29 July 2024, The Indian EXPRESS
Factor in class 9-11 performance for class 12 report card: Govt proposal
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GS2-Issues Relating to Development and Management of Social Sector/Services relating to Education
- A student’s performance — based on both exams and continuing classwork — in Classes 9, 10, and 11 should be counted towards their final marks at the end of Class 12, according to a report recently submitted to the Education Ministry by PARAKH, a unit set up in NCERT last year to standardise assessment by school boards across the country.
- In line with the National Education Policy, PARAKH’s mandate included capacity development, achievement surveys, equivalence of school boards a common assessment standards.
Ethanol used in petrol now more from maize, damaged foodgrains than sugar
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GS3- Infrastructure: Energy
- CEREAL GRAINS have overtaken sugarcane as the primary feedstock for the production of ethanol used in blending with petrol.
- In the current supply year (November 2023-October 2024), sugar mills and distilleries supplied 401 crore litres of ethanol to oil marketing companies till June 30.
- Of that, 211 crore litres or 52.7% was ethanol produced using maize and damaged foodgrains (mainly broken/ old rice not fit for human consumption), while sugarcane-based feedstocks (molasses and whole juice/ syrup) accounted for the remaining 190 crore litres.
Desilting taking lion’s share, focus on agri: Govt to Andhra, Telangana
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GS2-Government Policies and Interventions for Development in various sectors and Issues arising out of their Design and Implementation
- The Centre has sent advisories to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments over generation of high persondays and selection of “renovations and desilting works” under MGNREGS, which have taken up a significant portion of their expenditures.
- Around 88% more persondays have been generated in April 2024 as compared to April 2023. On comparing with FY 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 the increase in persondays are 47%, 33% and 90%, respectively, the Ministry of Rural Development said in its advisory to Telangana on May 24.
Vehicles weighing 3kg, cars with capacity of 50: CAG flag Rajasthan data
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GS2-Appointment to various Constitutional Posts, Powers, Functions and Responsibilities of various Constitutional Bodies
- A four-wheeler weighing less than 3 kg, vehicles recorded as registered before the purchase date, cars with a seating capacity of 50 — these are some of the errors detected by the CAG in records of vehicles in Rajasthan.
- The Vahan and Sarathi applications of Rajasthan's Transport Department has displayed 15,570 vehicles weighing zero to three kg, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report which was recently tabled in the Rajasthan Assembly.
How educated mothers of young kids can be asset for NIPUN
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GS2-Issues Relating to Development and Management of Social Sector/Services relating to Education
- The new National Education Policy (NEP 2020) was launched on July 29, four years ago.
- One of NEP 2020’s key recommendations was to ensure that by the time children reach Grade 3, they have acquired foundational literacy and numeracy skills.
- To this end, the Centre launched the NIPUN (National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy) Bharat Mission on July 5, 2021.
- The mission has seen energetic implementation in many states, with a new framework for the foundational stage of education developed and released well before frameworks for other stages.
Gaza’s Tell Umm Amer now a world heritage site: Why this matters
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GS2- Effect of Policies and Politics of Developed and Developing Countries on India’s interests
- The World Heritage Committee (WHC) on Friday decided to include the Palestinian site of Tell Umm Amer in both the UNESCO World Heritage Site List and the Lost of World Heritage in Danger during its 46th session in New Delhi.
Right to be forgotten
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GS2- Indian Constitution—Historical Underpinnings, Evolution, Features, Amendments, Significant Provisions and Basic Structure
- Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case whose outcome will likely shape the contours of the “right to be forgotten”, known in European information privacy regulation as the “right to erasure”, in India.
- The top court now has to decide whether the right to be forgotten is a fundamental right and, if so, how it relates to other fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution of India.
Kargil, the unfinished tasks
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GS3- Various Security Forces and Agencies and their Mandate
- A quarter of a century after the Kargil War ended, a serious reflection would suggest India’s victory or “vijay” is incomplete.
- Pakistan’s Kargil aggression in the spring of 1999, just weeks after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s peace mission to Lahore, highlighted three broad challenges in the domains of defence, deterrence, and diplomacy.
- On the defence front, the Kargil surprise exposed the multiple vulnerabilities of India’s security.
- India did reverse the Pakistani ingress across the LoC, thanks to the extraordinary courage of officers and men.
- But sacrifice of its best men is no way of defending a nation’s territory; what India needed was a root and branch overhaul of its higher defence organisation, modernisation of its armed forces, upgrading its rusty defence industrial infrastructure, revitalising its intelligence mechanisms, and restructuring the decision-making on national security.
After budget the challenges
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GS3- Government Budgeting.
- As the second week of the Budget Session began, Congress MP and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi spoke on the Union Budget 2024 in Lok Sabha, saying that its sole aim seems to be “strengthening big businesses’ monopoly”.
- The Budget session, which began on July 22, will conclude on August 12.
- Rajya Sabha took up a short duration discussion on the coaching centre deaths in Delhi due to alleged negligence of authorities.
- Slamming the ramshackle state of coaching centres, Jagdeep Dhankar called them ‘no less than gas chambers’.
- This comes in backdrop of the tragedy in the national capital, where three UPSC aspirants died due to waterlogging in a coaching centre in Old Rajinder Nagar.
Putin warns US of cold war-style crisis over missile in Germany
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GS2- Effect of Policies and Politics of Developed and Developing Countries on India’s interests
- Russia may deploy new strike weapons in response to the planned US stationing of longer-range and hypersonic missiles in Germany, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday.
- Speaking at a naval parade in St Petersburg, Putin vowed “mirror measures” after the US earlier this month announced that it will start deploying the weapons in 2026, to affirm its commitment to NATO and European defence following Moscow's all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
After setbacks, more exploration of J&K lithium block likely before another auction
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GS3- Infrastructure: Energy, mining
- India’s lithium ambitions hit a snag after the Ministry of Mines annulled the auction for the block in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K)’s Reasi district for the second time on July 25.
- The repeated setback has officials weighing the need for further exploration before attempting another auction, The Indian Express has learnt.
- The block, which holds an estimated 5.9 million tonnes of lithium ore, has failed to get auctioned off due to insufficient investor interest.
