PIB Summary- 19th January, 2021 | PIB (Press Information Bureau) Summary - UPSC PDF Download

Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin

Context: PM to release financial assistance to over 6 lakh beneficiaries in UP under Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin.

About the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G)

• The PMAY-G scheme was launched in 2016 with an aim to provide a pucca house, with basic amenities, to all houseless householders and those households living in kutcha and dilapidated houses, by 2022.
• Amenities include water, gas, toilet and electricity supply in all the households.
• Under the PMAY-G, houses are being constructed using new technologies.
• Time for construction of houses under the scheme has reduced to 114 days from 314 days in 2015-16 due to use of direct benefit transfer (DBT) platform.
• Under PMAY, the minimum size of a house has also been increased to 25 square meters.
• Identification of beneficiaries is as per the housing deprivation parameters and exclusion criteria prescribed under Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011 after due verification by Gram Sabha.

National Startup Advisory Council

Context: The Central Government has now decided to nominate the non-official members on the National Startup Advisory Council.

Details

• The nominated members represent various stakeholders such as founders of successful startups, veterans who have grown and scaled companies in India, persons capable of representing the interest of investors into startups, persons capable of representing interests of incubators and accelerators, representatives of associations of stakeholders of startups and representatives of industry associations. 
• The term of the non-official members of the Startup Advisory Council shall be for a period of two years or until further orders, whichever is earlier. 
• The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) had constituted the ‘National Startup Advisory Council’ in January 2020 to advise the Government on measures needed to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation and startups in the country to drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities.

About the National Startup Advisory Council

• The Council will advise the government on measures needed to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation and startups in the country to drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities.
• The Council will: 
  • Suggest measures to foster a culture of innovation amongst citizens and students in particular.
  • Promote innovation in all sectors of the economy across the country, including semi-urban and rural areas.
  • Support creative and innovative ideas through incubation and research and development to transform them into valuable products, processes or solutions to improve productivity and efficiency.
  • Create an environment of absorption of innovation in industry.
  • Suggest measures to facilitate public organizations to assimilate innovation with a view to improving public service delivery.
  • Promote creation, protection and commercialization of intellectual property rights. 
  • Make it easier to start, operate, grow and exit businesses by reducing regulatory compliances and costs.
  • Promote ease of access to capital for startups, incentivize domestic capital for investments into startups, mobilize global capital for investments in Indian startups.
  • Keep control of startups with original promoters.
  • Provide access to global markets for Indian startups.
• Members of the Council:
  • The Council will be chaired by the Minister for Commerce & Industry. 
  • The Council will consist of non-official members, to be nominated by the Central Government, from various categories like founders of successful startups, veterans who have grown and scaled companies in India, persons capable of representing interests of investors into startups, persons capable of representing interests of incubators and accelerators and representatives of associations of stakeholders of startups and representatives of industry associations. The term of the non-official members of the Council will be for a period of two years.
  • The nominees of the concerned Ministries/Departments/Organisations, not below the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India, will be ex-officio members of the Council.
  • The Joint Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade will be the Convener of the Council.

India-EU IPR Dialogue

Context: The first India-EU IPR dialogue held to strengthen relations and facilitate enhanced cooperation in the field of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).

Details

• The first India – EU dialogue was held between the EU Commission and India’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) virtually.
• The aim of the dialogue was to further strengthen the India-EU relationship & facilitate enhanced cooperation in the field of Intellectual Property Rights.

Parakram Diwas

Context: Government announces 23rd January to be celebrated as ‘PARAKRAM DIWAS’ every year.

Details

• The government announced that Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s birth anniversary on January 23 will be marked as “Parakram Diwas (Courage Day)”.
• Both the Centre and the Bengal government will begin yearlong celebrations on the day to mark Netaji’s 125th birth anniversary year.

Exercise Desert Knight-21

Context: Indian Air Force and French Air and Space Force (Armée de l’Air et de l’Espace) will conduct a bilateral Air exercise, Ex Desert Knight-21 at Air Force Station Jodhpur from 20 to 24 Jan 2021.

About Ex Desert Knight

• It is a bilateral air exercise between India and France.
• The French side is participating with:
  • Rafale
  • Airbus A-330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT)
  • A-400M Tactical Transport aircraft
  • 175 personnel (approx.)
• Indian Air Force aircraft participating:
  • Mirage 2000
  • Su-30 MKI
  • Rafale
  • IL-78 Flight Refuelling Aircraft
  • AWACS and AEW&C aircraft
• The exercise is unique as it includes fielding of Rafale aircraft by both sides and is indicative of the growing interaction between the two premier Air Forces.

Background

• As part of Indo-French defence cooperation, Indian Air Force and French Air and Space Force have held six editions of Air Exercises named ‘Garuda’, the latest being in 2019 at Air Force Base Mont-de-Marsan, France.
• As measures to further the existing cooperation, the two forces have been gainfully utilising available opportunities to conduct ‘hop-exercises’.

MeitY Quantum Computing Applications Lab

What’s in News?
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) will establish a Quantum Computing Applications Lab in the country, in collaboration with AWS.

Purpose of the Lab

• To accelerate quantum computing-led research and development and enable new scientific discoveries.

Significance

• The MeitY Quantum Computing Applications Lab will provide quantum computing as a service to government ministries and departments, researchers, scientists, academia, and developers, to enable advances in areas such as manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and aerospace engineering.
• AWS will provide hosting with technical and programmatic support for the Lab.
• This MeitY initiative will provide scientific, academic, and developer communities access to a quantum computing development environment aligned with the government’s science and technology priorities.

Background

• Quantum computing is an emerging field that harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics to build powerful tools to process information.
• It has the potential to solve computational problems that are beyond the reach of classical computers, and lead to new breakthroughs that can transform chemical engineering, material science, drug discovery, financial portfolio optimization, machine learning, and more.
• The initiative is expected to boost India’s ongoing efforts in developing Quantum Computing Applications.
• This is in line with one of the core missions of MeitY which is to identify and deploy technologies to promote innovation and discovery to help India advance and achieve a more sustainable future.

India Innovation Index 2020

Context: NITI Aayog to launch the second edition of the India Innovation Index 2020. 

Details

• The India Innovation Index 2020 seeks to rank the states and union territories based on their relative performance of supporting innovation, and to empower them to improve their innovation policies by highlighting their strengths and weaknesses.
• The first edition of the India Innovation Index was launched in 2019.

About the India Innovation Index

• NITI Aayog has released the India Innovation Index 2019 along with the Institute for Competitiveness as the knowledge partner.
• The study examines the innovation ecosystem of Indian states and union territories. 
• The aim is to create a holistic tool which can be used by policymakers across the country to identify the challenges to be addressed and strengths to build on when designing the economic growth policies for their regions.
• The states have been classified into three categories: major states, north-east, and hill states, and union territories/city states/small states.
• The idea behind this index came from recognizing the role of innovation as a key driver of growth and prosperity for India.
• The study is an outcome of extensive research and analysis, which looks holistically at the innovation landscape of India by examining the innovation capabilities and performance of Indian states and union territories.
• The index attempts to create an extensive framework for the continual evaluation of the innovation environment of 29 states and seven union territories in India and intends to perform the following three functions
  • Ranking of states and UTs based on their index scores
  • Recognizing opportunities and challenges
  • Assisting in tailoring governmental policies to foster innovation
• The index is calculated as the average of the scores of its two dimensions:
  • Enablers: These are the factors that underpin innovative capacities, grouped in five pillars:
    • Human Capital
    • Investment 
    • Knowledge Workers 
    • Business Environment 
    • Safety and Legal Environment 
  • Performers: This dimension captures benefits that a nation derives from the inputs, divided in two pillars:
    • Knowledge Output 
    • Knowledge Diffusion

India Innovation Index 2019 Report

• The broad level learnings and some policy imperatives at the national level include increasing the spending on research and development, improving the capability of top rung educational institutions in the country to produce greater innovation outputs. 
• There is also a need for greater coordination and collaboration between the industry and educational institutions for enhancing innovation capability.
• Karnataka is the most innovative major state in India. Karnataka’s number one position in the overall ranking is partly attributed to its top rank in the Performance dimension. It is also among the top performers in Infrastructure, Knowledge Workers, Knowledge Output and Business Environment.
• Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Telangana, Haryana, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh form the remaining top ten major states respectively. 
• The top ten major states are majorly concentrated in Southern and Western India. 
• Sikkim and Delhi take the top spots among the north-eastern & hill states, and union territories/city states/small states respectively.
• Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh are the most efficient states in translating inputs into output.