 2016, with violence marking some of its protests and demonstrations.

• World Milk Day established by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations  is observed across the world on June 1 to recognise the importance of milk and the dairy sector.
• India ranks first among the world’s milk producing Nations since 1998 and has the largest bovine population in the World.
• Milk production in India during the period 1950-51 to 2017-18, has increased from 17 million tonnes to 176.4 million tonnes as compared to 165.4 million tonnes during 2016-17 recording a growth of 6.65 %.
• FAO reported 1.46% increase in world milk Production from 800.2 million tonnes in 2016 to 811.9(Estim) million tonnes in 2017.
• Cow milk has 87-88% water and 12-13% solids that includes lactose/sugar (4.8 %), fat (3.9%), protein (3.2 %), minerals (0.7 %).
• About 80%  of milk protein is casein, 30-35%  of which, in turn, comprises beta-casein.
• The latter can further be either A1 or A2 beta-casein.
• Milk containing A1 beta-casein, at the time of digestion in the small intestine, releases a bioactive peptide called beta-casomorphin-7 or BCM-7.
• This is an opioid, having an inhibitory effect on immune function and suspected to induce type-1 diabetes, heart disease, infant death and autism.
• The A1 type of milk is mostly produced by European cow breeds such as Holstein Friesian (HF), Ayrshire and British Shorthorn.
• The cattles of Africa and Asia produce A2 milk, which does not release BCM-7. 
• 98% of Indian cow breeds and 100% of our buffaloes produce A2 milk.