Harsh Vardhan launched coastal research vessel ‘Sagar Anveshika’

January 12, 2021

1. Government formed panel to study findings of NFHS-5 under the leadership of Preity Pant

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has recently formed a technical expert group to study adverse findings from the National Family Health Survey-5 .
The Ministry has constituted the Technical Committee of Medical and Nutritionists under the leadership of Joint Secretary Preeti Pant .
The expert group also includes state program officers from Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka .
The committee will examine the findings of the National Family Health Survey-5 as well as suggest policies and course of action to improve on indicators related to anemia, malnutrition, C-section and stunting.
The newly formed technical expert group will hold regular meetings and will make its recommendations soon.
So far, no meeting has been held and no date has been set for the first meeting.

The Japanese government has India to 30 billion Japanese yen (about Rs 2,113 crore) has announced lending development assistance.
The loan of this program aims to support India’s efforts to provide coordinated and adequate social security to poor and vulnerable people across the country against the severe effects of the COVID-19 epidemic.
India and Japan have had a long and profitable history of bilateral development coopeation since 1958.
Over the years, economic cooperation between India and Japan has strengthened and developed into a strategic partnership.

Joe Biden announced the inclusion of two Indian-Americans in the US National Security Council

The newly elected US President Joe Biden has named Indian-American Sumona Guha as senior director of South Asia and Tarun Chhabra as senior director of technology and national security .
Guha was joint-chair of the South Asia Foreign Policy Working Group in the Biden-Harris campaign and is currently part of the State Department Agency Review Team.
During the Obama-Biden administration, Chhabra served as the Director of Staff Strategic Planning and Director of Human Rights and National Security Affairs of the National Security Council, and has also served as the Speech Writer of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon.

Srivijaya Air, a passenger aircraft carrying 62 people from Jakarta , Indonesia , crashed into the sea shortly after takeoff.
The Boeing 737-500 was estimated on a 90-minute flight from Jakarta to Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan Province, on the island of Borneo, Indonesia.
Srivijay vanished from the air radar four minutes after his trip to Pontianak in western Kalimantan province.
It is believed to have fallen more than 3,000 meters (10,000 ft) in less than a minute.

Twitter Inc. has removed new tweets posted by US President Donald Trump on the official government account @POTUS and, after permanently booting its private platform, also suspended the presidential campaign account.
The @POTUS Twitter account is the official Twitter account of US President Donald Trump. The name of this account is President Trump.
The POTUS Twitter account has been in the news recently because President Trump used this account to tweet against “Twitter” after Twitter permanently banned and suspended Trump’s account @realDonaldTrump .
Trump tweeted that Twitter has conspired with his rivals and suspended his account to silence him i.e. Twitter conspired against him along with his rivals and suspended his account to silence him.
Earlier, Twitter released an official post about the permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account.
Following the tweet made by Trump via the @POTUS account, Twitter deleted his tweet.
The @POTUS account currently has 33.4 million followers.

WestBengal ChiefMinister Mamata Banerjee has inaugurated the 26th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) .
The opening ceremony was attended by Bollywood superstar and brand ambassador of West Bengal Shah Rukh Khan from Virtuli Mumbai.
Legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s classic ‘Apur Sansar’ will be the inaugural film of the festival, in which 131 films from 45 countries will be screened till 13 January.
These films will be screened in Saltlake’s Ravindra Sadan, Nandan, Sisir Manch and Ravindra Okakura Bhavan.
In addition, six films of Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini and films by sitarist Ravi Shankar, singer Hemant Mukherjee and flick of comedian Bhanu Bandyopadhyay will be screened.

Union Earth Science Minister Harsh Vardhan has launched the coastal research vehicle “Sagar Investigator” at Chennai port .
This vehicle will be used for environmental sequencing and bathymetric (mapping underwater features) in both coastal and offshore waters.
It will be used for research purposes by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) and is manufactured by Titagarh Wagons, Kolkata, West Bengal .
NIOT already has 6 research vessels – Sagar Kanya, Sagar Sampada, Sagar Nidhi, Sagar Manush, and Sagar Tara.

NHPC in the next 5 years, renewable energy ( Renewable Energy ) to provide assistance in setting up projects Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency ( Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency ) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with.
The agreement was signed in the presence of NHPC CMD Abhay Kumar Singh and IREDA CMD Pradeep Kumar Das.
NHPC will help in information and technology transfer and provide consulting and research services.
NHPC has launched an ambitious plan to significantly impact the country’s renewable energy landscape.
Under the plan, NHPC will develop 7.5 GW renewable energy projects over the next 3 years.
NHPC has already successfully commissioned a renewable capacity of 102.5 MW on ownership basis and has contracted 2000 MW on intermediary basis.

India’s 7th trade policy (Trade Policy Review) Second Session of the WTO ( World Trade Organization ) concluded. This was the last session of the 7th Trade Policy Review.
The review of trade policy is an important mechanism under the monitoring function of the World Trade Organization.
During the review of this trade policy, the WTO has assessed Member States’ trade and related policies with the aim of complying with WTO rules and providing constructive feedback.
The Indian official delegation to the 7th TPR was led by Commerce Secretary Anoop Wadhawan.
The Commerce Secretary responded to all the issues asked by the members during the first TPR session.
The Commerce Secretary also urged the members to provide a permanent solution to Public Stock Holding (PSH) for food security.
India is committed to simplifying and streamlining the overall domestic business environment and aims to make it to the top 50 in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report .
Earlier, India’s last trade policy review was held in the year 2015 .